We bought a Carrier Infinity hybrid (heat pump/gas furnace) system a few years back. We have a service contract with the company who installed it and they come out every year to check it.
We have two gas furnaces and two air conditioning units, and have them checked professionally every year, under a service contract. The cleaning that is done is not simply a change of filters. It isn’t worth the risk of a carbon monoxide issue, in my opinion, not to do so.
@bunsenburner:
Like I said, it depends on your willingness to risk the insurance company screwing you if something happens. I think with my gas company the service contract on both my units is like 10 bucks a month, so it isn’t prohibitively expensive, and compare that if your house has a major fire and you insurer is looking for any excuse not to pay. To boost profits, homeowner insurance groups retained such stellar firms as McKimsey and Company and Booz Allan Hamilton to advise them on increasing profitability, and one of the ways they do it is to use anything the least bit out of line to deny claims (not to mention basically offering very little to repair the damage, and when you complain, saying “sue me”),and if you think state regulators will step in…it is all about risk aversion, reminds me of the guy who refused to pay for his tax that covered the local fire department, then watched when his structure burned to the ground and the fire company refused to put it out shrug
Fire? Lol. You think what that guy does around the gas furnace is going to help in any way to prevent a fire?
If you google around for whether it is a must thing to do, look carefully who wrote these articles. The furnace guys would hate to lose those lucrative $200 visits. Just like your dentist would love to see you 2X a year (most folks can do with one just fine), like your car mechanic would love to see your car every 3k miles (most can go 6-7k just fine), etc. More visits - easy business.
As Click and Clack would say, those are boat payment jobs.
@bunsenburner:
I didn’t say that what they do would prevent fire or that even furnaces tend to be a source of fires, they aren’t, I am saying that if you haven’t had the unit looked at, and a fire happens, if the fire has anything to do with the heating system, they could try and deny the claim based on that not being done…if you read the standard insurance policies, there are terms that indicate that they reserve the right to deny coverage if appropriate maintainence on infrastructure on the house is not done or if there are other signs of neglect, and it is broad enough that it could be used to exclude a lot of things. This didn’t come from the furnace industry, it was a question to a lawyer on a program dedicated to real estate and homes shrug
I think in my elevator scenario, I’d have a tough time getting coverage for an accident by my HOI. We had let three years go by.
I feel a little better about it anyway, because when it’s all said and done, regardless of reimbursement, I don’t want anyone hurt!
Shrug all you want. 
The major question would be: could that measly joke of a maintenance have prevented that fire? What else would that lawyer have told you? As I said, it depends on the type of furnace. Some might need real upkeep. Most forced air type gas furnaces don’t. Look at what the dude does to it next time he comes: hmmm… visually inspected, looks good until next year. Yes, I can see it with my own eyes. Thank you, but I have a better use for my $200.
BTW, your analogy with not paying the $75 fire fee which was in fact “fire insurance” is not a good one to use here. And it sounded like in that case the home insurance actually paid for the damage up to the limit that was purchased…
“I think in my elevator scenario, I’d have a tough time getting coverage for an accident by my HOI. We had let three years go by.”
There are certain things that are best left to the pros. Other things… I can do myself after watching a pro doing it once.
Our landlord schedules a furnace check every year. I’m not sure if that’s part of a warranty or service plan, or something they just do. We have lived here for 11 years and I don’t think they have had the central air unit checked at all.
Whoa! That’s expensive. Around here it usually runs about $79-$89 and we usually have extra filters/humidifier pads around, so they’ll change them when they’re here. In fact, I think it was one of the service guy’s suggestion that we buy them off Amazon or Home Depot because they’d be cheaper than buying them from the HVAC company, but they’d install them if we had them around.
It doesn’t matter whether that maintainence would have prevented a fire or not, I never said it would. What I said was the insurance company, no matter what a joke that check is, could use the absence of service, no matter how lame (to use your words), to try and justify the claim.Sure, you could logically argue that such a service means nothing, and I would agree with that, but that doesn’t matter when it comes to things like this, the insurance company will try to use it to not pay the claim, and you would end up in court, having to pay a lawyer, against their legal team, to try and get paid.
I wasn’t kidding about their tactics, there was a big expose several years ago how Allstate, State Farm and other big insurers had started a tactic with homeowners who had policies that guarantee a full rebuild, where basically, let’s say it would cost 250 grand to rebuild a house, would tell the homeowner “we are giving you 180k, and if you don’t like it, tough, sue us”. It was a tactic that came from the consulting firms I mentioned (so much for the good hands people).
What I was saying was it may be worthwhile to have a service like that so down the road they can’t use it, that’s all, I didn’t say it would prevent a fire, I am saying if a fire happens, they can and will try to deny your claim any way they can. In my case, I also like the piece of mind of paying the 120 a year on my two units, so if they fail, I am not hit with a big bill…
By the way, the 75 bucks was not about insurance, the guy in question was a tea party special who refused to pay the tax in his town that went towards the fire company. and when the structure caught fire he attempted to pay the 75 buck tax to get them to put the fire out, but they refused. I don’t know what happened to the guy, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the insurance company denied his claim in all or part, saying his actions in not paying the fire tax led to the total loss of the structure, whereas if he hadn’t been such a pigheaded mule and paid the tax, the structure might have been saved in part or full with only limited damage.
Well, there is neglect, and there is reasonable DIY maintenance. If insurance companies demanded that homeowner could not do any reasonable maintenance and denied coverage without a pile of receipts, they would not have paid a buck to anyone.
Next time the service guy comes in, take a look what he does. Takes the cover off, peeks inside, pokes at some metal with a finger… Looks good for another year.
If that is what your service guy does, it’s time to find another one.
In case anyone is wondering what musicparent refers to:
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/t/no-pay-no-spray-firefighters-let-home-burn/
Not a good analogy.
“If that is what your service guy does, it’s time to find another one.”
I am talking about a specific type of a furnace. As I said, YMMV.
What else CAN he do with a forced air gas furnace? 
The guy who replaced the motor which went dead after 16 years (pretty common), confirmed that no annual call was needed.
I don’t know what they do for gas furnaces like you have BB, but servicing my oil burner takes a good two hours and they come upstairs with buckets of gunk. If I did have a gas furnace I would still probably want it professionally serviced because of the risk of something faulty causing carbon dioxide to leak. It’s my understanding that there are several things that can break on a furnace to cause it to happen. I know I wouldn’t be comfortable having anyone other then a professional servicing it.
@bunsenburner:
It was an analogy, in the sense of why someone might want to pay for service. The guy in question I am sure bragged how he wouldn’t pay the 75 bucks to the ‘gov’nment’, was probably pleased with himself in saving that 75 bucks, then figured out what the consequences are. I don’t know what the insurance company did, they could pretty easily tell the guy his insurance was void because he didn’t pay his fire tax and that negligence led to his structure burning down. I am saying the same thing about getting the unit checked out (by the way, you can do that without a service contract, local heating places advertise doing the pre season checkup for like 50 bucks or so). For me having a service contract isn’t entirely about the insurance issue, I do it for the piece of mind that if my furnace breaks, they will fix it, and I won’t have to worry about finding someone, getting them in, and then maybe getting hit with a big bill. Sure, I could probably fix a lot of it myself, but that 120 bucks or so I pay every year is worth it to me, my time is a lot more valuable than that shrug.
So if your time is more valuable than money, you still spend the $120 AND the time to “babysit” the guy while he stares at the inside the furnace. Lol. Not counting the time scheduling appointment, driving to the house, driving back to work… Those guys do not work weekends. They go fishin’ in their boats.
I don’t have to worry about that, I can work from home, so it wouldn’t cost me much time to do that, in fact it doesn’t, plus my wife can be home, too.