4 Tips to Get Your Heating System Ready for Winter.

Here’s 4 tips to heating efficiency and saving power and money this winter.

Don Ames

For most of us, cooler weather is on the way. I can feel a little autumn in the air this morning. On my to work, I pulled the old vehicle over to the side of the road to take a picture of some really cool ground fog laying over the harvested wheat field. As an energy auditor, I suppose I should be able to explain the behavior of moisture and why ground fog hovers over the ground just like I can explain moisture after a shower hovering all over the bathroom mirror. For now, I am a little foggy on the ground fog technical explanation.

I met a retired couple at McDonalds that were already traveling south for the winter. This couple is even beating the flow of canadian geese. Not a honker in the sky, but this couple is heading out, not taking a chance on snow in the mountains by a month or two. There is a strong indication then, that we should either be servicing our heating system for the coming season or we should be turning it off as we won’t be needing it again till spring. For now, let’s focus on getting the most out our heating system.

4 steps to a more effective and efficient heating system.

1. Replace the furnace filter. The filter should be on a regular schedule depending on how much dust and lint it has to catch. The number of kids and other animals you have in the home directly effects your filter schedule.

2. Clean the furnace fan. Remove the front cover of the furnace and locate the fan. I have seen some real build up of lint balls in the blades of the fan. Turn off the circuit breaker to the furnace and be sure the fan is dead and won’t start unexpectedly. With a short handled brush and the blind cleaning attachment on your vacuum cleaner, go to work on the fan and get all you can without getting too overheated. If you are mechanically inclined, a number of fans can be removed from the furnace with very little work. Couple srews and unplug the wire harness and you can sit the fan right on your work bench.

3. Clean the heat exchanger coil. This is for the furnace that has air conditioning or a heat pump. The coil looks like the radiator on the car, small delicate fins with copper tubes. Check out the picture with this article, this coil has been exposed and is ready to clean. The coil maybe a little hard to get to as it is often in the metal housing just below or just above your furnace. It might be best to have a heating contractor do this part of the cleaning. If you can expose the coil, spray it down with a cleaner like simple green, let it dry and then vacuum lightly. Be careful not to bend the fins.

4. Clean the return air intake grill. This metal grill is most likely mounted in the ceiling in your hallway. You could have more than one. Simple green and a rag should do the trick. Hope you have a good stable ladder and a willing teenager.

Hope these tips will help you get more out of your heating system this winter, come back to detectenergy soon and hurry, I won’t leave the light on for you…Donames