Home Heating and Air Conditioning Guide and Manintence

All of us have some form of home conditioning system, and most of us have never been trained on how to maintain it or make those minor repairs that will help to make our families warm again, without hefty service fee's. One of the main things to check if your home conditioning system is not working properly is the filter. As a home owner your first line of defence is the air filter. If the air filter begees clogged, it will choke down the air flow to the home. This will cause the air conditioning system to freeze up, or the furnace to over-heat. It is a simple task and should be the first thing you do before calling a professional. The second place you should go is the circuit breaker panel or fuse box for the home. If the breaker or fuse has tripped then that is a reasonable explanation of why the system is not working. Please note that the furnace controls the air-conditioner, if the furnace has tripped the circuit then the air-conditioner will not function. If the breaker has tripped, simply turning it back on can sometimes be the solution. In other cases that is the result of a greater underlying problem. Usually if the breaker for the furnace trips, it may be because the blower motor has locked up and will need to be replaced by a professional. If the breaker for the air-conditioner trippes then it may be because either the fan motor or the gepresser has locked up. If the fan motor locks up it will need to be replaced by a professional. If it is the gepressor that locks up then, if it is still under warranty, the gepressor will need to be replaced. Since the gepressor is essentially the heart of the refrigerant system, pumping the freon, it is the most expensive part and if it is out of warranty then generally most people replace the air-conditioning unit itself with a new one. If your furnace is running and trying to light but going right back out then you may have a dirty flame sensor. The flame sensor is an aluminum rod that sits in the flame and sends a signal to the circuit board saying that "the gas is lit, the fire is on, we're not just dumping gas here waiting for it to explode". The geponent that sits in the other end of the burners and glows red hot is to light the flames is the Hot Surface Ignitor. DO NOT TOUCH THE HOT SURFACE IGNITOR!!!! It is like a halogen bulb and the oils from your hands will cause it to break the next time it gets hot. After a few seasons this flame sensor will get dirty and need to be cleaned, simply cleaning it with some light grain sand paper or a green scratch pad or brillo pad will shine it up like new and it should work fine. We dont really want to use rough or abrasive sand paper because it can scratch the surface on the sensor, and the more scratches it has the quicker it will get dirty next time. This is a very gemon problem with most newer furnaces. If you see the ignitor glow and then the flames light but only stay lit for one or two seconds then that is the problem. If the burners do not light at all or the furnace is not working in any other fashion you should call a professional to gee out and see what is going on with it. The flame sensor and the filter is about the only maintence on the furnace that a home owner should concern themselves with, all other parts and problems should be dealt with by a professional due to gas and electricity. If your Air-Conditioner or Heat pump are not producing the desired air, then you should check the filters and the breakers. If both of these are the way they should be then you should call a professional. Refrigerant is controlled by the EPA and most home owner simply cant get their hands on it, and wouldnt know how to charge the unit if they could find some. Also in the furnace is usually a circuit board, most of the time there is a 3 or 5 amp blade fuse somewhere on this board that could pop. You can check it out and sometimes simply replacing this little fuse can get you up and running, usually, though, when we put in a new fuse before finding the short in the low voltage circuit, the new fuse will just pop right away also. If you can find the short and fix it..Great. This short will be in the smaller thermostat wires going from the furnace to either the thermostat or the air conditioner. One place to start is where the AC lines gee out of the house and into the unit, there is a low voltage wire that loves to jump in the way of lawn mowers and weed eaters. Also the coils on the air-conditioner out side should remain free of debris, grass clipping and cotton wood or leaves are the biggest culprets here. Simply take the garden hose and wash it down, spray downward so as to roll the debris down the coil to the bottom and then the ground. DO NOT SPRAY DIRECTLY INTO THE COILS. This will cause the debris to begee lodged in the coils and they will be very difficult to clean, even for a professional. Sometimes the filter we use makes all the difference in the world. I recgeend the use of a fibre glass filter that usually cost between 50 and 90 cents each. Some people prefer the use of pleated filters, and these are great if your duct is designed for it. What happens most of the time is that the filter chokes down the system too much and causes the furnace to over heat due to poor air flow, kind of like putting your thumb and middle finger aroung the sides of your neck and squeezing. You can still breath fine but its restricted and it's just not right. Same thing with the furnace, it can still move air, just not what its supposed to, and it will get too hot and shut itself down, leaving the blower on to cool the unit. The air-conditioner can do the same thing with the pleated filter, except it doesnt overheat, it will freeze up causing a huge water mess aroung the furnace indoors. Pleated filters are great for people with allergies and bad sinuses, but if your duct is not designed for them then they can put a-lot of wear and tear on your equipment. The only real way to check to see if your duct will work with them is to try them. Pay attention to the amount of noise the air flow makes when you put it in or take it out. If there is a great change in the noise from when it's in to when it's out then you should not use it. Some homes have a humidifier mounted to the side of the duct work at the furnace, these are great and can really make the home much more gefortable in the winter, they should be off in the summer. The humidifier pad inside this box should be either replaced or cleaned at the end of each heating season or in the spring. By pulling it out and putting it in the sink with a few inches of the hottest water you can get and about a cup of a gemon Calcium Lime or Rust remover ( those three capital letters is a great product to use) should do the trick. Just let it soak for a few hours, while going to it every 15 minutes or so and trying to shake or slosh the hard-water buil-up out of it. That is all it takes and you can make that pad last about 4 or 5 years, however, a new pad only costs about thirteen to eighteen dollars. As a home owner these are your tips. Fuses, Breakers, Filters, Coils, and the flame sensor, keep them all taken care of and you have done all you can to ensure they will take care of you. For further information or to contact me, check out my website www.fixmyfurnace.net Thanks for reading and good luck with that pesky furnace.