Tips to Safely Heat Your Home This Winter
Each year over 20,000 people visit the emergency room due to carbon monoxide poisoning. This odorless and colorless gas is known as the silent killer because it’s essentially undetectable without a carbon monoxide detector.
Carbon monoxide, as specified by the CDC, is given off by gas ranges, furnaces, fireplaces, stoves, and boilers so it only makes sense that carbon monoxide poisoning increases during the colder months when people are trying to warm their homes. To help keep your home safe, Service Experts Heating, Air Conditioning & Plumbing is here with a few tips to safety keep your home heated.
- Put in a CO detector on all floors of your home and swap out the batteries annually.
- Keep all potential sources of combustion, such as paper, clothing, bedding, or rugs, a distance over three feet away from furnaces, space heaters, fire places, or stoves.
- Before igniting a fire in the fireplace, make sure you check to ensure the chimney damper is open and unclogged.
- Don’t leave portable heaters or fireplaces alone. Power off space heaters and ensure all embers in the fireplace are completely extinguished before leaving either heating source unattended.
- Space heaters should always be positioned on the floor, and on a hard, fire-resistant surface, like concrete or tile. Keep young ones and furbabies away from space heaters.
- When buying a new space heater, buy a model that turns off automatically if the heater tips over.
- Do not use a cooking range to heat your home.
- Have wood and coal stoves, fireplaces, chimneys and gas or oil furnaces professionally inspected and cleaned every year.
The ideal thing you can do for your heating equipment is to ensure it’s not only ready to keep you warm all winter but also safe, is to schedule your furnace tune-up. During your fall tune-up, Service Experts Heating, Air Conditioning & Plumbing will check to ensure your heating system is operating safely with a full multi-point inspection and cleaning. Call 866-397-3787 today and learn how you can save on a fall tune-up through November 25th.