Here Comes the Cold Again
A chill is in the air, the leaves have turned colours and fallen off the trees, and our furnaces are starting to come on regularly. Living in Alberta, we need our furnaces to keep us warm every winter, but furnaces do produce small amounts of carbon monoxide as they work, which is normally vented to the outside.
If something goes wrong with your furnace or venting system, your furnace can create fatal levels of carbon monoxide in your home; this is why you need regular maintenance on your furnace and a carbon monoxide detector.
As noted by the World Health Organization, “Carbon monoxide exposure is still one of the leading causes of unintentional and suicidal poisonings, and it causes a large number of deaths annually both in Europe and in the United States.”
Two-Fold Approach to Furnace Safety
Your best approach to keeping your family safe is two-fold:
- have your furnace serviced regularly, and
- have a working carbon monoxide detector in your house.
Over and above that, here are eight furnace warning signs, from Home Energy Center.
To make things even easier, 4 Seasons Home Comfort can schedule you for regular preventative maintenance visits, and you can get a Nest Protect Smoke Alarm/Carbon Monoxide detector.
Stay On Top of Your Furnace!
A furnace is like your car—it needs regular maintenance to keep on running smoothly, especially when you need it. The “set it and forget it” model for furnaces is not a great idea, for something that heats your house in the coldest days of winter, and can do some serious damage if ignored.
Nest Protect Smoke Alarm/Carbon Monoxide Detector—Kind of Awesome
The Nest Protect Smoke Alarm/Carbon Monoxide detector tests its sensors and batteries (quietly) multiple times every day. It can differentiate between the steam from a shower and the smoke from a fire, can sense fast-burning and slow-burning fires, and can message you when its batteries are running low, or when there is an actual alarm. You can also shut off the alarms remotely with your phone.
Here’s a quick video giving more explanation of the Nest Protect system:
Maintaining your furnace and having a smart fire alarm/C0 detector go hand-in-hand. Contact 4 Seasons Home Comfort to discuss your furnace maintenance and carbon monoxide detector needs or visit our showroom at 3620 9th Ave North.
