A Richmond winter can get darn cold. You may not want to wait until the temperature drops to have your car heater checked. If it works  properly, you can stay warm and comfortable all through the winter.

You look out the window of your Richmond home and think about running out to the car; you think about it because you can see how cold it is out there and you’re reluctant to leave the warm and comfortable confines of your home. Imagine how reluctant you’d be if you knew the heater in your car didn’t work very well.

Imagine driving all winter with a heater that doesn’t work. Every time you left your Richmond home, you’d enter a frozen tundra behind the wheel of your car. And what about clearing the frost from the windshield.

The car heater that provides and warm and comfortable environment for you while you drive is also essential to keeping the windshield clear so you can see where you’re going.

The key element for your heater is the coolant/antifreeze that runs through the radiator and engine of your car. If it’s not up to par, or if you’re low on antifreeze, you won’t have consistently warm air blowing from the vents. If you’re low on antifreeze, the warm air will come and go as pockets of antifreeze passes through the heater core.

The heater core is another essential part of the cabin heating system. It’s like a little radiator with a block of fins built around pipes that carry coolant/antifreeze. If the heater core doesn’t have any coolant/antifreeze in its pipes, you’ll have no heat coming out of the vents.

A fan is equally important. The fan pulls the air across the heater core where it collects heat from the coolant/antifreeze. The air is then pushed through the vents and into the cabin. It works just like the radiator of your car only, instead of merely dispersing the heat so the engine won’t get too hot, it uses the heat to keep you warm.

The vents play their role bringing the warm air into the cabin. You have controls so you can direct the warm air on your feet, directly at you or up into the windshield when you need the heating system to defrost the windshield.

You also need a thermostat so you can control how much heat comes into the cabin. It’s nice not to be cold but it’s also nice not to drive down frigid Richmond roads while you’re not sweating profusely because you only have two choices – Polar Vortex or Equatorial blast oven.