The Heating & AC Blog

Putting a yard sign for our HVAC company out in the front yard next to the mailbox is really going to save us a lot of money.

This is not something that I ever would have considered doing years ago, but these days I’m willing to do just about anything to save some money. The inflation that is happening with our economy right now is terrible, and I want to make sure that I save every cent that I possibly can. We had to get a new heating and cooling system installed in our house not too long ago, and it ended up costing us way more than we thought it was going to. I thought that we were going to be able to get a brand new HVAC system for the house for around $2000, but it ended up costing almost twice that!not only that, but we ended up having to pay for installation too. The whole ordeal cost more than I was willing to pay, and we just did not have enough money saved up in our home repair fund to pay for it all at once. I have been very stressed out about the fact that we were going to have to go into debt for the HVAC system. However, then the HVAC technician informed me that we would be able to save 10% off of our entire bill in the installation if we would put a sign advertising their services out in our front yard for three months. There was a time that I would have been embarrassed to do such a thing, but this time I jumped at the chance!

air conditioning

The thermostat is the most important part of your HVAC system but a lot of people don’t really seem to understand that.

Once I heard someone say that your thermostat is actually the brains behind your entire HVAC system in your house and that really made a lot of sense to me.

That little metaphor stuck with me and that’s probably the reason why I have always wanted to have an updated thermostat unit in my house at all times. I have hardly ever updated my furnace or my air conditioning system, but I always make sure to have a newer updated thermostat at all times. I neverI never want to end up with a thermostat that is old and outdated because that means that my heating and cooling bills will rise and that my indoor air quality will never be at the levels that they could be! Anyway, the other day my mom called me up and told me that her thermostat didn’t seem to be working correctly. I knew for a fact that she had not had her thermostat updated for years because she had the same exact thermostat unit in her house that was there whenever I moved out 10 years ago! She wanted me to come over and fix it for her, but instead of doing that I just called up the local HVAC company and sent them over to her house to install a new thermostat instead. Since her thermostat is so important to the indoor air quality in her home, I just felt like it was time for a new one.

Duct sealing

There have been some HVAC scammers in our neighborhood lately.

I don’t know why they think that this is a good neighborhood to hit, but they have been over here a lot lately.

I mean, our neighborhood isn’t exactly the richest neighborhood in town, but I guess these HVAC scammers think that we have some money at least. They must, or they would not have been wasting their time coming over here to this part of town to try to trick some of us. My older neighbor told me the other day that they had some people at the door who said that they were HVAC contractors and that they were going through the neighborhood looking for people who wanted to have a new HVAC system installed for a great price. Luckily, our neighbors are pretty smart and they realize that the whole thing was a scam. They ended up calling the police and the HVAC scammers left without getting anything from them. However, some of the other people in the neighborhood were not quite so lucky! I guess the people who are going door to door really seemed like they were the real deal. Some of the people in the neighborhood actually fell for it and they ended up losing a lot of money to these people. I felt really bad for them, but it just goes to show you that you should never try to use a repairman who is not licensed and bonded. I personally would never hire an HVAC technician who is not well known in the community.

 

Heater technician

For some reason, I always put everything off. I have always been a procrastinator, ever since I was a little kid. I don’t know what it is with me, but for some reason I just don’t like when people tell me that I have to have things done at a certain time. Maybe I just have a problem with authority, but the older I get the worse it is for me! I really hate being told what to do, and whenever someone tells me that I have to get something done within a certain time, I am definitely not going to do it. I am always late when it comes to things like that. And now that I am older and I have a home of my very own, it’s gotten even worse. These days, I procrastinate about things like changing out the water filter in my refrigerator and switching out the air filter in my HVAC system. It’s really a bunch of dumb things like that that I should never procrastinate about in the first place! I guess I am just going to have to learn my lesson the hard way, though. The last time that I put off changing the air filter in my HVAC system, it got so dirty that it messed up my indoor air quality. I ended up having to call the heating and cooling company to have them come and do some maintenance work on it. It ended up costing me quite a bit, and now I am going to make sure that I change the air filter on time from now on!

furnace/heater

The wood stove itself is an severely valuable asset in the Wintertide here, but it’s no use if you have to purchase your firewood from a farm or vendor

I chose to live in a partially rural area because I was sick of all the noise I heard living in the street. The roads were clogged with cars, well into the night sixths. I hated to hear the honking, the screeching, plus the people yelling back plus forth to one another at four o’clock in the morning. It was affecting our long term mental health in the worst possible way. It’s a feeling of claustrophobia that was enjoy walls in all instruction closing in on me. I would enjoy to be in an environment where there aren’t other people surrounding me for as far as the eye can see. It’s also honestly peaceful to smell the pine trees plus hear the whistling wind plus the chirping birds in the distance. One big luck to living on a giant plot of land out in the rural countryside is having an abundance of wood for heating while in our frigid winters. I have so many fallen trees that I will never run out of firewood while living on this land. That’s a big luck to living anywhere in the countryside where you have access to your own trees to split up plus throw in the wood stove. The wood stove itself is an severely valuable asset in the Wintertide here, but it’s no use if you have to purchase your firewood from a farm or vendor. I like utilizing our wood stove along with our central gas furnace. This creates a satisfying heating effect in our beach house while saving me lots of currency that I’d be spending if I didn’t have the wood stove providing so much supplemental heat.

 

energy saving tips

I was remiss to section with my trusty Heating & A/C unit.

I had kept it well-inspected for 13 years.

Well, I guess you guess what they say about lucky number 13. I started to notice the telltale signs that my HVAC plan was going to be kicking the basket soon. The first thing that tipped myself and others off that my Heating & A/C plan was not doing so well was that the air coming out of the vents while the a/c was on simply was getting slightly warmer. My Heating & A/C plan just did not have the cooling power that it used to have. Furthermore, I noticed an increased frequency of banging & clicking noises whenever the Heating & A/C plan would turn on & off. I absolutely knew that couldn’t be good! There was also a developing, slight smell in the air that was quite musty. This smell was particularly prevalent on easily warm & muggy mornings. Finally, I noticed that my electric bill was steadily increasing even though I was using my a/c the same way I regularly had. I felt that I had babied my Heating & A/C plan as much as possible & I had given it the repair that it required to get the most life out of it. That’s why I was so distraught about the prospect of having to replace it. It just seemed too early to let it go! Oh well, I suppose it will be more affordable to purchase a brand new Heating & A/C plan instead of attempting to constantly repair the outdated one!

air cleaner

The lake house was well-inspected, but I decided to have a brand new air conditioning plan installed, because the outdated one did not truly seem up to snuff

I was under the impression that HVAC units were supposed to last for 15 to 20 years! It’s what I had heard all my life. It’s also what I experienced quite often in my life until recently; You see, seven years ago, I found a job down in the southeast. I wasn’t particularly happy about the warm & muggy weather I would have to be subjected to, however the paycheck was calling me… Besides, I would be close to the beach, & who would not appreciate that? I ended up purchasing a lake house that was modestly-sized however on a unbelievable piece of property. The lake house was well-inspected, but I decided to have a brand new air conditioning plan installed, because the outdated one did not truly seem up to snuff. Like I said, I fully expected this new air conditioning plan to last at least 15 years. So, you can imagine my surprise when my Heating & A/C professional told myself and others that my a/c was showing signs of its age just last week! It’s tplot that I had been calling him out a couple extra times this year for one problem or another, but I did not know that it was an indication that my a/c was on its way out! I protook care of the system that it was already dying at 7 years of age, however he explained to myself and others that it’s odd down here in the south. I had been using my a/c almost constantly, & even though I had been trying to keep it well inspected, an air conditioning may easily well simply run out of juice faster when it is in heavy use throughout the year!

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