With cool weather in the fall and even more frigid temperatures slated to come during the winter, the efficiency of your furnace is paramount. It’s important to know what factors impact furnace efficiency so that you don’t end up freezing in the coming months in Lenoir City, TN.
Filters
Filters should keep dust, dirt, pollen and other airborne particles in your home from clogging your furnace and interfering with its operations. Over time, as your furnace’s filters gather more of these waste particles, the filter may become so dirty it actually obstructs the flow of air through your system. Proper airflow, in turn, is perhaps the single most important determinant of furnace efficiency.
This all means that regularly changing your filters — ideally, once every three months or so — is the most important thing you can personally do to keep your furnace as efficient as possible. This is because furnaces with clogged filters must consume more energy to generate the same amount of airflow as those with clean filters.
Maintenance
Regular maintenance from a trained service technician is essential to keeping your furnace in top condition. As the system ages, it’ll inevitably suffer damage. Maintenance either fixes that damage or prevents it from getting worse, ensuring the most efficient operation possible.
It’s also crucial for keeping you and your loved ones safe. Furnace malfunctions could cause the system to expel soot into your home, harming your indoor air quality. Even worse, if your gas furnace’s pilot light turns yellow, it means you have a carbon monoxide leak, and immediate maintenance or repairs are necessary to make sure that you don’t inhale that toxic gas.
Thermostat Settings
The higher you set your thermostat, the more energy your furnace will need to use to keep your home at that temperature. To save energy, find the lowest temperature setting you are comfortable with and stick with it. It may require some experimentation for you to discover what that setting is.
Moreover, the type of thermostat you have also makes a significant difference in furnace efficiency levels. If you desire maximum efficiency, getting a programmable thermostat is really a no-brainer. Programmable thermostats have many diverse energy-saving features that allow you to carefully calibrate when you’d like which rooms to reach particular temperatures.
Air Leaks and Insulation
As mentioned, smooth airflow is quite possibly the largest factor in how efficiently your furnace ultimately runs. If heated air can’t flow to where you need it, temperature changes won’t register on your thermostat, and your furnace will swallow up more energy in an effort to push temperatures to where they need to be. Air leaks are among the greatest threats to this process.
Holes, cracks and debris accumulation in your ductwork, no matter how small, will lead to suboptimal furnace efficiency levels. That’s why it’s so important to have professionals periodically inspect, clean and seal up your ductwork.
Insulation is one means of counteracting or pre-empting the problems that air leaks create. Insulation should act as a barrier between the conditioned areas in your home and the unconditioned areas outside. With good insulation, heat will not radiate outside needlessly, cutting down on the amount of energy your furnace needs to consume to do its work.
In some cases, home insulation can sustain water damage and lose its quality. The sudden appearance of leaks or dark spots on your walls is a major sign of exactly this. It’s therefore important to have professionals guarantee that your home insulation reaches the proper R-value, which is a measure of insulation strength.
You’ll need a high-efficiency furnace to be able to comfortably get through the fall and winter seasons in Lenoir City, TN. If you have any doubts about the quality of your heating system, call Melton Heating and Air Conditioning and ask for our furnace repair services.
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