It is the middle of August and nobody is thinking about their furnace. That is exactly why this is the right time to bring it up.
Every year the pattern is the same. The first genuine cold snap hits the Front Range sometime in October, thousands of furnaces get switched on for the first time in six months, and a good number of them do not light. Our phones do not stop for about two weeks. The people who called us in August get a scheduled appointment at a normal price. The people who call us at 10pm on the first freezing night get emergency rates and whatever parts availability we can find.
Why furnaces fail on the first cold night
A furnace that sat idle all summer has not failed gradually where you could notice. It failed quietly, and you find out the moment you ask it to run. The usual culprits are a cracked or dirty flame sensor, a worn ignitor near the end of its life, a blower motor that seized from sitting, a clogged condensate drain on a high-efficiency unit, or a pressure switch that a summer of dust finally caught up with.
None of those are expensive parts. An ignitor is not a major repair. What makes it expensive is the timing: emergency dispatch on a night when every HVAC company in the metro is already booked.
What a real tune-up actually covers
The phrase gets used loosely, so here is what ours includes rather than a filter change and a handshake:
- Heat exchanger inspection. This is the one that matters most. A cracked heat exchanger can leak carbon monoxide into your home, and it is the reason a furnace inspection is a safety check and not just maintenance.
- Ignitor and flame sensor. We clean the sensor and check the ignitor for the resistance drift that predicts failure, so a marginal one gets replaced on a Tuesday afternoon instead of quitting in January.
- Gas pressure and burner combustion. Burners get cleaned and gas pressure verified so the unit burns efficiently and safely.
- Blower motor, wheel, and amp draw. A dirty blower wheel quietly kills both efficiency and airflow.
- Safety controls and limit switches. Tested, not just eyeballed.
- Condensate drain and trap on high-efficiency units, which clog and shut the system down on a safety lockout.
- Electrical connections and capacitor. Loose connections and weak capacitors cause a surprising share of no-heat calls.
- Thermostat calibration and a check that the heating cycle actually completes properly.
Altitude and Colorado air are hard on furnaces
Gas equipment has to be derated for altitude here, and a furnace that was never set up correctly for our elevation will run inefficiently for its whole life. Our dry, dusty air also loads up flame sensors and blower wheels faster than in most parts of the country. A yearly service is not upselling in Colorado, it is what keeps a furnace hitting its rated lifespan of 15 to 20 years instead of dying at 12.
What it costs
A standard residential furnace tune-up in the Denver Metro generally runs $99 to $199 depending on the system. Our maintenance membership includes both the heating and cooling visits along with priority scheduling, which is worth more than it sounds on the night everyone else is calling too.
Compare that to an emergency no-heat call at overtime rates, plus the cost of whatever failed, plus a cold house until someone can get there.
The carbon monoxide part
This is the section people skim, so we will keep it short and direct. A cracked heat exchanger can put carbon monoxide into your living space, and you will not smell it. If you have a gas furnace, you should have working CO detectors on every level of the house, and the furnace should be inspected annually. That is the whole reason we lead the tune-up with the heat exchanger and not the filter.
If your CO detector ever sounds, get everyone out of the house first and call from outside.
When it is worth replacing instead
If your furnace is past 15 years, has needed repairs two seasons running, and the next repair is a significant one, replacement usually makes more sense than another patch. We will tell you that honestly rather than selling you a repair we do not believe in. High-efficiency furnaces and heat pumps also qualify for Xcel and federal rebates, and we handle that paperwork as part of the job.
Get on the schedule
August and September appointments are easy to book. October gets tight. November is triage. If you want the easy version, call us at (303) 699-1417 or request a visit online, and we will get you on the calendar before the rush starts.
We cover Greenwood Village, Centennial, Castle Rock, Highlands Ranch, Lone Tree, Castle Pines, Englewood, Denver, and the surrounding Front Range, for both homes and commercial buildings.