School's Out: Changing Your HVAC Schedule

You always want your children to be comfortable. Since kids will be spending more time at home in the summer, you'll need to take the necessary steps to keep your home cool enough for your little ones. Here are some useful tips on how to adjust your home's HVAC schedule accordingly.

When at Home

When your kids are at home, it's best to set your thermostat to 78 degrees. This will not only keep them comfortable but also save you money. You can make your home's cooling system more effective by taking the following steps.

• Invest in a dehumidifier.

• Replace worn weatherstripping and caulk around your windows and doors to keep your house sealed.

• Install window treatments to block out the sun's rays.

• Set ceiling fans to spin counterclockwise.

When Nobody's Home

Whether you're taking your children to soccer, for a walk in the park, or going on a bike ride, you should alter your home's temperature settings when everyone's away. Turn your thermostat up to 85 to 88 degrees to keep your home warmer than usual.If you have a standard thermostat, you'll have to manually adjust the temperature each time you and your kids are leaving the house. With a programmable thermostat, you can program a different cooling schedule for a specific time of the day or each day of the week, depending on your family's schedule. You simply set it and forget it. Be sure to follow these programming timing tips when using a programmable thermostat:

• Reset the thermostat to 78 degrees 30 minutes before returning home.

• Reduce cooling an hour before going to bed each night.

• Increase the cooling about 30 minutes before your wake up time.

Adopting the HVAC schedule above will keep your entire family comfortable and your cooling bills lower. For more home comfort and energy efficiency tips, contact the experts at Air Assurance. For more than 30 years, we've helped homeowners in the Broken Arrow area with their HVAC needs and won numerous awards for our exceptional services.

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.

When You Leave Home, Don't Lose Energy -- Set the Temperature Correctly

Is your thermostat set to the same temperature when you are away as when the family is home? A more energy-efficient setting during away times can significantly reduce monthly utility expenses. During the cold months, you can also set the temperature lower when everyone is asleep.If you have a programmable thermostat, the times can be set according to your programming instructions. The temperature can be set to automatically reduce at a certain hour and then increase to provide a higher comfort level when necessary.Advantages of a Programmable Thermostat

• Programming in advance – You are able to program your desired settings either in the beginning of the week, month, or even the start of the season. Most programmable thermostats have an override function in the event you need to make last minute changes

• Accurate readouts – The digital backlit display gives a much more accurate reading than the older dial-type thermostats. Newer thermostats have indicators for low battery and the latest models can even warn you if there is a malfunction in your heating and cooling system.

• Wireless control – You can access the thermostat by a smartphone from anywhere. If you are called away on a minute's notice and forget to adjust your settings, just use your phone to make the necessary changes from your location.

• Smart recovery features – Several programmable thermostats have the capability to bring the temperature to the desired level automatically. You just set the time and temperature. The thermostat will calculate the amount of time necessary to ensure the temperature is reached by the desired set-point time.

The main purpose of programmable thermostats is to help you save on energy expenses, while keeping an acceptable comfort level in your home. There are several types available with varying programming options. Savings in energy costs is possible without sacrificing the comfort of your home with the capabilities of today's thermostats.Please contact Air Assurance with any concerns about the correct way to set the temperature of a programmable thermostats for the maximum benefit. We have been proudly serving the Broken Arrow/Tulsa area since 1985.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).

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Programmable Thermostats Can Save Your More Than Money

The primary reason that most homeowners buy a programmable thermostat is to save money on their energy bills. This is a great reason and is why programmable thermostats often pay for themselves relatively quickly. However, there are also some other ways that this type of thermostat can benefit you that you should consider.

How Programmable Thermostats Save You Money

A programmable thermostat allows you to schedule changes in thermostat settings ahead of time. For example, you can have the temperature setting rise during the day when you are out so that you aren’t wasting energy to cool a house when nobody’s there. Programming your thermostat for the main periods of the day will result in large savings over the course of the summer, and will be equally important during the winter.

How Programmable Thermostats Give You More Than Savings

There are multiple ways that programmable units are better than their traditional counterparts. Consider that once you program your thermostat, you typically don’t have to adjust it often. Instead of having to constantly tweak your thermostat back and forth, it will do it automatically for you, the ultimate convenience.

Secondly, programmable thermostats allow you to achieve those aforementioned savings without interrupting your comfort. With a traditional thermostat, if you want to come home to a cooled and comfortable home, you would need to keep the temperature down all day. With a programmable unit you can have it set to lower the temperature of your home 30 minutes to an hour before you arrive so you walk in to a comfortable home.

If you’re looking for even more benefits from your thermostat, you could consider upgrading another step to a WiFi thermostat. A WiFi thermostat is a programmable thermostat that allows you to connect and change its settings remotely.

If you have any questions on what type of thermostat is best for your Broken Arrow home, please contact the experienced professionals at Air Assurance.

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). 

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New Furnace? What Else Should You Include With Your Installation?

When you reached the decision to replace that ailing furnace, it may have seemed you’d done all the work expected of a homeowner. Surely, now it’s all up to your trusted installer to get the project under way? Not entirely. There are a number of possible additional features you might want to consider with your new furnace installation, to further upgrade your northeastern Oklahoma home. What else should you include?

Chimney Liner

If your new furnace is more than 80 percent efficient -- as most modern appliances are -- the manufacturer may well mandate that your contractor install a chimney liner. Venting through an improperly prepared chimney can pose serious health risks.

Humidifiers

Moist air allows the body’s natural defenses to more effectively block viruses and bacteria. It also keeps nasal passages and lungs better lubricated, which often alleviates allergy symptoms. Consider the installation of a whole-house humidifier along with your new furnace.

Filtration

Regular fiberglass mat or pleated paper filters serve to extend furnace life by protecting the air mover (blower) from abrasive material. There are, however, several enhanced filtration options available to you. These require special housings to accommodate them, so it’s cost-effective to have them installed when the other work is being done. Consider:

• Deep-pleated conventional filters, which work far more effectively than the typical, inch-thick units.

• Electronic air cleaners, which use advanced technology to remove a wider range of contaminants.

Thermostats

Thermostat technology has come a long way in recent years.

• Programmable thermostats allow your system to react to usage patterns, only heating the home when it’s occupied.

• Zoned thermostats keep empty living space cooler than the rooms you most often use.

• Wi-fi thermostats allow you to alter settings from remote locations, and can even react to local weather bulletins without your input.

Supplemental furnace equipment can increase both fuel efficiency and safety of system operation. To ensure you get the best from an appliance that may well be heating your home for decades, discuss your requirements in detail with a tech from Air Assurance Heating, Air Conditioning and Plumbing. We serve the entire greater Tulsa metropolitan area.

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).  Image courtesy of Shutterstock

Smart Thermostats: Check Out the Benefits of Going High Tech

Smart Thermostats: Check Out the Benefits of Going High Tech

With the advent of iPhones, tablets and advanced medical equipment, it stands to reason that HVAC systems would be getting smart too. Heating and cooling equipment on the market today is far more sophisticated and advanced than systems that were available 20 years ago. Thermostats, meanwhile, have kept pace. A new generation -- the smart thermostat -- has arrived. What can one of these neat little devices do for you in your greater Tulsa home? To put it simply: a lot.The development of programmable thermostatsFor decades, the thermostat was a simple, relatively uncomplicated device. It was a manually controlled box attached to the HVAC system that a homeowner used to change temperature settings and turn heating and cooling equipment on and off. Then programmable thermostats came along. These advanced devices offered customized heating and cooling, along with advanced digital displays. A homeowner could program different settings for certain times of the day and different days of the week. This gave gave the homeowner enhanced comfort and energy savings.Introducing the smart thermostatAs programmable thermostats have become invaluable to many homeowners, even greater advancements have been made possible. Today's smart thermostats offer all the bells and whistles of the programmable thermostat and then some. Among the sophisticated features available on today's smart thermostats:

• Greater accessibility: The standard programmable thermostat can be adjusted only when you're at home. The smart thermostat can be monitored and adjusted from anywhere that has a WiFi connection. Say you're at the coffee shop, and you realize you'll be home later than usual. From your laptop or smartphone you can send your thermostat the message to turn the air conditioner down or the heat up -- depending on the season -- shortly before your new arrival time. You can do the same if you're on vacation, and you'll be arriving home sooner or later than expected. In addition, the smart thermostat will alert you to any dramatic change that needs your attention -- if a system fails, for example.

• The capability to monitor your systems: The smart thermostat has the capability to track your home's energy usage, allowing you to have greater control over your energy costs. Some smart thermostats can even monitor energy prices and alert you to changes.

• Ability to learn your schedule -- In addition to allowing you to make changes yourself, smart thermostats can learn your daily patterns and adapt to them.

You've seen how smartphones and tablets can enhance your life. Why not upgrade to a programmable thermostat? To learn more about what they can do for you, contact the professionals at Air Assurance. We have been serving the HVAC needs of homeowners in Broken Arrow and greater Tulsa since 1985.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). Image courtesy of Shutterstock

How To Use Programmable Thermostats For Greater Energy Savings

Programmable thermostats are one of the primary solutions experts, like those at the Department of Energy, encourage homeowners to use to advance energy savings, while promoting optimal home comfort. However, achieving the goal of savings requires that homeowners follow some key tips when selecting a device, and then setting it. Here’s what you need to know.

Selection

In order to follow through on best practices for setting programmable thermostats listed below, homeowners must first select the right device. Most programmable thermostats allow you to schedule four different temperature settings over the course of the day, which jibe with how most people live their lives. Most homeowners are home for a short time in the morning, gone for the majority of the day, return home around 6 p.m., and then go to sleep. Some thermostats now have wi-fi connectivity, which allows you to access your themostat from anywhere via computer, smart phone, or tablet.  This allows you to always have control just in case you forget, or when plans change that are different from your regular schedule.

Programmable thermostats differ in terms of how often you can change these settings from day to day. This is where the rubber meets the road when it comes to selecting a device. If you purchase a thermostat that only allows for one daily program from Sunday to Saturday, but your schedule changes with every day, you probably won't achieve optimal savings, because you'll likely change the settings frequently to accommodate changes in your schedule. Below, you'll see why changing the settings is not desirable.

Settings

With the right device in hand, you can begin setting it for energy savings. Here’s how:

• Program at least one setback in winter (or set forward in summer) for an eight-hour period. Many homeowners do this at night, or also during the day. This is the guiding principle for savings.

• Estimate 1 percent savings for every 1 degree that you dial back/forward the temperature.

• Frequent use of the hold button, which lets you bypass the next scheduled setting, tends to negate energy savings that consistent setbacks/forwards deliver.

Homeowners who’d like expert help using programmable thermostats for greater energy savings should contact Air Assurance Heating, Air Conditioning & Plumbing. We've served homeowners in greater Broken Arrow nearly 30 years. We’re happy to get your household on the road to savings, comfort and a lower carbon footprint.

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). Image courtesy of Shutterstock

Programmable Thermostats Can Handle Oklahoma's Temperature Shifts

Proper insulation may be the first thing you think of as you get ready for the upcoming Oklahoma winter, and it's certainly important. However, programmable thermostats should also be included in your energy efficiency arsenal. They can help you maintain indoor temps easily and automatically -- just "set and forget." Even better, these thermostats can save you significant money on your energy bills. How?

Set automatic temperature settings for different times of day

Programmable thermostats can help you save energy by letting you set different temperatures for different times of day. You can save as much as 10 percent on your energy bills with careful use. For example, setting your thermostat for 68 degrees during the day and a few degrees lower at night is advised during Oklahoma's winter months, while setting it to 78 degrees around the clock during the summer months will help you reduce your energy bills almost effortlessly. (These thermostats easily store multiple temperature settings to be used at various times of day or night -- no need to keep track yourself.)

Heat or cool individual rooms with zoning systems

Install a zoning system, and you can set programmable thermostats to individual temperatures for each room or zone. If you don't spend a lot of time in certain areas, you can set thermostats in those zones to more energy-efficient temperatures (or even shut them off altogether), but keep often-used rooms like the living room at more comfortable temperatures.

Choose your temperature set points, and then leave them be

Programmable thermostats conserve energy and save you money because they seamlessly keep indoor temperatures steady once you set them. If you are constantly "playing" with your thermostat and changing temperature settings, your system won't be able to do its job properly. In fact, you could lose any cost savings you might otherwise see if you do so. Choose temperature settings for Oklahoma's fall and winter temps, and then leave them be until spring rolls around.

For more information and advice on programmable thermostats or other needs, please contact us at Air Assurance. We've been serving Broken Arrow and the Tulsa area since 1985.

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). Image courtesy of Shutterstock

Remotely Control Your Home's Temperature With High-Tech Programmable Thermostats

Home automation increasingly utilizes the internet as a means of accessing devices like lights, security equipment and surveillance cameras. This connectivity has expanded to include remote control of your heating and cooling with internet-accessible, programmable thermostats. Also known as IP thermostats, these units give homeowners full monitoring and control of the home environment even while away from home. Internet thermostats incorporate a dedicated server with its own discrete IP address on the internet. Anywhere in the world there’s an internet connection, you can access your programmable thermostat using a standard internet browser. Like any other internet device, your thermostat is password-protected to prevent unauthorized access.Programmable thermostats automatically activate timed heating or air conditioning events during pre-determined spans in a 24-hour period. However, sometimes a homeowner may wish to override programmed events from a remote location or simply re-program the thermostat. Typical scenarios for internet control might include canceling a programmed activation of the HVAC system because you’re going to be working late or delayed returning from an out-of-town trip.Remotely monitoring the temperature of your residence during cold spells or heat waves also permits online activation of the HVAC system as needed to prevent pipe freezing or unsafe conditions for pets. Checking and adjusting interior temperatures while you’re away may be important if the residence has children or elderly at home who cannot operate the HVAC equipment.The link between homeowner and an IP thermostat is two-way. When you are away from home, many models will automatically send a text message or email to alert you to unusual or hazardous conditions like sudden temperature extremes or a component failure causing a shutdown of the HVAC system.Another advantage of internet access to your thermostat is ease in programming—even while you’re home. Some users find a browser-based programming tool more intuitive and functional than programming on/off events directly using buttons on the thermostat.For over 30 years, Air Assurance has provided Broken Arrow and Tulsa-area homeowners with the latest in HVAC technology. Contact us for more information on internet-controlled programmable thermostats.Our goal is to help educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). Air Assurance services Tulsa, Broken Arrow and the surrounding areas. Visit our websiteto see our current promotionsand get started today!     Thermostat image via Shutterstock

Setting Your Programmable Thermostat For Ideal Winter Savings

Is this the year you’re intent on cutting back on energy use throughout your home and locking in optimal winter energy savings? Programmable thermostats are a great way to ensure comfort while maximizing savings, but you need to know how to use them.Time matters The length of time that you set the home’s temperature back will basically predict how much energy you save. Ideally, you should try to schedule two setbacks each day for the majority of the week. Most homeowners program the first setback during the day, when the home is unoccupied while family members are either working or at school. The second setback program is scheduled for sleeping hours, when you’re typically snuggled under warm covers and a cooler home won’t inconvenience you or your family.Keep degrees in mindWhat's the general rule of thumb to follow for how much to set back your thermostat’s temperature? Energy Savers estimates that homeowners can save up to one percent on their energy bills if they decrease the home’s temperature by one degree. The idea here, though, is to program a setback for several degrees. If your home’s average temperature is 70 degrees, try setting it back by eight degrees, and keep going until you find a temperature, particularly for the nighttime setback, that you can live with.Avoid getting trigger happyThere will be a few other buttons on your programmable thermostat that you might be tempted to use. However, you should use the “override” and “vacation” setting sparingly. For instance, if you step out of the house for an hour to do some shopping, don’t override the system’s current program to turn the furnace off. This action will actually cause the furnace to consume more energy to overcome the shorter setback than it would if you left it running.To ensure comfort while maximizing energy savings with programmable thermostats, follow these general principles. For help with your thermostat, or to ask our experts a question, contact Air Assurance Heating, Cooling & Air Quality -- serving homeowners in the Greater Broken Arrow area for more than 30 years.Our goal is to help educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).  Air Assurance services Tulsa, Broken Arrow and the surrounding areas. Visit our website to see our current promotions and get started today!