When your Maertin Heating & Cooling professional technician stops by to perform your bi-annual maintenance check, they may replace a belt, tighten or replace wiring or install a new pilot assembly. Many of these minor repairs are covered by your maintenance agreement and are meant to keep your furnace in top condition, creating heat reliably and safely for your family.
However, if your technician notices signs that your heat exchanger is cracking or pitting, the conversation will become more serious.
Why is the condition of your heat exchanger such a big deal? The heat exchanger is the heart of your furnace; if it goes, your furnace is no longer safe to operate.
Your HVAC system works by moving heat from one place to another, which your heat exchanger does by, well, exchanging heat from one place to another. Sounds simple, right?
Heat exchangers work by taking one fluid and running it around another fluid to move heat from one to the other without either fluid mixing. Our furnace’s heat exchanger is important because a properly functioning heat exchanger maximizes unit efficiency and air quality.
Furnaces work by heating air, but we don’t want to directly heat the air that actually circulates around your home. Modern gas furnaces are efficient, but there is still residual exhaust that can build up in your home. If a furnace burned gas to heat air and then pushed that air through the home, you’d end up with deadly, odorless carbon monoxide circulating throughout your home.
Your heat exchanger solves this problem by running the directly heated air through a series of pipes. Adjacent to those hot air pipes are tubes cycling the air from within your home. The hot air heats up the cool air and avoids sending toxic fumes throughout your home. Modern, high-efficiency heating units will reroute the exhaust one more time, burning as much excess gas as possible to create as much usable heat as possible. Once the internal heated air has been cycled through the heat exchanger, the now cooler exhaust is vented outside the home.
Here at Maertin, we recommend spring and fall maintenance tune-ups for your HVAC system to stay in warranty and make your investment last as long as possible. Unfortunately, heat exchangers do wear out over time. The components undergo extreme temperature changes during use cycles, which can cause pitting and cracking. Furnaces also tend to be located in humid basements, where corrosion becomes a concern.
Experts suggest a good heat exchanger can last 15 to 20 years. Given that the heat exchanger exists to keep the dirty air of your furnace’s heating chamber from getting into your lungs, a cracked or broken heat exchanger presents serious health risks to everyone in the home. When your unit is more than 10 years old, we strongly and resolutely urge bi-annual maintenance check-ups to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning.
When you are in between maintenance check-ups and you’ve got an aging furnace, look for signs of danger. Unusual smells are often the first sign something is amiss. You might also notice soot or rust build up, or water pooling. All of these are signs of a furnace out of tune. You can also look at the flame. Furnace burners should burn blue and steady, with no flickering or yellow flashes.
Install carbon monoxide detectors and seek professional assistance if your alarms go off or you experience headaches or nausea while the furnace runs.
If your technician gives you the very sad news that your heat exchanger is cracked or broken, you’ll face a difficult decision about repairs. While heat exchangers can be replaced, they tend to cost around 60% of the cost of a full furnace replacement and replacing the exchanger requires disassembling the furnace, which is labor intensive. A broken heat exchanger nearly always means your furnace itself is old and replacing your old furnace with a new, more energy-efficient furnace or heat pump will save you money on your energy bills and help reverse climate change, while protecting your family’s health.
Questions about your furnace? Ready for a maintenance agreement to keep your furnace in the best condition possible, saving money and keeping your family safe? Just click here or call 708-479-9350 for an appointment.
