If you only do one thing: book the tune-up before the first week the heat runs all day. Every year the calls for tune-ups come in November, and the breakdowns follow in December and January. A tune-up in October finds the weak part while it is still an appointment.
What it costs
Three ways to do it with us, from the smallest to the most thorough:
- The $67 Heating Check, through December 31. A full safety and operation check on one furnace or heat pump. On a gas furnace the burners, igniter, flame sensor and heat exchanger are inspected. Electrical components are tested, the thermostat is checked and set up properly, and airflow and temperature rise are measured, not guessed at. You get photos of anything we flag, in writing, before we leave.
- The $229 blower wheel deep clean, through December 31. Everything in the check, plus the blower wheel taken out and cleaned blade by blade, a new standard filter, your dampers set for winter, and a full furnace tune-up: gas pressure, temperature rise, safeties and sequence of operation. Heat pump air handlers too, same job, same price.
- The Comfort+ membership, $199 a year or $20 a month. A heating maintenance visit every fall and a cooling maintenance visit every spring, plus a dryer vent cleaning and a water heater flush with a sewer camera inspection. Members take 15% off any service, and the diagnostic visit is included. We book the visits and keep the records.
The check and the deep clean are one visit per system. If a part has already failed, we price the repair in writing and you decide. Nothing gets fixed without you saying yes. Both are on the Heating Check page, and the membership is here.
What a tune-up actually is
A tune-up is mostly measuring. A furnace that “runs” can still be running wrong for years: a little overfired, starved for air, with a flame sensor reading weak or a capacitor on its way out. None of that makes a noise until the day it stops. The visit is where somebody puts a meter on it.
What we are looking at, in plain terms:
- Does it light right? The igniter, the burners and the flame sensor. A sensor with a film on it is one of the most common no-heat calls we run in the fall, and it is a few minutes to clean on a tune-up instead of a cold night later. What the flame sensor does.
- Is it safe? The heat exchanger looked at, the safeties tested, the venting checked. A rollout or limit switch that has been tripping tells you something.
- Is the air moving? Temperature rise is the difference between the air going in and the air coming out. Your furnace has its own correct range printed on its data plate. Too high means it is not moving enough air, and running hot over and over is hard on the heat exchanger, the part that keeps exhaust out of your air. That is why we measure it instead of guessing.
- Is the electrical healthy? Capacitors, contactors, connections, and the motors’ draw. A motor pulling too hard is telling you its month.
- Is the thermostat telling it the right thing? Wrong settings are behind a lot of “it never feels warm” calls, especially on heat pumps, where the backup heat settings decide how big the electric bill gets.
ENERGY STAR’s own maintenance list says to “clean and adjust blower components to provide proper system airflow for greater comfort levels,” and that “airflow problems can reduce your system’s efficiency by up to 15 percent.” (ENERGY STAR maintenance checklist.) That is why the deep clean pulls the blower wheel. It sits downstream of every filter the house has ever had, and it packs up slowly enough that nobody notices. Here is one cleaned, on video. The house just takes a little longer to warm up every winter.
Do you need one every year?
The check, yes. Once a year, before you lean on the heat. The blower wheel, no: every three to five years is plenty for most houses, sooner if you have dogs or the system ran through a renovation.
If you have a heat pump, it does both jobs, so it works all year. A fall visit for the heat and a spring visit for the cooling is the honest schedule, which is what the membership is built around.
The whole year in one place, both visits and the jobs in between, is in our guide to HVAC maintenance.
A furnace past fifteen is where the visit earns its keep differently. At that age the question is not only “is it working” but “is it worth putting money into,” and a tune-up is the cheapest way to get a straight answer. If the answer is replace, you will want the number before it is cold: our furnace estimator prices a new one for your house size, $4,285 to $14,040 installed. From about $71 a month at 0% APR for 60 months, the whole price financed, on approved credit.
What you can do yourself before we get there
Three things, none of which need tools.
Change the filter. Note the size printed on the side before you throw the old one out. If you cannot see light through it, that alone may explain a house that warms slowly. Which filter to buy.
Clear the space around the furnace. Paint cans, cardboard and the recycling against a gas appliance is how garage fires start.
Run the heat once on a mild afternoon and listen. Twenty minutes, windows cracked. Write down anything that sounds or smells wrong, and tell the technician. What to listen for is here.
And put a carbon monoxide alarm on every floor with a bedroom if you do not already have one. A tune-up checks the furnace once a year. The alarm checks it every minute.
What the tune-up finds, and what that costs
Most fall checks end with a clean report and a new filter. When they do not, these are the usual suspects, at our Northern Virginia prices:
- Flame sensor cleaned: $95 to $180.
- Condensate drain cleared, trap and switch added: $175 to $420.
- Run capacitor replaced: $240 to $370.
- Igniter or flame sensor replaced: $240 to $410.
- Thermostat replaced: $300 to $640.
- Control board: $550 to $1,180.
- Blower motor: $670 to $2,400.
Members take 15% off any of them. The full furnace repair list is here.
Have a boiler instead? The boiler tune-up is $69, regularly $99, and what we check on a boiler is here. More for the season, month by month, in the Cold Season Field Guide.
Book the $67 Heating Check, or price a new furnace
Get it checked before the cold. The $67 Heating Check covers one furnace or heat pump, through December 31. If you also want the blower wheel pulled and cleaned with a full tune-up, that is $229.
What a new furnace costs in your house. The furnace price estimator asks a few questions about your home and shows the installed price for your size, from $4,285. From about $71 a month at 0% APR for 60 months, the whole price financed, on approved credit. You can book a free in-home measurement from the same page.
SwiftPro runs heating tune-ups across Northern Virginia, every brand of furnace and heat pump. Call (703) 997-9757 or book a time online.
