When I was a new home owner, I waited until the last minute to have my furnace serviced by an HVAC professional.
I thought that the HVAC professional would visit my home within a few days and then he’d tell me everything was okay and I’d go about my life as usual.
Sometimes, I would really live on the edge and wait to have my furnace serviced until the middle of winter when I was already running it. I knew it was risky, but I thought my furnace was invincible. Last year though, the weather channel was calling for a massive cold front and it was expected to snow for several days. I called the HVAC company and managed to schedule an appointment before it got too cold, but right before the HVAC professional arrived, my furnace stopped running. I didn’t worry about it too much because I thought the HVAC professional would fix it and be on his way. Unfortunately, he needed parts that he didn’t have to fix and it would take several weeks to be delivered. My furnace wasn’t going to turn on that day, and I was so disappointed that I’d neglected to have my furnace serviced in advance. I had no choice but to live with a friend with a working furnace during that cold front, because my house didn’t have a furnace to keep me warm during the storm. After this experience, I vowed that I would have my furnace looked at by an HVAC professional weeks before I needed to use it. This would allow me to fix anything before the temperatures outside dropped.