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Is Your Heater/Furnace Acting Up?
By Appliance Chief | July 31, 2007
You will most likely know if your heater/furnace has a problem, but here are a few warning signs:
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You aren’t getting any heat.
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You suffer from headaches, dizziness and weakness.
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Other pollutants in the air from natural gas furnaces are affecting your health
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You smell natural gas
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You get much higher than normal heating bills
If you suffer any of the health symptoms related to No. 2, you may have carbon monoxide poisoning and need to get out of your home immediately. Since carbon monoxide is odorless, you won’t notice anything unusual in the air. However, breathing even low levels of carbon monoxide can cause fatigue and induce increased chest pains in people with chronic heart disease. 
The quality of your indoor air is vital to your health. Other pollutants that may affect you if you have a natural gas furnace include nitrogen dioxide particles and sulfur dioxide.
If you experience headaches, dizziness, fatigue, water eyes or difficulty breathing and you have no heath issue that may be causing them, you should leave your home as soon as possible and call to have your furnace checked out. Note that people with chronic respiratory problems, cardiovascular illness or immune system disorders will be more severely affected by these pollutants.
If you have a natural gas furnace and you can smell the gas, you have a potentially dangerous situation on your hands. Don’t light a match, turn on any appliances or use the telephone. Open the windows and leave the house immediately. You can call a service technician and/or 911 from a neighbor’s house or use a public telephone. Heating your home uses more energy than any other system and is generally 45 percent of your utility bill. If you find that this percentage is much higher, your furnace is likely not running as efficiently as it should. Make sure you clean or replace the filters on a monthly basis. Depending on what kind of furnace you have, you may need to clean warm-air registers, baseboard heaters or radiators as well. Also, don’t leave ventilating fans in the bathroom or kitchen running any longer than necessary, as these suck out a tremendous amount of air. Finally, make sure no furniture is blocking any of the vents. Your thermostat controls the amount of heat you want in your home. If you’re not getting any heat from your gas furnace, it may be that the pilot light is out. Otherwise, you might have a problem that needs to be taken care of by a professional. Computerized thermostats are now available that maintain the heating level in your home more evenly.
With heating bills rising all the time, you may want to consider getting a new furnace. If your furnace is 15 years or older, you will save approximately 40 per cent by installing a new one.
If you determine that you need a professional to fix your furnace and you live in the Los Angeles County area, you will want to go to www.chiefappliance.com for more information on what services are available. Chief Appliances also sells new furnaces.
Topics: Heater repair, Furnace repair, Heater, Furnace, Uncategorized |
