You aren’t going to be able to survive in a Loudoun or Fairfax County, VA home that doesn’t have heat for very long in the wintertime. Temperatures routinely get down into the 20s and 30s during the winter months, so you’ll need to have a furnace in your house that’s firing on all cylinders to stay warm.
To steer clear of having your furnace give out on you at the worst possible time, you should keep a close eye out for signs that’ll indicate you need furnace service. These signs will let you know that you’re going to need to call on an HVAC technician ASAP to have furnace maintenance done.
We’ve put together a list of signs that will suggest you might have something wrong with your furnace. Here are some of the most common signs that’ll show that it’s time for furnace service.
Lack of Heat
If you wake up one morning and it’s freezing cold in your home, you should run to your thermostat to make sure you have your furnace set at the right temperature. If it looks like you have a faulty thermostat, it could be to blame for the lack of heat in your home. It’ll need to be replaced.
But if your thermostat seems to be working like it should and is set to the correct temperature, it could show that you have a bigger problem on your hands. You’ll need to have an HVAC technician come out to your home right away to inspect your furnace.
You should turn your furnace off and contact a reputable HVAC company immediately. They can come and assess the situation to figure out why your furnace isn’t delivering heat like normal throughout your house.
Heating Inconsistencies
Are a few of the rooms in your home very hot and others very cold? This is another one of the common signs that will show that you might need to have furnace service done right away.
Before you panic, you might want to walk around in your home and make sure all the air vents in it are open. If one of your fellow family members closed any of these vents, this could be causing the heating inconsistencies that are happening in your house.
But otherwise, there might be something going on with your furnace that is preventing it from getting enough heat to all the various parts of your home. An HVAC technician can get to the bottom of the problem and help you begin heating your home up more consistently again.
Little to No Air Flow
Every so often, you should walk around inside your home when your furnace is turned on and put your hand next to your air vents. You should feel warm air blowing through them at a steady pace and providing your house with the heat that it needs.
If the air flow from these vents is on the weaker side or, worse, if there isn’t any air flow coming through your vents at all, this could be a major issue. It likely indicates that your furnace isn’t able to pump out enough warm air for one reason or another.
This is a problem that might get worse as time goes on. It could eventually leave the temperature in your home at an uncomfortable level. You should contact an HVAC company before it reaches that point so that you can get warm air blowing through your vents like it’s supposed to once again.
Irregular Starts and Stops
The furnace in your home shouldn’t ever stay on all day long during the winter. It should cycle on and off on a regular basis to heat your home up every time it drops below a certain temperature.
If you ever notice that your furnace is on pretty much all the time, that’s going to be a sign that you may need furnace service. It’ll also be a sign that you need furnace service if your furnace is turning on and off without any regularity.
If, for example, your furnace turns on and runs for a minute or two and then shuts off before it reaches your desired temperature, something might be wrong with it. You’ll need to hire an HVAC technician to investigate why this is happening.
High Utility Bills
Generally speaking, most American homeowners all throughout the country are going to have higher heating costs than usual this winter. So if your utility bills are slightly higher than what you’re used to, it might not be anything you need to worry about.
But if you have high utility bills that are costing you way more money than normal, it could be a cause for concern. For one reason or another, your furnace might not be running efficiently, and an issue with your furnace might be to blame.
You might be able to avoid this scenario by having furnace maintenance done at the start of the winter season. It’ll ensure your furnace is all ready to go when it starts to get cold outside.
But you can also schedule furnace service to bring your furnace up to speed and make it more efficient at any point. It could be worth giving an HVAC specialist a call to see if this service could bring your utility bills back down to earth.
Water Pooling
Every so often, you should perform a visual inspection of your furnace to see if there might be anything leaking out of it. Condensation in your furnace can lead to water pooling around the outside of it, and this is obviously not something that you’ll want to see. You’ll have no choice but to have furnace service done.
You will also want to be aware of any gas leaks that could be taking place with your furnace. If it ever smells like rotten eggs in the area surrounding your furnace, you should shut it off immediately and touch base with an HVAC technician who can lend a hand.
Strange Sounds
Your furnace is going to make some sounds when it’s up and running. These sounds should start to blend into the background before long, and you won’t ever hear them anymore after a while.
But if your furnace is making strange sounds that are impossible to ignore, this will be a much different story. You don’t ever want to hear banging, grinding, or hissing sounds coming from the general vicinity of your furnace.
These kinds of sounds are going to suggest that there are parts in your furnace that aren’t working as intended. An HVAC technician will have to take a portion of your furnace apart to see what could be causing them.
If you turn a blind eye and ear to these sounds, they might get worse within just a few days. They could also lead to a need for more serious furnace repairs down the line if you don’t see what’s leading to them.
Burning Smells
When you fire up the furnace in your home for the first time this winter, you might sense some burning smells for a few minutes. You won’t need to be concerned about these smells since they’ll be perfectly normal and will simply be the result of dust burning off in your HVAC system.
But if these burning smells persist or if you experience burning smells when you’ve already been using your furnace for a few weeks, they might be an indication that something is not quite right with your furnace. You’ll need to have an HVAC technician find out what’s causing these burning smells.
You might need to have some of the moving parts in your furnace lubricated or even replaced to stop burning smells from setting in. If you don’t get this done, the burning smells could get worse, and you might even inadvertently allow a fire to start in your home.
Schedule Furnace Service If You Spot Any of These Signs
As a homeowner, it’s going to be your job to have furnace service done on a regular basis. If you don’t, it won’t be long before you’ll need to pay for costly HVAC repairs and/or furnace replacement.
If you ever see any of these signs, we hope that you’ll consider calling on our HVAC repair company for help. We can send an HVAC technician to your home right away to investigate the problem and fix it for you.
Contact us today to set up an appointment with an HVAC technician that you can trust to do a fantastic job while working from home.