Residing in Las Vegas, where the summer sun scorches and winter nights can be surprisingly cool, makes indoor comfort a year-round necessity. A furnace may seem an oddity in a city like Las Vegas, and yet, just as reliably as the hot desert sun comes up, the temperatures can plunge in the evening. To maintain comfortable living conditions throughout the year, one must have a furnace that is capable of not only enduring these temperature drops but also functioning even when the summer sun seems hell-bent on frying everything in its path. It would seem that this tall order would necessitate a new construction furnace. Yet mine is quite vintage, a 1978 model to be exact, and only teeters on the edge of functioning at a capacity equivalent to an energy-efficient replacement unit on the market today.
Las Vegas is a city with highly variable and often extreme temperatures, so the homeowners there should be particularly vigilant about the working conditions of their furnace's pilot or ignition control system. When these components are malfunctioning, the furnace might light intermittently or not at all, which means that the residents of the affected home are not safe from the cold. Working in tandem with control systems are the furnace's electrical connections and the thermostat, which also need to be looked at during maintenance visits. The authors of this guide recommend annual inspections, although that might not be strictly necessary for houses equipped with newer, more reliable heating systems.
In the Las Vegas area, the heating systems that many residents have in their homes must be inspected and maintained when necessary, more formally than during routine check-ups, if potential problems are to be avoided. This means that qualified HVAC technicians must take a look at the heat exchanger to make sure that it's still doing its job and not leaking dangerous carbon monoxide into the living space. Another equally critical maintenance task involves making sure that all the moving parts in the system are well-lubricated so that they perform smoothly. If you picture two huge wagon wheels turning side by side in the below-freezing weather, then picture those same two wheels turning at the 2001 Super Bowl halftime in Las Vegas. That's sort of the difference between a typical furnace and a well-performing one.