The holidays are almost here, which means a lot of valley homes are about to fill up with family, food, and far more people than usual. Your heating, your water heater, and your air all feel that crowd too, and a little prep now saves you from fighting a stuffy house or running out of hot water with a dozen relatives standing around. Here’s a quick pre-guest checklist.
Why Does My House Get So Warm When Everyone’s Over?
Because people are basically little furnaces, and a dozen of them plus an oven running all day adds up fast. All that body heat and cooking heat can turn a comfortable house warm and stuffy, and leave some rooms noticeably warmer than others.
A few easy moves help. Set your thermostat a touch cooler than usual before guests arrive, so you’re ahead of the heat they’ll bring with them rather than chasing it. Run your fan on “ON” to keep the air moving and even out the warm and cool spots. And resist the urge to crank the thermostat way down when it gets warm, because that doesn’t cool the house any faster, it just runs longer and overshoots once everyone goes home.
Will My Water Heater Keep Up With All Those Showers?
This is the one that catches people. A full house means back-to-back showers, and a standard tank water heater can only heat so much at once. Run four or five showers in a row and the last person is getting a cold one.
Space them out. Leaving some time between showers lets the tank recover and reheat, and holding off on the dishwasher and laundry during the morning shower rush helps too. And if your water heater has already been showing its age, running out fast, rumbling, or putting out rusty water, the holidays are exactly when it will let you down. Worth dealing with before the guests arrive rather than during.
Should I Get My Furnace Checked Before Everyone Arrives?
If it’s been acting up at all, yes, and now rather than later. A furnace that quits is miserable any day. A furnace that quits over a holiday weekend, with a full house and every HVAC company booked solid, is a bad time. Getting it looked at before the holiday means any problems surface on your schedule instead of at the worst possible moment. It’s one of the reasons our Comfort Club members get priority when the calendar fills up around the holidays.
Any Safety Stuff With All the Extra Cooking?
A couple of quick ones. With the oven and stove running more than usual and a full house, it’s a good moment to make sure your carbon monoxide detectors are working. And never use your oven or stove to heat the house, even if it feels like it’s struggling to keep up with the crowd.
Two more small things: change your filter before the holiday so your system can keep up with the extra dust, cooking, and people, and if you’re putting guests in a spare room, make sure furniture or luggage isn’t blocking the vents so they stay comfortable.
The Short Version
A houseful of people brings a lot of heat, so set the thermostat a bit cooler ahead of time and run the fan to even things out. Space out showers so the water heater can keep up. Get your furnace checked before the holiday if it’s been iffy, test your CO detectors with all the extra cooking, and swap your filter. Ten minutes now buys you a smooth, comfortable holiday.
However you’re spending it, we hope it’s a warm one. We’re a family-run shop covering Nampa, Caldwell, Meridian, Boise, and Emmett, at 208-455-5158 if you need us.