It is common knowledge that there is more than one repair need that can pop up for your furnace. The biggest thing to remember is that you should always get repairs on your heater taken care of as soon as possible.
There is one repair that we want to single out though. This is a crack in your heat exchanger. While every repair needs prompt service, a cracked heat exchanger is one of the more dangerous issues that can happen to your system. Read on to learn why it’s so important to address it.
Energy Recovery Ventilators (ERVs) and Heat Recovery Ventilators (HRVs) are balanced ventilation systems that remove stale, stagnant air from inside your house while adding back an equal volume of fresh outdoor air. As homes have become more tightly constructed and air-sealed to conserve energy, air stagnation and unhealthy indoor air quality have become acute. ERVs and HRVs not only ventilate with balanced air volume, but they also transfer heat. The advantages of both ERVs and HRVs depend largely on the status of air infiltration through cracks, gaps and other air leaks. Older, “leaky” houses typically benefit less from ERVs and HRVs than newer, airtight structures.
You’re planning to buy a home. You’ve already had a home inspection and received the inspector’s disclaimer saying the HVAC system was “functional.” Does that mean it’s a good idea to go ahead and buy the home without having an HVAC professional perform an HVAC inspection? Probably not, and here’s why.
Homeowners in sunny regions can take advantage of both active and passive solar heating to keep their homes comfortable. Active heating captures sunlight, either as heat or electricity, to augment heating systems, while passive heating captures heat from the sun as it comes into your home through windows, roofs and walls to heat objects in your home.
You’ve probably heard of condensing furnaces, but aren’t entirely sure how they work. First, though, here’s a refresher on how a conventional old-style gas furnace works: airflow is drawn in through the cold air return and air filter, and then into the circulating fan. Heat from the gas burner flows into the heat exchanger, heating the surrounding air before it’s circulated throughout the house via the ductwork. Combustion gases generated by the burner are vented out of the home through the flue.
Your HVAC system is the most important part of keeping your home comfortable. As such, you need to make sure you have competent people servicing and working on it. You want to save money but you also want to make sure you understand what you’re going to be paying for. That is why it’s so important to properly interpret HVAC service quotes.
A cracked heat exchanger in your furnace is a serious problem that needs to addressed quickly. No homeowner wants to check on their furnace and find that the heat exchanger is cracked, but you should be able to identify the symptoms of this serious and potentially deadly problem. 
Heat exchanger, R-values, CFM and AFUE – what do all of these HVAC terms mean? Learning the terms and acronyms that heating and cooling professionals use will help you communicate better with your HVAC contractor and gain a better understanding about products and their efficiency. 
Once a year you should have a furnace inspection done by a qualified technician. Now that autumn is well under way, you should probably start thinking about having it inspected soon. But when you hire someone to inspect it, what should you expect?