Yes, You Still Need to Tune Up Your Furnace In Florida: Here’s Why

Down in Florida, we typically find ourselves relying on our air conditioners much more than our furnaces. That being said, even if you don’t run your furnace that often, it’s still important to keep up with its routine preventative maintenance.

WHY IS FURNACE MAINTENANCE IMPORTANT?

Preventative maintenance for your furnace is important for three main reasons:

1. Routine maintenance makes your furnace safer.

This is especially true if you own a gas- or oil-burning furnace. These types of furnaces burn fuel to produce heat. That process of burning fuel (combustion) produces some toxic flue gases, such as carbon monoxide.

During a routine maintenance appointment, a technician will check your furnace to make sure that those toxic flue gases are being safely vented outdoors and are not mixing with your indoor air. The technician will also inspect your furnace for any fuel leaks that could create a fire hazard.

2. Maintenance helps reduce wear and tear on your furnace.

Even a correctly installed, well-built furnace needs to be serviced and adjusted every so often. As the machinery whirs and runs, parts can lose lubrication, move out of alignment, or loosen.

That type of wear and tear makes your furnace a less effective machine, and it will end up working harder to compensate for its declining performance. The harder the components work, the faster they wear out, which means you’ll end up replacing parts (or even the entire system) much sooner than you’d otherwise have to.

3. Your heating system operates more efficiently with routine maintenance.

As mentioned above, a neglected system with wear and tear has to work harder to perform its job. This means that your furnace will use more energy to warm your home than it should have to. By keeping up with routine maintenance, you’ll notice that your energy bills don’t jump up during the colder months of the year.

Gainesville Preventative HVAC Maintenance

At Bounds Heating & Air, our technicians take pride in providing dependable service and thorough HVAC maintenance. Backed by over three decades of experience, we are Gainesville’s go-to for heating and cooling services. Contact us online or give us a call at (352) 472-2761.

3 Reasons Why the Department of Energy Recommends HVAC Maintenance

While it’s essential to choose the right HVAC system to heat and cool your home efficiently, it’s just as critical to provide your system with the care it needs to operate effectively. According to the Department of Energy:

your air conditioner needs regular maintenance to run smoothly and efficiently;
without maintenance, the equipment will consume more energy while its performance goes downhill.

The same applies to your heating system. Below, we’ll expand on this to give a better understanding of how preventive maintenance benefits you now and in the long run.

1. Your system will run more effectively and with fewer breakdowns.

When your system gets the routine care it needs, its parts undergo less wear and tear and are less likely to loosen, lose lubrication, or scrape together in a way they shouldn’t. During maintenance, the technician also has a chance to spot any potential issues that could lead to a system failure. This allows you to fix a minor problem before it turns into a major one.

2. The system will use less energy.

When your system’s parts lose lubrication, fall out of alignment, and accumulate dust and grime, the system as a whole operates less efficiently. This means that the equipment has to work harder and consume more energy to make your home comfortable. This also makes your HVAC system more expensive to operate.

Your air conditioner’s evaporator coil and condenser coil are especially prone to collecting dust that hampers the cooling process. Similarly, your furnace’s burner and heat exchanger can also collect dust that inhibits the heating process. It’s important to get these parts cleaned annually to keep your energy costs low.

3. Your system will last longer.

If you remember how much you spent to install your HVAC system, you’re probably in no hurry to replace it. Preventative maintenance is the best way to extend the equipment’s lifespan because, as mentioned above, it reduces the wear and tear on the system’s parts.

For thorough, reliable HVAC maintenance, you can count on our expert technicians at Bounds Heating & Air. Give us a call at (352) 472-2761 or contact us online.

Use a Maintenance Plan for Your Heater Tune-Up

Although our region is known for relatively mild winters, you need to keep in mind that the record low in Gainesville, FL was six degrees Fahrenheit. The sub-freezing reading was reached in 1899 and might seem unlikely to be repeated, but snow has been recorded in the area as recently as December 26, 2010. In fact, we tend to register approximately 16 days with freezing temperatures on average each year, making a reliable heater an important part of your home comfort system. Fall is the ideal time to have a heater tune-up completed to ensure that you are ready for these colder days, and a maintenance plan can provide great value as your service is performed.

What Is a Maintenance Plan?

You can schedule your heater tune-up at your leisure, but a maintenance agreement enables you to be sure that your appointment will be reserved at an affordable price. With an agreement, you can schedule both heating and cooling optimization to be sure that seasonal maintenance is completed before the change of weather. It’s easy to forget about the need for a tune-up, but with a comprehensive service plan, you can count on your HVAC contractor calling to let you know that it’s time for the next visit.

Some homeowners don’t realize that regular maintenance can provide many important benefits. Having your heater inspected before the weather cools allows you to be notified of any frailties in the system. Moving parts can wear out over time, and failure during cold weather can have uncomfortable consequences. Your technician will identify parts that need to be adjusted or replaced so that your system can be brought back up to manufacturer standards for operation. You can benefit from improvements in both comfort and energy usage when your system’s internal parts are properly adjusted. In fact, regular maintenance can extend the life of your heating equipment by limiting stress on key components.

Safety Benefits from a Tune-Up

During a furnace tune-up, your technician will evaluate the safety, pilot equipment, gas valves, and connections, flue drafts and piping, heat exchangers, and burners. Problems with the gas supply and the piping for emissions can lead to serious issues in your home. Additionally, leaks in your ductwork can facilitate back-drafting, allowing emissions to infiltrate your airstream. The annual inspection of your gas-fueled heater can lead to the diagnosis and repair of these problems before you need to heat your home for the winter. Your technician can also recommend carbon monoxide alarms to ensure that your family can be alerted if dangerous gases get into your air supply.

Additional Issues

Special pricing on annual maintenance agreements is helpful, but you will also appreciate the fact that Bounds Heating & Air provides discounts to our Gainesville, FL customers who enroll in these plans. In addition to priority service in the event of a system malfunction, you can take advantage of a 15 percent discount on parts and reduced rates for service calls that occur outside of your planned maintenance. Contact our office to learn more or to schedule your tune-up.

Category: Heater Tuneup