I can still remember the joy I felt when our old furnace
fired up on all six cylinders (a.k.a. burners) and roared to life. I couldn't
wait to see the expression on my wife's face when she felt the heat coming into
our freezing three-bedroom condo.
The night before had been a cold one. The inside temperature
had dropped to 57 degrees, and it was time to turn on the heat.
Unfortunately, nothing turned on that dark and frigid morning.
After troubleshooting things like the thermostat and gas
supply, it was time to have a look inside the furnace.
At 28 years old, it was an oldie but a goodie. It was really
dusty though. Really dusty...So much so that a sensor (called a furnace
thermocouple), had become covered in years of filth comprised of things I'll
never be able to describe.
Needless to say, it couldn't do its job of detecting
heat from the pilot and turning on the gas to the burners. It's a sensor after
all...it's a bit like asking you to tell if a sunny sidewalk is hot through
your shoes!
Happily, all it took was a quick cleaning and tapping of
this small metal sensor, and we were up and running again... at least for that
day.
As it turned out, while carefully cleaning the innards of
our ancient machine got us warmth that morning, it did nothing for an
underlying problem that only a professional technician could diagnose: a
faulty gas supply valve, which had simply pooped out from age.
Today's forced-air heating systems consist of a furnace
heating the air, a large blower (motor-powered fan) for circulation,
and a maze of air ducts going throughout your home to deliver the
heated air.
A separate system of air ducts is in place to bring back the
air for re-heating by your furnace.
Home heater repair often comes when you most need to heat
your home, just like us that cold winter morning.
The crummy part is that most furnace and heater repairs
require a service professional once you've checked the basics.
The good news is that you can avoid a major heater
repair through basic seasonal maintenance, routine cleaning, filter
replacements and other adjustments.
It's not completely black and white of course because
symptoms like a noisy furnace can
be due to a little lack of TLC on your part, needing a simple tune-up or something
more dramatic, like a broken component somewhere in the system.
All of this stuff helps give your central heating system a
longer life and less need for repair. The most noticeable benefit to you is the
cozy, warm house you have when it's really cold outside.
Gas furnace repair can be reduced by keeping the
thermocouple, pilot and burner tubes clean. Limit your oil furnace repair by
doing tasks like cleaning the oil burners and keeping them well-oiled.
Things can go wrong your system such as broken belts,
fan motor failure or thermostat problems. Luckily these issues are rare...but
they do happen because even a blue moon comes around sometimes, right?
My goal is to give you some basic furnace and heater repair
tips as well as provide many of the maintenance items you can do to help keep
your home heating system running so you can live comfortably.
source: http://homerepairgeek.com/heater-repairhttp://www.eastbaygaslines.com
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