With December now upon us, you’re likely looking forward to a break from school or work and traveling to see friends and family for the holidays. If you’re going to be gone for a few days or longer, it’s important to have your furnace checked so you can feel confident that it will run how and when it should while you’re gone. If, for some reason, it shuts off and doesn’t come back on during an extremely cold night, you could come home to a host of problems, including frozen pipes and very cold rooms. Shutting down the system entirely isn’t usually a good idea, since it can overtax your heating system once you arrive home and turn it back on to heat up the house. At G & R Heating and Air in St. Charles, we can provide furnace repair and maintenance to give you peace of mind before you hit the road.
What Should You Set the Thermostat To?
If you have a programmable or learning thermostat, it should be fairly easy to adjust the settings for when you’re gone, and there may even be a “Home” and “Away” setting you can control. If your furnace is scheduled to run three to four times a day, you can likely adjust that to one to two times a day. If you have pets that you’re leaving at home, you may not want to interrupt the furnace’s frequency, but you can set the temperature a few degrees lower than normal (no one wants to come home to a chilly pup!) Depending on the type of furnace you have, we can recommend the best temperature to set it at while you’re away. Most gas furnaces can be set lower than other models, since they usually require less energy to adequately heat your home.
Make Sure Curtains are Closed and Vents are Open
We covered this in our previous blog, but if you want to retain heat and ensure proper airflow inside your home while you’re gone, it’s important to make sure nothing is covering your vents and returns. Also, by closing your curtains, you can prevent some of that warm air escaping through drafty windows (and keep the cold air outside). If there are gaps under some of your doors, consider placing a draft blocker under each one. These are fairly inexpensive and can be found at your local hardware or home goods store.
Before you leave for the holidays, take the time to have your furnace inspected and, if necessary, repaired. You want to know that when you come back from your celebrations that your home will warm and comfortable, and you won’t have to worry about a thing. If you’re only going to be gone for a day or two, you may not need to adjust the thermostat, but if you plan to be away for a week or more, it’s best to set the temperature a bit lower.
When you need service or you want to update your thermostat to better control the temperature inside your home during the winter, G & R is here to help. Give us a call today!