How Often Should Your HVAC Unit Undergo a Professional Maintenance Check
Having your HVAC system checked twice a year – once before summer and once before winter – is the best way to avoid heating and cooling disruptions, expensive repairs and untimely HVAC replacements. Regularly scheduled maintenance can also help your system run more efficiently all year long, saving you money in the long run.
Fewer Breakdowns
Emergency HVAC service is annoying in several ways. Breakdowns in your cooling system are at best uncomfortable and at worst dangerous. When the temperatures reach the 90s or triple digits, the loss of cooling can pose a serious health risk, especially to people with pre-existing conditions and older adults.
The loss of heating during severe cold temperatures can also pose health risks and lead people to do sometimes dangerous things to stay warm. The Consumer Product Safety Commissions estimates that about 25,000 home fires are caused by space heaters every year, resulting in an average 300 deaths per year. Properly functioning heating systems that don’t require your family to depend on space heaters for comfort is always ideal.
Your Family’s Safety
Gas leaks are another risk for families with gas-powered furnaces. The potential for gas leaks or gas-related fires and explosions is one of the reasons it’s so important to have your furnace regularly checked and maintained at least once a year.
CO poisoning from heating systems is the cause of death for dozens of people in the United States each year. Although these accidental deaths are relatively rare, they can almost always be avoided through maintenance and having working carbon monoxide detectors in your home.
Your home’s air conditioning likely doesn’t pose the same type of health risk a gas-powered furnace might, but there are still significant risks related to indoor air quality (IAQ). The air your family breathes has a significant impact on their overall health and wellbeing. People with asthma, allergies or other breathing issues can suffer significant negative effects from breathing in polluted indoor air day-in and day-out.
Having a knowledgeable and trained HVAC contractor experienced with installing and maintaining all types of IAQ equipment check your system regularly is the best way to ensure your indoor air remains safe and healthy.
Save Money
The claim that HVAC maintenance can save you money isn’t just a convenient sales pitch. Studies have shown that effective HVAC maintenance can reduce energy consumption rates by five to 40 percent depending on the age and quality of the system and any problems that are caught and fixed.
There’s no guarantee that you’ll see your energy bills drop after your routine maintenance check, but they might, especially if your HVAC contractor spots a problem that’s directly impacting your unit’s efficiency and performance.
The only way to find out if you could be saving money each month on your energy costs is by scheduling a maintenance visit or receiving a system replacement estimate. Skilled HVAC contractors, like those at Vito Services, should understand the ins and outs of all brands and models of air conditioners, furnaces and heat pumps. They should also be well versed in the science of system design. They can determine whether your system is over- or under-powered and find leaks in your home that are compromising your unit’s heating and cooling performance.
Avoid Costly Replacement
When certain components in an HVAC system break or stop functioning the way they’re supposed to, your system might fail prematurely. Poor ventilation, overheating compressors, excessively low suction pressure or high head pressure, lubrication problems or electrical break downs are all problems that can lead to catastrophic breakdowns in the long run.
HVAC maintenance professionals check for those problems and can fix them or bring them to your attention so you can decide how to proceed.
In the vast majority of cases, getting a single component fixed early is far cheaper than waiting for the whole HVAC system to suffer a breakdown.
And, depending on your unit and the warranty you have, the manufacturer may pay for some of those repairs. However, some system warranties require homeowners get regularly scheduled maintenance. Failing to follow the manufacturer’s recommendations for maintenance can potentially void your warranties and leave you paying for premature breakdowns out of pocket.
Get HVAC Maintenance from the Washington DC Professionals at Vito Services
The highly trained and licensed professionals at Vito Services know home and commercial HVAC and plumbing systems inside and out. We care about every DMV-area customer’s comfort and understand how important it is to be honest and save you money.
Doing right by our customers is important for everyone on our team, and we know that our reputation is on the line for each maintenance, repair and installation job we perform. We’ll always do thorough work, find problems and be transparent about your repair or replacement options.
Call our team at 1-800-GET-VITO (800-438-8486) or sign up for our Vito VIP Club and get heating and cooling maintenance checks at no extra cost.