I often get the question are furnace tune up necessary. My answer to that is no they are not necessary however, your average tune up is around 70-80 dollars this is about equal to the money you save in energy consumption for that year. One thing I like to show customers is when a furnace is freshly tuned up the flames that heat your home are blue showing complete combustion. They say an average winter in Wisconsin a furnace will have the same amount of abuse as a car has driving 50,000 miles. Small deposits can form on the in shot burners causing incomplete combustion, this can be shown when you see orange flames. Also i have had at least half a dozen calls from customers this year where the flame sensors carbon up. Part of many of things involved in tune ups is cleaning this sensor. To make a special trip out to a home to clean this sensor is usually as much or more than a standard tune up.
Here at Tri-Town we do a lot of new construction homes. I deal with inspectors on a regular basis. Now in the state of Wisconsin we are one of the only states left that has their own code book. Most of the rest have adopted the national code book. I have found that the major problem with this is we adopt pointless codes that get instated for no reason at all other than to change codes. Another problem we have is inspectors completely misunderstand the wording of the code and enforce things that sometimes are more of a detriment than a help. These particular inspectors tend to be newer on the job. Inspectors are a very good thing to have in your home as long as they interpret the codes correctly. Another problem with interpreting codes is no municipality is ever the same on how they want things done. We become accustomed to certain areas and what the inspector wants there but that can change a couple miles down the road. Mainly don’t be afraid to challenge an inspector if you feel what he is saying is a detriment to your home, he may be misinterpreting the code and all you need to do is ask him which code he is describing, look it up for yourself, and if you feel he is wrong talk to the state inspector and they will clarify.
Did you know humans in groups produce a lot more heat than most people think. The human body at rest will produce about 250 BTU while sleeping, At idle about 400 BTU, doing light work about 650 BTU, and with heavy work up to 2400 BTU. That means 25 people dancing in a 2000 square foot home with temperatures of -10 degrees outside would never need a furnace. This is why bars and misc other places tend to have swings in tempatures more frequently.
Me being a person without allergies i can’t relate to someone with them. I had a customer call me up the other day, he stated he was having a terrible time sleeping. His breathing was restricted, his eyes would swell up, and he would wander around at night through his home because he couldn’t sleep. In turn upon a discussion with him we decieded to install a broan air to air exchanger with hepa filtration. An air to air exchanger brings in outside air and removes old stale air through a couple of pre-filters and a hepa filter. It also recovers the heat through a cross stream process. It has many benefits such as removing stale, bringing in outside air(which is up to 8 times cleaner than indoor air), and alleviating excess moisture in the home(the condensation that ruins your woodwork in the winter). After I installed the unit we set it to the high speed and i left about 6 at night. The next day i got a call from the homeoner stating he got his first solid night of sleep in 6 years! I was extremly happy to hear how happy he was. I talked to him for 15 minutes or so about it, and I could not believe it but this system sounded like it changed his whole life. I guess never having allergies before i can’t believe what kind of misery they can create.
2 story homes will always have an indifferance in temperature. The explination of this is really quite simple heat rises and cold falls. Consequently this is why you may see a change of up to 8 degrees in worst case scenerios. One thing that can assist this is a zone system. A zone system is really quite simple, essentially we run two seperate trunk lines one for the first floor and one for the second. In turn you have a thermostat to control the upper floor and one for the lower level. When one zone calls for heating or cooling the other zone shuts an automated damper and delivers the conditioned air to the floor it is needed. This system is also effective in homes with a finished basement, or divided ranch homes.
Your outdoor air conditioner operates kind of like a radiator on a car, it actually dispenses heat in conjunction with the fan on the system. If this condensing coil is plugged up with debris it inhibits the heat transfer to outside. Make sure to keep this coil clean, all you need is a garden hose. On some of the newer units you may need to take the protective guards off. this usually involves a straight blade screwdriver of a 5/16 nutdriver. Just remove the covers typically there is no more than 2 screws per cover. Turn the power off to the unit either by turning your circut breaker off at your electric panel, or by removing the disconnect at the outdoor unit. After that it speaks for itself, just hose down the outdoor coil until clean of all debris. This not only saves you on electric bills but also takes a burden off your compressor saving life on it.
I just ran into a filter that actually caused a unit to fail. I try to push everyone not use 1″ pleated filters, they will cause you more problems than benefits. There is a couple of things to look for when purchasing a filter, a lot of times most people only look at the merv rating( the size of the dust paticulate it can trap). The higher the merv rating the smaller the particulate or the better the filtration, however with the higher mervs the worse it is for the equipment. I was at a job yesterday where the filter felt like it was glued in the housing when the furnace ran. This is terrible it costs more to run your equipment it is much harder on the equipment, and can eventually lead to a failed blower motor. In some severe cases, such as yesterday, it actually froze up the air conditioner and the customer had to call us out. I can’t tell you enough change that filter monthly if you have a 1″ standard filter. For the larger 5″ every 6-12 months depending on manufacturer.
Hi to all, my name is Craig Hoormann. I run (Tri-Town Heating) a heating and cooling company just outside of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I am the 3rd generation of a 52 year old business. My grandpa, Chuck, started the company in 1957. My dad, Bob, took the company over in 1980, and now I have the vested interest in the company. I wanted to create a place where I can get info about hvac to my customers and a broad range of other people, so i decided to create a blog. I hope to post a new hvac issue that i run into every week or so. I will put tips for better performance, regular maintenance, and basic hvac info on every now and then as well. I am quite new to blogging, but as i understand it you can post comments or questions for me on here. I welcome anyone to post for any info they may need.
