Tips on Building (and Maintaining) Your Furnace Room
by Roger Grochmal, CEO and Chief Brand Officer for AtlasCare
Your furnace
should be installed in a room dedicated to its needs and efficient
operation. When a house is built, it usually has an open
unfinished basement which, in effect, is the furnace room.
Many people finish the basement, and whether they do it themselves
or use a contractor, the furnace is almost always hidden away in a
specially constructed enclosed space called (the "Furnace
Room"). The furnace room is typically among the most
neglected rooms in a house-most of us only go there to change the
furnace filter. However, this room is well worth paying
attention to when you're building it-following a few simple
guidelines can affect how well the equipment inside the room
functions which in turn affects you and your family's comfort,
safety and even everyone's health.
The most important part of a furnace room is the space around
the equipment. You need enough space to access equipment on
all sides to allow a serviceperson to perform maintenance and
repairs. Specifically, this means at least 30 inches from the
front of a furnace (required by the gas code) and enough space to
remove the water heater or furnace from the furnace room when they
have to be replaced. You'll also need enough space to
accommodate any future home comfort equipment, such as heat
recovery ventilators, humidifiers, Hepa filters, and air
purifiers. In addition to sufficient space, a well planned
furnace room should have the following:
- Air openings in the walls sufficiently large for all combustion
appliances to operate without producing carbon monoxide;
- A well-marked furnace switch;
- Well-insulated joist header spaces on the outside walls;
- Insulated walls if the furnace room is adjacent to areas where
mechanical noise would be a nuisance;
- Floor drains that can accommodate possible water overflow from
humidifiers, air conditioners and high efficiency furnaces;
- Good lighting for service and maintenance.
Your furnace room should not have any return air vents that take
in air from inside the furnace room since this can pose a health
and safety risk.
Most importantly, a furnace room should not be used to store
anything other than your home comfort equipment. If you're
finishing your basement, you should plan for storage space other
than in the furnace room. Piles of stuff can obstruct service
and maintenance as well as interfere with the efficient operation
of your equipment. As the furnace circulates air into every
room of your house, you should avoid storing anything there that
may be toxic or contain harmful odours. Some substances can
even damage your equipment.
The following suggestions will help keep your furnace room clean
and safe:
- Keep gas appliances free of surrounding clutter than could
block air needed for combustion or that could catch fire;
- Remove and dispose of used filters and old parts;
- Store chemicals in a cabinet somewhere else, particularly
solvents such as paint thinners or gasoline, both of which are
toxic and are fire hazards;
- If the furnace room doubles as the laundry room, store cleaning
chemicals in tightly sealed containers. Cleaners, bleaches,
and laundry detergents accelerate the rusting and failure of the
heat exchanger in the furnace;
- Do not suspend anything (e.g. laundry) from either the furnace
or hot water heater vent pipes, gas pipes or water lines;
- Keep kitty litter boxes well away from the furnace because the
ammonia fumes from the litter can corrode the furnace's heat
exchanger and the odours will circulate throughout the house.
If you have a question about your furnace room, please call your
healthy home comfort specialists at AtlasCare, 905-829-1296 or contact us.
Roger Grochmal is the CEO and Chief Brand Officer for AtlasCare,
the GTA's premier HVAC dealer and healthy home company.
