Furnace and Carbon Monoxide Detectors

How often should you have your furnace maintained and your Carbon Monoxide replaced? Never???

Furnace contractor talks about how a difference between spending a few dollars on a carbon monoxide detector and furnace maintenance, or by saying “my furnace works fine, I don’t need it maintained” made a difference between life and death. The answer to the first question is Annually for your furnace or boiler and every 3 years for carbon monoxide detectors.

Two days in a row I headed out on no heat service calls to find a close encounter with possible death! The first call on Lakewood near Belmont was concerns of an odor coming from the furnace. During this initial phone call to us, the homeowner said there was an odor coming from her furnace. The pertinent questions were asked by us; it was to my surprise that the home owner in 8 years of owning this new home never had the furnace maintained.

So I go to this home on Lakewood Street to find the heat exchanger of the furnace had collapsed, the blower was burning out and the inducer motor was clogged with sulfur. I thought I have seen it all, but all these symptoms at one time was baffling. Never the less while at the home, my helper and I gotten bad headaches with 10 minute in this home. I had asked the home owners do they have carbon monoxide detectors? she said yes, we just put batteries in them yesterday, guess what? they put new batteries in non-working CO detectors. You may giggle at that or shake your head, but is your CO Detector working?

We explained the problem to the homeowner and disabled the furnace due to safety issues. We as a licensed HVAC contractor have the right to disable any furnace which is deemed unsafe. Regardless if it’s cold outside, your life is more important.  You would be surprised how angry homeowners can get when we disable their furnace or boiler due to health and safety reasons. The homeowners on Lakewood were lucky and the very next morning we installed a new furnace for them. Another save for us!

The next call we went on was basically the same issue, no carbon monoxide detectors or no recollection from the homeowner when their furnace was maintained or repaired. Furnace maintenance is important, working carbon monoxide detectors are even more important. They too needed a new furnace due to a cracked heat exchanger and spilling carbon monoxide.  I think I got my point across, we see the value of furnace maintenance and having a working carbon monoxide detector, why don’t you?