Any mindful homeowner is going to be committed to ensuring that their furnace is consistently in good shape. The last thing you want to find yourself dealing with is a frigid home in the middle of a harshly cold winter, with no means to properly heat your household because your furnace has decided to go on winter vacation.

So, you should take note of some of these helpful ways that you might go about maintaining your furnace and ultimately not having to deal with an entirely unnecessary, unheated home during the cold winter months. Let’s dive on in.

1. Schedule yearly furnace inspections.

There’s only so much that you can catch with your eyes when you go to assess the state of your furnace. Oftentimes it takes the professionally trained set of eyes from an HVAC technician to properly inspect whether or not your furnace is in good health. So, it’s strongly advised for you to get on top of scheduling at least a yearly furnace inspection. After all, you want to ensure your furnace is in good shape. And not only that, but with routine maintenance, you’ll save money by elongating the lifespan of your furnace. Nothing wrong with saving some funds in the grand scheme of things.

2. Regularly clean and then replace your furnace filters.

Your furnace filter plays an invaluable role in making sure that your home doesn’t sink under the weight of a ton of pollen, dust mites, debris, etc. But with all this hard work from your furnace’s air filters comes the inevitable need for a proper cleaning every 1-3 months. If the airflow in your furnace ends up being obstructed by all that dust and debris, then your furnace won’t be able to operate at its intended efficiency level. And when you need to replace your furnace’s air filters, make sure to look at the manufacturer’s instructions or even contact an HVAC technician. It’s remarkable what proper maintenance like cleaning out your furnace’s air filters can accomplish healthy indoor air quality in the long run.

3. Check in on your furnace’s blower motor.

Your furnace’s blower motor has a whole lot of working parts. The blower motor is in charge of propelling the fan that then provides airflow for the actual furnace. On top of supplying air for the actual furnace, the majority of blower motors are also responsible for providing the air for your home’s air conditioning unit as well.

If you hear any noises like high-pitched or humming sounds, then your best bet is to get an HVAC technician in there to assess the problem as soon as possible. The strange noises could mean that you have a couple of metal surfaces grinding against one another in the blower motor or that the blower wheel came loose from the actual blower motor’s shaft and that it’s scratching the internal housing.

4. Make sure no flammable objects are surrounding your furnace.

This might seem like total common sense, but there are plenty of folks out there that end up putting various pieces of furniture or other miscellaneous objects within the general area of their furnaces. This is a huge no-no. If you end up leaving most anything for an extended period of time around a furnace, you’re just playing with fire at that point.

We’ve covered four crucial ways you can go about effectively maintaining your furnace. The great news is that it’s really not so hard to care for your furnace properly. And as soon as you welcome these furnace maintenance strategies into your life, you’re only setting your future self up for not having to worry about spending unnecessary money on issues that could’ve been avoided in the first place.