Your furnace has been off since spring. Your carbon monoxide detector has been sitting quietly on the wall for just as long.
In just a few weeks, both of them are going to matter a lot!! So let’s check them right now, on a nice day, while there is nothing on the line.
Step one: wake up the furnace
Pick a mild afternoon. Set your thermostat to heat, put it about 5 degrees above room temperature, and let the system run for 15 minutes.
Then pay attention. A faint burning smell in the first few minutes is normal, that is dust cooking off after a summer of sitting. It should fade. What should NOT happen is a boom when it lights, a screech from the blower, a smell like hot plastic, or rooms that get almost no air. Any of those means something is worn or dirty or out of adjustment, and September is a much better time to find out than the first 20-degree night.
While you are down there, take a look at the furnace itself. A lot of Milwaukee homes are heating with equipment that has been in the basement longer than the current owners have lived there. Rust streaks, soot, or a flame that looks yellow and lazy instead of steady blue are all worth a phone call.
Step two: don’t skip this!!
Push the test button on your carbon monoxide detector.
Heating season and closed windows show up together, which makes fall the exact time a carbon monoxide problem would appear. And carbon monoxide gives you nothing to work with on your own, no smell, no color, no sound. That little detector is the entire warning system.
If it chirps weakly, if it is more than 7 years old, or if you cannot remember buying it, replace it. Make sure you have one on every level of the house, especially near bedrooms. Our electricians install hardwired carbon monoxide and smoke detectors if you would rather not deal with batteries and ceilings.
Why now and not November
Because right now this is a scheduling question. In November it becomes an emergency, and everyone in Milwaukee calls on the same cold morning!
A fall heating checkup catches the small stuff, including the things you cannot spot from the basement floor, like a cracked heat exchanger. And ours is not a quick once-over, our techs Beyondify the whole system so you actually know where you stand going into winter.
Contact us online or call 262-220-7020. We are here 7 days a week, and we would much rather see you in September!
YOU’RE ON VACATION. YOUR PIPES KNOW IT.
