You may be tempted to perform HVAC repairs on your own; after all, you’ve become quite handy around the house. Your heating, ventilation and air conditioning system is more complex than you can imagine, however, which is why experts in the field require special licensing and certification. If that alone isn’t reason enough to cross this project off your DIY list, here are four others.
1. More Harm Than Good
Don’t look up your problem online and follow a guide to fix your HVAC system. Even if the steps toward resolution seem simple enough, you are likely to cause more harm than good. This system has countless parts alongside the internal and external ventilation routes. Unless you’re absolutely sure of what you’re doing, you will likely break something, fail to connect something, miss a problem, or damage the unit beyond repair altogether. Additional damage means a higher repair bill when you finally do call someone for help.
2. Dangers
Electricity, gas, and carbon monoxide poisoning should be the only reasons you need to accept that diy hvac repairs is a bad idea. If you do not understand the unit and ventilation system like a professional does, you run the risk of electrocuting yourself, setting the house on fire, and/or introducing carbon monoxide gas into your home. The CDC reports that carbon monoxide poisoning can cause “sudden illness and death.” In fact, hundreds of people die each year in the U.S. from carbon monoxide poisoning. Don’t fix your HVAC on your own.
3. Warranty
Your new HVAC system came with a warranty. If you took out an extended one, you’re covered for many more years to come. If you attempt to repair your heating or air conditioning on your own, you’ve just voided that warranty. Manufacturers are picky about who repairs and maintains your unit, so don’t run the risk of losing the money you put into the warranty by doing it yourself. To be honest, this makes sense. The manufacturer doesn’t want you tinkering with your unit because you haven’t been trained properly. Fair enough, wouldn’t you say?
4. Future Issues
Take the first three reasons and add them up to reason number four. If you don’t know what you’re doing, if you don’t handle the electrical and gas dangers properly, and if you void your warranty, you’ve just opened yourself up to future problems with your home’s heating and air conditioning system. Professional technicians know how every facet of these systems operate, which is why they can repair them and guarantee their work should you have any additional problems. Why spend more money than you have to. Have the work done right the first time.
Keep the DIY stuff to the things you know. Taking apart your HVAC unit is a recipe for disaster, and when you add into that how dangerous it might be, it’s never worth the risk to you or your family. Tackle that interior or exterior paint job, landscape your front and back yards, rip up and upgrade your kitchen and bathroom flooring, but don’t trust the complex work of HVAC repair to anyone other than an expert. These repair people are called technicians for a reason.