It’s time to think about servicing your furnace

Joe Conosa, of Mount Kisco Mechanical Corp., has great tips for getting your furnace ready for winter.

The turning leaves mean it’s time to get your house ready for home-heating season.

Joe Canosa of Mount Kisco Mechanical Service Corp. in Bedford Hills said his crews have been cleaning furnaces and changing filters on humidifiers for more than a month now.

“Every fall, people should have their filters done on humidifiers or have pads changed if it’s a bypass or similar type of humidifier,” he said. “If it’s an oil-fired boiler or hot-air furnace, they should call their oil company to schedule a tune-up and have the nozzles replaced and oil filters changed.”

This kind of winter prep is not a job for do-it-yourselfers, Canosa said.

“Oil is not as dangerous as gas if something goes wrong,” he said. “Gas is a silent killer. Oil you can smell something if something goes wrong, but it has dangers, too.”

Besides making the appointment for a service call, which should run about $140 or less for a oil burner, less for gas, he said, there are two things homeowners can do themselves: get a carbon-monoxide detector; and change the batteries in the thermostat, if the thermostat uses batteries.

“Any home that uses fossil fuels should have a carbon-monoxide detector,” Canosa said. “It’s code in new buildings but probably a lot more important in older houses.”

Fall is a great time to change the batteries in a thermostat.

“Heating season is a better time to replace batteries than cooling season,” he said. “If batteries fail in winter, pipes freeze. So homeowners should install lithium batteries once a year and it’s better in the fall.

“Go for the lithium battery,” he said. “It’s a little more expensive, but it’s only two or three batteries. Not a big deal, and homeowners can do it themselves.”

Read More: Oil Fired Boilers