As the trusted HVAC experts in your community, we understand the pivotal role that a reliable boiler plays in ensuring your home stays warm and comfortable. With the winter season drawing to a close, it’s an opportune time to assess the condition of your boiler and ponder a critical question: Is this the year you replace it? Or is it better to continue with boiler repair in Brighton, MI?
Your boiler works within a specific range of water pressure. When it falls outside of that range in either direction, it can point to problems that require a plumber’s touch to handle.
Through all our years of boiler repair in Brighton, MI, we’ve seen just about every boiler issue you can imagine. Below are ways to tell that it’s time to call for repairs from the experienced professionals.
Should you turn off your boiler in summer? Your boiler is meant to heat your home, so what good is it during the summer? Let’s be fully transparent here–you should shut your boiler off in the summer, and here’s all the reasons why.
Boilers can overheat, and they can cause explosions in rare circumstances if the conditions are right. Let’s get this out of the way right from the start: if your boiler exhibits signs of overheating or runs the risk of exploding, this is an emergency and should be treated as such. That’s when you call for boiler repair as soon as possible.
Let’s talk about why it can overheat, what causes it, and the two different types of ways your boiler can explode so you know what the risks are.
We all know that furnaces require annual maintenance, but many homeowners can often overlook the fact that their boiler needs the same level of care. Boiler maintenance helps prevent long-term problems from popping up and prolonging extensive, expensive repairs. Here’s how similar your maintenance schedule should be for your boiler and furnace.
When you’re considering getting a new heating system for your home, you’ll probably be looking into a forced-air heater of some kind: an electric furnace, a gas furnace, a heat pump. These heaters all raise the temperature of the air and then send that air through ductwork to the rooms. If your home already has ductwork, then you’ll almost certainly will be looking into a forced-air heater.
The other major option is a boiler. Boilers don’t use ducts, instead sending heated water to terminal points (often baseboard heaters or in-floor elements, although some use traditional radiators) to radiate heat indoors. You may be interested in a boiler system if you are building a new home or doing major renovations on one.
So let’s talk about getting a boiler for a home, if that’s a possibility. Boilers have several tremendous benefits that make them worth considering if you’re in a situation where they’re a viable choice.
One of the major benefits of using a hydronic boiler to provide heat to your house is that these systems often last longer than standard forced-air heaters such as furnaces and heat pumps. Boilers do not contain as many moving mechanical parts as forced-air heaters, and this slows down the speed at which they age.
But no boiler can last forever—yours will need to be replaced eventually. But when? How many years can you expect to get out of your current boiler before you get a new one?
As with all questions about the longevity of a heating system, the answer is “It depends.” Several factors affect the service life of a boiler, such as maintenance, repair, and its type. We’ll try to give you a short overview to help you consider the future of your home heating.
One of big advantages of having a boiler to heat your home is that boilers in general need fewer repairs than furnaces or heat pumps, the other common central heating systems. Why is thos? It’s because boilers have fewer mechanical moving parts. The lower number of mechanical parts, the less wear due to operation over the years. You can anticipate only having to make an occasional call for boiler repair in Brighton, MI, and you can expect to get 20 to 30 years of service from a well-installed boiler, which can be twice as long as the lifespans of heat pumps and furnaces.
Zero repairs, however? Probably won’t happen. Boilers still have mechanical parts, and they’re complex devices that can malfunction in different ways. A system that heats and circulates water comes with its own set of potential problems.
Using a boiler is a great way to enjoy even, comfortable heating throughout your house during the winter. Among the choices for heating in Brighton, MI, a boiler remains one of the best—and they have the extra benefit of needing far fewer repairs than furnaces thanks to the smaller amount of moving parts.
But you may encounter boiler problems at some point, and one of the most common signs something is wrong is when the boiler makes odd noises. Boilers run quieter than furnaces—that’s another one of their advantages—so when any sound from your boiler catches your attention, it might indicate a need for repairs.
But what causes these strange sounds? We’ll look into the usual suspects.
The furnace is the most common type of central heating system, but in our area there are many homes that rely on boilers. Boilers are often found in homes that don’t have a network of ventilation ducts, since a boiler works by circulating hot water through pipes to terminal points (radiators, baseboard heaters) where the heat then radiates into the rooms.
Most people who have boilers enjoy the comfort and energy savings they bring. They also like how rarely the boilers need repairs. Because boilers contain fewer moving parts than furnaces or heat pumps, they wear down slower and will not only require fewer fixes over their lifetime, they’ll have longer lifetimes as well.
However, don’t let this slower aging and lower amount of repairs trick you into thinking your boiler can miss routine fall maintenance now and then. Any heating system must have annual inspections and tune-ups, boilers included.
