John A. Kinkaid Heating & Air Conditioning, Inc.

Is It Safe to Use Your Oven to Heat Your Home?

Safe to Use Your Oven to Heat Your Home

Nothing’s more frustrating than when your heater breaks and you have to wait in the winter cold to get it fixed. Sitting in your home, freezing and covered in layers of blankets can be hard to stand! Space heaters might help, but they can’t heat your entire home. And they can run up your electric costs! It seems like the easiest option would be to turn on your gas oven and leave it open for a while. Just a few minutes couldn’t hurt, right? In this week’s blog, we’ll answer the question, “Is It Safe to Use Your Oven to Heat Your Home?”

Is It Safe to Use Your Oven to Heat Your Home?

First, let’s make this short and simple: no. It is not safe to use your oven to heat your home. If you have a gas oven, leaving it open to heat your home releases harmful carbon monoxide throughout your home. Given some time, carbon monoxide can be fatal. Additionally, if you suffer from a lung condition such as asthma, emphysema, or other similar conditions, carbon monoxide can exacerbate your condition. And this might mean a hospital visit!

Now, you might wonder, “But didn’t they use ovens to heat their homes in the old days?” No, people actually used wood ovens to heat their homes. The oven would be connected to all sorts of pipes that ran throughout the home to keep it warm. But wood ovens do not use natural gas. Therefore, they do not release carbon monoxide.

Other Tips Besides Using Your Oven to Heat Your Home

Second, if you’ve chosen a subpar HVAC company who won’t be able to serve you for a while, consider these tips to help heat your home:

  • Open all your blinds, drapes, and curtains during the day. Close them at night.
  • Install storm windows on the outside of your home.
  • Close all your doors and focus on heating at least one room in your home.
  • Make sure your windows are locked and not just closed.

Go with Kinkaid Instead!

Since it isn’t safe to use your oven to heat your home, what else can you do? Call us at Kinkaid Heating and Air Conditioning! We’re the best HVAC company in the Philadelphia area. We’d love it if you reached out for a consultation. Don’t delay!

The Importance of Good Furnace Maintenance

good furnace maintenance is important to your family's health and safety

In our experience at John A. Kinkaid Heating & Air Conditioning, Inc, many emergency calls for furnaces that suddenly stopped working in the middle of winter are related to a lack of furnace maintenance. Left unserviced, a furnace can leave your family in the cold with little to no warning when it suddenly stops working.

Prevent emergency repairs with good furnace maintenance

Getting your furnace serviced regularly is important so your HVAC professional can catch the small problems before they become huge problems. Making these minor repairs now will save you a lot of headache – and a possible mid-winter, emergency visit from your HVAC repair service – in the long run. Like any equipment, long- term maintenance extends the life of the machine. It is much cheaper to fix the little problems as soon as they appear rather than ignore them until the furnace breaks down and you find yourself shelling out thousands for massive emergency repairs – or even a whole new furnace – in the middle of winter.

Prevents health hazards

An unserviced furnace is also a health hazard. Furnace inspections can reveal carbon monoxide leaks. Carbon monoxide is a colorless and odorless gas, making it difficult to detect. This is also why installing carbon monoxide detectors in your home is vitally important to the safety and health of your family. Carbon monoxide can lead to headaches, dizziness, nausea and, eventually, death. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), over 430 people die each year because of carbon monoxide exposure with individuals over the age of 65 being at the greatest risk for carbon monoxide poisoning. Those with breathing problems such as asthma or very young children are also at greater risk.

If you have older relatives including parents or grandparents who live alone, make sure they are getting their furnaces serviced properly and carbon monoxide detectors installed as they may not be aware of the danger they are in by not keeping their furnace in good condition.

Fall is a good time to give your HVAC system an annual tune-up with John A. Kinkaid Heating & Air Conditioning, Inc, the trusted name in HVAC services in the Delaware Valley! Contact us in the Willow Grove area at 215-657-1262 and in the Ambler area at 215-646-5577. Or contact us online to request an appointment today!