Furnace Fixes for the Handy Homeowner

Next time your furnace shuts down, check these five fixes before calling your Denver HVAC company . This trouble shooting guide will help you to repair your furnace yourself. Troubleshooting your furnace problems is worth considering before making a call for furnace repairs. These steps will show you and explain how you can diagnose and fix common furnace problems. Only you know just how handy you are consider your abilities before performing these steps safely and properly.
Proper furnace maintenance is the best way you can prevent common furnace malfunctions from happening. Furnace servicing should be carried out at least once a year. Even if your furnace was was installed professionally there are times when it will cease providing heat. The reason for the furnace failure could be anything from an airlock in the fuel pipe, blocked fuel inlet, or a problem with the controls. The following explains some of the most common issues you can fix on your own.

1. Check for leaky or blocked ducts that diminish airflow
If your furnace is running but there are cold rooms in the house, check to see if the registers are open. Next take a look at the ductwork you can access without trouble. Look for space between sections of the ducts and branching areas. If you find gaps seal the sections with foil tape. Finally check for handles, these are dampers, coming from the ductwork if you find any make sure they are open.

2. Change filters
Old dirtied filters are a common cause of furnace issues. Dust and grim hamper airflow and if the filter is too dirty is clogs and the heat exchanger will overheat and shut off causing your house to remain cold. A dirty filter can lower the efficiency and lifespan of your furnace. When the heater is running but heat is not going into any of the rooms in your house it's time to replace the filter.

Your owner's manual will show where the filter is located and what it will take to remove it. Changing flat filters monthly will help increase efficiency. All filters should be checked monthly. Checking the filter should be done by holding it to a light source. If you can see the light clearly it is time to replace the furnace. Most pleated filters will be OK to use for up to three months however you should change them more frequently if you have pets.

What Makes an Efficient Furnace so Efficient

By Mike Meincke

With today's rising energy demands, volatile financial & housing markets and a constant potential of increased living costs looming over our shoulders, catching a financial break anywhere we can as a consumer should be of keen interest to everybody. 90%+ Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency (AFUE) furnaces may easily provide the solution and can easily off set a household bill or two with all of the energy being saved by this furnace in contrast to the conventional 60-80% AFUE furnace that is more than likely currently in your home even as you read this article. 90%+ AFUE furnaces have a 2 heat exchanger design to avoid wasting heat, in the past the product was problematic when it was first developed in the 90's, but has since been improved to near perfection today by most manufacturers to be a very reliable product and if sized properly and installed properly will save an incredible amount of money on the utility bill that you can capitalize on year in and year out.

The two heat exchanger design is the key feature that allows a 90%+ AFUE furnace to operate so efficiently. A primary heat exchanger handles the ignition of the furnace and the natural gas fire (propane, kerosene, heating oil or what ever the furnace burns) of the furnace burners. As the burners are engaged inside of the heat exchanger, the heat exchanger gets hot so that when the furnace blower turns on, forced air travels over the hot heat exchanger to allow for heat transfer to occur, sending warm air through your air ducts and to ultimately heat the air in your home. With a conventional 60-80% AFUE furnace that is all that is present for a heat exchanger, but through brilliant engineering furnace manufacturers realized that flue gases always creates hot moisture that is typically wasted out of the flue pipe and so they decided to capture this free energy by designing a better product. So engineers went to work to produce the two heat exchanger furnace and incorporated a secondary heat exchanger that looks like a coil to capture the hot flue gas moisture to re use this heat in a more efficient appliance, rather than wasting this heat out of the flue pipe.

Remarkably after 70 years of relatively little change in the heating market in terms of how a gas furnace basically operated, a vastly more efficient appliance emerged on the market.