The weather in Southern California this winter has been more consistently cold than we’re often used to. It’s not so much that we’re experiencing much colder temperatures, but that the colder weather has hung around for longer stretches with fewer warmer periods like we’re used to. We’ve also had plenty of rain, which is good news for dealing with drought and subduing wildfire season.
Although the colder and rainier weather may be good long-term, in the short-term you’ve probably had to run your heating system more frequently than usual. This can bring out some malfunctions you may not have noticed and lead to other malfunctions because of the strain. Let’s take a moment to check in with your home’s heating now that it’s February.
A bit of a chill goes through the air, and then a few days later, it’s warm again. That’s what life is like here in Southern California during the winters. In fact, it’s why most of us love it down here! But when you experience winters this mild, it makes it easy to forget that heating systems do have a part to play and it’s vital to keep a heating system in a home in the best shape.
Heating homes in Southern California is a special type of challenge. With our warm climate that rarely goes lower than the 60s during the day in winter, and down into the 50s during the evenings, the powerful heating systems found in other parts of the country aren’t necessary. This is the reason the electric furnace is one of the more common types of heaters found in homes around here. In a place with deep cold winters, an electric furnace would be too expensive to run compared to a gas furnace. With our weather, electric furnaces don’t need to put in as much work, and the cost to run them can be just about right.
