Welcome to the Flame Furnace Blog

 Have you ever woke up to a freezing cold house?  The feeling is both chilling and scary, and it is probably because you have no heat coming from you furnace. Here are a few things that you can check on before calling any furnace company:

• Check your furnace to make sure that it is set to “heat.”  If it is not, simply set it to heat and wait and see if your home starts to warm up.
• Check your electrical panel to make sure that you did not blow a fuse or that a breaker did not trip.  If you find that one of these is the problem, you can reset the circuit breaker or replace the fuse.
• Check to make sure that your pilot light has not gone out or also that the gas valve is not shut off in which case you can re-light the pilot light.

It is possible that your thermostat may be the one that is broken, so try playing around with it and set it at different temperatures.  If none of these quick fixes work, or if you have any questions, please call a company such as Flame Furnace which can help restore heat to your home and also fix any electrical problems that you may have, so that you can avoid the health risks and danger associated with a house with no heat.

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Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!  School’s out for break and this may be when you have decided to go on vacation!  Maybe off to sunny Florida or somewhere else warm where you do not have to worry about using furnace for a while.  However, before leaving here are a few tips for your furnace and other things in your house to help save money and energy while you are gone:

1.  Turn down your heat!  If no one is going to be in your house for a week, why would your furnace have to work hard to heat an empty home?  You may already be in the habit of turning down your heat at different points of the day, but since while you are on vacation you will be gone for a fairly long period of time, you can turn your heat even further down!  However, you do not want to turn the heat down too far, because the pipes could freeze, you probably should not go lower than around 55 degrees.
2. Along those lines, turn down your water heater.  An empty house does not need hot water!
3. Make sure to shut all your chimney flues.  Though they should be shut whenever you are not using the fireplace, sometimes it is easy to forget to do that.  Shut them while you are gone to save energy, so the little heat you are using is not being wasted at all.
4. If you will be gone for a longer period of time, it is not a bad idea to ask a neighbor to check on your home and make sure the furnace is still running so that there are no problems and the pipes do not freeze.  Also, it is not fun to come home from vacation to a home with a broken furnace!

If you are going out of town, hopefully these tips can help and have a wonderful time!

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Here are some facts about Flame that you may not have known!

• Flame Furnace was established in 1949 and has been family owned and operated since that time.  Though some aspects of it have changed, (such as the introduction of computers and more advanced phone systems) majority of it has stayed the same.
• Right now, Flame Furnace sells Bryant products including furnaces, air conditioners, thermostats, generators etc…  If you wish to look up more information about them or their products, you can look at their website, www.bryant.com.
• There will always be people able to help you out at Flame Furnace, even on Christmas Day, because your comfort matters.
• The original owner of Flame sold Christmas Trees during the winter when the company was first beginning in order to make a little extra money
• Flame has won many prestigious awards, a full list is available at flamefurnace.com under the “about us” and then “why choose Flame?” section.

That is just a little more information about Flame Furnace, if you are still curious feel free to leave a comment and ask, or contact us to see how we can help you today.

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Who likes to breathe dusty air?  Probably no one.  That is why Flame offers different services and products to help keep your air clean!

1. Duct Cleaning!-Your home’s air ducts should be cleaned every 3-5 years or so. If you have recently moved into a brand new home, you may want to do it more often.  Flame offers trained technicians to do this process, and it will help to keep your ducts free of dirt or anything else that you do not want in there.
2. UV Germicidal Light-These ultra violet lights can be combined with filters.  While filters work to block particles from entering your living areas, a germicial light actually kills bacteria and mold spores.  Another advantage is that the light is extremely quiet so you won’t even hear it while it is keeping your home clean!
3. Change your Filters-Change your filter about once a month to help keep your air cleaner and bills lower!

If you’re worried about your home’s air, feel free to ask about any of these things that will help to make your air cleaner and your home a better place to be!

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Hot water heaters are often very important in both the winter and the summer.  When it is below freezing out, not many people like to jump into a cold shower!  Also, after playing in the snow, who likes “cold” chocolate?  Hot chocolate is much better!  This is why when your water is not hot, you may want to get it working right away!  A common problem is that your pilot light may have gone out on your heater.  Here is how to re-light it!

1.  Look to see if there are instructions on your heater, and if there are-follow those, if not continue with these steps-
2. Turn the gas control knob to off, wait 5 minutes and see if all the gas has cleared.  If you smell gas, do not continue call a professional instead.
3. Using pliers, remove the cover.  It should be below the gas control knob.  Then you can use a flashlight to help find the end of the pilot light tube.
4. Light your match and place it by the end of the pilot light tube and turn the control knob to “pilot.”  Press down the reset valve and light the end of the pilot light tube.  Keep holding down the valve for a minute or so after the light is lit.
5. If it does not work, try again or free to call a utility company or Flame if you have any problems or questions!

Hopefully these instructions will be able to help you and that you will not have cold showers for long!

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Saving money is always a priority.  Why spend more money when you do not have to?  Though you may have already learned about some of these money and energy saving tips, here is a quick reminder before your bills start to pile up due to the Christmas season:

•  Buy a programmable thermostat, or if you already have one, but do not use it-program it!  You can program your home to be a couple degrees cooler when not many people are at home.  For example during the day if everybody is at school or work.  Your furnace does not need to be warming up an empty home!
• If you are in the market for a new furnace, consider a high efficiency one.  You can check or ask for the AFUE level on a furnace.  This stands for Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency.  The higher the number, the better. The number stands for the percent of energy actually being converted to heat.
• Make sure your attic is insulated!-the heat that your furnace provides will want to head to cooler spaces like your attic and out of your home and the insulation will help to keep the heat trapped in!  Some older homes do not have as much as insulation as newer ones, so you can always add more if necessary.  Insulation will also help in the summer, because it will prevent the warm outside air from getting into your home.
• Clean or change your filters!  This may seem like an easy task to forget or to decide to do later, however they should be changed about every month.  This has many benefits.  It helps to keep your air cleaner and healthier and also saves you money!  It is not as easy for the heated air to get through to your home if it is blocked by a dirty furnace, therefore the furnace has to work harder to heat your home. A clean filter means that your furnace is working less for the same amount of heat.
• Keep vents or radiators clear.  Even if they seem somewhat ugly, a clear vent is able to get more heated air into a room faster.  If it is blocked by a couch, the air has to go under, over, or around the couch.  This seems pretty inefficient.

These are not the only ways to save money with your heating during the winter months, just a few.  Hopefully these have been able to help and that your heating bills will not be as shocking after those Christmas bills!

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You probably have a furnace and an air conditioner and may not know much about them. Getting an energy evaluation seems pretty complicated and not worth it.  However, these evaluations are not difficult at all, especially not for the homeowner. Hopefully these reasons can possibly sway your mind about it!

1.  If you’re a very “green” person, here is another way to display that and go “green.”  This evaluation can help you to find where there are leaks of heated or cooled air and you can decided whether you want to move forward with the plan that trained consultant figured out.  It is another way to help save the planet.
2. There could possibly be less dust and lowered allergy symptoms in your home if your home is sealed off more to help prevent energy leaks.
3. It can possibly lengthen your furnace and air conditioner’s life.  If you follow through with the consultant’s plan, your duct system will not be losing nearly as much heated or cooled air which means that your furnace or air conditioner doesn’t have to work as hard to heat or cool a home.
4. Last but not least, it saves money.  The average duct system loses 25-40% of the heated or cooled air.  That is quite a lot of air that your utility bills are paying for but you are not receiving.  Though correcting your home’s problems may cost to begin with, eventually you will be saving money!

With Christmas on its way, you are probably too busy to consider any of this.  However, try to remember to think about it after Christmas, especially when that is when you really want to save your money!

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Just like how Goldilocks first had to sit in a chair that was too big and a chair that was too small until she found one that was just right, sometimes your home can feel like it never has the right amount of moisture during the winter!  When your home is dry you use a humidifier but sometimes that makes your home too moist. Here are some ways that you can tell if there is too much moisture: if there is mold on your ceiling, frequent condensation on your window or musty odors in your home.

 Why are these problems occurring during the winter?  Because since many homes are sealed so tightly, it traps in moisture and the cooler windows and ceiling can make it more apparent.  Try to keep your home between 35-50% humidity.  Here are some quick easy ways to lower humidity in your home:

•  You want to lower the amount of water in your home as much as possible so cover pots when cooking when you can to prevent the moisture from escaping
• Also, try not to hang up your damp clothes inside
• Check for leaky plumbing or roofing

Another good idea is a humidifier that is built right in so that it uses your ducts to deliver humidified air.  Often these come with a humidistat that allows you to control the amount of moisture in your home with the click of the button.  These are also fairly quiet, and will not take up space in your home.  You do not have to worry about your humidifier not matching your decor. 

Feel free to comment or call Flame about any other question dealing with humidifiers.  Somebody can help you make your home have the right amount of moisture, just how Goldilocks found the right chair!

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