Keeping your home nice and toasty throughout the winter is crucial if you want to be comfortable and enjoy spending time inside your house. For some, that means keeping their thermostat set at 75 degrees or higher as soon as the temperature outside starts to drop. While that’s not necessarily good for your furnace (or your wallet), constantly changing the temperature isn’t good, either! Both scenarios can lead to the need for heating repair in St. Louis, MO. Keep reading to learn more about the effects of frequently adjusting your thermostat, and the best ways to go about managing the temperature in your home:
Adjusting the thermostat leads to breakdowns: Just like using the brakes too much while driving wears down your brake pads, constantly messing with the thermostat leads to unnecessary wear and tear on your furnace. Various components of your unit will break down faster than they should, which will lead to expensive repairs or even replacement! Instead of turning the temperature up and down every time you get a little hot or cold, find a temperature you’re comfortable with and leave it at that while you’re home.
Adjusting the thermostat wastes money: When you adjust your thermostat, your furnace has to suddenly work harder, sucking up more electricity. You’ll notice that it takes a lot more power to suddenly turn your unit on than it does to keep it at the same temperature for an extended period of time. Take a look at your next heating bill—you’ll be amazed at how much money you’ll save by not adjusting your thermostat every few hours!
Set the temperature when you’re away: Don’t get us wrong—you shouldn’t always have your thermostat at the same temperature. What’s the point in having the heat or air conditioning on when you’re not going to be home? That’s a huge waste of electricity! When you’re going to be away for eight hours or more, it’s good practice to set your thermostat five to eight degrees higher in the summer and 10 to 15 degrees lower in the winter. The U.S. Department of Energy says doing this can save you 5 to 15 percent on your monthly heating and cooling bills!
Buy a programmable thermostat: Buying a programmable thermostat can help you save money without the hassle of adjusting the temperature each morning and evening. You can program your thermostat to turn the heat or air conditioning down in the mornings when you leave for work, and back up when you get home. It saves you time and tons of money.
The last thing we want is for you to be uncomfortable in your home, but that doesn’t mean you need to adjust the thermostat every time it gets a bit too hot or too cold inside. Regardless of how often you change the temperature, your furnace may malfunction. If that’s the case, give Ashley Brothers Heating & Cooling a call for heating repair in St. Louis, MO. We have years of experience with fixing all sorts of furnaces and can get your unit back up and running in no time if you’re experiencing trouble.
If you aren’t a trained HVAC technician, there are a multitude of things about your system that you might not understand. Even though some of the aspects of your system’s functioning can be confusing, at the very least you should be able to expect that hot air will come out of your furnace—or at least that’s what you would think.
Unfortunately, you can’t always count on this fact, and there are certain factors that may cause your furnace to begin blowing cold air instead of warm air. This certainly won’t help you stay comfortable during the winter months, so it’s important to identify the issue and get HVAC repair in St. Louis, MO when necessary in order to solve the problem. When cold air is coming out of your furnace, here are some of the things that might be going on:
Your pilot light is out: Your pilot light should be on all the time in order to ignite your fuel and begin the heating process for your furnace. If the light is out, your furnace will not be able to burn gas, so your air won’t be heated as it normally would be. There are a number of reasons why your pilot light might be out, and the solution might be as simple as reigniting the light. If this doesn’t work, try checking to make sure that gas is flowing. If your light won’t stay lit no matter what, there’s an issue with your system that will likely require professional HVAC repair in St Louis, MO.
The settings on your thermostat are off: The first thing you should do when your furnace is blowing cold air is to check the thermostat settings. If your fan is set to “on,” it will be blowing regardless of whether your air is being heated or not. Setting your fan to “auto” will ensure that it only blows air when the furnace is turned on and heating your air.
Your furnace is overworked: The filters in your system are responsible for catching debris and contaminants so that they aren’t circulated through your home. If you don’t care for or change out these filters regularly, they can accumulate an excessive amount of debris and restrict airflow in your system. When airflow is restricted, your furnace has to work much harder and it can become overworked and overheated. An overheated furnace will often turn off automatically as a safety precaution. If this is the issue, you should try to clean your filters, or simply replace them.
Whether your furnace is blowing cold air or you’re due for a seasonal system service check, you can get help from the professionals here at Ashley Brothers Heating & Cooling. We have been offering residential and commercial HVAC repair in St. Louis, MO to our customers since 1999. Our years of experience have given us the ability to provide exceptional installation, repair and maintenance services that fit our customers’ exact needs and circumstances. We understand that your HVAC system can pose some unique problems, which is why our team takes the worry off of your shoulders to help you ensure that your system is running effectively and efficiently. Give us a call today for more information!
Controlling the climate in your home or business is important, especially during the winter months when temperatures can dip below freezing. A heating system allows you to adjust the temperature in your home to keep it comfortable for you, your family and your guests. If you’re a business owner, it’s important to maintain a comfortable environment for your employees and any visitors or customers who might come by.
Regardless of your setting, there will generally be one of two types of heaters in use: gas or heat pump. Gas furnaces heat your home or business by burning natural gas, whereas heat pumps operate as a sort of air conditioner in reverse, using refrigerant and electricity rather than a fuel source to heat the air. There are a few major differences between these types of heating system and, depending on your specific needs, you might find that one is a better choice for you:
Cost: One of the biggest things to take into account when discussing gas and heat pump systems with HVAC companies in St. Louis, MO is the cost. The amount that you will spend on the operation of your system will vary widely and is based on your energy usage as well as how much natural gas costs in your area. If you can get natural gas relatively cheaply, it might be cheaper for you to go with a furnace rather than a system that runs off electricity. On the other hand, you might be better off with a heat pump system if natural gas isn’t readily available to you.
Location: Where you live has a lot to do with how effective a heating system will be for you. If you live in an area where temperatures dip below freezing, you might be better off with a furnace. Although newer heat pumps can be more effective at heating your home or business, they are not able to handle excessively cold temperatures the way that gas furnaces can. HVAC companies in St. Louis, MO will generally be able to help you determine which option makes the most sense for you.
Efficiency: Although older furnaces were not especially efficient, newer models have the capacity to effectively utilize almost all of the fuel that they consume. Despite advancements, though, heat pumps still tend to beat gas furnaces when it comes to overall efficiency of energy use. Of course, you will have to take into account the differences between using natural gas and electricity in order to accurately determine the true winner when it comes to effective energy use and consumption.
In the end, much of your decision about whether to choose a heat pump or a gas furnace will be dependent on your specific circumstances. If you need help deciding which option would be best for you, or if you want to invest in a new heating system for your home or business, you can contact Ashley Brothers Heating & Cooling, one of the premier HVAC companies in St. Louis, MO. Our team of experienced professionals is here to assist you with all of your heating and cooling needs, from the installation of a brand-new system to repairs for your current unit. No matter what you need help with, you can reach out to us for assistance.
When we visit our customers for AC repair in St. Louis, MO it often confuses them to hear us refer to their air conditioner’s capacity using the word “tons.” They’ll look at a three-ton unit and say in disbelief, “That thing really weighs three tons?”
If the word “ton” here referred to weight, a three-ton AC would be too big for your back yard. Luckily it is not referring to weight at all, but rather to a measurement of how much heat it can remove from your house.
Answering this question is going to be fun, because it requires taking a little bit of a peek back in time.
The answer
The first thing to know is that people used to use ice to cool homes and refrigerate foods, and the measurement of an AC unit’s heat-removing capacity reflects this. A three-ton AC removes heat at a rate that a three-ton block of ice would, if it removed heat evenly and melted completely across 24 hours. Confusing? Here’s a simpler way to think about it. A three-ton AC unit is like putting a 6,000-pound block of ice in your home every day. Just without the mess, of course.
It may seem strange that ACs are measured using such an abstract standard, but it’s not strange at all when you think about how the power of other modern machines are measured. Just think about a car’s horsepower. ACs are more or less measured in ice power. So with both machines, their power is explained in terms of the things they were replacing: blocks of ice for the AC, and horse-drawn carriages for the cars.
The math
Here’s how that translates into math. A one-ton block of ice melting evenly across 24 hours would absorb heat at a rate of about 12,000 BTU/hour—one BTU can be understood as being about the same amount of heat caused by burning one match all the way down. So if you have a three-ton unit, it removes about 36,000 BTUs of heat from your home per hour, and about 864,000 BTUs per day. The heat of one match might not seem like much—but now picture the heat of 864,000 matches. Your AC unit’s pretty amazing, isn’t it?
The bottom line
What would your ancestors—after returning home from the market on their horse-drawn carriage, chipping new ice for their rooms, hour after hour, just trying to stay bearably cool—say if they could step into your home and enjoy the effortless cool that your AC provides, knowing it does not require moving three tons of ice into the house, bit by bit, in order to enjoy that cool feeling? They’d probably say, “Are you kidding me?” and then beg you to switch places. What do you think?
We hope you enjoyed this little history lesson. We know we really enjoyed answering your question! If you’ve got more questions, give us a call here at Ashley Brothers Heating & Cooling. We’re experts in AC repair in St. Louis, MO, and we’ve got the knowledge and expertise to get the job done right.
We hear this question a lot: Do portable air conditioners save more electricity—and thus, more money—than standard AC units? And the simple answer to that is, no!
There may be some benefits to portable AC units, but conserving electricity is not one of them.
So, why are standard AC units more efficient?
Portable air conditioner towers are standalone air conditioners that can be moved from room to room. They condense and cool air, and then pump their hot air through an exhaust tube that can be set up to blow out any window. Their main benefit is their convenience. But when it comes to energy efficiency, they’re nowhere near the level of a standard air conditioning installation in St. Louis, MO.
There are several reasons why this is so:
Standard units have higher energy efficiency requirements: The most important reason is that, while standard AC units––such as HVAC units located outside the home, and window units––are highly regulated and have stringent energy efficiency standards they must uphold, portable units are essentially not regulated at all. This means that unless you’re using the very top-of-the-line portable unit, your portable unit simply won’t be engineered well enough to compete with a standard unit in terms of energy efficiency. On average, they use worse parts––aluminum instead of copper tubing—and less efficient systems for cooling—cap-tube evaporator coils rather than expansion valves—and are not built to stand the tests of time and the elements like a standard unit.
Portable ACs do not have efficient heat exhaust: The portable unit’s greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. Because it is indoors, you’re overly reliant on its exhaust setup to pump the hot air its motors make and then extract outdoors, and even then it is creating ambient heat while it cools. Standard units do all their work outdoors. The heat is separated from the cool air and then simply radiates into the air instead of into your house, making them more efficient.
Portable units create negative pressure: Whereas standard AC units circulate in cool air at the same rate they circulate out warm air––meaning there is no pressure added or removed from the rooms it works in––portable ACs create a negative pressure, which causes warm air to be pulled into your home from outside to fill the space left by the air your unit is venting outside. This greatly diminishes its energy efficiency.
Overall, the basic design of a portable system means it just can’t compete with standard AC units. They are only really useful if you live somewhere that’s almost always a habitable temperature and you’re only likely to need AC a few days a year. Otherwise, you’re better off with a standard AC setup.
Ashley Brothers Heating & Cooling has been providing air conditioning installation in St. Louis, MO since 1999, and we can help you get the best AC solution for your house. We install and consult, so give us a call if you’re thinking about home cooling.
