When Furnaces Turn Deadly: Furnace Tips To Keep Your Family Safe

As much as the furnace keeps your house warm and toasty, it can cause house fires and even produce carbon monoxide that can harm your family. You don’t want this, do you?

To keep your family safe and avoid the risks that come with furnaces, you need to do several things. Which are these things?

Tune up your appliance once a year.

This is similar to servicing an airplane. You wouldn’t feel safe if you were told that an aircraft hadn’t been serviced in months, can you? You also can’t feel safe if your appliance goes for more than a year without servicing.

For peace of mind, at least once a year, hire an experienced furnace repair service professional to go through every part of the furnace and try to find even the most minor problem.

The same way you can’t hire a quark to service your car is the same way you shouldn’t hire an inexperienced furnace contractor to service your furnace. As a rule of thumb, ensure that the professional knows what they are doing and have done similar projects before.

Ventilate and make space

Whether your furnace is powered by electricity, oil, propane, or natural gas, you need to ensure there is enough space for proper ventilation. This calls for you to keep the furnace room floors and the area around the furnace equipment free of debris. You should also clear any boxes or suitcases from around the air intakes and vents.

Don’t lean any item against the furnace, and don’t leave any used filters or old furnace parts lying around your house.

Replace the air filters regularly

To the unknowing, air filters seem useless and do not have any impact on the proper workings of the furnace. This is wrong.

Air filters have a huge impact on the quality of air in the house, not to mention the house’s safety. Due to their role, air filters determine the quality of air in the house and that getting into your furnace.

When you go for a long time without cleaning it, it cakes up with dust and debris, and this pushes the furnace to work harder than it should. A dirty filter also significantly reduces air quality getting to the furnace and into the house.

An overworking furnace is always at the risk of functioning inefficiently, which increases its chances of releasing carbon monoxide harmful to you and your family. It’s also a matter of time before a dirty furnace catches on fire.

To be on the safe side, make it a habit to clean your furnace filters at least once every three months. You should clean the filters more often in the winter months when your furnace use is at its peak.

Install smoke and carbon monoxide sensors

As mentioned above, a furnace can malfunction at any time and catch on fire, putting you and your family’s life in danger. To avoid being a sitting duck, install smoke and carbon monoxide sensors.

When it comes to the installation, install the smoke and carbon monoxide sensors in the same room as the furnace. This way, you can detect the problems as soon as they happen. Of course, regularly inspect these detectors and ensure they are in top shape and the batteries are working properly.

Observe safety rules

Besides doing the above, you also need to do your part and consider some safety tips. They include:

  • Never leave any combustible items in the furnace room as they can easily catch fire. Of major importance, ensure that you don’t store any material with low flash points such as paint, paint thinner, and gasoline near your furnace as they are a fire hazard.
  • As mentioned above, keep the area around the furnace clean. You can vacuum, sweep or do any other thing that will keep it sparkling.
  • If your furnace room doubles as a laundry space, don’t hang laundry or a clothesline from the equipment as it’s a major fire hazard and significantly reduces airflow.
  • Ensure that the kids can’t reach the furnace as they will most likely play with it, not to mention damaging it, and you are forced to hire an expensive furnace service Long Island provider to fix it.

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