If you fire up your heater on a cold winter’s day, you expect it to deliver hot air right on schedule. But if you have a forced-air furnace and the air flow is suddenly low, that hot air isn’t going to get there as fast as you might like. That may sound like a minor problem: something worth noting perhaps, but nothing compared to, say, cool air blowing out of your vents instead. In point of fact, however, low air flow often indicates a serious issue, and if you don’t take steps to address it promptly, it can cost you a lot of money. A good HVAC service here in Portland, OR, can help you, but you need to understand the severity of the issue before you can do that.
Why It’s a Problem
If the air isn’t moving through your vents, it means your home isn’t being warmed as quickly as it should be. Your heater will thus run longer and consume more fuel, raising monthly rates accordingly. Furthermore, by having to work harder and increasing the strain on its system, the heater runs a greater risk of a more serious breakdown in the future. This is increased even more by the fact that the hot air it’s generating is just sitting in the furnace itself instead of getting blown into your home. As a result, other components will start to overheat, and while most furnaces have a safety feature to shut the system down before any permanent damage occurs, that still leaves you with a non-functioning – or at best short-cycling – furnace that needs to have the problem corrected before it can run.
Never attempt to fix a faulty furnace yourself. If you detect low air flow in your system, shut it off and call in a professional service. The experts at Clean Air Act have the experience to fix the problem the right way, so call us today!