Getting your heating ready for a Central Victorian winter

Winters up here are not Melbourne winters. Daylesford, Trentham and the towns between sit high enough that heating isn't a comfort — it's the thing your whole house runs on for five months of the year. Here's what we'd check before the next cold snap, in the order we'd check it.

1. Clean the return air filter

The single most common cause of "my heater isn't what it used to be" is a blocked filter. Pull it out, take it outside, hose it down, let it dry completely and put it back. Don't vacuum it — the mesh is finer than it looks. A clean filter can be the difference between a room that warms in ten minutes and one that never quite gets there.

2. Listen to it for a minute

Systems rarely fail without warning. Rattles, a hum that wasn't there last year, or short bursts of running and stopping are all worth a phone call before July, when every refrigeration mechanic in the district is flat out.

3. Check the outdoor unit has room to breathe

Leaves, garden growth and firewood stacked against the outdoor unit all choke the airflow it needs. Keep half a metre clear around it, and if it iced up last winter, mention that when you book a service — icing usually means something worth looking at.

4. Run it before you need it

Turn the heating on for twenty minutes on a mild day. If something's wrong, you'd rather find out in October than on the first minus-two morning.

5. Think about running costs while it's still mild

If you're on an old gas ducted unit or resistive electric heating, the running-cost gap to a modern reverse-cycle system is now very large — Sustainability Victoria's published figures put gas ducted at more than double the cost of running split systems in an average home, before you even factor in a cold-climate loading. Spring is the right time to plan a changeover; winter is the wrong time to be without heating while one happens.

If any of this turns up something you don't like the look of, send us the make, the symptom and the address through the contact page and we'll tell you what it needs and what it costs.