Authored by-Hays Sandoval
HVAC, or heating, ventilation and air conditioning, is how your home stays warm in the winter and cool in the summer. When properly installed and maintained, you and your family get to enjoy reasonable indoor temperatures all year long. Keep reading this article for advice on installation, upgrades, maintenance and repairs of your home HVAC system.
Look for deals and rebates on the HVAC system you are having installed. Many ENERGY STAR units come with huge rebates either from your local utility company or the government itself. Investigate your options as it could save you hundreds or even thousands of dollars on the installation costs.
Get any agreement with an HVAC contractor in writing. Some contractors try to skip over this step and charge customers a fortune. If you have a certain price and warranty in writing, they cannot go back and change this information. If they do, they could have a lawsuit on their hands.
What system do you have? You need this information to tell your contractor. Get information on the make and model, plus if you have information on the history of maintenance, that will help, too. This information will be helpful to any contractor you hire to repair it.
Let your friends and family know about the discounts that are possible via ENERGY STAR. There's a lot of savings that can be had here, so why hold this good news all to yourself! You can save those closest to you hundreds of dollars over the course of a year.
If you want to cool your home in the summer without using your air conditioning on full, consider installing fans in your home. An attic fan can blow hot air out while sucking in cool air into your basement, and ceiling fans help distribute the air in your rooms evenly.
If your evaporator coil, found inside your home, becomes dirty, your unit will lose efficiency. Just pop off the front panel of the furnace and check to see that the coil is dry. Using a brush attachment on a vacuum, gently clean the coil of any dust or other debris.
When the weather cools down, turn your outdoor condenser off. Once the temperature drops into the 50s, the unit should no longer be on. This will help keep your HVAC system in good health for years, which means you will save on repair bills.
A radiant barrier improves the efficiency of your HVAC. It blocks heat from the inside out, lowering the amount of energy needed to cool your home in the summer. You could even use your attic as part of your living space if it is done right.
Use plants to increase your air conditioner's effectiveness. An AC unit fully shaded by trees and shrubbery can operate up to 10 percent more efficiently. However, do keep spacing in mind. Air flow must not be constricted, and technicians need room to work when they come out to service your unit.
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related website to cool your home? Consider installing a whole-house evaporative cooler. They use water to cool air instead of traditional chemical coolants, using a ton less energy to cool your home than those other units. That said, they do work best in dry climates and not at all in humid ones.
Before you hire any HVAC companies, find out how the amount of time they've been in business. Someone that has been in the business for a while probably isn't going to scam you. If you hire someone that's new that this then you'll be risking your money.
Choose a good HVAC company. You need to find one that has a solid reputation.
HVAC Contractor Insurance Cost that it has been around for several years and is backed by a good reputation in customer service. Find one that has trained professionals and qualified technicians to help with all kinds of customer needs.
Best Rates Electrical And HVAC Services should be able to handle any HVAC job no matter how simple or complex.
Determining the direction in which your house faces can help make the HVAC system efficient. When you determine the parts of your home that get the most sunlight, you can consider strategic landscaping that includes shade trees to somewhat reduce your home's exposure to heat from direct sunlight. If there is less heat in the home from sunlight, then the HVAC will require less work to actually cool the home.
Use recommendations when you are looking for a contractor. You should be able to find someone that has had a good experience. This will also provide you with good information on which contractors you should avoid hiring.
To run an efficient HVAC, you must ensure your house is fully insulated. First, check into your attic to find out if you have the right kind of insulation and enough of it. If not, investing in getting that up to grade is better than installing a strong HVAC system!
Get bids from several companies before deciding who you are going to hire to install or repair your HVAC system. Most people know to avoid the company that has the highest quote, but you should also stay away from the one with the lowest. The price may be lower due to shoddy workmanship an/or using low-quality equipment.
When buying an air conditioner, you want to find out with a SEER rating of 13 or higher. 13 is the minimum standard set by the government, so higher ratings, while not mandatory, are going to offer you better efficiency. SEER ratings can go as high as 19, so keep this in mind as you shop.
An HVAC system is expensive. Therefore, you want to make sure that you work with a reputable contractor or company to ensure that you get the most from your investment. Always get references from anyone that you are considering working with, and make sure to follow up on each of those references.
Replacing your unit's air filter each month is a key maintenance task. That's the easiest thing to do so your unit continues running in good shape. Filters only cost a couple of dollars, which is not that much.
Hire contractors who offer guarantees of at least 5 year on all labor and parts. This will ensure that you can go back to them to fix anything that goes wrong shortly after your system is installed or repaired. Anyone who doesn't offer a guarantee won't come back unless you pay them again.
It's easy to see that HVAC isn't hard to get into if you just take your time with it. In the end, you won't have too much trouble if you put what you've learned here to good use. Don't take our word for it and give it a try yourself before you do anything else!