Prepare your heating system for the season

we know they're dirty from looking up through the grills that's no good listen to that struggling for air flow with a filter looking like this you are going to experience air flow issues is going to be something you're going to notice um over time ultimately and keep yourself from having heat biggest thing that you're going to notice with this obviously with h without taking care of your filter you're going to end up with dirty evaporator coils dirty blowers um a dust of your home definitely something you need to keep on a routine schedule this is the second filter on the same system both 14 by 24 filters both very very dirty so we need to definitely get that address while we're here [Music]

It's 95° outside and we're already talking about the heater? That's a crazy thing to say. The heater? It's not even wintertime yet. It's about to be. We're really close. And what happens is that people wait to call whenever it's really cold and then we can't get to you. Same problem that we have in the summertime where everybody waits till it's really hot. Don't be that person. We schedule our fall maintenances start to in August. We make phone calls trying to, you know, get people to to get out there a little bit earlier. So that way in the circumstance that it does get cold, cold snap comes early, your system is working properly and efficiently like it should because you did a fall maintenance. So proud of you. Thank you so much for answering the phone. That's silly. Anyways, have a fantastic day. We schedule fall maintenance in August so that way we can take care of you before you actually need it. So that way we're all prepared. Have a great day. Bye.

Whenever you turn your heater on for the first time, it's gonna burn that stuff off. Do not panic. This is fine. It's fine. It's just the dust. It's just a little bit of the debris that has settled on your heat exchanger or on your heat strips, depending on what you have heating your home. Whenever you turn your heater on for the first time, do not be worried if you smell the kinda like burning sensation

feels like it's not keeping up change filters that's a that's a big one or if it starts freezing up filters are rated for three months but it depends on the individual's house you know I changed mine every two months I have a dog I just found that once every two months is when it needs to be changed sometimes it needs to be once a month if your filters are getting dirty faster then you need to be changing them more

I'm in Blanchard Oklahoma giving notes for a system replacement this is the first time I've ever seen this I opened up the compartment where the furnace was at anyways uh this is what I found looks like uh a little creature is smuggling uh their dog food into the furnace compartment and my theory is that uh there's a little fresh air intake and it's just uh making its way fun times

We have had some customers try to get real creative with space heaters. You know, especially when you've got a bunch of space heaters running. Obviously, that can be a little bit more taxing on your electric bill. But too, you know, if you've got anything flammable in front of that thing, you know, it could be really dangerous. I would just you know, advise caution. Be sure you're being careful. Be sure you're being safe. The sure fire way to make sure you're not doing anything to your home that you'd be adding adding a problem to what you're already experiencing is to hey, call that local professional and get them out there to get that taken care of. >> Your pros. >> [singing] [music]

So, we're in a bathroom. Oh, no. No. That's the wrong video. Wrong. Oh, no. Whoa. Oh my gosh. That's amaz It's not amazing. It's not amazing. It's just amazing that I've never seen that before. My first thought was it was it's like they're going into Narnia. I mean, getting equipment in and out, crawling underneath the bathroom sink and getting your tools and equipment and all this stuff, that's not a viable option. The only pro that I can think of is you will always know where it is. You will never forget that. The cons are many. [Music]

The plumbers obviously we want to make sure that we're using spigot covers, make sure that we're insulating any exposed water lines. That's what they would do if we came out to winterize your house there. And then on the HVAC side is if you haven't had a heater tuneup, I would recommend doing so. Um because we've got a long stretch of cold coming in. And whenever we have, you know, we're used to air conditioners breaking in Oklahoma, heaters break far less because we don't run them nearly as often. And so with a long stretch of heat or of heating requirement coming down the pipeline, um a tuneup is imperative because if we've got, you know, all electric heat, we want to make sure that all the all the heat strips are working. Or if we've got gas heat, we want to make sure that there's no cracks in the uh in the heat exchanger cuz if there's cracks in our heat exchanger, that's actually leading to carbon monoxide being produced in our furnace, and that is not safe for anybody to breathe. So, I would say get a tuneup, have a plumber come winterize your house, and also get a carbon monoxide detector for 30 bucks. Just plug it in in a hight traffic area and at least that way if your heater doesn't get checked out, we can make sure that we're not producing carbon dioxide in the house. [singing] nose. [music]

rust in the heat exchanger is indicative of you know potential future you know cracks and future leaks that happen you know that could potentially lead to um carbon monoxide production so that's you know why it's so imperative to have your your heater checked uh annually especially if you have a gas uh you know a gas heating system or a propane heating system you if it's resistance heat uh if it's an electric uh Total Electric System you know the same is true you know we want to make sure that we're not overamping uh you know those those heating elements those things draw a bunch of energy you know and if you're tired of of jacking with uh with high energy bills during the winter uh and if you have a total Electric System you know the one there's a lot of utility rebates and two there's a lot of equipment rebates to transfer over to uh a heat pump of some sort or a dual fuel system or you know higher efficiency in general um that will really help save a lot of money for you in the winter time

Get your furnace tuneup or your heater tuneup scheduled before family comes over because guess what? When it's going to fail, it's going to be the day that you're hosting. Mima's coming to town. She's got the peanut butter pie in hand and now we don't have a warm home and nobody's happy. Mim can't eat peanut butter pie in a cold house. So, make sure you get your furnace tuned up. [singing] [music]

We've definitely had an uptick in calls lately, especially with the winter storm that passed through. A lot of them have been plumbing related, but we also have had a lot of heater calls as well, just because, you know, Oklahoma homes were not exactly built to sustain these type of cold temperatures over a really long period of time. And we have had u well over 100 hours below freezing. And so [music] that's just resulted in a lot of heaters being put through a lot of stress that they're not typically used to experiencing. >> [music]

actually wrote for someone that does heat and air work you should know many many cracks in heat exchanger units yield zero carbon monoxide in the residence if there is a carbon monoxide leak which is unlikely because metal expands when heated and the cracks often Clos that leakage goes up through the flu not back to the house you like 95% of your partners in crime we use this excuse to sell new heat and air systems by scaring the home owner I will say about this I do not take my customer safety lightly you say that well the carbon monoxide is not going to get in the house cracks can be in the heat exchanger and that's fine that's not necessarily true I'm going to go off of what manufacturers suggest and uh one of the manufacturers that we use is Linux we are a Linux dealer and on their install instructions they tell you to go off the ahr and I'm not trying to sell somebody something I want to make sure that person's safe and I think there's a lot of Engineers that are smarter than me that I'm going to go off of their recommendations not mine

Can't stress this enough. Changing the filter, cleaning your condenser coil, those two are super important for maintenance. Manufacturers of all compressors say that the thing that leads to most premature compressor failures is lack of air flow. That could be on the indoor unit or on the outdoor unit, causing the components of your system to work harder. Typical tuneup's going to include checking refrigerant pressures, checking the gas pressures, making sure that both of those are set where they need to be for your system to run the most efficiently and the most effectively. That's going to be your standard tuneup.

hey guys colby arbor over in blanchard oklahoma today um if you are upgrading the insulation on your home please keep clear your service walkways to your hvac system um if you cover it up with insulation it makes it very very difficult to walk to um and it makes it not safe and so drifting through this mess it's not fun and uh i don't want to fall through a ceiling so another tip is if you're adding insulation to your house please make sure you do not fill up your emergency drain pan with insulation that's also a no-no uh it'll clog very quickly and you'll have more problems than you want so think about us whenever you're improving your insulation in your attic thanks

you know it's imperative to have both systems you know your AC and your your heating system checked but with your heater um you know in Oklahoma the primary heat source is gas uh gas or natural gas or propane and so with that you know comes a risk of carbon monoxide you know so if we have incomplete combustion going on in the heat exchanger if we have incomplete combustion going on anywhere in the system uh you know that leads to the production of U of carbon monoxide and so if we have carbon monoxide going in the system well you know that's that's super dangerous for you and your family and anyone in the house

your furnace on. Yes, absolutely. Whenever you kick your furnace on and you smell that smelly smell, you're like, "Well, at least it's working." Well, anyways, well, that's dust particles burning off that heat exchanger, those dust contaminants and particles just every day from just living uh uh will make its way into the system. And in the same way that they compile on the evapor, they can also compile on that heat exchanger or heat strip. You're going to smell it at a specific time of the year. And that time of the year is whenever you kick your what is

It's late September, and the last thing on your mind is turning on your heater because we finally made it out of the summer heat, and frankly, the cold winter is so far off. Jon Snow, stay away. But you need to do this before you turn on your heater for the season. Let's get into it. So what we see happen a lot of times is people wait till the first 40-degree evening or first 40-degree day to turn on their heater, and I know what you're thinking. It's September. It's still kind of warm outside. The weather is beautiful. We got football on the television. October isn't here yet. Spooky season isn't in full swing, and it's Oklahoma. I haven't turned on my heater yet. I've just been enjoying not having to pay for my utilities to keep my house comfortable. But you need to do this before you turn on your heater for the season, which is, one, we need to turn it on because you're gonna smell some things. It's gonna smell like kind of a burnt marshmallow a little bit. It's gonna, you know, have that dusty, crusty... Like, I kinda like the smell of it, honestly. It's, you know, it's one of those that's like smelling a skunk from, like, a ways off. Like, you smell, it's like, "Oh, what is that?" And it's like it makes you feel alive. You know? It's one of those things. So smelling a heater for the first time, a lot of times people panic and they're like, "Oh my gosh. Something's burning." It's just the dust. It's just the little bit of the debris that has settled on your heat exchanger or on your heat strips, depending on what you have heating your home, for the year. So, like, it's been running, you know, your air conditioner's been running. That doesn't mean your heater wasn't involved. It's in the airflow path, and so the dust and the debris has set on it. Whenever you turn your heater on for the first time, it's gonna burn that stuff off. Do not panic. It's fine. You planned for this. Happens every year. Don't hit the panic button. It's okay. You're gonna smell some... You know, light a candle. B- I'm sure Bath & Body Works has a buy three, get seven candles special going on. At least that's what Cass tells me they have going on at all times is, "We have a lot of candles." Love you, honey. So whenever you turn your heater on for the first time, do not be worried if you smell the kinda, like, burning sensation. But before you turn it on, there's a check right before that that I want you to do, which is if you have a gas heating system, so whether it's natural gas or it's propane, I want you to make sure that the carbon monoxide detectors have had their batteries changed or are plugged in properly. I want you to make sure that you run those through a test because though you're gonna smell the burning crusties and dusties, you're not gonna smell carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide is that silent killer. Nobody can smell it. It is the result of incomplete combustion inside of your heat exchanger on a propane or a natural gas furnace. And frankly, it is an avoidable thing that you should take responsibility of as a homeowner. Make sure you have carbon monoxide detectors, and make sure the batteries are changed, and make sure that it's wired in properly. Then go turn on your heater. But that's the first step. That's the one rule is turn it on before the first 40-degree day so you make sure you have heating whenever you need it most, and you're not set on a Saturday afternoon trying to watch football, and you're sitting there shivering. And you're not just cold because your favorite football team hasn't scored enough points, but you're also cold because your heater was never turned on properly. So don't be that guy. Just let your Saturday night disappointment be because your football team isn't scoring enough points, not because your house isn't comfortable. One of these two things is avoidable, and I'm not at fault because you decided to be an Oklahoma State fan. That's on you. Love you, Dad. I'm taking shots. You wanna make sure that your carbon monoxide detectors are plugged in, make sure that your heater has ran at least once before the cold sets in. Then what you wanna do is change your filter. One of the things that I always talk about during heating season especially is whenever we have, you know, guests coming over, fall time is a time of multiple get-togethers. We have just back-to-back to back holidays. It is a constant flow of people coming in, people going out, dogs playing outside, kids tracking in leaves, all the fun stuff that we get to do in the fall because the weather is not actively trying to oppress us. But with that comes we're bringing in more dust, dirt, and debris into the house, and whenever we do that, we are clogging up our filters at a faster than normal clip. So during the fall and the winter, I always recommend changing, if you have one-inch filters, changing those filters at least once a month because you are going to make sure that you're not breathing in burnt crusties and dusties more than you should. You're gonna make sure that your heater is capable of running all season long without having any interruptions at all. This is a preventative thing that you can do that costs you, like, 12 bucks. Just run to the local hardware store, gets you a filter. Change it out. If you have a four-inch filter or, like, a whole home filtration system, things like that, that's a whole different deal. Frankly, that should be taken care of on your preventative maintenance. If you're not on a preventative maintenance, you can get more information down in the description on how you can get a preventative maintenance and get this taken care of for you. But the next thing that you're gonna do is now that we've changed the filter and we've tested the heater for the first time, is I want you to walk around the house. And when you walk around the house, I want you to take note of all the beautiful air registers in your home. They are just gorgeous in their own right. Make sure that all of those are open, please. Don't close them off. And I know what you're thinking. You're like, "But Tucker, my office gets too hot, and I... It's just... Don't put hot air on me." I get it. It's warm. That's a ductwork issue that we could probably solve in the future. But if we are keeping hot air in a duct longer than it should be, what we are gonna do is we're gonna increase the box temperature of the furnace or the air handler. When we increase the temperature of the box for the furnace or the air handler, well, then we hit rollouts. We hit our limit switches. We are gonna cause safeties to start tripping, and the heater's gonna shut off because it is designed to not fail catastrophically, meaning we cause something bad to happen. So how you can prevent that from happening is go around your house and make sure all of the supply vents are open. All right, and now that we've done that, now that all the supply vents are open, I want you to walk around the house and look at all the beautiful return registers and make sure that there is nothing blocking the returns because you should have done this during the filter change. Like, if you have a one-inch filter, it's probably in that return box. But if it's not and it's just at the unit and your ref- returns are elsewhere in the house, make sure that, like, a picture frame or yesterday's DIY project didn't get, like, leaned up against the wall or, like, maybe a couch got scooted over in front of it or something. Make sure that that return is capable of sucking in as much air as it possibly can because that is the other piece of the safety rollout. Now, you're probably not gonna have an increased box temperature because it doesn't have enough air in it, but, like, you know, that's kinda besides the point. If it doesn't have enough air in it to begin with, you're just not gonna get comfortable. Your house isn't gonna get warm. So make sure that your returns are free and clear of any debris, of anything that's been left over from yesterday's DIY, and make sure that no rugs, as beautiful as they might be, got put over a return if your returns are in the floor. So whenever you look at your set point, right, on your heater... I know, again, Tucker, September, I don't wanna think about setting my heater on yet. But have a smart thermostat or a programmable thermostat where you set your band of what your tolerable temperature is because, as you know, September, October, and even sometimes November in Oklahoma can cause you to run both your AC and your heater in the same day. And a smart thermostat is going to allow you to set a band, an acceptable range of temperature. Don't push those any closer than, like, 5 or 6 degrees would be my... You know, you can probably push them as close as 4, but, like, that's gonna cause some unnecessary switching on the system. But set that band of, like, if you're gonna say, "Well, we want it to cool at 74, and we want the heater to come on at 68." Again, if you set your heater to 68, which apparently is the national average, that's like a terrarium to me. Me and Cass, we keep our house, like, at, like, 4. We're, we're, we're not setting the heaters very high. You know, just put a hoodie on. I can only take so many clothes off, but I can get comfy cozy. So nice and cool is where we set our heater. But make sure that you have a smart thermostat that's capable of running a band of temperature and an allowable range for you so that you're not constantly having to run back and forth or open your app and set, "Okay, we want the AC on," or, "We want the heater on." Make sure that you've got it set to where it is in the acceptable band so that you're not having to think about it. It's just done and taken care of for you. That's what home automations are great for. All right, we're gonna touch on a little bit of a safety thing on that first run that we've talked about. So the first run of the heater, we're going back a little bit, I know, but I wanna talk about a safety thing for our gas-heating friends, which in Oklahoma is a majority of our heaters. We have propane and natural gas. And whenever you first flip it on, don't just, like, flip it on and walk away. I want you to kinda pay attention to some things. It... You're gonna stand there for probably 30 to, like, 90 seconds while the gas fills the box up, and you're gonna hear the, you know, the igniter, like the tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. It's gonna, you know, it's actually fun to listen to if you can hear it. So it's like the bells in The Polar Express. Only the people who really know, know. You know? Only the people who can hear it can hear it. And so you're gonna stay in there, you're gonna wait for that the inducer motor kicks on, everything goes. It's, it's a beautiful mechanical system. Willis Carrier was a genius when he made this whole thing. But that delay in the heating cycle is normal because we need the box to fill with gas, not the box, but the heat exchanger to fill with gas so that we can then ignite it and then start the heating process. But what I'm saying is far as, like, the normal goes, the, the dusty, crusty, burnt kinda smell, that's fine. Whatever. But if you start to smell gas, meaning, like, kinda like a rotten egg smell, um, that's gonna be, like, propane and/or natural gas. They smell pretty similar. If you smell, like, a rotten egg, uh, turn it off immediately, probably shut the gas cock off, and call somebody quick because that means you have gas escaping where it probably shouldn't be. Because if you smell gas at all in your heating system, you need help. You need somebody there to take care of it pretty immediately. Again, also, like, if you smell, like, a burning plastic, like, or, like, rubber smell, that's another one. That's not gas. That's more indicative of, like, we have some electrical issues going on or maybe something got into the blower wheel and, like, during the air conditioning season, it wasn't burning. There was nothing there to burn. But now we have something in there that is trying to ignite and possibly melting and causing more damage. So that is the safety warning on that first check that I really wanted to give to our gas appliance friends because ultimately, that is, uh, kind of avoidable, but, like, you can know when to turn something on or off based on the smells. You know, there's a lot of things involved. It's a very sensory experience turning on your heater for the first time and, you know, frankly, it's something that every pro home owner should be capable of doing. So when you turn it on, make sure that you're taking half a second. Listen to it. If anything sounds irregular, turn it off. If you smell rotten eggs, make sure that you turn it off. Or if you smell a burning plastic or rubber, turn it off. That is not the normal dust/like, debris smell of whenever you first turn the heater on. So next we look into it is time to schedule your heater tune-up because it's September. October's on the horizon. Spooky season's about to be in full swing. You need to get your heater tuned up. And whenever I say your heater tuned up, I don't mean, like, have a professional come out there and just, like, pat it on the butt and be like, "Yep, it all looks good." I'm saying they need to come out, they need to inspect the heat exchanger. Make sure that you don't have any cracks in the heat exchanger because over time, those heat exchangers, because we're literally... It looks like a jet in there. I am sure we have footage of it somewhere. It's, like, just It's just actively just, I mean, propulsion is happening inside of that heat exchanger. And over time, as we heat metal, it expands and contracts and, you know, continues to expand and contract. And as it does that, it can, you know, either get rusted or it can cause cracks to start forming. And if cracks start to form, well, that means that we have a potential for carbon monoxide to leak into the space. So that is check number one that happens on a heater tune-up. The next one is making sure that your flue vent is properly seated both on the system and exiting the house. Because if the flue vent isn't exiting the house properly or it's not properly seated on the furnace, well, then we have a problem because the carbon monoxide that should be going out the flue is now exiting into your attic. There was a scary time, Will and Megan were out here in a rent house in, uh, uh, Blanchard, and thankfully it had, like, snowed, and so there was snow all over the roofs of the houses. And Will and I roll up to his house, and I notice there is no snow on Will's house. However, there's snow on all of his neighbors' houses. And I just have this, like, gut moment of like, "Oh, no. All right, we gotta..." Whatever we were doing, I don't even know what we were planning on doing the rest of the day. We were at work, but I was like, "We've gotta figure something out." And I go up in the attic and, uh, at some point I guess they had the roof changed in that, uh, rent house they were in, and, uh, the flue vent never got properly seated, so they were having flue gases expel into the attic causing flue gas to be in the attic, meaning carbon monoxide. Thankfully, no one was hurt. However, what it did do, because heat and cold, whenever they mix, we have condensation. The whole, like, sheeting of the roof was just ice. Um, so whenever it started to thaw, caused a lot of water damage. It was a big deal. Do not sleep on a flue vent not being properly seated or sleep on, like, I don't play with carbon monoxide. So, like, on the first frost days, if you notice somebody, like, if everybody else has frost on their roof line and somebody doesn't, that might be worth a good neighbor knock on the door being like, "Hey, you might need to get your heater checked," because that's indicative of some other issue. Um, or maybe they open the door and it's just a terrarium and the lizard people live there. You could find out. Knock on the door. Okay, anyways, this is check number two, making sure that the flue vent is taken care of. If it's an electric heater, we're gonna check the amperage of the heat strips and make sure that they are not over amping or under amping or that the sequencer hasn't been stuck on and that the heat strip actually shut-shuts off and cycles properly between heat cycles because those are liable as we heat and cool those, they're liable to not necessarily, like, fully melt, but melt the inner workings of the sequencer and cause it to have some issues as far as getting stuck on and then the heat constantly running even though the blower's not on. And then we have just a, a myriad of issues. And those are things that, like, I don't recommend a homeowner doing just because it does require specialized equipment and a specialized eye and training to do. Those are things that we check. Also, we will change the filters for you during that maintenance. So guys, I know that you're thinking, like, "It's September, Tucker. I don't wanna think about my heater." But you need to do these things before you turn your heater on, before that first cold day of the year arrives and you're caught literally in the cold expecting people coming over to eat your football beans and watch a game, and it's not gonna be warm enough in your house, and you're gonna be sad. Because you could have done the blocking and tackling well. You could have made sure that your system was capable of heating your house and keeping you comfortable whenever you needed it most. So if you're curious what it costs to get a maintenance or if you're curious what it costs to have any heater repairs done, you can either click the link below or scan the QR code, and in less than two minutes you can see what it would cost. Ultimately, guys, you can see what it would cost for us to do just about anything in your house. Our prices are all out there. We're not hiding anything. You can see everything that we have to offer in just a couple of minutes or less. Click the link, fill out the form, takes about two minutes, and wham, bam, thank you, ma'am. You see all of our prices right there at your disposal for everything from maintenance all the way to the most expensive repairs that we have available. Beyond that, do something nice for somebody. You never know, it might change their life. I'm out.

hey it's keith with yarborough and sons and i want to give you three reasons why you should want to have a yearly heater tune-up by thoroughly testing your system we can address common mechanical problems to solve these key issues with adjustments made we can ensure your unit is running at full capacity inspections of your heat exchanger or other electrical components can provide peace of mind in your home cleaning and replacement of worn out parts will extend the life of your unit and lessen that chance of a failure on a cold day if you have any questions about our heater tune-ups feel free to give us a call [Music]

Changing your filter is just step one of your pro homeowner guide to winterizing your home. Bonus points is you need to get a professional heater or furnace tune-up. So, we're dealing with either a high combustion gas to heat your home or a high energy draw element to heat your home. And those require, just like your vehicle require, routine maintenance. Your pros. >> [singing] [music]