Get Your Furnace Ready for Winter

During the hot summer months, your air conditioning units (or windows and fans) get a workout while your furnace takes a well deserved break. With Calgary’s notoriously cold fall and winter fast approaching, your furnace is entering the line of duty once again.

It is important to ensure that your home or office furnace is up to the task of keeping you warm and your heating bills low.

As Calgary’s furnace experts, the licensed professional plumbers at Alpha Plumbing know their way around a furnace and can help you understand the issues that might arise with your furnace, new or old, when you turn it on this winter.

Proper furnace maintenance, furnace cleaning, and professional, certified furnace repairs are all essential to extending the life of your furnace and making sure it works properly.

Furnaces come in many shapes and sizes, but they are typically comprised of three basic elements:

• The heating element - A gas or electric heat source within the furnace itself

• The distribution system - A fan or blower that distributes hot air through a network of vents in your home

• The thermostat - A wall mounted electric or analog control unit that turns on the furnace automatically when the temperature falls below a level that you have set

If you can’t get your furnace to turn on at all, there could be a maintenance issue with the heating source itself. In Calgary, most homes are heated by high-efficiency gas furnaces, and some by electric furnaces.

Issues with your furnace turning on and heating up can come from a lack of maintenance. Dirt and grime buildup is the #1 enemy of your furnace. On a gas model, dirt can build up on the burner in your furnace, and grime can build up in the chimney leading fumes from your furnace to the exterior of your home.

Too much buildup could cause your heating element to malfunction or run inefficiently. When dealing with gas and electricity, it is important to only trust licensed, certified professionals to inspect and repair your furnace to reduce the risk of injury and damage to you, the homeowner.

Alpha plumbing can replace faulty parts on your furnace as well as clean all of the elements within your furnace to get it back up to full working order.

If your furnace is turning on and heating up, but you aren’t feeling hot air flowing from the vents in your home, there is likely an issue with your distribution system. As furnaces age, the components on the fans and blower systems that distribute the hot air throughout your house can malfunction. Alpha Plumbing has the expertise to repair or replace these parts for you during a scheduled furnace maintenance.

It is equally important to ensure that the air passing through your furnace is being filtered to prevent the spread of dust and allergens throughout your house.

Replacing a furnace filter should be done on a manufacturer recommended schedule, depending on the type of filter you use. When your Calgary plumber visits to inspect, maintain, or repair your furnace, ask them about the state of your filter, how to replace your furnace filter, and what brand of filter they recommend. Replacing furnace filters is one of the maintenance steps that you can do yourself with the proper instructions.

If your furnace is functioning, but you can’t get it to turn on using your wall mounted thermostat unit (or if your furnace is turning on and off too often) you may be experiencing an issue with the thermostat unit itself.

These units are wired into your house and connected to your furnace. Thermostats rely on a thermocouple which connects and disconnects an electrical current depending on the temperature in your home. Alpha Plumbing has certified technicians that know how to install and fix these parts and can get your furnace up and running in no time.

Even if your furnace was working well last winter, wear and tear, dirt and worn out pieces might reveal themselves when you turn it on in the coming months. To prevent a freezing cold house, book a furnace maintenance with the professionals at Alpha Plumbing today.

Please note, Alpha Plumbing recommends that all homeowners install a carbon monoxide detector near their furnace and keep it plugged in at all times, even if your furnace is turned off!

For more information on furnace installations, cleaning, maintenance, and repairs, visit the Alpha Plumbing website or call us today!