No heat or no cooling right now? The emergency line is answered by a person, 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Call 000-000-0000
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January
The hardest month for heating equipment. Keep the outdoor unit of a heat pump clear of snow and ice, and never let a plough bank it in. If a room has gone cold this month, ring before the pipes in the wall behind it do.
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February
Watch for ice at the flue termination on a sidewall-vented furnace — a blocked intake or exhaust will shut the appliance down as a safety, and a drift can do it overnight. Check your carbon monoxide alarms while you are thinking about it.
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March
Book the cooling tune-up now. The schedule in March is open, the schedule in the first hot week of June is not, and a service booked late usually turns into a repair.
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April
Cooling service season. Coils cleaned, charge verified, condensate drains flushed and float switches tested before the humid weather makes any of it matter.
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May
Run the air conditioning for an hour on a mild day rather than discovering on the first ninety-degree afternoon that it does not work. If it is noisy, weak or slow to cool, that is a cheap week to fix it.
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June
Peak installation season. If a system is on borrowed time, replacing it now is a scheduled two days rather than an emergency in August at whatever price is available.
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July
Filters every month while the system runs continuously. Keep two feet clear all round the outdoor unit, and hose the coil down gently if the cottonwood has been at it.
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August
The month condensate drains block and ceilings stain. If you see a damp patch under an air handler, switch the system off at the thermostat first — that stops the water immediately — and then call.
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September
Book the heating service. Same logic as March: the first genuinely cold night fills the schedule with breakdowns, and you would rather not be one of them.
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October
Heating service season, and the right month for combustion analysis, a heat exchanger inspection and a low-water cutoff test. Also the month to fit or replace carbon monoxide alarms.
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November
Bleed hot-water radiators, check that steam vents are not stuck, and run the heat properly for an hour before you need it. A burning smell for two minutes is dust; a burning smell for twenty is not.
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December
Leave the thermostat at a steady setting rather than swinging it — a deep setback in a cold snap can cost more in recovery than it saves. If you are away, do not turn the heat off. Frozen pipes cost more than a month of heating ever will.
If you smell gas, leave the building and call your gas utility's emergency line from outside — do not operate switches on your way out. If a carbon monoxide alarm sounds, get everyone into fresh air and call 911 first. General guidance on this page is not a substitute for a licensed technician looking at your own equipment.
The short version
If you only do four things a year
Change the filter every one to three months
The cheapest and most neglected maintenance there is. A blocked filter freezes coils in summer, overheats furnaces in winter, and is behind a large share of the calls we attend.
Book the cooling service in March, not June
By the first genuinely hot week the schedule is full of breakdowns, and a service booked late has a habit of becoming a repair.
Book the heating service in September, not December
Same logic. October is the right month for combustion analysis and a heat exchanger inspection, and it is the right month to replace carbon monoxide alarms.
Keep two feet clear around the outdoor unit
Leaf drift, cottonwood, snow banks and a hedge that got away from you all cost you capacity, and in winter a snowed-in heat pump cannot defrost properly.
Get ahead of it
Book the service before the season turns
Plan holders are scheduled automatically and reminded — which is why they are almost never the ones calling us on the first cold night.