I was devastated when I broke my cell phone coming down a flight of stairs at the doctor’s office. That day I was rushing to get out of my appointment to reach a job interview on time. The appointment started 30 minutes later than it was supposed to, and I spent another 15 minutes waiting in one of the rooms in the back before my doctor even saw me. I was racing to get out of the building in time for an important job interview at a bank roughly four miles from the building where my doctor is located. As I ran into the stairwell, I still had my phone in my hand coming down the steps. I nearly tripped and caught myself on the railing, but not before my cell phone flew from my hands and fell down several flights of stairs before reaching the bottom. This wasn’t an old phone either, I had just bought it six months prior and had only recently finished paying off the small loan. I figured at that point things just could not get any worse for me that week, but they did. Just two days after I dropped my phone down that flight of stairs, my central air conditioner in my house stopped keeping up with the thermostat. I would set it to 75 degrees inside but could not get it to get lower than 85, despite the temperature outside only being a few degrees warmer. Soon I learned that my air conditioner was broken and needed to be replaced. Even though I could technically afford a new air conditioner, it was not an expense that I had been planning for.
There are many options for indoor heating
The weather finally feels like it’s starting to warm up for good. I wasn’t sure after the last blizzard if we would ever get a break from the freezing temperatures. This winter we saw a week straight of record lows during a particularly nasty ice storm in early February. Then we got about six feet of snow dropped on us over the course of two days. I had the worst time trying to dig myself out of my house so I could get to work. With so much discomfort from some of the lowest temperatures I had ever experienced in my life, I worried if we would ever get a break from the frigid insanity.
Thankfully, everything is starting to warm up. All of the snow and ice has finally melted and the little bit of new green is starting to show on grass, trees, and plants throughout my town. I suppose these signs mark the first signs of the spring season. It doesn’t matter how old I get, I don’t think I will ever stop appreciating the time each year when the cold winter weather finally abates and spring begins to blossom out of the gray winter abyss. I think today might be the last day of the season in which I use my indoor heat. It isn’t warm yet, but the 60 degree weather is so comforting that I don’t see any reason to use my indoor heat again until next November.
Since my indoor HVAC expenses are heavily relegated to heat more than air conditioning, I rely on my furnace much more than my cooling system. With that in mind, whenever the day finally comes when I can stop using indoor heat again until the following autumn is a momentous occasion.
Scheduling air conditioning repair is easier than you may think
The other day I realized it had been three years since I had gone out to the ocean. I live just a 10 minute drive from the beach and used to go daily during the summers home from school. My friends and I would grab our bikes and we would all ride down to the local beach whenever we could. I have memories of building sandcastles while getting scorched by the sun and left with painful sunburns for a few days at a time. Since the ocean had been such an important part of my life for so long, it is surprising to think that my interest all but fell off after I finished high school and went off to college. This is how I ended up going to the beach randomly the other day. I was waiting on my heating and cooling technician to arrive with my new air conditioner and furnace. Although I was planning to stay at home while they installed the new system, I realized that the 90 degree outdoor temperatures would result in 80 degree indoor temperatures at best.
Instead of suffering through the uncomfortably warm environment of my house during an HVAC system installation, I decided to spend the day at the beach. I packed food, drinks, sunscreen, and my towel. As I waited for the text from my HVAC technician I enjoyed myself at the ocean. I got to experience what I had missing out on all of those years when I wasn’t going to the beach anymore. I think I’m going to make an effort to visit the beach more often, especially during the hottest summer heatwaves. There is no way that I appreciate the financial burden, but at least I was able to rediscover my love for the ocean through my need for a new air conditioner installation in my house.
It’s fun to consider many different types of air conditioners
There are several different types of air conditioner units and systems. There is the rooftop a/c unit which can suffer from weather damage, there is the common hvac unit that sits beside the building and is usually combined with a furnace system, then there are the portable units like a small space heater and window air conditioners. One common unit that is quite popular in homes is the split air conditioner unit. Like a window air conditioner, a split a/c unit can only cool one room. The split has its name because it is composed of two separate or “split” parts. The first part is located on the outside wall of the room that is being air conditioned. This part consists of the condenser and expanding coil and the air compressor.
The second part of the split a/c system is inside the room and is a nice looking wall air conditioner. Inside it is the fan, vents, cooling coil, and air filter. The two parts work together to provide a nice looking air conditioner that is mounted on the inside wall of the building. Many businesses like to have this kind of air conditioner in their conference rooms and offices because they look more professional than a bulky window air conditioner. Keep in mind that a splint air conditioner unit is made to only keep one room air conditioned. If your would like to keep your entire home air conditioned, it would be better to invest in a central air conditioning unit, but if you need to keep only one room cool, the split air conditioning system is a step up from a window air conditioner.
You have to properly vent your air conditioner
I never realized just how hot car engines can get while you’re driving peacefully down the road. Even when your temperature gauge is sitting safely at the middle point between hot and cold, the area underneath your car’s hood is still extremely hot. The air that is pushed into the engine as the car flies down the road is part of what cools these warm components. The primary source of engine cooling is the radiator. If the radiator leaks or naturally burns down its supply of coolant, then you run the risk of your engine overheating. As long as the radiator is maintained without damages, your car should stay at a safe operating heat at almost all times. Air conditioning systems, whether in commercial or residential applications, are much the same way. They have a transfer of energy from hot to cold—the refrigerant gets warm after energy is absorbed during the cooling cycle. The heat has to be released somewhere, which is why you see condensers sitting in yards instead of inside homes. If they weren’t outside, they would be warming the very space they’re trying to cool. This is the exact paradox you deal with if you buy a portable air conditioner. The warm compressor is inside the same enclosure as the cold evaporator coil, so the device has to draw some of the conditioned air back into the system to cool the warm components. This warm air is pushed outdoors through the exhaust hose. For this reason primarily, they’re not as energy efficient as window air conditioners. If you don’t have the right kind of window in your home, you might have no other choice but to use a portable air conditioning system.
This is how air conditioning repairs go
I hate it when something breaks and needs repairs. My lawn mower gave me nearly 10 years of nothing but reliable service before refusing to start last week. I kept yanking on the cord to no avail, worried that something was seriously wrong with the engine. I was forced to take my mower to a repair shop and found out that there is a tiny rubber diaphragm inside a lawn mower carburetor that gets worn down over long periods of time. It’s as simple as taking the carburetor apart, replacing the torn diaphragm, and then reassembling the engine. Even though it turned out to be cheap and easy in the end, the process was hectic and stressful. At one point I was scared that my lawn mower had seen its final days. I was happy to get it back in the end, but the situation had a lasting effect. When my air conditioner started exhibiting similar problems while trying to keep the temperature low in the afternoons, I was extremely worried.
Repairs on any kind of air conditioners can either be simple and straightforward or stressful and expensive. Other times it can be as bad as a system replacement altogether. Thankfully, I just needed a new fan motor. Most people would not be happy with this news, but I am just happy the repairs are not going to be any more extensive than they are. In a week’s time, I should have the new fan motor installed inside my central air conditioner. To make things even better, it was covered by my manufacturer’s warranty. I didn’t have to pay for the part, I only had to pay for the labor fee.
You want to prevent dust from collecting in your air conditioner
My parents raised me in the south near a swamp. As a child growing up with mild to severe asthma, the humid and moldy state of the swamp environment was a constant source of woe and frustration. I hated always being the slowest kid during recess because my lungs just could not handle the abuse. There was a period of time when I wondered if I would keep getting asthma attacks daily, but that stopped when I moved out of my home state and started undergraduate school on the other side of the country. Instead of living in a swamp, I’m now living out in the desert. Where I was once suffering away in a hot and humid nightmare, now I’m in a hot and dry nightmare instead. Sometimes it gets as hot as 110 degrees in the middle of the summer.
Worst of all, we get so much dust and sand flying into our home through open windows and doors. I was never the type of person who enjoyed leaving windows wide open throughout the day and night. Right now I don’t have a choice even if I did, there are just too many airborne allergens that threaten my physical health. You also find layers of dust and sand on indoor surfaces, especially inside your air conditioner filter. If you’re not diligent about replacing your HVAC filter regularly, you run the risk of getting more dust and sand inside your air handler than necessary. After enough buildup on the coil, it will start to crack over long periods of time. Replacing an air conditioner coil is not cheap.
When it’s hot outside, you need it cool inside!
When I got up this morning, it was such a beautiful day that I decided to go for a run. I thought it would be a nice break from running on the treadmill inside. I looked forward to enjoying the lovely weather, scenery, and fresh air. I quickly realized that the day was super hot and humid, and within a couple of minutes, I had sweat running down my face. It was difficult to enjoy the fresh air because the exhaust fumes gave me a terrible headache. I ran really fast, however, because I got chased by a mean dog. I also got chased by an angry bee, and nearly broke my ankle stepping into a pothole. When I was about three miles away from my house, it started to rain and the batteries in my ipod died. I was thirsty, wet, and I desperately needed to use the bathroom. A half an hour later, I was extremely thankful to finally complete my run. I stepped inside my temperature controlled house and loved the feel of the air conditioning blowing on me. I was thrilled to have water to drink, access to a bathroom, and my thermostat.
The humidity, rain, and heat were no longer a factor, because my air conditioner maintains the ideal temperature at all times. There’s no problem with road dust or exhaust fumes, because my air conditioner also filters the air as it circulates. If I want scenery, I can watch television while I run on the treadmill. While running outside sounds like fun, I prefer the luxury of having a thermostat at my fingertips which controls the central air conditioning.
The demands of winter can be stressful on your heater
Living in the northern part of the country is a great deal of extra work and expense. Trying to survive and keep comfortable during the winter months is a struggle. The temperature tends to drop sometime in September and remains cold until the end of April. We endure temperatures well below zero, constant snowfall, freezing rain, blizzard conditions, and bitter wind chill. For approximately eight months per year, I’m forced to run my furnace. I am trapped in the house, trying to keep warm, and my heating bills cost a fortune. I’ve spent a great deal of money to install a top quality, energy efficient heating system. I made sure to get all of the modern features and technology so that the furnace runs at lower speeds and uses less energy. It has the capability to automatically adjust capacity to the changing needs of the home.
Despite all of the fancy operation, the furnace still draws a lot of energy and is responsible for the majority of my monthly expenses. I’ve done everything possible to trim energy waste. I’ve replaced all of the windows in the house and caulked around them. I’ve weatherstripped around all of the exterior doors, put up ceiling fans, and stuffed a ton of insulation into the walls and ceilings. I still find cold spots, leaks and drafts around the house. There’s simply no easy way to combat temperatures of twenty below zero. Along with tightening up the house, I also am required to keep up with filter changes, furnace maintenance, snow shoveling and plowing. Then, when all that snow finally melts, my lawns, gardens and driveway are a complete mess. I spend all spring cleaning up after the winter.
Air Purifiers can keep your home from smelling while you cook!
I have always loved to bake, and for the past few years I’ve gotten asked to provide cookies, cakes and other treats for birthday parties, anniversaries, weddings, showers and all sorts of occasions. What started as a fun hobby has gradually grown into a small business. Although I still work entirely out of my own home, I’ve need to make some upgrades to my set up. I couldn’t manage demand with my small oven, refrigerator and mixer. I’ve now invested in commercial grade equipment and expanded the size of my kitchen. One of the most expensive upgrades was to the heating/cooling system. When I first got started in this endeavor, I didn’t even have air conditioning in my house. I always managed with open windows and a few electric fans. This would not suffice once my oven was pumping out heat during the day. The kitchen quickly became severely overheated and sticky. Not only were these conditions unpleasant for me, but I was having difficulties with cooling the baked goods and frosting melting. The heat also put added strain on my refrigerator and coolers. I needed to add central cooling to my home and extend the heating system to include the addition to the kitchen. This required adding on to the duct system, and it was a big project with lots of mess. While I was at it, I also invested into a whole-home air purification system. While the smell of baking muffins and cookies is enjoyable now and then, my family was complaining about the constant odor throughout the whole house. The air purifier not only took care of odors but created a much cleaner, healthier home and workspace.