Furnace Maintenance in Oak Park Heights, MN
Whether you’re in need of a simple repair job like replacing a faulty thermostat or you’re dealing with something more serious like yellow or flickering flames, our team of HVAC technicians here at Hurlburt are proud to be performing furnace maintenance services throughout the Oak Park Heights region – we know exactly how to stop basic, seemingly innocuous problems from developing into ones that cause health risks and other damage.
It’s fairly likely that you’re only going to need a couple of basic tweaks to get your furnace back in top condition, but if our HVAC experts to discover something more precarious, we’ll be able to stop it from exacerbating – contact our team today to schedule a maintenance checkup and get the ball rolling.
Why Maintaining Your Furnace Is So Important
During January in Oak Park Heights, it can get as cold as 5°F, so while there’s obviously never a time when you’d want your furnace to stop working as it should be, any issues that crop up during the winter can naturally be far more problematic – especially with temperatures this freezing when you’ve got no other heating system in your home.
With that said, our furnace repair team should be able to fix all those common issues you can have with your furnace system, cleaning your ductwork so the airflow isn’t as restricted anymore, for example, very easily.
What’s not such an easy repair job, however, is something like a yellow or flickering flame. Of course, we’ll still be able to fix this for you fairly quickly, but the difference between those two issues is that any flame that isn’t blue is usually indicative of a corroded heat exchanger. This means there’s likely a carbon monoxide leak – most likely caused by the excessively high humidity you experience throughout summer in combination with your proximity to the St. Croix River (especially if you live in the area around Point Road)
As a result, you won’t only notice that your furnace is running inefficiently and not providing sufficient heating to your house, but you’ve now got a much more serious risk of carbon monoxide poisoning or even a fatal outcome.
When Should I Get Furnace Maintenance?
So, if you have been noticing any issues with your furnace like a flame that is either flickering or just isn’t the standard blue color, it’s imperative that you’re scheduling our furnace maintenance services to prevent this kind of issue from escalating into something far more problematic (and potentially deadly).
Even aside from issues with your heat exchanger, though – which, again, are fairly common throughout homes in Oak Park Heights because of the weather and proximity to the St. Croix River – we’d generally suggest that you still schedule one of our maintenance check-ups at least twice a year so you aren’t running into any sorts of problems throughout winter.
Summer and fall are generally the best times to schedule these as it’s not too cold at this point yet – at the very least, we’d suggest a check-up right before December so you’re not entering winter with any existing issues.
Common Issues with Furnaces in Oak Park Heights, MN
Oak Park Heights and the nearby town of Bayport are genuinely some of the most pretty places to live in Minnesota, but for all its beauty, all that vegetation and climate fluctuating certainly causes plenty of issues for your furnace – these are some of the primary issues our HVAC technicians report while they’re servicing homes throughout the Oak Park Heights region:
- Humidity from The Rivers and Lakes: Oak Park Heights is located right next to the St. Croix River, so this – combined with Perro Pond – can generally cause much higher humidity levels than if you were to live in more urban parts of Minnesota like Minneapolis. This can be uncomfortable to live with during the summer, but once the temperatures have cooled down and you go to use your furnace, you might notice you’ve got a yellow or flickering flame.
All that excess humidity causes big issues for your furnaces heat exchanger and can ultimately corrode it which is why you’re seeing that flame. Aside from impacting how effective your furnace will now be in heating your home up, a corroded heat exchanger poses a huge threat of carbon monoxide poisoning – which, as mentioned, can sometimes prove to be fatal.
- Roadside Pollution: Since Highway 95 and Highway 36 run straight through Oak Park Heights, there’s usually quite a lot of traffic related pollution that can sometimes have an impact on the air quality outside.
Obviously, this is uncomfortable to be in while you’re outside, but if it isn’t filtered properly and infiltrates your home, it’ll affect the overall cleanliness of your furnace – ultimately making your furnace run far less efficiently than what would be ideal for those 5°F winters.
- Pollen and Allergen Build-Ups: From Brekke Park to Valley View Park – even the Bayport Wildlife Management Area – the pollen and allergen levels get particularly high throughout Oak Park Heights during the summer, and this is something that’s going to clog up your furnace’s air filters quite badly if it’s not thoroughly cleaned every so often.
As a result, this can cause your furnace to operate way less efficiently than it should be, so not only are you going to be colder while it’s on but you’re probably going to consume more energy by leaving it on longer than it needs to be.
Don’t Let Issues with Your Furnace Escalate
While the temperatures are still a scorching 86°F during the summer months in Oak Park Heights, you’re obviously not even going to be thinking about using your furnace during this time (again, even when it’s not in use, the climate and local surroundings can still contribute damage towards your furnace).
As such, this makes it the ideal time to be scheduling our furnace maintenance services as you’ll be able to ensure you won’t discover any sorts of issues when you fire up your furnace during winter when you’re needing it most.
Having said this, we’re aware that not everyone’s going to have the time, funds, or foresight to schedule our maintenance services in an off-peak time and your furnace now requires emergency repairs in the middle of winter. If that’s something you can relate to, you’ll be happy to know that we also provide 24/7 emergency furnace repairs, so whether you were late to make repairs or you scheduled our maintenance services early on, you certainly won’t be freezing in your own home this winter.
With this in mind, it’s been fairly common for our HVAC technicians in Oak Park Heights to report that some customers may have too many problems with their furnace to repair affordably. If that’s the case with your home when we service it, we usually recommend that you opt for furnace installation services instead, as it’s likely the most cost effective option for anyone with an aging furnace (usually between 15 and 20 years old).
Of course, we can definitely continue providing repairs to your furnace and can fix any sort of issue you’ve got, but it’s not always in your best interest to do this as it can get fairly expensive if we’re noticing lots of different problems – especially if your furnace is older and the wear and tear of it has set in.
Ultimately, whether you’re looking to make repairs, require maintenance, or just want to install a new furnace altogether, we’ll be able to do it quickly and affordably – get in touch with our team of HVAC experts now by calling 651-571-8513.
