I'd like to have some preventive maintenance done on our
furnace.  Does anyone know a company they'd recommend?

26 responses total.

Jim says Gallup Silkworth had at least one incompetent person that he knows
of, who oiled his furnace filter and did not replace a cracked belt, or a bad
bearing.  He recommends Mr. FUller, the owner of Fuller Heating, who has given
us useful information.  Try the diy conference on this one, too.  JIm says
he can stop by and take a look and tell you what he knows, but it might not
be for two or three weeks.  He does his own maintenance.  'All advice is
worthless, good advice is free'.  Vegan cooking appreciated in exchange for
the time spent.  

  I can second Fuller Heating. 

Hutzel is good.  I generally do my own work, but I had to call in a pro at
one point, who quickly figured out my mysterious problem.  (I needed a little
kit for the manufacturer, who had had to reengineer part of the flame control.
I was impressed that the guy knew his various brands and models to know this)

What is routine maintenance of a furnace?

Thanks for the offer but I'd like to stick with a 
furnace company on this one.

What I'm looking for in "routine maintenance" is someone
to look at the furnace and see if anything looks like it
is ready to fail (like belts) or cracked (and ready to 
leak carbon monoxide).  Maybe we'll treat ourselves and
have the service also replace the filters on both the 
furnace and the whole-house humidifier while they're here.
Cheap thrills. ;-)

You should be replacing filters at least once a year anyway.

My understanding is that filters are better replaced quarterly if not
monthly.  (But i've got allergies, so...)

We have a high efficiency furnace. There is nothing to maintain except
cleaning the filter. This is an electrostatic filter with a metal-mesh
mechanical filter (to catch mice, etc...) ahead of it, so it is a matter
of cleaning and not replacing the filters. I used to adjust belt tension
and oil the motor on the old furnace, but this one has no belt nor oil
ports. I once had a maintenance visit from the company that installed it
but after seeing that he really didn't do anything, I haven't bothered since.
I do clean out the associated air-conditioning condenser system, which is
outside and collect leaves and stuff (once had the relay damaged by an
ant getting between the contacts - I maintain an ant-trap in it since).

AFAIK, all furnaces (high eff. or not) eventually rust to the point
of leaking CO (and motors eventually burn out or need oiling/belt
replacement, assuming forced air).  I know the one in our apartment
(high eff.) did rot out to the point of needing replacement. Thus, having
"routine maintenance" is probably a darn good idea in terms of testing
for CO, at the very least.  Better safe than sorry, especially if you
can't do the work yourself (as in don't know what to look for).

Get a good CO detector regardless.  

Jim's furnace has a cast-iron heat exchanger and has not rusted out or cracked
in fifty years.  He does not trust maintenance people, they don't care.

We have a CO detector.  Thanks for the advice, everyone.

Fuller Heating sent a nice guy out to check out our furnace
and he was able to give us good news on how old it was and
that it is a quality unit.  He wrote the specifics of the
type of belt the unit uses on the side of the furnace and
answered a number of our house specific heating and cooling
questions.

Well worth the $73 fee.  I'd now recommend this company too.

Well, we have decided to buy our new furnace from Bronson.  He came in with
a good (read low) estimate, good references, and is a small, local
businessman.  We hope we are satisfied with this purchase as it is costly.
We are buying the furnace, upgrading the coils for our central ac, a
dehumidfyer and an electrostatic air cleaner.  Hopefully the house will heat
more evenly and the air will be cleaner and moister in winter.

Let us know how the experience with Bronson turns lout.

Even heating problems have more to do with improper ducting and duct sizing.
They may be able to compensate a little bit, but don't expect miracles.

That is exactly what the Fuller person said could be our
problem with getting adequate cooling upstairs.

We have a quad level house and in summer the bedrooms are difficult to cool.
In winter, the bedrooms are toasty but the family room is coolish.  bronson
came in this am to measure and get our deposit and he said that after the
installation, he will come back and go through the whole house, inspect all
the ducts and make sure we have the dampers positions ed correctly for winter
heating.  Then he will teach us how to modify the dampers for ac in the
summer.  That kind of extra is why we chose him over all the others we got
estimates from.  

We may be wasting money on the electrostatic cleaner.  I am not sure it will
keep the house much less dusty.  I can promise you, I will never buy another
house with forced air heating.  I have had forced air, and water heated and
water heated (aside from knocking pipes on occasion) is much better.  Does
take a few minutes more to heat up a house when cold, though.  But far fewer
drafty spots and much less dust.

We have an electrostatic cleaner but dust is still rampant. The main
thing it does is take up a few hours of my time a couple of times a
year to clean the unit. A lot of very fine, black dust washes off. The
big stuff (that you can see) seems to go right through. [So why don't
I just remove it from the system, and maybe install more mechanical
filters? Just thought of that....]

When did you get yours installed, Rane?  I am rethinking the purchase based
on your experience.  I just wonder if my stuffed head (which occurs when I
lie down to sleep) would be improved by use of an electrostatic cleaner. 
Jerry is optimistic about that, but I hate throwing out money.

Our's came with the house when we bought it in 1982 so I don't know when
it was installed. While the mass of material it collects is small each
season, the stuff is very dark and makes the water I wash it in opaque.  I
think it is only collecting the very finest material that is therefore
held very close to the plates and less easily blown off to be
redistributed.  The unit does have a metal-wool filter in front of it to
collect large dust globs, mice, etc. We think we see no evident reduction
in the kind of dust that one sees on furniture that can be wiped off. It
may be that it is reducing pollen or fine dust-mite fragments, but there
isn't any pollen in the winter when we use it most (and our
air-conditioning periods are never more than one or two weeks in the
summer). However since it does collect *something*, I guess we'll leave it
installed. 

("Our's"???)

It is important to set all the dampers correctly.  In one student house I
lived in, I made the heating much more effective by tweaking all the dampers
(and reinstalling the ones that had been removed) so that bedrooms on the
outside got more air, while the inner rooms got less.  Saved some money by
getting the space heaters turned off when the furnace could be more effective.

Audrey, could you be allergic to feather pillows?  Or even dust mites in your
mattress?  Try a plastic mattress cover, polyester pillows.  Or maybe the dry
air bothers you in winter?  

Sorry - just "ours". My ear wanted a possessive (which it is) so my fingers
slipped in a '. 

Electrostatic air cleaners are no good for removing large (dust sized)
particles.  They are most effective at removing the stuff that gets
through a normal mechanical filter, like Ragweed pollen, smoke, dust
mite dirt, etc.  Every electrostatic filter should be augmented by a
good mechanical filter!
 
Whoever installed the heating system in my parents house goofed with
this too and there was no mechanical filter prior to the electrostatic
unit.  No wonder the fins in the centrifugal blower were always
collecting dust and dirt!  They did it properly in their new furnace.

Sindi, I don't have feather pillows.  All my pillows are antiallergenic.  They
are also all covered with anti mite pillow covers (whether or not they work
is another story. . .)  Dryness is troublesome, that's why we are having a
good humidifier installed with the furnace.  I will talk to Bronson about the
addition of a mechanical filter with the electrostatic filter.  

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