Signs You're Overworking Your System

An overworked HVAC system will cost you in higher energy costs and repair bills. These situations might help you discover if your system is working harder and costing you more than it should.

It runs in brief spurts.

Few things harm a central air conditioner more than short running cycles. The frequent starts stress all the parts, but the compressor and the motors bear most of the burden. When A/C equipment first starts up, it requires a lot of electricity to run.

The frequent bursts of electricity wear these parts out faster. They use more energy and will fail faster. To avoid equipment that runs in short cycles, insist on having a load calculation performed on your home before you install new HVAC equipment. Oversized systems are not better when it comes to cooling and heating equipment.

Filter changes are infrequent.

Running your system with a clogged air filter will overwork it. The airflow slows through the air handler and the ductwork. As a consequence, it takes longer to cool your home, which increases the wear and tear on all its parts.

Running it with low airflow often causes the coil inside the air handler to freeze. If your system continues to run, it could burn the compressor out, which is the A/C’s most expensive part.

Your electric bills are high.

Steadily rising energy consumption often indicates an overworked system. If you’ve eliminated obvious causes like ductwork leaks or a dirty air filter, your system may be showing the signs of an overworked HVAC system.

It requires frequent repairs.

If it seems like your system needs repairing often, it may be overworked. While oversized equipment is the primary cause of system problems, the opposite might contribute as well. If it’s too small for your home, it will have to run in cycles longer than the manufacturer intended, which will shorten its lifetime.

The experts at Air Assurance can help you discover if you have an overworked HVAC system to help you avoid excessive energy and repair costs. We provide trusted HVAC services for homeowners in the Broken Arrow 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). For more information about other HVAC topics, call us at 918-217-8273.

Factors Affecting Home Comfort

Differing factors account for your home comfort in the summer and the winter. Let's take a look at some of the things you should be paying attention to now as the long, hot summer proceeds so that you can maximize your comfort without your utility bills going through the roof.

Humidity

Humidity is one of the major factors affecting comfort in the summertime. When your home's relative humidity exceeds 50-55 percent, you will experience difficulty cooling off, as moist air inhibits the evaporation of perspiration on our skin and its subsequent "wind chill" effect. Humid conditions in the home's interior may occur for a number of reasons, such as these:

• Ceiling and plumbing leaks

• Air conditioner not dehumidifying properly (dirty air filters and condenser coils may contribute to this)

• Activities such as cooking, showering, clothes washing and drying

• Poor or no exhaust ventilation

You can lower humidity by fixing leaks, changing filters and having coils cleaned, limiting moisture-producing activities and installing exhaust ventilation.

Temperature Control

If your air conditioner isn't in good working order, it may not increase your comfort to keep turning the thermostat down, down, down. Many factors can be at play when an A/C doesn't cool, among them:

• A/C is wrong size.

• Air filter is dirty.

• Ductwork is poorly designed, or may be leaking air.

• A/C refrigerant is leaking.

While you can change the filter regularly, fixing the other situations may be more challenging -- particularly getting the right size A/C. Whenever it's time to replace your A/C, make sure it's neither too large nor too small.

Air Quality

You may not be that aware of your home's indoor air quality, but a summertime accumulation of airborne pollutants, such as pollen, pet dander, chemical particulates, dust mites, dust and mold can actually make you sick. Switch to a good quality, pleated air filter (rated MERV -- minimum efficiency reporting value -- 8-12) in your HVAC system and vacuum often with a HEPA (high efficiency particulate air) filter.

For more on home comfort, contact Air Assurance of Broken Arrow. We've provided quality products and service in 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). For more information about other HVAC topics, call us at 918-217-8273.

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.

Considerations for Heater Replacements

Fewer things are more annoying and inconveniencing than finding out your heating system needs replacement on a freezing winter evening. It can be hard for the average person to tell when their system has started to break down completely hence needs to be replaced. The good news is there are certain signs that homeowners can use to know when it's the right time to make heater replacements. Read on to learn more.

Current System Age

Furnaces have an average lifespan of 15 to 20 years. After this period, they start failing more often. If your furnace is 12 years or older and has required numerous repairs, you should consider replacing it.

Energy Efficiency

Have your energy bills gotten higher than usual? Your heating system may be to blame. Its efficiency may have significantly reduced. Therefore, it may need replacement. Newer furnace models come with higher AFUE (Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency) ratings than older models, meaning they'll operate more efficiently.

Comfort

If some rooms feel warm whereas others are chilly, your heating system may be failing to distribute air correctly. A home that heats up unevenly can't be comfortable. It may be time to upgrade your heating system. Newer furnaces have variable speed motors that produce more even, comfortable heat and use less operating energy.

Costly Repairs

Are you faced with an expensive repair? It may be better to upgrade the system and get a new warranty on parts.

Financial Incentives

Are there any financial incentives for purchasing a new system? You should definitely take advantage of that. Summer is the best time to make good use of preseason upgrade specials. But that's not all. You may also qualify for manufacturer, company, and statewide rebates for choosing to install a new heating system in the summer. Installing a new heater in the summer will also prevent you from worrying about having a malfunctioning system in the winter.

By understanding the signs of needing heater replacements, homeowners can prevent harrowing total system breakdowns. If you need the best possible comfort in the Broken Arrow area, contact the HVAC experts 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). For more information about other HVAC topics, call us at 918-217-8273.

Guest House Comfort Considerations

Giving overnight visitors a separate space inside or adjacent to your home makes it easier to host others overnight. When you’re looking for ways to provide guest house comfort when the weather is hot, one of these options might work well for your particular space.

When it’s a separate structure.

A ductless mini split heat pump may be the best option for conditioning a separate guest space to use it year-round. Ductless systems offer a high degree of energy efficiency for both cooling and heating. They’re easy for an HVAC pro to install, use little interior space and operate quietly.If you only want to cool the structure, you may find that a portable A/C or window air conditioner will work well, as long as your homeowner’s association permits them.

When it’s a space inside or attached to your home.

Besides using a wall or window air conditioner for individual cooling, there are two other options that use your existing HVAC system. The first is to install a zoning system that lets your guest select the comfort level that works for him.

A zoning system divides your home into separate areas, each of which has its own thermostat. It’s an ideal solution for families that have different temperature preferences or in homes where temperature variances are wide.

You could put the guest quarters on a separate zone, so that the area only received conditioned air when someone wanted to use the space. Two-story homes, those with unequally-sized windows, or variable ceiling heights throughout benefit from zoning systems because their temperatures vary quite a bit. These systems can be installed with new HVAC equipment or as an upgrade for an existing system.

If your guest space isn’t part of the conditioned area, ask your HVAC contractor if your system is large enough to extend the ductwork. The contractor will evaluate the capacity of the system and the cooling load inside the guest space.

For more information about which guest house comfort option will work best for your home, contact a pro at Air Assurance, providing HVAC services for Broken Arrow homeowners.

Garage Ventilation Needs

While keeping the interior of the home adequately ventilated has proven benefits, the importance of garage ventilation hasn’t received as much attention. However, in a home with an attached garage, healthy air quality in the living spaces can be impacted by the garage environment.

Garage Air vs. House Air

The house wall shared with the garage often isn’t a vapor-proof barrier. Tiny cracks and gaps in the structure can allow fumes originating inside the garage to enter the house. Pollutants include exhaust from vehicles in the garage, as well as vapors from gasoline, solvents, paints and cleaning solutions that are typically stored there. Hot summer temperatures inside an unconditioned garage enhance vaporization of volatile chemicals and increase infiltration into adjacent rooms of the house even more.

Fresh Air In, Toxic Fumes Out

To reduce the accumulation of fumes inside the garage, a powered ventilation fan pulls in fresh outdoor air and flushes out toxic vapors. Usually installed in the roof or one wall of the garage, the fan draws outdoor air in through a passive vent grille in an opposite wall. The cross-ventilating action purges the garage space, exhausting fumes into outdoor air and also generating lower air pressure inside the garage. Lower air pressure, in turn, counteracts the tendency of garage vapors to infiltrate the house.Options to activate a garage ventilation fan include:

• A simple manual on/off switch to run the fan as long as desired.

• A manual "on" switch with an adjustable timer function that runs the fan for a preset interval before shutting it off automatically.

• Sensors installed in the garage door that detect when a vehicle enters the garage and activate the fan, then turn it off automatically.

Variable-speed garage vent fans are also available to adjust to specific circumstances. For example, when activities such as spray painting are underway in the garage, or when high temperatures inside the garage make it uncomfortable to work in.

For more about the benefits of effective garage ventilation, contact Air Assurance.

Refrigerant 101: What it is and Why it Matters

You don’t need a course in Refrigerant 101 to know whether your air conditioner’s keeping the house cool on a summer day. Without refrigerant circulating in the cooling system, we’d all be a lot less comfortable in hot weather. Here are more basics of Refrigerant 101 and how this remarkable substance handles the household cooling load.

The Cycle Of Coolness

In your central air conditioner, refrigerant passing through the indoor evaporator coil is a frigid vapor that efficiently absorbs household heat from the system airflow. After passing through an insulated line to your outdoor condenser unit, refrigerant is compressed into a hot liquid and rapidly releases absorbed heat into the air as it passes through the condenser coil. The refrigerant flow then circles back to the indoor evaporator, converting to a cold vapor again to extract still more heat from your home.

Low Refrigerant Means A Leak

Air conditioners don’t “use up” refrigerant. Theoretically, as long as the system is intact and functional, it should not require addition of extra refrigerant. If your A/C exhibits signs of a low refrigerant charge—such as poor cooling performance, ice formation on the indoor coil or rapid on/off cycling—there’s usually a leak somewhere in the system. Simply adding more refrigerant without resolving the leak isn't a solution that lasts. Call for professional HVAC service to pinpoint the problem, repair the leak, then restore the refrigerant to the proper level.

Old Refrigerant Is Going Away

R-22 refrigerant, the industry standard in air conditioners for decades, is being removed from the market due to environmental concerns. It will become completely unavailable in 2020. All new A/C units manufactured today utilize R-410A refrigerant, the environmentally-friendly replacement for R-22. As 2020 approaches, expect R-22 to become increasingly less available and more expensive. Ultimately, all R-22 units will have to be replaced with new R-410 units by 2020.

To learn more about the basics of Refrigerant 101, contact the cooling experts 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). For more information about other HVAC topics, call us at 918-217-8273.

Why Your A/C Freezes in the Summer

While ice on a hot summer day is usually a welcome sight, an A/C freeze isn’t. Ice formation on the indoor evaporator coil of your central air conditioner can eventually turn into a solid block, obstructing all airflow through the system. This can seriously damage expensive components such as the compressor. Since the evaporator coil is sealed inside the indoor air handler, you're usually unaware that ice is accumulating. The only noticeable signs may be warm air blowing from the A/C vents, automatic system shutdowns for no apparent reason, or water pooling on the floor around the air handler when the ice melts.Here are some common causes of an A/C freeze and what may be required to resolve them:

Dirty Air Filter

As the air filter clogs, system airflow is strangled. Low airflow through the evaporator coil reduces heat extraction and causes the coil temperature to drop from normal approximately 40 degrees to below freezing. Condensation on the coil then freezes and ice accumulation begins. To prevent low airflow, replace the filter monthly during the cooling season.

Insufficient Refrigerant

When refrigerant pressure in the system drops too low, the refrigerant vapor expands excessively and actually becomes colder. This, in turn, causes the evaporator coil temperature to drop below freezing and ice to form. Low refrigerant charge is usually traceable to a leak in the system that must be pinpointed and repaired by a qualified HVAC service tech. When the refrigerant charge is returned to specs, coil temperature should stay above freezing.

Dirty Coil

Dust and dirt particulates in the system airflow gradually accumulate on the coil. This inhibits heat extraction, allowing the coil temperature to fall below 32 degrees and ice formation to begin. Since the coil is mounted inside the air handler, it’s not accessible for DIY cleaning. Coil cleaning should be performed by a qualified professional. It’s also a standard part of regular annual preventive maintenance offered by your HVAC contractor.

Don't suffer due to an A/C freeze on a hot summer's day. Contact Air Assurance for fast professional service.

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.

Benefits of a Portable A/C

Although it’s hard to match the convenience and comfort of a central air conditioner, sometimes it makes sense to use a portable A/C in junction with it or independently. Over the last few years, portable air conditioners have become more energy efficient and versatile and they may be just what you need in certain situations.

Supplemental Cooling

If you need supplemental cooling in one particular room or area of your home because it’s consistently hotter than the rest, a portable air conditioner might be the best solution. You can use the A/C as a supplemental cooling unit only when you plan to use the areas that are overly warm.You might have a home office or a hobby room that isn’t consistently used. When the air conditioner isn’t in use, you can disconnect the venting hose and tuck the unit into a closet or roll it into a corner.You may also use the cooling unit to make a guest or family member more comfortable. What’s comfortable for one person may not be for another and rather than cooling the whole house down to accommodate their preferred sleeping temperatures, it makes sense to use a portable unit to cool just their bedroom instead.

Dehumidification

One of the newest features a portable A/C may have is a dehumidify-only switch. Being able to remove the humidity without having to cool the room. Humidity increases the "feels like” temperature and by lowering it, you will feel cooler. You can also use this feature in the winter to dry out a damp, clammy basement.

Appearances

Unlike window or wall air conditioners, portable units have small venting requirements that aren’t necessarily visible from the street. When the unit isn’t in use, simply remove the vent and store the A/C. Wall and window A/C units, on the other hand, have an unsightly appearance both indoors and out.

A portable A/C might help you solve some of your cooling and humidity challenges. For more information, contact Air Assurance, providing trusted 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.