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Tuckers Air Conditioning, Heating & Plumbing Blog

When Spring Comes, It’s Time to Grade Your Heater’s Performance

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When the weather starts to turn in spring, most people would like to forget about their heating systems entirely and as soon as possible. Heaters will still need to run at times during the mercurial swings throughout spring, but people will still want to forget about them.

However, we recommend giving your heating system some serious thought right at the edge of its working season—especially if you have a heater that is more than 10 years old. You might need to have repairs done before the heater shuts down for the year. Or you might need to schedule a replacement. It’s important to know when to call on a heating company in Frederick, MD to arrange to have a new heating system installed. Doing this job during the spring or summer is good planning, and you won’t have to worry about going a day or so without a heater.

Grading Your Heater Helps Focus on What You Need to Do

We advise you to go through a thought exercise to get a better idea about what you may need to have done with your heating system. You can do this for a heater that’s less than 10 years old, but it’s extremely important to do it for a heater that’s older than that. The average lifespan of heating systems is from 10 to 20 years and varies based on the system type.

The exercise is simple. Giving a grade to your heater’s performance over the winter. You can do an “A to F” or maybe a “star system” or whatever metric you want. We’re going to break it down into good, not-so-good, bad, and worst.

Good

The heater ran as expected. No repair needs, no cold spots around the house, no unusual noises from it. Your heating bills are the same as before. And you remembered to have the heater maintained in fall. You probably don’t need to take any action for this heater (except for fall maintenance). Although if the heater is more than 15 years old, you still may wish to consider a replacement if there is a new model with much better efficiency that you would like to switch to.

Not-So-Good

You had a few troubles with your heater. It needed a small repair, it hasn’t kept the home as warm as usual, it’s making more noise. You have some worries. The problem may require more repairs, although having a technician inspect it can give you a better idea of what’s happening.

Bad

“Bad” can mean broadly a swath of problems, from a heater shutting down entirely to a heater that takes twice as long to get the house properly warm—and spending much more to do so. It’s likely you need to have a new heating system, and repairs will probably be more expensive than are worth it.

Worst

You know your heater is in bad shape and needs to be replaced. Schedule it as soon as possible, since a heater that’s in this stage can be potentially hazardous.

You can trust our technicians to handle whatever work you need. We pledge to exceed expectations at every turn.

Tuckers Air Conditioning, Heating & Plumbing serves Washington D.C., Montgomery, and Frederick Counties. Reach out to us for any heating service you need.

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