What NOAA's Morgantown/Hart Field station records
NOAA's engineering weather data lists a station named Morgantown/Hart Field. For the Morgantown/Hart Field station, it gives a 50-year basic wind speed of 90 mph (3-second gust at 33 feet), a 100-year rainfall rate of 2.7 inches per hour and about 56 freeze-thaw cycles in an average year.
Households and land area
The U.S. Census Bureau's QuickFacts puts Morgantown at 11,946 households for 2020-2024, with 2.08 persons per household. QuickFacts also gives the city's land area in 2020 as 10.19 square miles.
How the list works
This checklist opens in winter and follows the calendar round to autumn. Each season has up to three kinds of line. At home items need only a flashlight, a broom or a hose. Service request items are jobs to hand a technician, with the results written down for you. Write it down items are notes that make the next visit faster.
One rule ahead of every chore: power first. Set the thermostat so the system cannot call for heat or cooling, then switch off the service switch by the indoor equipment and the outdoor shutoff box before any cover comes off or a hand goes near the condenser fan.
A standing routine
These apply whatever the season:
- Check the filter on the same day each month. When dust coats the pleats, fit a new one and pencil the date and size on a card near the equipment.
- Walk the house and make sure no sofa, bookcase or rug sits over a supply register or return grille.
- Look over the floor and the sheet metal around the indoor unit for drips, rust streaks or scorching.
- Stay near the equipment through one full cycle now and then. A new knock, whine or buzz deserves a dated note.
Winter
At home
- If snow builds up on top of a heat pump or drifts against its sides, sweep it off with a soft broom. Chipping at ice can bend fins or puncture tubing.
- Keep the openings of any plastic pipes that leave a side wall for the furnace clear, and look at them again after each snowfall.
- In heating mode a heat pump may stop, frost over and clear itself with a puff of vapor. Let it finish on its own. One that stays encased in ice calls for service.
- Condensation or frost forming on window glass indoors can be a cue to turn the humidifier down.
Write it down
- Each day the thermostat display switches to auxiliary or emergency heat.
- Rooms that stay cold, with the time of day and the setting.
Spring
At home
- Rake out leaves, twigs and seed pods from the outdoor unit and the ground beside it, and trim shrubs back to the spacing its manual lists.
- With the outdoor shutoff open, wash the fins from the top down on a soft spray. High-pressure water can flatten them.
- Make sure the unit has not tipped on its pad and that the foam sleeve on the bigger refrigerant line has no gaps.
- Find where the condensate line ends. Pour a cup of water in at the indoor end, or into the pump's tank, and see that it comes out.
- Try cooling on a comfortable day, ahead of real need, and listen at the outdoor unit as it starts.
Service request
- Refrigerant pressures and line temperatures written down, a look at the start components and wiring in the outdoor cabinet, and the state of the indoor coil and its pan.
Summer
At home
- Look at the filter more often during stretches of long cycles.
- Shine a light into the pan beneath the indoor coil. Water sitting there can mean a slow drain.
- Point mower discharge away from the outdoor unit so clippings do not mat on the fins.
- Leave bedroom and hall doors open where you can, giving air a route back to the return.
- Lower blinds on windows that take direct afternoon sun.
Stop the cooling and call for service if
- ice or frost forms on the refrigerant piping or the indoor coil (set the fan to on and cooling to off in the meantime);
- water is pooling or spreading on the floor by the indoor equipment;
- the outdoor fan buzzes but will not spin.
Write it down
- Any room that runs warm into the evening, or air that feels damp while the thermostat reads satisfied.
Autumn
At home
- Try the heat on a cool morning before you depend on it. Dust burning off the heat exchanger can smell briefly; a smell of melting plastic or hot wiring means shut it off and get help.
- Test each smoke alarm and CO alarm with its button, and fit fresh batteries in those that use them.
- Rake fallen leaves away from a heat pump and from the furnace's wall pipes.
- If a whole-house humidifier is fitted, swap in a new pad and turn its water supply back on.
- Program the heating schedule, and put new batteries in the thermostat if it takes them.
Service request
- Gas furnace: the burners and flame, ignition parts, the heat exchanger, the vent run, gas pressure, and a written combustion and CO reading.
- Heat pump: the defrost board and sensor, the reversing valve and the electric backup heat.
Once power returns after an outage
- Hold off for a few minutes before turning the system back on, then confirm the thermostat still has its schedule.
- Circle the outdoor unit looking for crushed fins, a pad that has shifted or debris caught inside.
- If water got to the furnace, the air handler or the bottom of the outdoor unit, keep everything switched off until a technician has checked it.
- Take photos before you tidy up, and ask your own insurer what it would want to see.
Problems worth a prompt call
- A circuit breaker that trips again once reset.
- Equipment that starts and stops in quick, short bursts.
- A yellow or flickering burner flame, or black soot near the furnace or its flue.
- Any burning smell. If the smell is gas, get out of the house and phone the gas company from outdoors.
- A sounding CO alarm. Everyone leaves first; the call happens outdoors.
When replacement comes up
If a repair quote climbs high, ask the same company for a replacement price as well, then ask each company quoting new equipment:
- Is the size backed by a room-by-room load calculation, with the report attached?
- Which AHRI reference number matches the outdoor unit with its indoor coil?
- Are duct testing and sealing in the price, or quoted on their own lines?
- What state license or registration, if any, covers this work, and what is the number?
- Which city permits would a replacement need, and who pulls them?
- Before the start date, can I have proof of liability coverage and workers' compensation?
A card by the equipment
Tape an index card inside the closet door next to the furnace or air handler. Note the filter size and the date of each new filter, the date of each service call and who came, the readings taken, refrigerant added, parts swapped, and the model and serial numbers off both data plates. A technician who reads it starts with the history in hand, and a warranty claim has dates behind it.