Keep your Home Weather Ready: Schedule Your Seasonal HVAC Maintenance
Building and home maintenance is all about keeping the calendar. You can avoid and prevent many troubles by catching them early with regular inspections and scheduled services. This is a great way to keep up the value of your home. It’s especially important to plan ahead when the seasons change, and your building is subject to winter or summer conditions. Seasons are variable but they will put your furnace and AC through their paces - and it can be dangerous if your building's HVAC is in poor shape when the first cold front or heat wave blows in.
The changing seasons bring a profound change in temperature. Is your HVAC ready for the switch from AC to Furnace, or Furnace to AC?
Why Schedule Your HVAC Maintenance for Season Changes?
Fall and Spring are key season for HVAC and many other maintenance services because this is the most important time for your HVAC to be in good repair. You are switching modes, which is always a good time to maintain both the off-season and soon-to-be on-season equipment. In addition, cold winters and hot summers are a bad time for your HVAC to go on the fritz. An early fall or mid-spring maintenance is essential to ensuring your HVAC is ready to keep your family cool all summer and warm all winter. Let's dive into the to six important reasons to have your HVAC maintained during seasonal change.
1) Put Your AC/Heat Away Clean and Ready for Next Summer/Winter
You've been running your AC or heat non-stop for months to beat the heat or cold. It's even hot at night in many places, so your AC unity likely doesn't get a break from the first warm day of Spring to the last warm day of Autumn. Then there are a few blissful days in-between before the first cold front knocks your socks off. In that time is the best period to schedule your AC shutdown service. Reward your AC for a year of hard work with a little shutdown TLC. Make sure your Heater is ready to start back up when winter rolls around again.
A shutdown service includes inspecting, cleaning, and performing any necessary repairs now, before the AC sits in disuse for several months of heating. This ensures that A) problems don't get worse over the winter and B) your AC will be in great repair and ready to fire up on that first hot day next season.
2) Inspect Your Furnace After Months of Disuse - Before the First Switch-On
Once your AC has been put to bed for the winter, have your heater prepared for the cold season ahead - before the first time you switch it on. It's been months since you last turned on the heater and if something was in disrepair last Spring, then it may have gotten worse in that time. The last thing you want is to start a fire, burn out a coil, or discover your heater is underpowered on the first cold day when you really need the heater - much less in a month or two in the dead of winter.
An autumn HVAC maintenance ensures involves an inspection of your furnace to ensure that everything is in working order. The technician will check on every moving part and thread of wire to ensure that the furnace is in working order and is safe to use. This way, you'll know the furnace is safe to turn on. They will also wipe the dust off the cold coils so you get to skip the traditional hour of burnt-dust smell throughout the house.
3) Prepare Your AC for All-Summer Performance
Your AC may fire up correctly and perform right in the first week of service, but what about the months ahead? An AC rattling to its end (or just in need of repairs) may be under-powered or even fail on the hottest when you need it most. Having your HVAC maintained in the transition months gives a technician the opportunity to keep your family warm or cool all critical season.
An inspection will reveal any necessary repairs or plain-old worn-out parts that need replacement. Many of these, your technician may already have in the truck, as the parts most likely to break are the most replaced. After a quick maintenance, your HVAC technician can assure you that the unit and blower fans will be fully operational (and effectively heating/cooling your house) all season long.
4) Change Your Filter Before the Indoor Seasons
Air quality is essential in the winter months when we close the house, seal the windows, and try to stay cozy indoors. These indoor months mean breathing our indoor HVAC filtered air. Your air quality depends on filtration and clean processing of the air in your property. For safety purposes, we also advise that families place carbon monoxide detectors near the floor to detect natural gas leaks and malfunctioning furnace gas release. If the filter is dirty (or worse, your heater is malfunctioning) your building air quality could be at risk. The best way to ensure clean, healthy air quality during the indoor seasons is to have your HVAC filter changed and the unit maintained to ensure your building is only cycling clean air.
5) Have Your Vents Air-Balanced for Even Air Distribution
If your building has 'cold spots' in the winter - rooms or areas that are weirdly extra-chilly - your vents may need air-balancing. This method uses spacers and vents to ensure that every room gets the same amount of air from the HVAC. You can avoid cold spots and muggy rooms by having your ducts and air balance checked by an HVAC professional.
Air balancing works by restricting air to the rooms closest to the HVAC so that more air gets through the ducts to rooms further away from the central unit. It's like pushing water down a stream by closing off side-flows. When done correctly, every room in the house is equally warmed or cooled by the HVAC without hot rooms or cold spots in the house. If your building's air is imbalanced (creates cold or hot spots), air balancing may be the solution you need.
6) Scheduling Maintenance Services Before the First Temperature Change
Most people do not want to hire maintenance services to work on the house during the coldest time of year. In fact, some service teams (like roofers) have a limited ability to work during winter at all. This makes fall and spring the ideal times to take care of your entire building maintenance checklist before the first bad weather or major cold front blows in. For exterior work, warmer months are ideal.
When it comes to your HVAC, a fall or spring maintenance is good sense all the way around. Contact us for more savvy tips on how to invest in the home you are in with new lighting!
