Fall Maintenance | HVAC Tips

Hey, what's up everyone? Welcome to this month's live Q&A, uh, and I want to cover our RightQuake fall maintenance. It's very important because it's been a long, hot, humid summer. Uh, your unit, your system, your AC unit has run a marathon. It's run a marathon. It's kind of like, uh If you started in North Carolina and drove all the way to California, your vehicle would need a wash, a clean, a tune-up, a check. Same kind of thing because it is running marathon. It has— you have mowed the grass, you've got grass clippings on the outside of the coil. All this is cleaned. Tuned up and restored back to factory-fresh condition. And the only way to do that is with maintenance. Um, we have an 84-point checkup we go through with our club members, and we change the filter. Now, we offer that same service minus the filter for customers in the fall called the Happy Heat restoration. Uh, it's normally $239 plus tax, and we do 84-point checks, clean the outside coil, and check the gas pressure, and check all the parts to make sure you're good to go for the fall and winter season start. Because even though it's warmer, uh, you have the warm days and the cool nights, and And you don't want to be caught off guard. You don't want to be caught off guard with you wanting to turn your heat on. So a few of the things we check— got kind of a top 10 list. First of all, for fall maintenance, you need to check your thermostat settings. Again, it's been a long, hot summer, so you want to make sure that thermostat is on auto or if you want heat on heat and not on cool. So check your thermostat settings to make sure that is good to go. Otherwise, you're gonna have a challenge when you go to start the heat and not have heat, and it's all because the setting is wrong. So make sure it's set properly, set correctly. Also, when you get a fault maintenance, you want to check the electrical connections. Again, it's been running a marathon all summer long. Things move, things happen, connections get loose, uh, so you want to make sure those connections are back tight and back where they should belong so you don't have a challenge. Number 3, lubricate any moving parts. Now this is very small these days because the newer motors are sealed and you can't like oil them and make sure they're good to go like that. But again, something important, if it is to the point where you can lubricate something, you want to get that done and make sure it happens. Uh, number 4, clear the condensate drain. Uh, a lot of challenges we had this summer, uh, especially with humidity around here, is we drain a lot of water. We basically, in the summertime, uh, the system has to dehumidify and it has to cool down the home. Uh, so it's basically having to wring out the moisture from the air. So the byproduct of that is obviously water. So if you're draining properly, that water will go outside. But if something is a little bit off, you can have a drain problem. So make sure that condensate line is clear, especially before you start heating season. You want to make sure any water that happens in the system is going outside, outside of that unit, not under house, not in the attic, not in the unit. You want it going outside to the end. You want to start— you want to check start and shut off the controls, you want to run a few cycles to make sure you don't have any challenges. Um, it's kind of, uh, you know, it's kind of different when you switch from AC to heat. Uh, so you want to make sure you're good through the cycles and make sure you don't have any challenges on that aspect. Also, you want to check the gas, uh, if you have a gas system, a gas pack, gas furnace, you want to check the gas, make sure you have gas, because when it comes time to heat, you're going to use gas and you need gas in the tank, you need gas available. So if you have propane and, and you kind of coasted through to springtime and then turn the AC on, well, now it's going to be time to turn the heat back on. So make sure that gas is filled up and it's correct. Because on top of that, you're going to check gas pressure. So once that tank is filled up, you need to bleed the lines, get all the air out, get the gas flowing, but then adjust the gas pressure. And this is something we do on our checks for our restoration or for our club members, is checking the gas pressure, because Even if you didn't run out of gas or disconnect the gas, you still want to make sure you're firing at the right pressures because things can change. Uh, you want to be a nice blue flame of heat for the system, not any yellow, not any, uh, anything that shouldn't be going on. A yellow-red flame is, is not good. That means it's got too much air, too much going on there. It needs to be a nice blue, clean blue flame coming from that system. And that's something important too when you refill on that propane tank, you're gonna bleed the lines to make sure everything is out there and it's full of gas, but then you wanna make sure it's burning it properly. And also, when it burns properly, part of that is checking the burner, the burners itself. With some gas units, the burners are actually side by side, so you want to make sure those are lined up. And over the summer, over the spring, over the summer, no spiders or cobwebs or something in there blocking that from actually making that connection. To where that flame can go all the way through. It's kind of like, uh, if you think about a grill, um, usually when you start it, it has that one, one section you start, and then it kind of slides the rest of it and turns it on. Well, same way, same kind of thing with the unit. Uh, it's gonna work all the way down to fire all those burners off. You don't want anything to be in the way. Anything disrupting it, like dirt, cobwebs, any kind of misalignment, which could happen over the spring, over the summer. You want to check that to make sure you're good to go. You also want to check the heat exchanger. This is where the actual fire goes and the air comes across it to heat it up. And then get into the home. You want to make sure that the sealed heat exchanger— you don't want any of those fumes and that gas getting into the airstream and then coming into the house. That is a major problem. Carbon monoxide is a byproduct. It's very hazardous to your health. People pass away every year from carbon monoxide poisoning. Something you can't see, something you can't smell, uh, it's odorless. Anytime you have a gas appliance in the house, you need a carbon monoxide alarm as well because you can't see it, you can't smell it, you don't know what's happening. And usually what happens is when you go to sleep, that's the problem because you're not awake, you're not, being affected by it. You're in a sleep, and that is when it can strike. So that's something very important. Check the heat exchanger. Make sure you have a carbon monoxide alarm because it's very important to your health, to the safety of your family, to make sure you're being alerted when that carbon monoxide alarm goes off. It's going to go off before it becomes a serious problem. Any carbon monoxide is a problem in the home, uh, but it's going to start going off before it is a major problem. So it measures parts per million. It's going to go off at a relatively low number in the 30s probably before it becomes a problem, a health challenge for you or your family. And last but not least, I say it a lot, uh, you probably have heard me say it a lot: check and change your air filter. Something very important for your system. Energy Star says it's the most important thing you can do for your system is check and change your air filter. Again, spring, summer, your unit has been running a marathon. Your unit has been running a marathon. You don't want to, you don't want to start breathing out of a straw. You want to breathe nice, clean, fresh air. So change that filter, check that filter to make sure it's not going to be a problem. If you have any questions about fall maintenance, please feel free to reach out or DM me on Instagram @derekmcoll. But right now I would love to open up to any questions