6 Safety Tips You Should Know This Winter Season

• Vacant Space: A furnace is a heating appliance, and the air around the mouth of the furnace has an extremely high temperature. In such cases, you should ensure that there is no object near the mouth of your furnace that may accidentally catch fire.
• Sturdy Screens: If you have an antique furnace, you know that the sparks it produces could set nearby surfaces on fire. The furnace’s sparks are beyond your control, but you can influence where they land. You should purchase a durable screen for the furnace in such circumstances. A strong screen will ensure that the furnace’s sparks don’t fall on nearby objects that can catch fire.
• Not Using an Oven: As you know, an oven consumes less energy than a furnace. Considering this fact, some homeowners think of using their ovens to heat their homes instead of using their furnaces.

However, homeowners should not try doing this. Even if an oven consumes less energy and is a heating appliance, it is not suitable for warming your home. Using an oven to heat your home may lead to excessive carbon monoxide.

• Radiator Covers: If you have children at home, you should consider buying radiator covers before anything else. A radiator cover for your furnace will ensure that children do not come in contact with the system and burn themselves.

A sturdy screen can stop the sparks from leaving the furnace, but it cannot stop children from touching it. Radiator covers are the best options to prevent children from reaching the furnace.

• Annual Inspection: You should ensure to contact a professional technician annually to clean your heating appliances and other parts connected to them.

This annual inspection of all the heating components will ensure that your safety levels stay as high as possible when your system works.

• Carbon Monoxide Detectors: Since carbon monoxide is a natural by-product of fuel combustion, it is created each time your furnace runs. All furnaces have a separate chamber to store carbon monoxide, from which it leaves your home.

If your furnace is old or ill-maintained, the chamber may lose its safety capacity, and the gas may leak into your home. It would help if you got carbon monoxide detectors for your home.