Winter Home Comfort Tips: Keep Your House Warm, Safe, and Healthy

Check Your Furnace’s Air Filter

Change it if it’s dirty and you can’t see light shine through it. If you’re using 1″ filters you can buy at the hardware store, check it monthly – or more, if you’ve got furry pets or have been doing any renovations especially. A dirty filter causes your furnace’s blower motor to work harder to get the airflow the system requires, which increases its electrical draw (and therefore your electrical bill). It’s also a key cause of failures in both heating and cooling season! We recommend always having at least one spare filter in your mechanical room to swap when needed. Learn more about the ins and outs of air filters here.

Pro Tip: If you use a thicker ~5″ pleated media filter instead, you can get away with changing it far less frequently – often once a year is plenty. Ask your OPHVAC about installing a media cabinet to your furnace or air handler to accommodate this more capable filter.

Keep an Eye on RH (Relative Humidity)

Winter’s cold air is notoriously dry for much of the season. If you’ve got an ERV or HRV that’s exchanging stale, indoor air with fresh, outdoor air, you’ve probably noticed a big dip in your home’s relative humidity in heating season. Appliances like fireplaces also dry out the heat as it gets heated, compounding the issue. Health Canada advises keeping your home’s RH between 30 and 50%. If your thermostat’s hydrometer is reading outside this range, it’s time for action! Humidity that’s too low can cause health challenges like dry skin and scalp, and compound respiratory issues. It also means you have to heat the air more for it to “feel” hot. Humidity that’s too high can feel uncomfortable and pose risks to your building too. Luckily, whole home humidifiers and ERV/HRV service are some of the things our specialists deal with all the time, so we’re here to help!

Unblock Your Vents

As snow accumulates around the perimeter of our homes, or even in isolated storms with high winds, the outdoor vents to our mechanical appliances can become blocked. Gas-powered hot water heaters, furnaces, and our ERV/HRVs all require both fresh air intake, as well as combusted air exhaust to operate safely. If snow or built-up ice blocks either of these vents, these appliances will work inefficiently to draw in/exhaust the air, until they shut down as they can’t get the airflow needed. Take a moment to ensure your outdoor pipes are clear of snow, and ice, and clear the screens of any dust or debris if you have screens installed.

Maintain Your Appliances

In the same way that your car needs its oil changed and tires rotated to run reliably, your furnace and/or heat pump are also mechanical appliances that require maintenance by a licensed technician for peak performance, efficiency, and reliability. Many contractors, including OPHVAC, offer maintenance plans to ensure that this gets done on a yearly basis.

Monitor Your Utility Bills

Whether you heat with natural gas, propane, oil or even electricity, we can all agree that the costs to do this haven’t gotten much easier lately. Heating and cooling your home also occupy the lion’s share of your utility consumption in most cases, so keeping it in check is critical. In addition to ensuring you have a proper relative humidity level indoors, and that your appliances are regularly maintained, if you find your bills increase, it may be time to have a conversation about using a more efficient system to heat your home in the winter months. Heat pumps are the obvious solution as they offer solutions appropriate to our Canadian climate, and efficiency that far exceeds the 1:1 ratio you’d get from an electric furnace or baseboard heating. They’re also much more environmentally friendly than gas-burning appliances.