Should you turn a furnace pilot light off in the summer? Since it’s not in use, turning it off can be a great way to save money on energy bills and take care of your system during the warmer season.
When dealing with electric or gas furnace systems, there are some safety concerns. Read below for some of the benefits of switching your furnace off during the summer, a mini guide on how to do it, and a few reasons why you may wish to keep your system on.
A furnace pilot light is a small gas flame that remains lit in a furnace at all times. It is used to ignite the main burners when the thermostat signals for heat. The pilot light is typically blue, but it can be different colors depending on the type of gas used.
When lit, it should produce a steady flame and won’t go out unless there’s an interruption in its fuel supply or airflow.
Your pilot light is crucial in the cold winters when your furnace works to keep your indoors nice and warm. However, many homeowners wonder if turning off the pilot light in the summer is a good idea when the furnace isn’t in use.
We typically advise homeowners to turn furnaces off in the summer to reduce unnecessary energy consumption. Turning off your furnace pilot light during summer months can provide several benefits for both you and your home. These include:
Turning off furnace pilot lights in the summertime can significantly reduce how much energy your furnace consumes during the year. With less energy consumed overall, this means you can save money on monthly bills and even avoid high maintenance costs.
Also when your furnace is on, it still gives off a bit of heat, meaning your AC unit will have to work against it in the summertime. Turning your furnace off saves you money on your cooling bills as well!
When a pilot light is turned off, it’s not constantly burning fuel to heat the air. With less wear and tear on its components, your furnace is less likely to break down early. Add proper maintenance and care to that, and you can enjoy many years of reliable operation with minimal necessary repairs or replacements.
Turning off the pilot light can decrease the risk of harmful gasses like carbon monoxide seeping into your home due to leaks or equipment malfunctions.
By turning off your pilot light in the summertime, you can feel safer in your living space.
Turning off your furnace reduces your overall energy consumption by helping conserve natural resources like coal, oil, and gas. Less fossil fuel use means a sustainable lifestyle and a smaller carbon footprint.
Turning off a furnace pilot light is not difficult, but it is important to follow the steps properly and carefully.
To turn a pilot off:
If you aren’t sure where the off switch is, consult your furnace manual or ask a professional technician. While your furnace is off, it may be a good idea to schedule a maintenance or furnace cleaning appointment so you know everything is working properly come wintertime.
Important note: if you don’t know how to turn your furnace off in the summer or on for the winter, contact a professional for assistance.
While there are several benefits of turning off your pilot light, it’s worth noting the potential risks so that you can take necessary steps to prevent them.
With this in mind, should you turn your furnace pilot light off in the summer? Despite these reasons, we would say yes. Turning a furnace pilot light on or off can be dangerous, but as long as it’s done correctly, the risks are minimal.
We recommend you turn off your furnace pilot light in the summer as this will help minimize your overall energy consumption and extend the life of your furnace system. If you need help turning your furnace off or with any other parts of your HVAC system, Clover can help. At Clover Contracting, we have experienced and highly trained technicians ready to help you with your furnace.
We also recommend booking a furnace maintenance appointment while your system is off. Whether you need a regular maintenance check, a new furnace installation or repair the professionals at Clover can help you with whatever you need.
Don’t hesitate to book an appointment today.
]]>The furnace itself is the main source of most of the heating, and is able to release thousands of BTU to heat a home. However, there are many different types of furnace units, each using a different kind of fuel or method for heating air.
This allows many homeowners to choose and decide between what kind of furnace they want and what would better suit their home. While you might already have a furnace built into your current home, many people also decide to upgrade to a new model or switch to a different type of furnace.
So, look through this guide of the different types of furnaces and pick which best suits your needs. If you’re interested in upgrading or switching, just contact our team at Clover Contracting for reliable installation work.
If you’re looking for one of the furnace types that’s both eco-friendly and effective in heating a home, look no further than electric furnaces. As the name suggests, electric furnaces draw on the electricity that’s supplied to your home to work.
Since they don’t require any connections to the home’s gas lines, this kind of furnace is far more common to find, though it can also be more expensive.
Electric-powered models, like other types of furnace units, are formed out of a blower, its motor, and a set of heat strips. While there are many other parts as well, these are the ones that are the most important in how the furnace works.
When your home’s thermostat reads the temperature has dropped below the set level, it turns the heating strips on and draws in air. The blower then simply blows the now-hot air through the vents and into your home.
Another great option for a furnace is the natural gas furnace. Though considered one of the oldest types of furnaces for homes, these furnaces are also incredibly sturdy and long-lasting. With the proper care and regular maintenance that many HVAC companies – including our team at Clover Contracting – recommend, a natural gas furnace can last for 25 years or longer!
Though technically not as environmentally friendly as electric furnaces, natural gas is, in fact, far better for the environment than expected. These furnaces use a natural, gaseous mix of carbon and hydrogen to heat air, making it capable of drastically reducing the amount of pollution the furnace releases.
Natural gas furnaces also tend to save money on the energy it uses, since the gas mixture is both readily available and quite cheap.
If you’re looking into one of the types of furnace units that can be used to quickly heat a home, propane furnaces are a great choice, especially for larger sized homes.
To work, the furnace uses liquid propane, much like a propane grill. The liquid fuel is turned into a gas first, then brought into the furnace’s heating chamber to heat the air. And, since burning propane creates far more heat than other fuel, the air is often much hotter.
The furnace’s use of propane also helps in making the furnace just a bit safer to use than other kinds. Since many propane tanks have safety measures put into place, the furnace also often has these measures in place. Additionally, while propane can be quite cost-effective and easy to get, propane furnaces can also be switched to using natural gas if its initial fuel becomes too costly or even runs out.
Another good variety in the different types of furnace units homeowners might be interested in is the waste oil furnace.
As the name suggests, waste oil furnaces burn the excess oil that you no longer need for heat. This specific type of “waste oil” can be any kind of oil as well, from old and overused vegetable oil to discarded automobile oil. Whatever oils you can’t use for their intended use can be put into a waste oil furnace.
This, naturally, makes waste oil furnaces a far more environmentally friendly option for heating homes than even some electric furnaces. By simply using discarded oil as a fuel source, it prevents those remnants from ending up in a dump or somewhere worse. And, to make the deal even more enticing, waste oil furnaces also tend to take up far less space than other units.
Two furnace categories you might be interested in are single-stage and two-stage furnaces. As the names suggest, a single-stage furnace only has a single setting: on. This often means that the furnace outputs the same level of heat whenever you turn it on, regardless of the time of the year. Due to its 80% fuel efficiency, single-stage furnaces are great for smaller homes.
On the other hand, two-stage furnaces have two settings. Much like single-stage furnaces, this furnace has one setting that uses its maximum heating ability. In its second setting, though, two-stage furnaces only use roughly half of it. This allows the furnace – and to an extent, the homeowner – to control the flow of fuel better. The result is far more efficient heating that’s ideal for larger homes.
There is a far greater range of furnaces that can be invested in, though few of these units are used for heating homes. The furnaces that we’ve mentioned above are by far the most used in homes’ central heating systems. They provide nearly all the heat that a home needs, and in some cases, can even provide far more.
Ultimately, choosing the right furnace and the right fuel source for it can be a longer process than it might seem at first. The climate and location of where your home is situated can play a big role in the amount of heating that you can use. Furnaces that provide more heat can end up costing you more in the long run, especially if you don’t use much of it.
At the end of the day, contacting our team at Clover Contracting is the best choice, since we also make sure to help give you options that suit both your needs and your financial situation.
]]>Even something as simple as going to sleep after a long day can be much easier and more comfortable thanks to the warm air from our homes’ furnaces.
With frequent use, however, comes a lot of wear and tear. Many furnaces often use heat exchangers, as well as some sort of fuel to create the heat that’s needed to warm the air in your home. When it comes to gas furnaces, the fuel itself is often burned and if any residue isn’t made, dust and other kinds of debris can be pulled in instead.
Even electric furnaces can have the small amounts of strain that’s put on its parts build up over time. So, in order to prevent your home’s furnace from completely failing, the question,“how often should a furnace be serviced?” is often brought up.
Today’s blog post will answer the question, “how often to service your furnace?”, as well as what the signs are that it needs to be cleaned up, we’ve put together this article as help.
If you find any of these signs in your own furnace or just want to schedule a maintenance appointment, reach out to one of our technicians at Clover Contracting.
As with many HVAC systems, there isn’t one fixed amount of time that you absolutely need to get your furnace serviced by. Many heating and cooling systems often need more or less time depending on the number of people that live in the household and the number of pets.
The more people and the more pets there are, the shorter the amount of time between regular servicing appointments should be. And if you live alone in a home, you can more than likely push the date back a few weeks.
However, many HVAC technicians have a recommended amount of time for regular maintenance. As a general answer to “how often should you have your furnace serviced?”, professionals recommend furnace maintenance at least once a year.
While your furnace may not be dirty, regular servicing is a fantastic preventative measure that can help you avoid more severe issues from happening later on.
As a result, the answer to “should I get my gas furnace serviced every year?” is a resounding yes!
Here are some of the signs that your furnace needs to be cleaned:
One of the more common signs that you need maintenance done on your furnace and that it needs cleaning is the sudden increase in dust in the air and on your furniture. This is especially true if you haven’t changed the furnace’s filters in quite a bit of time, since that’s what cleans out the extra dust from the air.
The air that’s been heated is blown through an air filter that’s specially designed to trap dust and allergens. With the filter itself being dirty, it can’t trap the dust and it’s being blown out into your home or business.
With the frequent use that often comes with the start of winter and cold weather, many of the parts that make up your furnace and the vents that move the air through the building can become loose. This can often lead to some of them vibrating more often and causing clicks, clunks and thuds throughout the day.
Typically, most of these sounds aren’t a big issue and can be fixed easily by tightening some screws and readjusting a few parts. However, if you hear a loud bang or other unusual noises, call our team at Clover Contracting and we’ll send a technician to help right away.
If the temperature is uneven in your home, there’s a high chance that the cause is an unclean furnace that’s in need of servicing.
Again, this can be caused by a dirty air filter blocking most of the hot air from properly spreading through your home, but it can also be caused by a few other things. If replacing the filter doesn’t fix the issue, check to see that your thermostat is working and replace it if needed.
Since many of the other possible signs can go unnoticed for quite a long time, one of the most noticeable ways that you can know that you need to get your furnace maintained is checking what your energy costs are.
Over time, dust and debris can build up inside the furnace, blocking the air from properly getting into and out of the furnace. Whenever the system, its parts or its filters are unclean, the entire system can start to work harder to make up for the lack of good airflow. This can cause the furnace to start using more energy as well, showing itself when you finally get the energy bill.
When it comes to the servicing appointment itself, the technician does a number of different tasks to make sure that your furnace – and air conditioner, if needed – are working smoothly and efficiently.
Typically, they’ll carefully check the vents and the furnace itself for any damage, corrosion or blockages and remove many of them if they find any.
Some technicians might also replace some of the smaller parts if they choose to. If your thermostat isn’t properly calibrated or if the filter’s unclean, the technician is able to address and fix the issues.
If you’re wondering, “how often should your furnace be serviced?”, the answer is fairly simple.
While it can vary depending on the number of people in your home, it’s a good habit to get your furnace assessed once a year.
Doing this allows you to make sure that all of your furnace’s parts are properly calibrated, balanced and clean so that the system can continue to work at its peak efficiency for a long time.
]]>At the end of the day, the only thing that truly matters is how they heat up our homes and how efficiently they do just that. Knowing some of the functions of a furnace’s individual parts can be a great help when doing your own troubleshooting. However, there are also many parts of a furnace that can get overlooked until it’s too late.
One such part is a furnace’s inducer motor. The inducer motor is one the most important parts of your home’s heating system, due to the fact that it ensures that everything works safely. If the part starts to malfunction, wear down, or if you find that your inducer motor isn’t starting, the risk of damage can increase drastically.
Knowing exactly how to tell if an inducer motor is bad can greatly increase the chance of you catching any problems from occurring. We’ve put together this article to help you narrow down some of the key signs of a bad inducer motor and what you can do to fix any of them.
If none of these fixes solve the problem or you suspect it may be a far bigger issue that needs professional help, call our team at Clover Contracting or schedule an appointment on our website at your earliest convenience.
One of the best ways to find and fix an issue with a furnace’s inducer motor is to first understand what it is and what it does when it comes to heating.
The main job an inducer motor does is to suck out and remove any gas that’s trapped inside the furnace from the last time it turned on. As a result, inducer motors are most often found inside gas powered furnaces and act as a safeguard against any potential fire hazards.
The gas that these furnaces use are often highly flammable, and if any traces of it are still in it when the furnace starts another cycle, a fire can spark and cause massive amounts of damage to the surroundings.
To properly act as a countermeasure, a furnace’s inducer motor is placed close to the main heat exchangers. Many gas fueled furnaces burn natural gas – or occasionally propane – in a heat exchanger where the air is brought in and funneled out. When supply cuts off, a small portion of gas can still linger behind. That is where and when the inducer motor kicks on and draws that gas out.
Some of the symptoms of a bad furnace inducer motor include:
One of the most common signs that you’re dealing with a bad inducer motor is repeated tapping sounds. More often than not, this can be caused by dirt or bits of ash and soot getting sucked in and building up around the fan’s shaft.
Eventually, the dirt and debris can collect and stick together, forming a clump that hits the sides. In some cases, tapping sounds coming from the furnace can also be the inducer motor’s bearings clicking against each other.
Depending on what speed it’s running at, a humming inducer motor can be either a relatively simple fix or an issue that a professional should look into.
A furnace naturally slows its blowers once the temperature of the house has reached a certain level in order to preserve energy. However, if it suddenly drops to slower speeds when it shouldn’t and the motor’s humming, there’s more than likely an issue with the capacitor and the motor itself.
You might also find that the motor isn’t spinning, even though it is on to begin with. Any humming at this point is a sign that your furnace’s capacitor may be damaged and needs replacing.
Simply put, the capacitor is the part that’s needed for the entire inducer motor to work properly. If the part’s damaged, the motor doesn’t get any power and won’t actually move.
Overall, though, furnace inducer motor troubleshooting can be quite simple to fix if you catch it early when the humming’s quiet.
Most of the time, the reason behind the noise is a dirty filter. Particles of dirt, dust and debris can enter in through the furnace’s exhaust and collect to eventually be blown out through the filter. If it isn’t regularly cleaned though, the inducer motor is forced to work harder and faces more wear and tear.
If you keep hearing vibrating noises coming from the furnace, this is one of the signs of a bad inducer motor. The main reason that the vibrations are happening is that the wheel or fan inside the motor itself is or has become unbalanced.
The vibrating often happens when the part spins, its unbalanced nature causing it to bump and collide with the other parts around it. You can do a quick and easy fix by finding the inducer motor and rebalancing its wheel.
If you find that replacing the inducer motor is the only proper solution to your issue, either due to damage or simply a faulty motor, there is a way to easily replace it, though it may require a bit more elbow grease and effort.
As with the first step when dealing with many machines and HVAC systems, turn off the power and the gas supply to it before removing your furnace’s panels. Find the draft inducer motor – typically in the top left of the furnace – and unscrew it. The type the motor is may change how you can remove it, though. Take the replacement motor and properly align it before reattaching it.
All that’s needed from there is to replace the furnace’s cover and to turn on both the power and the gas supplies. If you don’t feel comfortable replacing your furnace’s inducer motor by yourself, you can always rely on our technicians at Clover Contracting.
Often, the signs of a bad inducer motor relate to any sounds you might hear.
A well cared for or new inducer motor will be nearly silent as it works, since its main use is to remove any gasses from the heat exchangers. So, if you hear any odd sounds, there’s a high chance that you have a bad inducer motor.
]]>Thankfully, the furnace flame sensor is one of the system’s easiest components to find and clean. Even if the part needs to be replaced for whatever reason, many flame sensors aren’t all that expensive to replace. Though the sensor is an important part, checking to see if you have a dirty flame sensor can often be the first thing that many HVAC technicians say to start troubleshooting with.
Today’s article will show you what you can do to get clean furnace flame sensor components the next time you find that your furnace isn’t working. In the case that your sensor is clean and you can’t seem to find the issue, you can call Clover Contracting for help no matter the time of day.
If you aren’t as well versed with the parts of your furnace, the flame sensor is one of the many safety features built into the appliance.
Though typically found on gas furnaces, the flame sensor checks to see that the right amount of fuel is used to ignite the burners.
When the furnace creates a spark to light the gas or switches on the hot surface ignitor, the flame sensor sends a small current of electricity to the furnace’s circuit board. If that circuit board doesn’t get the proper reading, the system stops flow of gas to the furnace in order to prevent an explosion or overheating.
As mentioned before, the furnace flame sensor is what tells the HVAC circuit board that the appropriate amount of gas was used to create the flames. With a dirty flame sensor on gas furnace units, the sensor can’t effectively pick up how large the flames are or how much gas was used, even if it was the correct amount. As a result, the dirty flame sensor sends the wrong amount of electricity and stopped the furnace from turning on.
Over time, the dirt and other debris on the flame sensor can cause oxidation or carbon build up, further restricting how the part works and preventing the furnace from turning on. Eventually, the buildup can damage the sensor, needing to be replaced and not letting the furnace turn on until it is.
There’s only really one main reason why your furnace’s flame sensor is dirty and why you’d need to clean furnace flame sensor components. Usually found in or near the furnace’s burner assembly, the device is usually shaped like a thin bent rod sitting close to the flame stream. Because of its function, the sensor is highly sensitive and variations can often cause the entire furnace to stop working in order to keep the home safe.
As a result though, any dust or fine debris that can make it past the furnaces filter can stick to the flame sensor. Once the flame stream ignites, the debris burns onto the sensor. With enough time, the buildup of dust and carbon causes the flame sensor to malfunction and send an incorrect reading. The flames shut off and the furnace stops.
In some cases – though it can be rare – the flame sensor might just not be proper for the furnace. Whether it’s not the right size for the furnace or just a bad sensor, the only real solution to this kind of problem is to replace the part with a new one. If the flame sensor is clean, do make sure to check for any other potential causes instead of immediately replacing it, though. While it may be an inexpensive replacement job, no homeowner wants to just waste their money.
Continue reading to learn how you can clean a furnace flame sensor in three simple steps:
To clean furnace flame sensor components, the first step you need to do before you actually start is to turn off the power to your furnace. This can usually be done at the special HVAC breaker that’s found outside your home, but you might also be able to find a switch closer to the unit itself.
If you see an on-off switch like the ones for your lights, you can use that to turn the furnace off. Otherwise, find the appropriate breaker and shut it off. You will also likely need to turn the gas off if your furnace works with gas.
As mentioned, the flame sensor is typically found close to the furnace’s burner assembly and close to where the flames are ignited. If it isn’t there, you may need to locate it with the manufacturer’s manual or find it yourself.
Once you have, remove it using a ¼ inch hex headed screw bit. Be careful when removing it, since the part can be sensitive and may have a wire connected to the end of the sensor that you may need to disconnect.
To actually clean the sensor, use a very light grit sandpaper to lightly rub at the metal rod – and only that part of the sensor. Rubbing at any other part will likely damage the sensor entirely.
Then, after wiping away any dust, reconnect any wires and screw the sensor back into place. Open the main gas line if you closed it and turn the power back on to check. With any luck you should have a fully functioning furnace again.
Cleaning a dirty flame sensor can be quite easy once you learn where it is and what the right way to do it is.
However, if you still find some of the dirty flame sensor symptoms afterwards, like your furnace cycling on and off, it’s a good idea to call a professional.
Homeowners and business owners alike can rely on our talented team at Clover Contracting to help you solve your problem.
]]>