When should I have my furnace inspected?

Some professionals believe it is safest to have your furnace inspected bi-annually (twice a year). Others think annually (every year) is good,and still others say that for the first 10 years,it’s OK to have it inspected biennially (every other year). The government website recommends an inspection by a qualified technician annually. Despite this,many people don’t have their furnaces inspected at all until they sell their homes and are required to do so by the buyer.

What are the risks taken when a furnace isn’t cleaned regularly?

  1. The first and foremost risk is,your family members’ health. 

    Furnaces create gases. The most dangerous of these is carbon monoxide (CO),which is sometimes referred to as “the silent killer”. It is produced when fuel burns and released into the air when the furnace heat exchanger is cracked. Besides being poisonous,CO is colorless and odorless,making it hard to detect without a CO meter or alarm.

    Symptoms of CO are similar to flu symptoms,another reason it isn’t easily detected. You may have headache,vomiting,weakness,chest pain,dizziness,and confusion. Enough of this gas leaking into your home and you can faint and die. Especially vulnerable are infants,people with chronic disease,such as heart disease,anemia,breathing issues,and the elderly.

    Other toxic elements that escape are carbon dioxide,nitrogen oxides,and soot. Furthermore,if your filters are dirty,dust particles are thrown into the air of your home. These particles can trigger sinus congestions and allergic reactions to mold,pollen,and dust mites and other airborne issues.

    If your family seems sick,and you haven’t had your furnace checked,please don’t hesitate to call an HVAC specialist and ask to have your furnace cleaned and certified. You can shut the gas off until someone comes.

  2. Then there is the health of your furnace.

    HVAC experts agree that 75% of repairs could have been avoided if the furnaces had been properly serviced. Dirty furnace parts can shorten the life of the vital parts of your furnace. For this reason,most furnace manufacturers require regular maintenance as a condition for their warranty

  3. There is the efficiency of your furnace

    The lifespan of your furnace means money in your pocket,but so does efficiency. A dirty furnace cannot produce heat efficiently,making for higher power bills. These add up. You also get unstable temperatures in your home. This is also true of broken parts. If,for example,your blower wheel is broken you furnace is handicapped and not heating your home as it should.

While furnaces tend to make noises,if you hear noises that is unusual,like scraping,popping,or squealing noises,chances are something is threatening your pocketbook. If you furnace is in the crawlspace of your home,however,you may not hear the noises. Winter is no time to have your furnace go out. Broken pipes due to freezing can cost a small fortune. It’s best to have your furnace cleaned and certified annually–well before the winter rush.

Gas Fireplace Problem
For $195 plus parts (if needed) we run through a checklist to clean, adjust, and service your gas fireplace. Our service is warrantied for 90 days – meaning we’ll return for free if the same problem arises. All parts come with a one year warranty. Have a second fireplace in your home?  Cleaning and servicing additional fireplaces is just $175. Our technicians will arrive sometime during the 2 hour appointment window. The repair typically takes 45 minutes to an hour. Book Now
Concrete Work (new concrete patio, driveway, sidewalk, etc.)
All concrete estimates are free. We will demo existing concrete and install new. We offer stamped, colored, aggregate, and regular concrete. All estimates expire in 30 days. Book Now
Lawn Sprinkler Repair
Our Service: You may call or complete our online form to request an appointment. We are available to take your call Monday through Friday between 8:00 am and 5:00 pm. If we are on another call and you leave a message, we will quickly return  your call. Our service technicians work from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm Monday through Friday and sometimes Sunday. We will book a 2-hour arrival window. After the repairs are completed, we invite you to physically observe that everything we did meets your expectations. If satisfied, the technician will create the invoice on site and then collect payment. We accept cash, check, or a payment via credit card. Click this link to see and understand our pricing. After We Leave: You will have already verified that everything is operating as it should; however, that does not mean you can forget about your lawn, trees, and bushes. Like any mechanical system, problems can arise unexpectedly or things can be missed. As such, it is imperative that someone monitor the health of the lawn, trees, and bushes after we leave. If you observe stress in any of the aforementioned items, you should begin hand watering and then call us to schedule another appointment. Warranty: We will warranty all parts against poor workmanship or manufacturing defect that we install up until the first freeze. Our technicians will do their absolute best to resolve all sprinkler system related issues. Please confirm everything is working well and that you are 100% satisfied before allowing the technician to leave. Things to double check include: good zone coverage, reasonable clock settings, no leaks a the back-flow, or manifold. The technician will gladly walk you through the aforementioned areas and help you understand how to adjust your clock. A return visit (if needed) will be treated as a new service call to keep our pricing low. So, double checking the work is a win win for everyone. We do not warranty your grass, bushes, trees or any living thing.  It is the homeowner’s responsibility to physically inspect their vegetation periodically and to identify any problems. As the summer goes on, you will likely notice that some areas of your lawn will begin to need more water. Please be sure the technician shows you how to make changes to your programmed settings. If you are not comfortable making changes, you are welcomed to call us for another service call. It is just important to remember that we do not live on the property and that we cannot know if there is a new or existing problem after we leave. This is why it is so important that the home owner study the health of their vegetation to ensure all is good. Manually testing the system periodically during the day is an excellent idea, too. This will help you identify problems before they become serious. Sometimes leaks in a system can manifest themselves in different ways. For example, a leaky manifold right next to the home can in rare cases send water into the basement. It is the homeowners responsibility to notice problems like this in a timely manner before extensive damage occurs. This can be done by periodically inspecting the manifold box and/or basement. If we are found to be at fault, we will refund up to everything that was paid for the service. Drip Systems: It’s pretty easy to identify a zone in your lawn not working. When manually testing your system, you can physically observe that heads are popping up and that the spray pattern is appropriate. Monitoring the drip system isn’t quite as easy. Generally, you can confirm that it is going on if you hear air being pushed out emitters and by also finding a few emitters and confirming that water is being pushed out. That being said, it would be very difficult for us or anyone to confirm that every emitter is performing correctly. Typically, there are 3-4 emitters per tree and it is above the soil and below the landscaping fabric and rocks or wood chips. As such, easily getting to and inspecting them all would be very difficult and time consuming. That being said, we are happy to do this if you want to pay for this type of service. We would charge $90/hr. High Water Bills: Quite often we are called out after a customer receives an unusually high water bill. We are quite good at finding and fixing this type of problem. That being said, please don’t wait until your next water bill to ensure we nailed it. A typical lawn on a hot day needs 125 gallons per every 1,000 square feet. Other sources state the lawn needs around .6 gallons per square foot. A typical lawn, will use about 2,000 gallons on a watering day. So, have the technician show you your water meter, which is normally rounded to the nearest thousand. Make note of the reading in the evening and then check it again in the morning after your lawn has been watered. If you used 5,000 gallons when we were expecting only 2,000 gallons to be used, we still have a problem. In this case, we will come back and search for additional possible problems. Since we do not live on the property, in no case can we take responsibility for your water bill. Please work with the technician to enable you to quickly determine if all is well after we leave. As a side note, we typically resolve problems like this on our first attempt. Winterization: Hundreds and perhaps thousands of customers use our service to winterize their sprinkler system each year. Our process to winterize your sprinkler system entails utilizing a gas powered air compressor to push all the water out each zone and to the bleed valve at the basement shut-off valve. We invite you to physically observe this procedure of removing all the water from your system. In rare cases, people will find freeze damage to their system in the Spring. This can occur if someone inadvertently turns on the water to your sprinkler system during the winter or if the main shut-off to your sprinkler system has a very slow leak. The latter problem can refill your system over several months assuming it is a slow leak. The best way to detect this type of problem is to periodically inspect bleed-valves on your back-flow throughout the winter. There should be no sign of water after our winterization process. Our Appointment: In peak months (April/May/June) customers often have to wait 2-3 weeks for us to arrive. Upon arrival, we don’t know if the job will take 30 minutes or four hours. Our goal is to arrive early in the 2-hour arrival window and leave before the arrival window is closed. Unfortunately, sometimes the job takes much longer, which can then cause us to need to reschedule subsequent appointments. In general, we like to try and finish what we started. To minimize the impact on other customers we do our best to save some windows each week in the event a customer needs to be rescheduled. We know that nobody wants to be rescheduled, so we do our best to prevent this from happening.

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