This year has been a long snowy winter here in the Midwest. Of late, my furnace has been working overtime. When the sun comes out during the day, it is at least somewhat tolerable with temperatures ranging in the 20′s and 30′s. But overnight, the temperature has been dropping down into the single digits. This means more natural gas is being burned, more strain is being placed on my forced air furnace and more dollars are adding up in my monthly utility bills.
Fortunately, I found a few helpful home improvement tips about furnaces that I wanted to share here. First, one of the key elements to keeping your furnance running smoothly and efficiently is to make sure the furnace filter is changed regularly. Furnace filters are responsible for filtering out harmful dust, allergens, and other airborne particles as the air is heated and sent to your duct work. In the winter months, I’ve found that cheap furnace filters need to be replaced about every 3 weeks to 4 weeks for best results. If you buy high quality HEPA filters, you can stretch that time period to approximately 5 to 6 weeks instead. They are a little more expensive intially when you purchase them, but they do last longer and tend to do a much better job of filtration.
Another helpful tip for running your furnace in winter is to make sure your humidifier is working properly. Whole house humidifiers are usually attached to the furnace directly and add moisture to the heated air before it is dispersed. As the moisture is added, the humidity levels in your home go up and thus it allows the ambient temperature to feel much warmer than what the thermostat reads. You may find that by keeping the humidity levels at about 35 to 40% in the normally dry winter months, you’ll be able to turn your home’s temperature down by 2 to 4 degrees. Over the course of a long winter, this can save you a nice bit of money.
Finally, for a smooth running furnace, its always wise to keep spare furnace parts on hand. When you know if a fuse or switch may go out in advance, why not keep a spare in your home for the winter. It will definitely be easier to replace it your self then trying to deal with a repair man that is costly and difficult to schedule. Search online for your specific furnace parts for your model and call the manufacturer for a list of commonly replaced ocmponents. By keeping these parts handy, you’ll have a great running furnace all winter long.
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