Don’t wait until your family is uncomfortably hot this summer to check in on your air conditioning unit. Make sure its ready to beat the heat by following these simple steps below.
Barron Heating AC Electrical & Plumbing Blog: Archive for the ‘Comfy Home’ Category
Get Your AC Unit Ready for Summer
Monday, April 23rd, 20184 Steps to Reduce Spring Allergens in Your Home
Thursday, March 16th, 2017It’s not called “allergy season” for nothing.
Spring is finally in the air! And with the arrival of birds, blue sky and warmer weather comes pesky allergens that can aggravate you and your family and negatively impact health. Keep the pollen, dust mites, and pet dander at bay by regularly maintaining your HVAC system. The better it runs, the happier and healthier your home will be.
Change Your Filters
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: pay attention to your filters! Check your filters every month, and replace every 3 months or so depending on wear. You want to make sure your unit is working efficiently to keep particles and allergens out of your family’s space, especially when any members are particularly susceptible (like asthma sufferers).
Check for Mold
Mold is an unfriendly guest no matter where you find it. It can be especially irritating when it takes up in your HVAC system, worsening allergies and overall health. If you see mold or notice a musty smell coming from your vents, it may be time to schedule a duct cleaning.
Seal it up
To prevent excess pollen and other particulates from making their way inside your home, one DIY approach is to weatherstrip, caulk or spray foam around windows, doors, and other problem areas. Taking these measures can help your air conditioner or heating system run to its fullest efficiency (and save you money).
Call in a Professional
After you’ve made the rounds yourself, it’s never a bad idea to get a full system checkup from a trained professional. Much like your family’s health, your HVAC system is an investment; it needs to be treated with care and attention to be at its best.
Don’t wait until your whole family is sneezing and miserable, contact Barron Heating & Air Conditioning to schedule a maintenance appointment today!
4 Winter Home Projects
Thursday, January 26th, 2017
Tools forming a house with energy efficiency chimney
Home improvement isn’t just for warmer weather
It’s the middle of winter and all you want to do is hibernate, right? Maybe you were buzzing with home improvement energy in the fall, ready to get everything in order before the cold weather set in. Maybe you’re saving your excitement for coming spring and summer projects. We get it. While it may be tempting to give in to winter routine and put your home on the backburner, we have some winter projects to keep your house humming and your hands busy.
1) Check in on crawlspaces
We’re no strangers to damp and chilly winter weather here in the Pacific Northwest. Our houses endure months of it year after year. It wouldn’t hurt to make sure your crawl spaces aren’t falling victim to moisture damage, hibernating rodents, or improper insulation. If you’re not familiar with the ins and outs of crawlspace maintenance, we recommend having an expert come over to assess your house’s health. Bonus article: Avoid 8 DIY Crawl Space Mistakes
2) Start a landscaping project
We suggest using our rainy climate to your advantage to create a rain garden. This is simply a garden that uses tiered draining to filter runoff. Not only is a rain garden great for natural filtering, it also allows you to take advantage of diverse Pacific Northwest flora to create an attractive addition to your yard. Bonus article: How to Build a Rain Garden to Filter Runoff
6 Tips to Keep Your Wallet Happy This Winter
Wednesday, December 14th, 2016Don’t let your winter heating costs get you down
Sure, in the short walk from your heated car to your heated office the cold winter air may be refreshing, but I’m sure there are few among us who don’t appreciate the comfort of a well-heated house at the end of the day. I’ll also bet there are few among us whose energy bills don’t see some kind of spike in these winter months either. That part’s not so comforting.
But before you scramble to take up residence someplace more tropical, we’ve put together 6 tips to help keep your house warm and wallet happy this winter.
1. Go smart (with a smart/programmable thermostat)
Automatically control the temperature of your house when you’re working, sleeping, or otherwise occupied with a programmable thermostat, and you can save from 5 to 20% on your heating bill. No need to worry about remembering to turn your heat down when you leave the house–programmable thermostats take the hassle out of heating.
Homeowners: Don’t get duped!
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2016Read these tips on how to choose a contractor and protect your money.
Homeowners should be very careful before choosing a heating and cooling contractor for their home. There are huge differences in quality and professionalism throughout the industry. The “best” contractors will typically be members of one or more professional contractor associations. You should be looking for contractors who are well-educated and certified in three particular areas:
Does Your HVAC System Suffer From High Blood Pressure?
Wednesday, November 4th, 2015Your furnace, heat pump or air conditioner is the heart of your comfort system.
It’s often said that your furnace, heat pump or air conditioner is the heart of your comfort system. Following the analogy further, your air ducts are its veins & arteries.
And just like high blood pressure is bad for your heart, high “duct static pressure” is bad for your heating and cooling system, your comfort – and your wallet.
When you go to the doctor for a check-up, common practice is for the doctor or nurse to measure your blood pressure. Our service technicians now have the instruments and training to do the same for your ducts when we do the seasonal tune-up, or a home and duct performance assessment.
We’ve been doing this for a while now, and the results are often eye-opening. The heating and cooling equivalent to 80 over 120 is “half an inch” of water column pressure for most systems. When we test the duct pressure, we now routinely find pressures significantly higher than this –often over double!
Why does this matter?
Higher Utility Bills: High pressures in the ducts leads to lower airflow. Lower airflow means lower efficiency. Lower efficiency means higher monthly utility bills.
Comfort: Lower airflow leads to poor distribution of conditioned air throughout the home, contributing to hot and cold spots, or the system not keeping up on the hottest or coldest days.
Noise: High static pressure is often a clue as to why a system is excessively noisy – the same repairs to reduce static pressure usually decrease noise as well.
Repairs: Low airflow causes furnaces to overheat internally, and air conditioners and heat pumps to not function smoothly. Many common expensive repairs – or premature total failure – are directly attributable to low airflow.
The good news is that identifying high static pressure allows us to prescribe the right medicine to make your system and your home happier! Each system is different – but most common airflow improvements are fairly simple and economical. And best of all, they pay for themselves through more efficient operation and lower utility bills.
Next time your HVAC contractor visits your home, ask your technician to take the time to check your ducts static pressure and explain the results. If you are having any comfort, dust or high utility bill issues, give a home performance trained contractor a call and they’ll explain your options for home & duct performance assessments.
Propane to Ductless – A Case Study
Tuesday, April 28th, 2015Here is an interesting case study on a 1980’s Bellingham A-frame home. This is the first of many case-studies we will be creating.
This project was a smashing success, with the homeowners saving around $2,000 per year and they were finally able to heat their entire home. Plus, the interior ductless heads are strategically placed, attractive, and offer independent heating zones.
Take a moment to check out the case study, which highlights the homeowners feelings with the results, and walks you through the whole home performance process.
Insulate Your Home for the Summer!
Thursday, April 16th, 2015
Insulation is important in the winter for obvious reasons, but did you know it also helps to keep your home cool in the summer?
Though insulation may seem obvious in this day and age, older homes often have very little or no insulation.
Because heating and cooling accounts for 50-70% of all energy costs, adding insulation is a critical step for anyone interested in lowering their energy bill.
It can be difficult to invest money in something you can’t even see day-to-day, but in the overall performance of your home, it’s critically important. And it’s becoming less and less hard on your pocketbook to install these much-needed updates. There are rebate programs through Puget Sound Energy and Cascade Natural Gas, and in some cases, rebate matching through the Community Energy Challenge (CEC).
Check out this great article: for a thorough description of the types of insulation, where in your home to put it, and much more!
The article also discusses geeky but useful things like R-Value of insulation. Turns out it stands for Resistance to heat flow. That makes sense! The DOE recommends an R-Value of R-49 for attics. And the better your insulation, the less hard your heating and cooling system will have to work, and therefore the longer before it breaks down. Win-win-win.
So, how do you know how much insulation you have in your home and where? Well, if you are handy and don’t mind wading through it yourself there are DIY ways of checking for insulation. However, if you’d rather leave it to the professionals, a Home Performance Assessment will tell you definitively where the insulation is. An Infrared Camera, used in most assessments, can look right through your walls!
Water Heaters: The Real Deal on Tankless v. Tank
Tuesday, April 7th, 2015Take a look at the following terms: Tankless Water Heater, Standard Natural Draft Water Heater, Standard Induced Draft Water Heater, and On-Demand Hot Water. Do they all make sense to you?
If you’re like me, you thought you understood them. Tankless…. pretty obvious, right? NO TANK. But like most things, there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye. There’s actually a pretty big debate when it comes to whether to tank or not to tank. And, because hot water accounts for 20% of people’s energy bills (on average), it’s something to seriously consider. Let’s walk through some of what a Tankless is and is not to dispel some common misconceptions.
What Tankless is…
Tankless is small, compact, efficient with it’s energy use, and (whoa) this one’s big: endless hot water. My sixteen year old self could have really used one of these. Also, they’re just pretty cool technology. There’s basically a long coiled pipe inside a small (briefcase sized) box on the wall. When the water enters, the pipes heat up and when the water leaves the box, it’s hot!
This is all well and good, except that like most really nifty things, they come with a price. Tankless Water Heaters are, on average, about twice as much money as a standard tank. That’s a big investment. But IS it an investment? This is where the debate comes in. Unlike a lot of energy-saving home purchases (of which we are big advocates), the point where monthly savings on hot water add up to pay off your investment of a Tankless can be about the time it wares out from old age (around 20 years), particularly when using natural gas.
What Tankless is not…
Tankless is not On-Demand hot water. This was news to me. Something as high-tech and expensive as Tankless should come with all the bells and whistles, right? The truth of the matter is that Tankless takes slightly longer to deliver hot water to the tap unless a recirculating unit is installed. The water comes into the box cold (as opposed to the constant heating of a standard tank), so when you turn on the tap to wash your hands or take a shower, it will take about 5 seconds more to receive that heated water. The water has to work it’s way through that coil until the coil has reached operating temperature.
Tankless is also not always the most cost-effective choice in a replacement situation. What? Yes. While the constant-heating of a standard tank is energy-intensive, and seems inefficient, if you’re family is using up all the hot water in the tank throughout the day, it’s basically acting like a tankless. Let’s say a family of 4 is taking a couple showers, a bath, a load of dishes, and a load or two of laundry per day (this is, coincidentally what our day often looks like at home). With our 40 gallon tank, we are using that sucker up, over and over.
Another thing to consider is that while neither technology is exempt from occasional repairs and annual service, Tankless is less forgiving of missed maintenance.
Here is one of our service techs, Colin, servicing a customer’s Rinnai brand tankless water heater. He is descaling the heat exchanger due to mineral deposits coating the heat exchanger surfaces and acting as an insulator decreasing heat transfer. The severity of this condition depends on water quality but it happens in all applications and on all water heaters (tank or tankless).
Most people know that corrosion is a big issue with standard water tanks, but clearly, it is something to watch for in tankless models, too.
Standard Tank (induced or natural draft)
If you are considering purchasing a Standard Tank Water Heater the big thing to remember is that though the various models and types look similar on the outside, they are definitely not all created equal. The main things to think about are: Fuel-type, Draft-type, and Warranty Length.
Fuel-type: Natural gas is significantly more affordable than electric or propane in most places. Natural gas models are more expensive up-front, but the investment pays off fast. In fact, the savings you’ll see in your energy bill (around half as much) will usually make up the difference in cost (between electric and gas) in about a year. Oil-fueled Water Heaters exist too, but are rare because of the very high cost.
Draft-type: A natural-draft water heater means that the combustion gases (including carbon-monoxide) come out the top of the water heater naturally, and therefore have the risk of back-drafting. These water heaters are fine, but are best installed outside the building envelope. Having one of these in your home could be dangerous. In some situations, the water heater cannot be replaced with a standard atmospheric vent water heater due to newer mechanical codes. Talk to your HVAC professional to be sure. Induced-draft means that the gases are driven out of your home through a pipe and fan-system, which can be much safer.
Warranty Length: A longer warranty length may not sound like an important factor at first, but it really shows how confident a manufacturer is in it’s product. The warranty-length neatly bundles a lot of the questions regarding internal options of tank-style water heaters. This piece from Consumer Reports has a ton of GREAT information. They go through all the nitty-gritty like internal tank features, safety concerns, and even specific brands. But the most concise info I took away from it on water tanks is: “Those with longer warranties tend to have larger heating elements, thicker insulation, and thicker or longer corrosion-fighting metal anodes.”
Quick List of Pros/Cons
So the easiest answer to the whole question of what kind of water heater is best is: It depends on your family and your needs. Let’s break it down into a pros and cons list for convenience:
Tankless – Pros
- Endless hot water
- Energy Efficient (only heating the water used; better combustion)
- Compact, space-saving
- Easier to service (descale corrosion)
- Longer life (about 20 years)
- Decent ROI for propane-fuel homes
Tankless – Cons
- Up-front cost (about twice as much as a standard tank)
- Natural gas customers don’t see an ROI, because energy savings don’t make up for the cost
- Slightly longer wait time to receive hot water
Standard Tank – Pros
- Natural Gas models are fairly energy efficient (not quite so much as tankless)
- Up-front cost (about half as much as a tankless)
- Not as much of a delay in hot water reaching the tap in most homes
Standard Tank – Cons
- Constantly heating a huge tank of water (that may not be getting used throughout the day). Inefficient (for some families).
- Corrosion issues and mineral build-up occur within the tank and can’t always be seen or remedied
- Not Efficient
- Require a lot of space
- Shorter lifespan (7-12 years)
Heating Emergency or Scheduled Upgrade – 5 Things to Expect from Your HVAC Comapny
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2014
Recently my Facebook feed has been full of posts beginning “We woke up to a 50 degree (or thereabouts) house! What a time to be left in the lurch!” Murphy’s law says that many families will experience heating problems on the coldest days of the year. However unfair this may seem, I’ve found myself commenting that not all HVAC companies are created equal! Here are a few things to look for and a few services I’ve come to expect (It’s okay to expect the best!):
- 24/7 Emergency Service
Any time of the day or night, the service crew should be ready to help. A large number of trained technicians on staff is key, so your wait time is minimized. One motto: “Your emergency is our emergency,” is a comforting idea when your family is cold and time is of the essence! And just in case you’re in the midst of one such emergency, Here’s a heating company who happens to fit all the criteria in this blog post. - 100% Satisfaction Guarantee
There’s not much more to say about this one, except that this is a rare thing for a company to commit to, and those who have are elevated to a separate level of business in my mind. It makes me think of other stand-outs like Costco, Nordstrom, and REI, who have similar policies. I feel so confident buying from these places, because if something goes wrong: They will fix it. Period. Customer satisfaction is THE core of everything they do. - Building Performance Certified
These nationally certified staff are trained to take the health, efficiency, and comfort of the entire home into account. Only one local company has much of their team go through this rigorous training and testing to earn their titles as BPI Certified Professionals. BPI is the Building Performance Institute. They “develop standards for energy efficiency retrofit work using an open, transparent, consensus-based process built on sound building science….and quality assurance services that help raise the bar in home performance contracting.” Read more about BPI, and check out their Guide for Homeowners on how it all works and how to find the best contractor for your needs. - Lifetime Guarantee and 1 Year Warranty
Although these might sound like oxy-morons, they actually apply to different areas of the HVAC experience. The Lifetime guarantee refers to the Workmanship on installed ductwork, sheet metal, and piping. The 1 year warranty (for parts and labor) is in addition to any manufacturer warranties. The company should come out after the first year of use (free of charge) to make sure everything is working as it was when the equipment was installed. YES, this can happen with the right company. These safety nets and guarantees are some of the best and most comprehensive in the industry. - Official Designations from the Manufacturer
Look for certifications. Some heating companies will have their awards, designations, certifications, etc., on their website. These matter. One example: Carrier has a very selective process to designate Factory Authorized Dealers. They use these criteria: the job is done Expertly, Efficiently, Professionally, Right Technically, with the Right Parts, and Right for the Environment. Not all companies meet these standards. Just one more safety net to look for!
I hope explaining these 5 areas of service has given you insight on your search for a new heating system, repair, or upgrade. Now, if you or your neighbor are cold, you know what to do!