Now that Christmas and New Years are over, it’s time to take down all of the decorations you have up and have a nice and clean start to 2020. Since your HVAC system is an integral part of your home, we’d like to share some safety tips for you to keep in mind when storing your decorations and more.
Keep Your Decorations Away
When you’re storing your decorations, be sure not to put them close to the HVAC unit to ensure your safety. It’s important to keep the area surrounding your unit, especially your furnace, clean so that you do not start a fire. Be sure to keep boxes, paper, fabric, and even plastic away from your unit. Matter of fact, you should just store them in a different room altogether.
Vacuum Thoroughly
When you’re taking down your tree and other decorations, you’re likely to have pieces left behind, especially if you had a real tree. These pieces can be hazardous to your unit as they can fall into the vents and prevent the proper airflow which can damage your unit. While dust and smaller debris is not exactly a hazard to your unit it can dirty up your filter much faster if there’s an excess amount of it. This can affect the air quality in your home. Therefore, be sure to not only vacuum near your vents but also around the unit itself just to be sure nothing is getting in the system that could cause it to not function optimally.
Use Tight Seals
Tax time is around the corner and so is spring. During these times of the year, many people are eager to get items checked off their home projects list. When people start on home projects, they tend to store things that they don’t normally have or that are normally stored in the garage or shed, in their basement. If you find yourself storing things like paint, paint thinner, gas or kerosene, be sure that the containers are sealed tight so that they don’t combust. We don’t often think about how the fumes can not only affect our health but how they also are flammable. Taking the extra time to store these items elsewhere is your best bet to ensuring safety.
Get Your System Checked
Just in case you missed all the pieces of your decorations the cat knocked down into the vents or if it’s just been a while since your unit was checked, be sure to have regular maintenance done to your system. With the right professionals, like those at Dave’s Cooling and Heating, you can make sure your system’s safety and catch a system failure before it happens. Without your system being checked regularly, you can risk things like a carbon monoxide leak which hospitalized more than 20,000 people a year, according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.
