Edmonton heating companies like Capital Plumbing and Heating, Ltd. are always kept busy by families looking to have heating systems installed in their homes. One of the most common heating appliances these companies offer is the furnace, however, not a lot of people tend to properly maintain the same. AOL Real Estate contributor and home improvement guru Bob Vila agrees:

“It’s tempting to skip the annual furnace or boiler tune-up. Service contracts are expensive and you can often get away with skipping a year or two, especially if your fuel is gas. Gas burns cleaner than oil, so repairs are less likely and it’s less critical to clean components. For a number of reasons, however, it can be risky to defer maintenance of HVAC equipment.”

Proper maintenance can extend a furnace’s life well beyond its expected service life span. The key to correct maintenance, however, doesn’t entail numerous complex actions, but rather one simple premise – regular cleaning.

Dirt is essentially the biggest enemy of a furnace. Accumulated dirt can waste significant amounts of fuel or electricity and drastically affect overall efficiency. It affects almost every basic component of a typical furnace, and the major ones would be the filter system, the blower, and the motor.

It is highly recommended that the filters be regularly cleaned and replaced because a dirty filter can cause a lot of problems. For instance, unmaintained filters allow more contaminants to get through, which leads to a gradual decrease in the home’s air quality.

They also make the furnace’s motors work harder, which makes them more susceptible to wear and tear. The blower must also be free from accumulated dirt, as such contaminants can collect in virtually every crevice inside a furnace and cause troubles in the long run.

Specific concerns must also be addressed. For example, gas furnaces have a pilot light, whose sole job is to light the gas fuel of the furnace to make it work. If this doesn’t work at all, the entire heating system is at a standstill. A faulty pilot light is one of the most common problems gas furnace owners face, and while this issue is fairly troublesome, it can be readily fixed by a local Spruce Grove heating pro.