Furnace Sounds You Cannot Ignore

Loud Bang or Boom

If you hear a gunshot sound go off when you turn on your furnace, you may have a gas build-up in the system. Never ignore this loud sound coming from the furnace. It could crack the heat exchanger, which is both dangerous and expensive. Turn the system off immediately and call a Green Apple Plumbing & Mechanical professional.

Dirty burners may have delayed the ignition, which causes the gas to build up and “explode” when the ignition finally comes on. Annual furnace maintenance will take care of this problem since your technician will inspect and clean the burners as part of the tune-up.

Expanding and contracting ducts could have caused the loud bang or boom, but this sound is normally easily distinguished from a gas build-up “explosion.” It’s a common problem that homeowners with central HVAC systems have to deal with. Luckily, there are ways to prevent loud duct noises. Contact a professional Green Apple Plumbing & Mechanical HVAC technician to take a look. Solutions may include sealing and insulating ducts, replacing undersized ducts, adjusting dampers, or replacing the air filter.

Metal Against Metal

If you hear loud clanking and scraping, you could have a serious problem with your furnace’s blower wheel. Turn off your furnace immediately and wait until a professional Green Apple Plumbing & Mechanical HVAC technician has had a chance to inspect the system

• The blower fan may have come loose and is now hitting the blower house casing. If the blower wheel/fan isn’t too damaged, the repair should be quick and easy.
• The blower fan may be broken and need professional replacement.
• If the piece holding the motor and blower assembly together has broken, the whole assembly may have dropped and is now hitting the housing. A professional diagnosis is needed.

Rattling

A rattling sound coming from the furnace can indicate a loose panel or a loose screw. Before attempting to work on your furnace, make sure you turn off power at the source. Then, you can try tightening your panel with a screwdriver to see if that fixes the rattling sound.

If it’s not a loose screw, it could indicate a leak or crack in your heat exchanger, which can be very serious. A faulty heat exchanger can leak dangerous (and potentially lethal) carbon monoxide into the home. Contact your local Green Apple HVAC professional right away if you cannot solve the rattling sound by tightening a screw or two.

Rumbling

There’s a difference between rattling, banging, and rumbling. A rumbling sound normally indicates a furnace that hasn’t been maintained in a while. This usually means dirty gas burners or a pilot light that needs to be adjusted.

The furnace flame should be blue, which indicates a clean and efficient burn. It’s fine if there is a small yellow tip, but if your flame is any other color than blue, contact your Green Apple HVAC professional right away. A lot of red, yellow, orange, purple, or green indicates inefficient and potentially hazardous conditions.

High-Pitched Squealing or Screeching

The fastest and most effective way to fix this problem is by calling your local Green Apple HVAC professional to take a look and fix the problem for you.

If, however, you would like to find out what is going on and see if it’s something you want to handle, continue reading.

Squealing, whining, and whistling noises aren’t as big of a deal as metal-against-metal and booming noises, but it’s still something you want to keep an ear out for.

• If you have a belt-driven motor, loose, or damaged blower belts can cause a squealing or similar sound.
• Shaft bearings and other moving parts may have become dry. Contact a Green Apple professional technician to lubricate your moving furnace parts. Again, a furnace tune-up would have taken care of this issue.
• Malfunctioning blower motors may be the culprit. Contact a Green Apple professional for information on repair or replacement.
• Green Apple Plumbing & Mechanical NJ are the experts you can trust. We have been serving the New Jersey area for years with professionalism and expertise. Customer service and care are always our number one priority. If you have any questions or concerns regarding any of your HVAC or plumbing needs call toll-free @888-315-5564

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A Little Preparedness Goes A Long Way

These are the reasons why it’s so important to have your furnace checked and serviced every year:

• Keep your furnace running smoothly. The technician inspects parts, replaces ones that have worn out, lubricates components where necessary, checks the unit’s electrical wiring (they will let you know whether you need to call in an electrician, and so on. You wouldn’t put off the tune-up for your car. Think of this as a tune-up for your furnace.
• Improve efficiency. How? Here’s an example: in order to heat your home properly, the furnace pulls air through a filter. In time, the filter can become clogged with airborne particles, making the furnace work harder to move air through it. The furnace’s efficiency decreases, shortening its life and increasing your heating bill. However, if the filter is maintained, via regular cleaning or changing, you’ll avoid this problem.
• Protect your health and that of your family. Neglected, dirty filters can release mold spores and other toxic airborne particles into your home, causing respiratory problems and disease. A well-maintained system improves indoor air quality and helps prevent such problems from occurring.
• Keep the furnace working reliably. Annual furnace inspection and maintenance allow the technician to spot problems that may be small now but that could become serious if left untreated. HVAC technicians where the temperature can sink as low as 10 degrees Fahrenheit (without taking wind chill into account), will tell you that the customer who calls every year for routine maintenance usually sounds a lot calmer than the customer they haven’t heard from in a while, whose furnace has suddenly stopped working in the middle of a cold snap.
• Help you regulate the temperature in your home. The Green Apple technician will verify and calibrate your thermostat to make sure that the furnace is heating your home properly and reliably, at the temperature you want, when you want it.
• Save lives. Fuel-burning furnaces (natural gas, oil, etc.) tend to release carbon monoxide in their exhaust. When the furnace is working properly, this gas is channeled out of the home through an exhaust pipe. But leaks happen, and a carbon monoxide leak is dangerous because that particular gas is odorless and deadly. A licensed Green Apple professional will test the furnace for leaks as part of routine maintenance.
• Green Apple Plumbing & Mechanical NJ are the experts you can trust. We have been serving the NJ area for years with professionalism and expertise. Customer service and care are always our number one priority. If you have any questions or concerns regarding any of your HVAC or plumbing needs call toll-free @888-315-5564

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Call A Plumber ASAP If You Have Any Of These

Clogged drains, damaged pipes, and gas leaks are the most common residential emergency plumbing situations that people summon their plumber for. The irony is that such plumbing emergencies can be prevented by us from the start. Indeed emergency plumbers report that plumbing negligence is the number one cause for stubborn obstructions in drains and defective pipes. Surprisingly this indicates that we value our cars more than our home. Why? Simply because we service our cars once a year while we dismiss doing the same to our plumbing systems until we face a plumbing emergency by which time it is too late to undo the damage done to our home.

In general preventive maintenance to your home’s plumbing, every once in a while, will not only keep plumbing fixtures, drains and pipes in good condition for a long time, but will further allow you to spot early problems and have them fixed before they escalate to costly plumbing emergencies. When you encounter an emergency plumbing situation you can take steps to reduce damage to the minimum thereby cutting down your plumbing cost too.

Follow the top 5 common emergency plumbing troubles and their repair:

Burst Pipes: Your top objective until the Green Apple plumber arrives on the scene is stop water flowing out of the hole. Locate the main shutoff valve to your house and close it. Turning off the shutoff valve will close the water supply to the fixtures and therefore stop the flood. Next turn on cold water taps to quickly drain pipes from trapped water and steam. After damage controlling the emergency call in your Green Apple plumber to repair or replace the burst section of the pipe.

Frozen Pipes: When the water in pipes freeze they expand and may even burst the pipe. Close the main shutoff valve. If the pipe has not split yet, thaw it with hot water bottles from the end of the pipe nearest to the tap. Thawing must be gentle, never with a naked flame, to avoid thermal water expansion that too can split the pipe. As a preventive maintenance make sure your pipes are appropriately insulated against the cold months.

Leaky Plumbing Fixtures: Close the shutoff valve singular to the leaky fixture. Check the fixture’s trap for debris, hair, soap scum, and food particles that might obstruct its opening and cause overflowing of the fixture. Contact your Green Apple plumber for effective plumbing repair.

Blocked Drains & Toilets: Try to lift the obstruction by means of a plunger or a plumber’s snake. If such plumbing tools fail to dislodge the clog, call in your Green Apple plumber.

Gas leaks: When smelling gas simply evacuate the building. Gas leaks do not lend themselves to D.I.Y repair due to their deadly nature in the wrong hands. Once outside the home call in your Green Apple plumber or Gas Company. You can and under professional guidance attempt to turn off the gas meter at the control valve.

Green Apple Plumbing & Mechanical NJ are the experts you can trust. We have been serving the NJ area for years with professionalism and expertise. Customer service and care are always our number one priority. If you have any questions or concerns regarding any of your HVAC or plumbing needs call toll-free @888-611-7191

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