How to Winterize Your HVAC System

Check all your system’s air filters and clean them out. If they haven’t been replaced in at least a few months, replace them with new filters. Why should you pay this much attention to your air filters? Because dirty filters can lower your facility’s indoor air quality and increase your energy costs. Check and clean your air filters at least 3 to 4 times per year to keep them in good working order, including right before winter begins.

Regular preventative maintenance will reduce the number of major problems your commercial HVAC system experiences, and it will make your system more energy efficient. During this kind of maintenance visit, a technician will test the major aspects of your heating and cooling system to make sure it will run properly well into the winter months. HVAC emergencies often occur during extremely cold or extremely hot weather, so it’s best to have an HVAC winter tune-up performed before severely cold weather settles in.

A winter preventative maintenance visit should include:

• Checking for cracks, holes, and leaks in the heating system
• Checking for debris and blockages in blowers and hoses
• Making sure the heat exchangers don’t leak carbon monoxide
• Cleaning the boiler tubes
• Calibrating the thermostat and the water pressure gauge

Having your air conditioners and furnaces tuned up will help your system run well throughout the winter, so the furnace will produce warm air no matter how much the temperatures drop outside.

Make sure your programmable thermostat operates properly and determine what its most energy efficient settings are. A technician can repair and calibrate your thermostat during the preventative maintenance visit if necessary. After you determine those settings, develop a plan to use the most energy efficient settings and temperatures to heat your facility while keeping your energy bills low.