With our temperature lows still plummeting below freezing, there’s no denying that we still have a lot more cold weather ahead. This means that making sure your heating system is functioning as effectively and efficiently as possible is essential to your comfort and your financial efficiency. This is done, first, by ensuring you schedule maintenance each year—we hope you did this before winter began. It’s also about taking care of any repair needs that came up during maintenance.
So, what if you’ve done all this and something just seems… off… about your furnace or heat pump’s ability to keep your home warm? Well, one of the biggest culprits to energy and efficiency loss is leaky ductwork. It’s something that not a lot of homeowners consider, since most ductwork is out of sight and therefore out of mind. But proper, professional duct sealing will keep your heater and your central AC system from losing about 20-30% of the conditioned air moving through it. This means you’re getting all that you pay for each month!
What many homeowners don’t necessarily realize about ceiling fans is that they don’t actually cool the air in the room of which they are running. In the summer, people leave their ceiling fans on all day, only to find that the room they come home to isn’t any cooler (though, it may feel a bit cooler because the air movement is hitting their skin).
When you own a home, you typically learn pretty quickly in the first year that there are a number of problems you may deal with. Electrical issues, however, may arguably require the most attention, since they are more than inconvenient—they can be dangerous. Sure, an HVAC problem can leave you uncomfortable for a few hours—but an electrical problem could lead you to loss from a fire.
Is it time to upgrade your older electrical panel so your system can handle more demand? Or perhaps you suspect that your home needs rewiring in certain rooms, or throughout the whole house. Whatever your
This should be a familiar scenario: you set your thermostat to the desired temperature, wait a few minutes, then hear the fan of your furnace making that familiar whirring sound. The reason it takes a few minutes is because the plenum actually needs to heat up after the burners light before the fan will begin running. Once you hear that whirring, though, you can rely on efficient and effective heat to make its way into your home.
We’ll start off by saying that if it’s been longer than 3 months, then the time to change it is now, especially if that air filter is also used for your central air conditioning system. We want you to be able to get the most efficient and effective use out of both of your HVAC systems as you can. And considering how much you use both, chances are you’d like to do anything you can to prevent unexpected
Whether we’re talking about rewiring or an electrical panel upgrade, chances are if you’re in a home over a few decades old, you’re going to need one or both of them at some time. Electrical problems are nothing to mess with. While a plumbing problem can inflict water damage and an HVAC issue can inconveniently leave you uncomfortable for a little while, electrical problems are actually dangerous.
No, we’re not talking about surge protection. Though that is an important addition to your electrical system to protect your electronics and appliances from power surges, what we’re actually talking about is your generator. If you already have a whole-house generator in place, then you’re in good shape. But how well are you taking care of that system? It may be time for you to call for your annual
With temperatures finally cooling down for the season, you’re probably just about ready to shut down your AC system in favor for your heater.
If you are anything like the average homeowner, you probably don’t give a whole lot of thought to the condition of your home’s HVAC ductwork. Of course, with its placement, we wouldn’t expect you to give it much thought. After all, ducts are typically hidden form sight, traveling through space between walls and through your attic. Exposed ducts often look fine in big industrial or commercial spaces, but not so much in residential homes.