What Should You Add to Your HVAC Maintenance List This Fall?

The changing of the seasons means the shift to fall HVAC maintenance. As the cooling season departs and A/C use declines, your furnace and supporting components need to be up to the task of keeping your home comfortable this winter. Many furnace problems are most likely to show up when the system is first started for the season, after a long summer idle. That’s the time to detect them and take corrective action to prevent major malfunctions later in the winter.

• Start with an annual furnace check-up by a qualified HVAC contractor. Due to the presence of a high-temperature burner flame, natural gas and potentially dangerous combustion fumes, furnace maintenance is not a DIY job. A trained technician will perform standard maintenance on furnace components, then start the system and verify safe and efficient operation.
• Change the system air filter. If you don’t know how, ask the field technician who does the fall check-up to show you. From then on, put in a fresh filter monthly during the heating season.
• Clean out leaves and grass clippings from the exterior component of your central air conditioner. Turn off power to the unit and hose dust or dirt from the coil inside the outdoor cabinet.
• If you utilize ceiling fans for ventilation, change the rotation direction for the winter season. On most fans, the correct winter direction is the “reverse” setting in which the fan appears to be rotating clockwise when standing directly beneath it.
• Verify that all vents in the house are fully open. Closing vents in individual rooms to save heating or cooling is never a good strategy. It unbalances airflow throughout the entire system and may actually increase energy consumption as well as make entire areas of the house uncomfortably cold or warm.

To schedule qualified service for annual fall HVAC maintenance, in the Coastal Bend area, contact the professionals at CCAC.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in Corpus Christi, Texas about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).

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