As the new season descends upon Milwaukee bringing cooler temperatures, Alvin Owen, owner and HVAC technician for Quality Air Heating and Cooling LLC, encourages homeowners to get their furnaces inspected to avoid hazardous conditions during the fall and winter seasons.
“If someone hasn’t been doing maintenance or just bought a house, then things need to be inspected now,” Owen said.
Here are some of his insights and recommendations.
How to prevent things from getting worse
Owen said depending on the condition of your home, it’s best for homeowners to have annual preventative maintenance for your mechanical equipment like heating, ventilation and air conditioning, commonly referred to as HVAC.
Annual preventative maintenance is a yearly appointment that allows for a technician to ensure your HVAC system is running efficiently and catch problems early. It includes a carbon monoxide test, combustion test and more.
“Knowing the condition of your HVAC is the most important thing,” Owen said. “If you have a lot of wood in your house or a lot of construction, then you could have to change the filter every day or every two days depending on what’s going on.”
Owen also said homeowners with an older furnace are due for a carbon monoxide test.
“If the combustion test comes back failing from carbon monoxide, then it needs to be replaced because that’s a heat exchanger issue,” he said.
Carbon monoxide is a deadly invisible gas that can kill or seriously harm you.
It’s also advised that residents replace old thermostats that have mercury in them.”
“People with the round, gray thermostats have to replace those,” Owen said.
Don’t wait too long to get inspected
Owen said he receives a high amount of emergency calls because homeowners and investors don’t do preventative maintenance like they should.
“The cost is higher for emergency repairs,” he said. “If you own a larger building then preventative maintenance could save you money in the long run and that can help you make financial projections with your HVAC equipment because you’ll have detailed information on each unit.”
He said inspection costs will vary depending on if a building is residential or commercial and how many units it has.
Connecting to a community resource
One thing Owen wants all residents to monitor is Energystar.gov, which has information on government programs that can provide rebates and other incentives when you make energy-efficient upgrades to your home’s heating and cooling system.
According to Energystar, heat pump installation ranges between $10,000 and $25,000 and currently Wisconsin has eight rebates available for residents who are income eligible.
“This is something everyone needs to know about because the money has been in Wisconsin, but it just came around really slow,” Owen said.
Click here to enter your ZIP code and see utility rebate programs offered for you.
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