North GA winters aren't brutal, but the first hard freeze always seems to arrive the night your heat decides to quit. Here's a pre-season checklist — what to do yourself, what to leave to a pro, and why fall is the time to do it.
Updated June 2026 • Written by the team at Anderson Heating, Air & Insulation, serving Calhoun since 1978 🐾
Do three things yourself: replace the air filter, clear the area around the furnace, and run the heat for a few minutes on a mild fall day so you find problems early instead of on the first freezing night. Then have a pro handle the rest — cleaning the burners, checking the blower and electrical connections, testing the safety controls, and inspecting the heat exchanger and flue (the safety-critical step where a carbon-monoxide problem would show up). In North GA, schedule the professional tune-up in early fall so any repair happens on a planned visit, not an emergency.
A few simple steps make a real difference and take only minutes:
The rest of the checklist needs tools, training, and a trained eye. A professional pre-season tune-up covers:
The heat exchanger is the metal barrier that keeps the air you breathe separate from the furnace's combustion gases. If it cracks, those gases — including carbon monoxide — can leak into your home's air. Because CO is colorless and odorless, a hands-on inspection of the heat exchanger and flue is the only reliable way to catch a crack before it becomes a danger. This is the core reason a gas furnace needs a real professional check each year, not just a DIY filter change. It's why we treat the pre-season visit as a safety inspection first and a performance tune-up second.
Scheduling in September or October means that if your furnace needs a part or a heating repair, it gets handled on a calm, planned visit — not as an emergency on the coldest night when everyone in North GA is calling at once. Waiting until the system fails in deep winter is the most expensive, least comfortable way to maintain a furnace. The whole point of a checklist is to move the surprise out of the way before the cold arrives.
We're a BPI-certified building-science company, so a furnace visit with us isn't just a quick once-over. We look at the whole system — and if your home is hard to keep warm, we can use a blower door to find where heat is escaping, rather than just turning the furnace up. A warm house is a combination of a healthy furnace and a tight, well-insulated home, and we look at both. If a smell or noise has you worried, our guide to why your heater smells when it first turns on tells you what's normal and what isn't.
We'll clean it, test the safeties, and inspect the heat exchanger so you head into winter knowing it works.
Call (706) 629-0749Do three things yourself: replace the air filter, clear the area around the furnace, and run the heat for a few minutes on a mild fall day so you find problems early. Then have a pro clean the burners, check the blower and electrical connections, test the safety controls, and inspect the heat exchanger and flue. In North GA, doing this in early fall means you head into winter knowing the system works.
It cleans the burners and checks combustion, inspects and replaces the filter, checks the blower motor and electrical connections, tests the thermostat and safety controls, and inspects the heat exchanger for cracks and the flue for venting. The heat-exchanger and flue inspection is the safety-critical part — it's where a carbon-monoxide or combustion problem shows up.
Early fall, before the first real cold snap. Scheduling in September or October means any needed repair gets handled on a planned visit instead of as an emergency on a freezing night when demand peaks. Waiting until the system fails in deep winter is the most expensive, least comfortable option.
The heat exchanger separates the air you breathe from the furnace's combustion gases. If it cracks, those gases — including carbon monoxide — can mix into your home's air. CO is colorless and odorless, so a hands-on inspection is the only reliable way to catch a crack early. It's the main reason a gas furnace needs a professional check, not just a DIY filter change.