How Fog Machines and Halloween Decorations Affect Your Home's HVAC Efficiency

Halloween celebrations might make a dent in your home’s HVAC efficiency if you use some kinds of candles and lamp oil or use a fog machine indoors. The sheer number of times you open the door may cool your home, but if you’re having a party, count on plenty of body heat.

Steps to Take:

• Keep your front door closed between trick-or-treaters if it’s a cold night. Make it more fun by decorating the outside so that the kids see it as they walk to the door.

• Nobody would argue that fog machines create an authentically scary ambience, but they’ll also cool the air off if you use the misting types. The other kinds that use “fog juice” create heat indoors. You may want to change your HVAC filter to get rid of any particulates that collect on the filter after Halloween is over.

• Burning candles creates a good deal of ambience but they also emit a lot of heat and soot if they’re made from paraffin wax. If the party is large enough or there are enough candles, it’s conceivable that you’d need to turn on the air conditioner to cool the air.

• Soot from candles and even lamp oil will also collect in your home’s air and could harm your air filters, The particles can quickly clog the filters and coat the inside of the air handler, reducing HVAC efficiency. If you must use candles, opt for clean burning beeswax or soy products. Look for smoke-free lamp oil. Adjust the wicks so that they don’t smoke.

• Parties create heat. If you’re hosting a party, it won’t take long to notice that your home is warming up from all the body and cooking heat. If your party will be crowded, prepare ahead by turning down the furnace ahead of time. You may need to switch from heating to cooling if it gets too warm or open the windows.

Having your HVAC efficiency checked before the celebrations start will help you maintain comfort regardless of the weather or party size. For more information, contact Air Assurance, providing HVAC services for Broken Arrow homeowners.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in the Tulsa and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma area about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about other HVAC topics, call us at 918-217-8273.

HVAC-Inspired Costumes for the Whole Family

Before long, neighborhoods will be teeming with ghouls, superheroes, cartoon characters, and all other sorts of wacky and amazing Halloween costumes. But, did you realize that HVAC-inspired costumes are often easy to put together and can really stand out in a crowd? Here are a few of our favorites for this year:

HVAC Worker Costumes

You have two routes you can take here. First, you can play it straight and dress up as a service technician, plumber, electrician, etc. The second choice is to get a little more inventive. For instance, you could use a ton of hairspray and go as an electrocuted electrician orsplatter yourself with brown paint and go as a plumber who's experienced a sewer backup (gross, we know... but funny, right?). Plus, you could add a little flare and scare by using make-up to create a zombie look for the costume.

Dryer Vent Costumes

Who would've thought that your dryer vent could give you so many options for Halloween costumes? You can use them as the arms and legs of an awesome looking robot, fashion them into the mechanical arms of Dr. Octopus, create your own Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz, or go all out and celebrate the holiday as Slinky from Toy Story.

Fortnite Costume Accessories

This year, costumes based on the insanely popular video game Fortnite are likely to be everywhere. A big part of the game concerns weapons used against your opponents, but fake guns are so yesterday. Instead, we suggest that you use a plunger to create either the clinger weapon or the game's grappling hook (you can easily Google what they look like). Just be sure that you purchase a new plunger for the costume. We definitely don't want kids running around outside with one taken from a toilet.

For more expert advice on HVAC-inspired Halloween costumes or any home comfort topics, contact the professionals at Air Assurance. We've been serving the needs of Broken Arrow and the surrounding area for more than 30 years.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in the Tulsa and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma area about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about other HVAC topics, call us at 918-217-8273.