We hope you’ve been scheduling preventive maintenance on your heater on a regular basis and calling for repairs when you have to. Taking these actions can extend the life of your heater. But no amount of care and maintenance can make a heater last forever. Eventually, you will have to replace it with a new one. If you’re unsure whether or not your heater is getting close to the end of its life, there are a number of ways to tell. Have a look at three of the most common signs that it’s getting close to time to replace your heater. If the heater is experiencing any of these conditions, consult with a professional and see about replacing it.
Steadily Rising Heating Costs
Most of the time, if your heating costs start to go up from month to month, it means you’re using the system more often. If your heater starts to cost more to operate than you think is justified by how often you’re using it, however, then you might want to have it looked at. Oftentimes, heaters start to cost more and more to operate because they start to wear down to the point where their efficiency drops. The lower the system’s heating efficiency drops, the longer the heater has to work to accomplish the same temperature control. This is what causes the monthly bills to rise over time. Once a system reaches this point, there isn’t much that can be done to repair it. The heater will likely have to be replaced.
Repair Issues
It’s not that big of a deal if you need to repair your heater every once in a while. Some heating system types are more resistant to developing problems than others (like boilers) but all of them can certainly have problems crop up under certain circumstances. No heating type, however, should need to be repaired on a regular basis. If you need to have a professional fix your heater for you multiple times a year, or even on an annual basis, you should talk to them about replacing the system. It’s simply not cost effective to keep paying to replace various parts of the heater every single year instead of just replacing the entire thing at once.
The Heater Is Old
The average lifespan of a heater varies between systems, but most last between 10 and 20 years. Past that point, a heater will become more and more costly to keep up and running. If your heater is older than this range, you might be able to get a few more good years out of it … or you might not. The only way to know with any degree of certainty is to speak to a professional and have them examine the system for you. If your heater is getting to the end of its useful lifespan, it’s better to replace it now than to wait for it to break down entirely.
Sunset Air offers heating installation and replacement services in Puyallup, WA. Contact us today to schedule an appointment with one of our technicians.
