Major home upgrades are great ways to up the value of your house and make living in it more pleasurable. What many homeowner overlook, however, is the debris created during renovations getting into the HVAC system and damaging it. By taking a few simple precautions, you can protect your system.
- Consult a contractor: Finding an HVAC contractor who has experience with renovations is a good place to start. Ask if there are any special considerations you need to make for your project in regards to protecting your system.
- Turn off your HVAC system: Air circulation is a good thing most of the time, but not when there is debris from a renovation lying around. In order to keep the debris contained, don’t use your A/C or furnace while work is being done.
- Close or tape off registers: Debris may be able to sneak into nearby duct registers. You can either cover them with tape or simply close them in most cases.
- Work outside: Sanding, sawing and other typical renovation tasks create a ton of debris. If you can do all this work outside, you can prevent it from ever having the chance to damage your system.
- Contain the debris: Most of your work is likely to be isolated to one room or section of the home. By hanging up plastic tarps or similar sheets, you can create a temporary barrier to limit exposure to the rest of the home.
- Clean continuously: By avoiding massive heaps of debris, you have a better chance of keeping it contained. Vacuum and sweep as often as you can to keep the area clean.
- Have your system inspected: If you’ve taken precautions, there shouldn’t be any damage to your HVAC system. To be on the safe side, call in your contractor again to inspect your system.
If you need a professional’s opinion on protecting your southeast Michigan home’s HVAC system, contact Aladdin Heating & Cooling.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Warren, Michigan about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about HVAC systems and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
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