Gas furnace against electric strips: what each one needs before Palatka's first freeze

Two kinds of heat, side by side

In the city and the neighborhoods around it, Palatka Gas Authority runs natural gas lines, and a lot of houses in Newtown, Palatka Heights and the historic districts heat with a gas furnace that shares a cabinet with the air conditioning coil. Beyond the gas lines, in East Palatka, San Mateo and out toward the lakes, almost everyone heats with a heat pump and its electric backup strips, or with strips alone in an older air handler.

The gas furnace is cheaper to run and more complicated to keep safe. It spends March through December idle in a humid closet, and when it lights for the first freeze it has to do so with rusty burners and a flame sensor coated in a summer’s worth of film. The strip heater is simple and expensive: a shorted element or a stuck sequencer either leaves you cold or runs the strips all night, and either way the electric bill tells the story. One maintenance visit in October serves both, but what the technician does in each house is different.

The signs each one gives before it fails

Any one of the gas-side signs that involves smell, flame color or carbon monoxide means turn it off and call, not schedule a checkup for next week.

What waiting costs, in each house

Waiting on a gas furnace costs safety first and money second. A flame sensor that has not been cleaned makes the furnace short-cycle on the coldest night, which is uncomfortable; a heat exchanger that was never inspected and has cracked is a carbon monoxide problem, which is something else entirely. The repair bill for a neglected furnace is usually not large. The risk of never having had it looked at is.

Waiting on strip heat costs money, steadily. A heat pump whose outdoor coil is matted and whose defrost control is tired leans on its strips for every cold morning instead of a few, and in a county of modest incomes that January bill is a real hardship. A sequencer that sticks on runs a strip after the thermostat is satisfied. None of that announces itself; it just arrives from the utility in February.

Call 866-266-5709

What the October visit involves

On a gas furnace in Palatka Gas Authority territory:

1. Carbon monoxide test at the registers and combustion analysis at the flue.
2. Heat exchanger inspection, with a camera where the design allows.
3. Burners pulled, cleaned and reinstalled; flame sensor cleaned; igniter tested.
4. Gas pressure checked and adjusted, gas connections leak-tested.
5. Venting and condensate trap on high-efficiency models inspected.
6. Blower, belt or motor, and the shared filter and coil checked.
7. Limit and pressure switches tested, thermostat verified.

On a heat pump with strips, or a strip-only air handler, anywhere in the county:

1. Each strip element tested for continuity and amp draw.
2. Sequencers and relays tested for sticking.
3. Breaker and wiring sized and tightened; surge damage checked on rural lines.
4. Heat pump defrost cycle run and the outdoor coil cleaned, so the strips stay in reserve.
5. Blower, filter and duct inspected, including belly duct on manufactured homes.
6. Thermostat confirmed as a heat pump control with the auxiliary stage wired correctly.

Both versions end with the readings on paper and a price for anything that tested weak, before it is replaced.

Keeping the next winter uneventful

A furnace that passed in October and a strip heater that tested clean stay that way with a few habits:

• Run the heat for ten minutes in November, before you need it, so a problem shows up on a mild day.
• Keep the closet clear around a gas furnace; combustion air matters and so does access.
• Put a CO detector within earshot of bedrooms in any home with gas heat, and test it when the clocks change.
• Clean the heat pump’s outdoor coil before winter, because the cleaner it is, the less the strips run.
• Watch the thermostat for auxiliary heat in mild weather; it is the earliest warning the strips are carrying a load they should not.
• Book the two visits a year, spring for cooling and fall for heating, and let a maintenance agreement remember the dates for you.

Cook’s services Lennox, Carrier, Bryant, Trane, and any other furnace or air handler brand found in Putnam County, from the Palm Coast shop about 51 minutes east. Call 866-266-5709 to put the October visit on the calendar.