Since we live in southwest Florida, we tend to quickly forget that sometimes our winters are not as mild as we’d like them to be. While the month’s high was 85 F, we saw the temps at night dip as low as 33 F in January 2011. But of course, all the beautiful and some even scorching months that follow those days, help to wipe them from our memory.
The winter season is coming up and while I can’t predict the weather or tell you whether it will be mild or more severe, I can give you some advice. If you’re an avid gardener then you probably already know how to use those cheesecloth things to keep your plants from freezing, but I’m not in the business of gardening, so I’ll let you be the expert on what that cheesecloth thing is called.
Since I’m in the business of air conditioning, I can tell you that there is no better time to check the status of your heating system then before the first colds hit. Yes, we are weeks away from possible cold snaps, but don’t wait until they happen to find out that something’s gone wrong. Once the temperatures begin to decline, take a moment to turn on your heater. Make sure that it’s working properly and is actually producing warm air. You will probably smell some of that dust burning on the coil. That is normal, so I suggest that you open your windows to air it out.
If something isn’t right, it could be a minor fix or possibly something that would require a little bit of work, but if you find out in advance, you can make sure that you’re not caught off guard by an unpleasant surprise.
I’ll tell you a little fact here: we get our highest volumes of our calls for heating or a/c malfunctions right when that first cold snap or spike in warm temperatures happens. This is when lots of people realize that something’s not working properly. So, I encourage you to avoid having to wait for service or be uncomfortable in any way just by simply checking ahead of everyone else and making sure that there are no unpleasant surprises in store for you later.
As always, thanks for reading,
Bryan
Bryan Hayes, along with his brother Todd, is a co-owner of a Sanibel Air Conditioning company on Sanibel, FL. They also own and operate an island-based electrical service company Sanctuary Island Electric, Inc. Bryan can be reached at Bryan@Sanibelair.com
