March doesn’t mean we’re through with cold weather. But it’s when winter officially ends and we start the build toward summer. Now is a good time to think about how your heater performed during the winter so you’ll have an idea if you need to make any updates, repairs, or even a full replacement for it during the spring or summer.
We’ll go with a grading system you’re familiar with—school report card grades! Consider how well your heater worked over the past winter. Take into account your comfort, how often you needed to run the heater, if it required any repairs, its age, and your sense of its reliability. Give it a grade from “A” to “F” and look at our handy guide below:
When you have a heating or cooling system installed in your home, you’d like to think it’s the last one you’ll ever need to purchase. Perhaps it will run forever and you’ll only need to have it repaired on occasion.
When a gas furnace comes on, it makes a distinct 
A piece of advice we often give to people who ask about ways they can save on their heating during the summer is to know how to set their thermostat from maximum efficiency. It’s best to keep a thermostat at a steady setting during the day, usually around 68°F, and then lower it by 8°F during the evening, or when people are away. This saves more energy than moving the thermostat up and down as you alternatively feel hot and then cold. This creates too much stopping and starting for the heating system, which wastes energy. The thermostat is a switch, not a throttle, so pushing it up higher doesn’t get you faster heating, only a heating system that runs longer.
Natural gas furnaces are in millions of homes around the country—that should be enough to tell you that, as long as a furnace is properly cared for, it isn’t an automatic danger for a household. The modern gas furnace has safety features and is designed to run within strict parameters for protecting a home. 
Natural gas is the most common way to heat homes in the area. But natural gas isn’t an option for all homes, and some homeowners prefer an all-electric house because of concerns over possible safety hazards from natural gas. What options do homes without natural gas have when it comes to winter heating?
We offer 
As the cold weather continues to deepen, you’ll rely on your central heating system more and more until it will run during most of the day. You expect your heater will keep your family comfortable—that’s why you installed it, after all. But you might find as the winter starts that the house isn’t warming up the way you expect it to. You set the thermostat at the standard temperature for comfort in the house, but people are complaining that it’s too cold and they’re starting to layer up their sweaters or even wearing parkas around the house.
You keep a close watch on your budget so you know when you’re sinking too much money into any one item. When winter weather comes around, you want to pay special attention to your furnace, since your family’s comfort and safety relies on its steady operation. At some point, you may need a 
