Do Natural Gas Furnaces Need Yearly Maintenance?

[David Stone]

When I had an oil burner, I had it cleaned and serviced every year by my oil company. I now have natural gas. I’m told it doesn’t need yearly service, but when I Google the question, there’ it seems that there are a lot of companies out there servicing them.

I figure I’d ask here because you all know this stuff.

[blackhat]

Like so many other seemingly simple questions, the best answer from here is, it depends. Equipment type and age, environment, your willingness to learn and look after what you have…..  If this is new to you, I would definitely have a pro service and inspect it. Most new ish equipment, in good condition, properly installed, will do with a 2 year service interval if you do regular filter changes and keep things clean. If you learn a bit more and are willing, you could stretch that another year or two.

[sweensdv2]

I do the every other year service cycle with both my furnace and A/C. So far that approach has worked for me.

[fredhargis]

The new ones seem to be quite a bit more complicated (meaning, more things to check). We had one in the 80s that was never serviced (for the 8 years we had the house) and it was still good when we sold the place. Then in the 90s we had one (actually, it was LP) that was hooked to an air source heat pump, and we didn't service it. This one was high efficiency and it quite working because the condensate drain tube clogged. That cost me a service call, and taught me a lesson. Since then I've had 2 more HE gas furnaces. The first one I had serviced every couple of years. The one I have now has some kind of variable gas valve (puts out the heat needed to warm the home) as well as being hooked to a ground source heat pump. So far I'm having it serviced every year.

[Snipe Hunter]

Something I see on a regular basis inspecting homes... I see HVAC equipment with a service sticker on it and the dates it was serviced. Yearly and bi-yearly. And I see ones with no stickers or stickers that haven't been filled in in a few years.

And inside the units just about always reflects the sticker or no sticker. Especially Heat-Pumps and AC equipment. Sticker = clean coil, no sticker, dirty coil. But same with furnaces, I see a lot of filthy furnaces. How all that crap gets inside, I'll never know. But I don't see it with serviced units. Same with flame color, sticker = nice blue flame. Un-serviced units are much more likely to have dancing yellow flames on at least one burner.

My biggest beef with HVAC techs is they don't change the breaker when the replacement air conditioner. Old unit required a 40 amp breaker and the replacement has max fuse at 30 amp and they leave the old 40 amp breaker there. I've got a friend who is part owner of a decent size HVAC company and they put their stickers on the condenser unit. Every time I see one of theirs over fused, I snap a pic and text it to him.

[DogwoodTales]

Some companies offer a package deal to service your furnace once each fall and ac once each spring. I did that for a couple years many years ago. As I recall one of those service calls found my evaporator coil in dire need of a good cleaning. Something like that might be something to consider if you don’t want to take the time to service it yourself - something I eventually learned to do to some extent.

At any rate the best thing you can do for your hvac yourself is to change the filter regularly- no less often than every two months, monthly if you have shedding pets.

[meackerman]

I have the annual service thing.  last time they were here the tech said one of the capacitors was on its way out and he replaced it for free.

<Shrug> was it going out?  how long would it have lasted?   no idea, but it didn't cost me anything more to have it replaced.

[fixtureman]

Something I see on a regular basis inspecting homes... I see HVAC equipment with a service sticker on it and the dates it was serviced. Yearly and bi-yearly. And I see ones with no stickers or stickers that haven't been filled in in a few years.

And inside the units just about always reflects the sticker or no sticker. Especially Heat-Pumps and AC equipment. Sticker = clean coil, no sticker, dirty coil. But same with furnaces, I see a lot of filthy furnaces. How all that crap gets inside, I'll never know. But I don't see it with serviced units. Same with flame color, sticker = nice blue flame. Un-serviced units are much more likely to have dancing yellow flames on at least one burner.

My biggest beef with HVAC techs is they don't change the breaker when the replacement air conditioner. Old unit required a 40 amp breaker and the replacement has max fuse at 30 amp and they leave the old 40 amp breaker there. I've got a friend who is part owner of a decent size HVAC company and they put their stickers on the condenser unit. Every time I see one of theirs over fused, I snap a pic and text it to him.

If the wiring is capable of 40 amps what is the beef about the breaker.  They a install 30 amp  disconnect at the compressor.  What you are saying would be like you can't plug a 15 amp coffee pot into a 20 amp circuit.  The breaker is there to protect the wiring not the appliance.

[Roly]

If the wiring is capable of 40 amps what is the beef about the breaker.  They a install 30 amp  disconnect at the compressor.  What you are saying would be like you can't plug a 15 amp coffee pot into a 20 amp circuit.  The breaker is there to protect the wiring not the appliance.

That is the way mine was installed also.  I see no problem with it either.   Now if you are talking a solid blade disconnect that is a different matter. Roly

[Admiral]

If the wiring is capable of 40 amps what is the beef about the breaker.  They a install 30 amp  disconnect at the compressor.  What you are saying would be like you can't plug a 15 amp coffee pot into a 20 amp circuit.  The breaker is there to protect the wiring not the appliance.

I'm going to be following this, as in the fall of 2018 I had my furnace and AC replaced (two zones) with a high efficiency Lennox Signature equipment which has been great (gas and electric bill went down a lot), and after checking it right now it seems that they left in the old 50 amp breakers for each zone which powered the old Trane units.  I'm thinking it might be a code thing in NJ, or they over-wired it.

Oh, and they service guy last spring mentioned that the pricing on my units went up significantly, and today the same installation would be $18k more.  Better to have lucky timing sometimes, as while the AC was sucking some wind, I was thinking of letting the AC totally die first before I replaced it.