Safety Tips for Your HVAC System

Safety Tips for Your HVAC System

  Your heating and cooling appliances help keep your home comfortable throughout the year, but without regular inspection and maintenance, they can become a threat to your family’s safety. These tips can help you keep on top of necessary maintenance and the professional attention these appliances need to remain safe and efficient all year round. Maintain Your Heating and Cooling Systems In addition to boosting your energy efficiency and, thus, saving you money during operation, proper maintenance can help prevent common safety issues with a heating and cooling systems. Here are some basic tasks you need to stay on top of: Clean and replace the air filter regularly. Clogged filters can result in toxic carbon monoxide fumes leaking into your home. Replace furnace filters once every three months and AC filters once per month during the summer. Clear blockages and debris. Remove weeds and overgrowth within a 2-foot radius of your HVAC unit and have your technician check for blocked or faulty pressure release valves on your boiler. Prevent electrical fires. You can inspect all of your electrical cords for fraying or cuts and ensure none of them are buried beneath rugs or furniture. Plug window AC units directly into a wall, never an extension cord. And make sure your technician checks for loose connections — these can be dangerous and often occur with the natural heat expansion and contraction in heat pump units. Use a surge protector. In the event of a power surge, this device will shut down your heating and cooling unit to prevent damage to the system. Keep Your Family Safe Kids and pets need to be kept away from...
Save Money this Summer with These HVAC Maintenance Tips

Save Money this Summer with These HVAC Maintenance Tips

  The summer heat can bring on the budget blues when it starts to reflect on your electrical bill. The best way to keep your costs down and your home comfortable is to stay on top of bi-annual HVAC maintenance. Doing so helps your unit last longer and provides you with greater energy efficiency, reducing its cost of operation. Here is a list of maintenance tasks you should perform this summer to save energy and save some money. Clean or Replace Your Air Filter Tackling this maintenance task alone can reduce energy use by as much as 15 percent. It’s recommended that you replace your air filter monthly during the summer. Use a Programmable Thermostat Replacing your thermostat to a programmable one allows you to take advantage of the times when the house can stand to be warmer, such as when it’s empty or at night, in order to be more efficient. Invest in a smart thermostat that you can communicate with via a cellphone app so you can cool your house ahead of your early arrival. Keep any heat-producing appliances away from the thermostat, including TVs and lamps. Don’t Fiddle Speaking of thermostats, set the temperature to your comfort zone and no lower. Contrary to popular belief, a lower setting will not cool your home any faster. Take Advantage of the Night If you live in a place that gets cold at night, take advantage the chilled air by opening windows in the evening to ventilate the home. Remember to close windows when you wake up to seal in the cooler air accumulated overnight. Open Vents, Seal Windows Closed air vents...
Don’t Duck from Cleaning Your Air Ducts

Don’t Duck from Cleaning Your Air Ducts

Even though it might be apparent that an air duct cleaning would be good for the health of an HVAC system, homeowners tend to put it off when the immediate benefits seem low. It’s often not until the AC is running around the clock that cleaning the ducts is given thought, and that’s months after the idle dust from the winter hiatus have been pumped into your home. To help push the cleanliness of your air ducts to its proper position on your list of household tasks, just think of how a pristine pathway for your HVAC system’s hard efforts will reduce your energy consumption and your utility bills. Reduced Cost of Maintenance The most insidious source of AC system malfunctions is the small particulates that float through the household air and gather inside the air ducts. Eventually, these granules of terror can make their way into more sensitive equipment and physically inhibit their operation. These parts will work harder, generate more heat and have a much higher likelihood of suffering a major malfunction. Wiping out all of the dust collected inside the airways can keep the levels low enough to avoid excess strain on the equipment. Replacing a single compressor can cost more than $1,000 for parts and labor, so anything that can be done to avoid injuring this vital component should be given priority. You won’t have to replace your air filter as often, either! Improves Efficiency of the AC System While small and light, dust is still substantially more solid than the mixture of gasses and liquids that run through your AC. When the fuzz starts...
What You Need to Know About Refrigerant

What You Need to Know About Refrigerant

An air conditioner can seem like an almost magical device. Just run a current of electricity through it and the fans and coils start working together to blast away the overbearing heat of a midday sun on a summer day. All of this is possible through the manipulation of the physical properties of the refrigerants that run through the veins of the AC system. What Is Refrigerant? The term “refrigerant” refers to any substance that uses an ability to easily undergo phase transitions to siphon heat from another substance. Over the years, dozens of different materials have been used, each assigned a designation (noted R-Number) to keep track of their properties. For in-home and office air conditioning, the refrigerant of choice has been R-22, a hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC) named Chlorodifluoromethane. This has recently been replaced by R-401a, a mixture of R-22 with R-152a and R-124, which has less impact on the environment. The total range of possible refrigerants even includes familiar names like carbon dioxide and ammonia. Each AC unit is designed to operate with a specific refrigerant, although some interchangeability does exist. How Does the Refrigerant Work Inside an AC? The refrigerant is first put under pressure by a compressor, shifting it into a liquid state. As it passes through the compressor, it also serves as a lubricant. It then passes by the outside air where it emits heat before coming into contact with the evaporator coil. The refrigerant morphs back into a gas and replenishes its heat supply from the air surrounding the coil. The now chilly air is guided into the nearby room or ductwork where it cools your building. Do...
9 Tips to Help You Get the Best A/C Performance

9 Tips to Help You Get the Best A/C Performance

With warmer weather settling in and spring just around the corner, it might soon be time to fire up your AC system. Beat the heat and give Metro Comfort Systems a call for all of your HVAC needs or AC repair. To keep you cool all spring and summer long, we have listed nine tips to keep your air conditioning running strong. Upgrade to a Digital Thermostat Digital thermostats are more efficient than analog thermostats. Manual adjustments on an analog thermostat cause unnecessary wear and tear on your air conditioning system. Regularly Change Your Filter Regular filter changes — every one to three months — are a simple way to keep your air conditioning running at maximum efficiency. Check the filter monthly to start off, and replace it as needed to figure out how often it needs to be changed. Schedule Annual Service You want to make sure your air conditioning is working before the hottest days of the year come around, so schedule annual maintenance with us and receive a 10 percent discount on parts. Don’t Plant Too Close to Your AC Unit The unit needs room to breathe, so don’t let plants grow too close to it. Fences and covers directly on the unit can also be harmful to its air circulation. Keep Your Outdoor Unit Clean Spray down your outdoor air conditioning unit with a garden house to clean out any dirt or grime buildup that could be slowing the unit down. Keep Returns and Vents Clear Vents or returns closed off by furniture or other large objects can harm your air conditioning’s efficiency. Try rearranging your furniture for something different and keep...