Furnace Replacement In Your Future? Right Sizing Is Crucial

Furnace Installation & Replacement Tulsa

A furnace replacement may be one of the more challenging decisions you make as a homeowner, since these systems are complex and involve a number of factors. The right size is critical, not just for energy efficiency, but also for your comfort and the longevity of the system.Before homes were as air tight and energy efficient as they now are, larger equipment was needed to adequately compensate for lower insulation levels and more air infiltration. If you live in an older home and have made any improvements to either the insulation and plugged the air leaks, chances are you need a smaller system than you now have.HVAC contractors use a tool called Manual J to pinpoint the size that you need. This system was developed decades ago and it factors many aspects of your home, including:

• Cubic footage you need to heat;

• Layout of your home;

• Number of windows, their efficiency and exposure to the sun;

• Insulation levels in the attic and walls;

• Air infiltration rates;

• Heat-producing appliances under roof;

• Outdoor landscaping characteristics;

• Preferred indoor temperatures; and

• Age and number of household members.

Once the HVAC contractor finishes the analysis and knows the BTUs you need, he moves onto evaluating your current ductwork, using Manual D.Knowing the precise size you need not only saves you money initially for a furnace replacement, it also saves money over the life of the equipment. When furnaces are too large, they short cycle, which means they turn on and off more frequently. Short cycling increases your energy costs because the more the furnace runs, the more fuel it uses, and a portion of it goes up the flue, which is wasted. Running frequently also increases the wear and tear on all the components inside the system. Your comfort also suffers, since rooms may not thoroughly warm enough.If you'd like more information about furnace replacement, contact Air Assurance. We've provided HVAC services for the Broken Arrow 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). Image courtesy of Shutterstock

How to Best Prepare Your HVAC System for the Next Winter Storm

Winter preparedness calls for you to know how to combat snowstorms to keep your family safe and cozy. Although your HVAC system is durable, you'll need to do some preparation to keep it running efficiently and avoid the need for emergency repair service in extreme weather. Follow the tips below to prepare your HVAC system and home for the next winter storm.

Check Your Insulation and Seal Leaks

Proper sealing and insulation help your HVAC system run safely and more efficiently. They also provide an excellent way to keep the temperatures in your home well regulated. You can lose plenty of indoor heat through the roof, so ensure your attic has the recommended amount of insulation. Seal and insulate your ducts to eliminate air leaks. Check for drafts around doors and windows and seal any leaks you find.

When your heating system doesn't have to compete with the outside air infiltrating your home, it won't be overworked during the next winter storm.

Schedule Heater Maintenance

One of the best ways to prepare for the next winter storm and bout of extreme cold is having preventive maintenance performed on your heating system. During a professional tuneup, an HVAC contractor will check everything, including the belts, electrical switches, motors, and thermostats, and fix any issues.

You could subscribe to a service agreement with a trusted company to ensure your HVAC system gets regular service as well as priority service in case of unexpected breakdowns.

Keep Your Vents Clear

Blocking the vents can limit airflow severely, leading to temperature drops. Make sure no objects are covering your vents and that nobody has accidentally moved the levers and caused the vents to close.

Invest in a Generator

A storm can leave your home without power. A generator will keep your HVAC system running in case power goes out for days or hours. However, you'll need to read the user manual to make sure you use the generator in the prescribed manner.

Being proactive and acting fast on this information will ensure you're adequately prepared before the next winter storm. If you need preventive maintenance in the Broken Arrow area, contact Air Assurance. We also offer an exclusive Extended Service Plan that entitles you to priority service, discounts, and VIP specials.

Should You Be Sleeping with the Window Open in Winter?

No doubt you've tried sleeping with your window open when the weather allows, either in spring or fall, when it's not too cold or so hot you need the air conditioning. So have you ever noted during these occasions whether or not you seem to sleep better with the window open than you do when it's closed? Some sleep researchers maintain that sleeping with window a open in winter has some benefits, including getting a better rest. Let's take a look at them.

Benefits of Sleeping With the Window Open in Winter

1. Helps to exhaust CO and CO2. Although your carbon monoxide monitor may not be alarming you, there may be small levels of poisonous CO in your home, given off by gas-burning appliances such as the furnace or pilot lights. Cracking a window can help dispel some of this CO, which, though not significant enough to trip an alarm, might give sensitive individuals a headache. Further, there can be a buildup of CO2 or carbon dioxide which can occur when we close the bedroom door. It seems we give off CO2 when we exhale and our oxygen is converted. CO2 can cause headaches, nausea, and dizziness.
   
   Opening a window can relieve the stuffiness that is likely to occur when our doors and the house in general is all closed up because it's chilly outside.

2. Better sleep with lower temperatures. Sleep researchers in recent years have maintained that we may sleep better when temperatures are lower. It seems we produce more melatonin (the chemical in our brains that helps us sleep) when it's chillier. During cold spells, try cracking the window an inch or so to lower your bedroom temperature.

3. Outside noises may promote sleep. As long as your outdoor noises don't include parties, traffic, and midnight street construction, some nocturnal noises may help you sleep. If by opening your window a bit you can hear crickets and the sighing of gentle winds, you may find the white noise you need to help you sleep.

For more on sleeping with a window open in winter, contact Air Assurance of Broken Arrow. 

What Are the Best Ways to Conserve Energy This Winter?

Exploring ways to conserve energy will give you a road map to energy savings in your home. The effort and financial outlays it takes to improve your home's energy efficiency will pay for itself all year long via lower heating and cooling costs and greater health and comfort. Read on to learn about the best ways to conserve energy.

• Have your heating system serviced. The technicians from Air Assurance go through the entire system cleaning, adjusting, and verifying that it's running as efficiently and as safely as possible.

• Add a programmable thermostat. When you have your system serviced, ask the technician about installing a programmable or smart thermostat to help you save energy. You can reduce heating costs by turning the temperature down when you're away and during the night. Smart thermostats give you even more options for controlling home comfort that can help you save energy.

• Check the doors and windows for air infiltration and thermal losses. Dual- or triple-pane windows prevent much heat loss through the glass, while single-pane windows have almost no insulating value. You can use storm windows or plastic window film kits from local or online retailers.

  Over time, the weatherstripping around doors and windows wears out and needs replacing. Locking the doors and windows helps prevent drafts. Draft blockers placed at the base of the doors and windows are one of the best ways to conserve energy.

• Look for other signs of air leaks around the exterior walls and the ceiling plate. Electrical switches and outlets could be leaking cold air into your home. Recessed lighting that protrudes into the attic is another source of energy loss. Vents and fans can also need additional insulation or sealing.

• Check insulation levels in the attic. Then add more insulation if you can see the tops of the ceiling joists.

• Lower the water heater's temperature to 120 degrees. Water heaters rank high on the list of energy-hungry home appliances. This temperature also prevents accidental scalding injuries and hard-water deposits from forming in the tank.

If you'd like more ways to conserve energy, contact the pros at Air Assurance. We provide HVAC services for Broken Arrow homeowners.

How to Combat a Drafty House This Winter

Older homes are notorious for being drafty, but guess what? Lots of newer homes are drafty too. So whether you have a new or an old home, what's a beleaguered homeowner to do? You're tired of trying to heat your home in winter, knowing the warm air just rises up to the ceiling and seems to be lost in space while your home's occupants shiver at ground level. 

There are some solutions for a drafty house, but be advised, it's not necessarily an easy or cheap fix. Nevertheless, let's take a look at what you might be able to do. 

Why Do I Have a Drafty House?

Quite often, a house is drafty because of minute cracks around window and door frames, at baseboards, around an attic hatch, and because of holes in exterior walls for pipes, wires, and cables. These holes contribute to draftiness but aren't the main culprit. 

As warm air rises, it creates a vacuum and pulls in cold air from the outdoors through the cracks we just mentioned. The warm air is forced upward, where it might heat up a second story, making it stuffy and uncomfortable, and then travel farther into the attic, where it is lost to your efforts to heat your home. 

While air-sealing those cracks with insulation, caulk, and weatherstripping will help diminish the draftiness of your home, it's not the only remedy.

You also need to insulate the attic to stop those warm-air losses. Furthermore, you may also need to add insulation around the foundation of your home. 

Insulating the Attic and Foundation to Prevent a Drafty House

You should bring the R-value of the insulation in your attic up to about 49 — the R-value being a measure of how effective your insulation is at stopping heat transfer. R-49 translates to as much as 15 inches of insulation on the floor of your attic.

You may also need to hire a professional to air-seal and insulate with two-part foam or foam board and apply sealant to the wooden panel where your foundation meets the rest of the house.

For more on fixing your drafty house, contact Air Assurance of Broken Arrow. 

What Are All the Types of Home Heating You Can Get?

Homeowners in Broken Arrow are lucky because there are plenty of types of home heating systems that are efficient and convenient here. Fuel-burning furnaces, radiant-heating systems, and heat pumps are all types of home heating that work effectively in this climate. 

Forced-Air Furnaces

These systems are by far the most common of all the types of home heating in the United States. They are cost-efficient, relatively easy to install, and they can be highly energy efficient. They produce heat using a fuel, and they blow warmed air through ductwork that's distributed throughout the home. 

Fuel options include natural gas, propane, fuel oil, or electric. Natural gas is the most common and least expensive to operate given the widespread availability of natural gas. 

Oil furnaces produce the most heat per unit of energy consumed. Electric furnaces, while easy to install and operate, cost the most to run. In this region, it makes sense to choose a natural gas furnace if this fuel is available on your lot. 

Radiant Heating

Instead of blowing heated air throughout ductwork like furnaces and heat pumps do, radiant systems use pipes or coils that use electricity or circulate heated liquids in coils in radiators or coils placed on the walls, the ceiling, or under the floors. The heat gradually radiates into the room. This kind of heating is comfortable and quiet. It doesn't contribute to household dust or aggravate airborne allergies. 

Heat Pumps

Heat pumps function like forced-air furnaces but exchange heat instead of creating it with a combustible fuel. Technically, they are the most energy-efficient types of home heating, especially if they're geothermal heat pumps (GHPs). 

GHPs and above-ground air-source heat pumps (ASHPs) work like refrigerators. In the summer, they absorb the heat in your home and move it outside. In the winter, the appliance removes the heat in the outdoor air and brings it inside. 

A GHP has such great efficiency because it uses an underground loop field where temperatures are always stable. ASHPs complete the heat exchange in above-ground air that can be either hot or cold. 

Contact Air Assurance for help choosing the best types of home-heating systems. Our pros can give you professional advice and insight. We provide HVAC services for Broken Arrow homeowners. 

What Does It Mean When the Furnace Pilot Light Is Out?

If your gas-fired furnace isn’t turning on and delivering heat, the reason could be a furnace pilot light out for some reason. While newer, gas-fired furnaces installed in homes light the main burner flame with an electronic igniter, many older furnaces still on the job utilize a pilot light. It’s simply a small, gas-fired flame that burns constantly and ignites the main furnace burner when the thermostat signals for heat. As a safety measure, a furnace pilot light out automatically shuts off gas flow to the main burner so the furnace will then not start up. 

Why Is the Furnace Pilot Light Out?

If the furnace isn't starting up as it should, it could result from two potential pilot light problems:

• Thermocouple malfunction. The pilot thermocouple is a safety device that continuously senses heat from the pilot flame. If the flame goes out for any reason, the thermocouple immediately shuts off gas flow to the pilot light and the main gas burner. Sometimes, however, an aging thermocouple will begin to malfunction, shutting off gas even though the pilot light is lit and functioning normally. A qualified HVAC technician can test the thermocouple and replace it with a new unit if necessary.

• Flame inefficiency. A normal pilot light flame should be bright blue. However, if the flame is yellow or orange, this is a sign that the gas is not burning efficiently and that the temperature of the flame is too low. Often, the thermocouple will sense the low-temperature flame and shut off the gas, including the pilot light. Flame-efficiency issues require diagnosis by an HVAC professional.

What to Do Now?

Most furnaces provide instructions to observe the pilot light and determine if it is lit. If it’s not lit, you can follow the basic procedure that's usually posted on the furnace to attempt to relight the pilot light. However, if the pilot will not relight — or if it goes out again soon after relighting it — discontinue further attempts and contact your HVAC contractor for a service call.

To resolve issues relating to a furnace pilot light out, contact the heating professionals at Air Assurance. 

How to Winterize Your Home Before Cold Weather Arrives

The uncertain weather that's occurring in all seasons and in all climates calls for more weather preparedness than ever. In our climate, winter can be cold, with occasional subfreezing temperatures and storms, so it's always best to be ready. Furthermore, we want to make sure we are as prepared as we can be for the kind of catastrophic cold weather that paralyzed us early in the year with the polar vortex. According to weather predictors, we may be in for more of these events, so it should be standard operating procedure to winterize your home every fall. Here are some steps you can take to do just that.

1. Get your rain gutters ready. Make sure rain gutters are free of leaves and debris, even if they are covered. Also, make sure the segments are connected and there are no leaks so rainwater can flow through.

2. Air seal your home. Go around your home with a lit incense stick. Hold it in front of baseboards, around door and window frames, under recessed lighting, in front of electrical outlets, and in front of any hole in an exterior wall that accommodates a cable, wires, or pipes. If the smoke wavers, you have an air leak and you're losing warm air — or conditioned air may be intruding. Plug the holes with caulk, weatherstripping, or insulation to help winterize your home.

3. Install a programmable or Wi-Fi thermostat. These thermostats are a better way to program the temperature in your home so you can save on energy. Set the thermostat a little lower during winter when you're sleeping or away from home during the day. Set it to rise again during the hours when you're up and moving around in the morning or when you come home from work.

4. Bring container plants indoors. Start getting your container plants acclimated to the indoors before the temperature drops to freezing. If the container is lightweight enough that you can move it, bring it in at night and then put it back outside in the morning for a couple of weeks. Then move the plants inside permanently as a final step as you winterize your home.

For more on how to winterize your home, contact Air Assurance of Broken Arrow. 

How Does Geothermal Heating Work?

If you're considering a serious investment in your home and its HVAC system, you may be wondering: How does geothermal heating work? Geothermal heat pumps (GHPs) are the most energy efficient and durable type of central home heating and cooling system available. 

The answer to how does geothermal heating work lies in the ground —literally, as it uses the stored energy underground to act as a source for home heating. When combined with the heat-capturing technology of a heat pump, a GHP gives you dependable, energy-efficient and abundant heating regardless of the temperature outdoors. 

How They Work

• Most GHPs use an underground loop field that's filled with a heat-capturing liquid to either harvest heat in the winter or deposit it in the summer. Some GHPs use a nearby water source for this heat-exchange process.

• The loop field for a ground-source heat pump lies underground and can be placed horizontally or vertically. A vertical placement is ideal for small yards.

• Unlike a traditional heat pump or air conditioner, a GHP doesn't use an outdoor condenser since the GHP harvests the heat underground and not from the outside air. This is central to the question of how does geothermal heating work and why it's so desirable. The temperature changes very little deep underground where the loop field is, unlike the weather above the ground. A heat source is always consistent and ample.

Their Benefits

• Geothermal heat pumps do not use fossil fuels, and as such, they operate more safely since there's no worry about carbon monoxide poisoning since there is no combustion process involved, which also lowers the risk of fire.

• GHPs last longer than other kinds of HVAC systems. The outdoor loop field usually carries a warranty of 50 years and more, while the indoor components can last at least 25 years with routine maintenance.

• Although they cost more to install, the federal government is offering a 26%tax credit for homeowners who install a GHP in their existing, primary homes. This credit is good through 2022 and covers the complete cost of the purchase and installation.

To learn more about the answer to the question of how does geothermal heating work, contact the pros at Air Assurance. We provide HVAC services for Broken Arrow homeowners.