Homeowners are usually aware that it is dangerous to tamper with any natural gas-powered appliance in their home. In fact, in most jurisdictions the law forbids anyone except a licensed professional from working on any device connected to a gas main. The risk of carbon monoxide poisoning and explosions is too high to risk amateur repair attempts.
This means that repairs for a gas furnace are strictly off-limits to non-professionals. But what if your home doesn’t use natural gas and your heat comes from an electric furnace? There are plenty of do-it-yourself guides online for electric furnace repairs, and at first glance the job may seem like something you could troubleshoot on your own.
However, you should not attempt to repair your home’s electric furnace without professional assistance. The risk of injury is not as great as with a gas furnace (although it still exists) but the complexity of modern heating systems makes it unlikely you can fix the problem without training and the right tools. In many cases, you might make the problem worse. Take the easier path toward heating repair in Morton Grove, IL: call Shavitz Heating and Air Conditioning and let us handle the malfunctioning furnace. We have more than a century of experience repairing heaters throughout Chicagoland.
One of the major issues you can encounter if you try to DIY your electric furnace is damage to its efficiency. Electric furnaces cost more to run than gas furnaces because electricity is a more expensive fuel source. It is therefore crucial that you maintain your electric furnace’s efficient performance so it will not lose heat from poor ducts, straining blower fans, or bad insulation. Tampering with the system without familiarity with what you are doing could cause your heating bills to skyrocket. Leave the repair work to people with the training to maximize efficiency: what you pay for the repairs you will soon earn back with energy savings.
A badly repaired electric furnace can turn into a problem for your home’s entire electrical system. A furnace draws a large amount of voltage to run, and if it suffers from haphazard attempts to fix its wiring, it can result in a system that causes circuit breakers to trip each time the heater comes on.
One of the most common problems that causes electric furnaces to lose heating power or completely fail are broken heating elements, which are responsible for warming up the air with electrical resistance heating. Only people familiar with furnace repairs can successful replace heating elements.
The next time your electric furnace starts to malfunction, don’t waste time and money tinkering with it. When you call to schedule an appointment with Shavitz Heating and Air Conditioning for heating repair in Morton Grove, IL, we will take care of the problems fast and see that your furnace works in top condition and keeps your bills from rising.