Tips for checking your heater as cold weather arrives on the South Plains

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - As Lubbock prepares for a cold front, residents are making sure their homes are ready for the temperature drop by having a specialist take a look at their heaters.

"We're going to check the filter, that's the first thing you're going to do before you do a pre-season," Robert Hagood, a service tech for Duncan Heating and Air Conditioning says. "You want to pull your filter out and check it."

Hagood says filters need to be changed every month.

"Get your filter out, if it's dirty, that's not what you want, you want to put in a new filter. You want a nice clean filter," he says.

Hagood has worked at Duncan Heating and Air Conditioning as a service tech for the past 16 years, but he's been in the industry for 44.

He says during the fall, the four techs the company employs are going out to about 10 pre-season checks a day.

"It does keep us busy this time of year...everybody needs their heaters checked," he says.

They also check several other components associated with the heating unit.

"We check all of the electrical components to make sure nothing is shorted and everything is working properly," he says.

And, that's not all.

"Just to make sure we aren't getting any carbon monoxide anywhere in the house, that's the one thing," he says. "And, then after you get done with all of that, you check the vents and make sure it's all operating properly."

He says the entire process of making sure everything is good to go for those chilly winter months only takes about an hour.

"If you've got a stopped-up filter like this, your heater will overheat, cut out on high limit - you're not going to get much heat in the house and then you'll be out on repair bills," he says.

Hagood says residents should start scheduling their pre-season check-ups around September.

"The main thing is, is get them serviced before you operate them," he says.