How to keep you Central Air Conditioner working and in good condition
Winter is now over and you need to get your central air conditioning ready for the summer. The temperature will begin rising now and you need to make sure its can properly cool your home during this hot season.
Central air conditioners are usually built into most conventional homes during initial construction. These are made up of an evaporator coil (situated in the furnace), a condenser unit (on a small slab or cinder blocks outside the home), and the ductwork (the air distribution system).
Unless you are a qualified central air conditioning technician, leave this difficult and time consuming task to the experts, although there are still some things you can do to maintain it.
- Change the filter once yearly. A clean filter will allow your central air conditioner to run more efficiently. Some manufacturers recommend it be changed once every couple of months depending on its usuage.
- Give it a rest. If you are away from home, turn it off or allow it to turn on less frequently with a timer, it will save you unmentioned amounts of dollars and extend the life of the central air conditioner
- Keep the vents clear and make certain there is nothing obstructing the flow of air. Remove dust and keep the area clean
- If it isn’t cooling as it should and you have the thermostat set properly and all windows and doors are shut, turn it off, and call a qualified central air conditioning technician.
If you are in need of a qualified technician, go online and look for licensed professionals in your local area, that are qualified to do the job.
For more information contact 416 967-0717 or visit www.jcjmechanicalinc.com
Installing a Central Air Conditioning System
Central air conditioning installation is one job that can make a dramatic change in the overall comfort of your home. At the flip of a switch, no matter what it is like outside, you’ll be able to relax indoors at whatever temperature you choose. Central air conditioning installation is likely to add value to your property, and even save you money on energy bills if it is replacing several window units. If you’re thinking of installing central air conditioning, there are a few things to consider before you begin the project if you want to get the most for your money.
New or Existing A/C Systems
Knowing your plans for A/C installation will help your service provider give you a more accurate estimate. For example, if you are installing a new condenser or heat pump into an existing system, odds are you will want to use the same brand as the older system. Completely replacing your system will call for tearing it out and having it disposed of, which could mean additional cost to you.
Central Air Conditioning Installation for Remodels
Letting your air conditioning installer know what the situation is like beforehand will give them a better idea of what they’ll be dealing with. Providing this information will help them to better size up the kind of central air conditioning installation that is best for your home, and allow them to give you a better estimate. If installing A/C is a part of a larger remodeling project, you may be able to save money depending on when the system is put in place.
How Much Power Will You Need?
A central air conditioner’s cooling capacity is rated in Btu’s (British thermal units) per hour. As a rough rule you need 12,000 Btu’s for 1,000 square feet of well-insulated space or 400 square feet of poorly insulated space. A house’s structure, window area, sun exposure, and the climate will also affect your cooling needs. If you have high ceilings, your cooling needs will be different; it takes more cooling power to maintain a comfortable temperature in the house. Talking to a professional about the structure of your home and the most effective way to cool it is a good idea in these situations. Following the suggestions of a person in the know, even if it seems more expensive initially, could end up saving you plenty in the long run.
Central Air Conditioning Installation to Replace an Aging System
Air conditioners have become increasingly energy efficient in the last decade. If your system’s cooling ability has decreased significantly since it was first installed, you may want to consider having it completely replaced. If your service professional is tying into an existing system, the older system’s age will help determine its compatibility with the newer system.
Understanding Accessibility
Central air conditioning installation requires access to the home’s heating and cooling duct system. The more open access there is to the ductwork, the less labor that will be involved and the less expensive the project will be. When installing central A/C for the first time, especially in an older home, the amount of space available for ductwork might be extremely limited. In these situations, mini-duct or ductless air conditioning might be a better option than the effort and alteration it would take to install conventional ductwork
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Central Air Conditioning Units
Most homes need some form of air conditioning during the summer season. Central air conditioning units are the most prevalent, but portable or ductless air conditioners are also popular. In hot, dry areas, swamp coolers are used. Not only do they cool the home, they also humidify the air.
The Typical Central Air Conditioner
Central air conditioners are usually built into most conventional homes during initial construction. These are made up of an evaporator coil (situated in the furnace), a condenser unit (on a small slab or cinder blocks outside the home), and the ductwork (the air distribution system).
But some dwellings don’t need all this horsepower. There’s no sense in investing in a large system for the homeowner or condo dweller who only experiences a short, mild summer. There are some good alternatives for this situation.
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How a Central Air Conditioner works
Central air conditioners have two separate components: the condenser and the evaporator. The condenser unit is usually located outside the house on a concrete slab. The evaporator coil is mounted in the plenum or main duct junction above the furnace.
Most central air conditioners are connected to a home’s forced-air distribution system. Thus, the same motor, blower, and ductwork used for heating are used to distribute cool air from the air conditioning system. When a central air conditioner is operating, hot air inside the house flows to the furnace through the return-air duct. The hot air is moved by the blower across the cooled evaporator coil in the plenum and is then delivered through ducts to cool the house. When the air conditioner works but the house doesn’t cool, the problem is probably in the distribution system.
Both the evaporator and the condenser are sealed. Therefore, a professional service person should be called for almost any maintenance other than routine cleaning. Central air conditioners should be professionally inspected and adjusted before the beginning of every cooling season. However, don’t let your maintenance end with this annual checkup. While there aren’t many repairs you can make yourself, there are specific maintenance procedures you can follow to keep your system operating at peak efficiency.
Caution: Before doing any work on an air conditioning system, make sure the power to the system, both to the condenser and to the evaporator assembly, is turned off.
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What is Central Air Conditioning?
Central air conditioning is a method of structural cooling in which a centralized unit cools and dehumidifies air before circulating it throughout the building. This is in direct contrast with systems which rely on individual units in rooms or suites of rooms. Central air, as it is also known, is often bundled with a heating system, as both systems rely on similar amounts of electrical power and ductwork to distribute cooled or heated air. This type of air conditioning is generally seen in large structures, or in homes in extremely hot, humid climates.
With central air conditioning, the central unit is often located outdoors or in an isolated area of a building because a great deal of noise is generated during the refrigeration cycles which cool the air and help to extract humidity. The central unit connects to ductwork which runs throughout the building, with blowers pushing cold air out of the ducts to cool down rooms. The air conditioner also vents to the outdoors to get rid of excess heat and moisture.
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How to prepare your home for the winter months
With winter just around the corner, now is the time to give your home a winterizing “check-up.” Here is the checklist of five important steps you’ll need to make to ensure your home is ready for those cold north winds.
1. Have your heating system cleaned and tuned by a qualified contractor. A pre-season tune-up and filter change is a good investment. It reduces the chances of breakdowns in the middle of winter, improves safety, and pays for itself through more energy efficient operation.
2. Have your system checked for carbon monoxide. A good contractor will also offer to test your system for hazardous carbon monoxide, which can be produced by a dirty or malfunctioning gas or oil furnace or water heater. Install a low level carbon monoxide alarm. Every home should have at least one carbon monoxide alarm.
3. Have your duct system tested for air leaks. Many think that windows and doors are the major cause of a home’s air leaks. But according to recent research by the U.S. Department of Energy, gaps and cracks in the typical home’s duct system are much more significant. The typical duct system loses 25 percent to 40 percent of the energy put out by the central furnace, heat or air conditioner. Leaks are usually the biggest problem.
4. Ask your heating contractor to perform an Infiltrometer “blower door” test. The blower door is a computerized instrument that pinpoints where your home’s worst air leaks are, and also measures how leaky the overall house is. While some homes are still far too leaky, most homes are now becoming too airtight and need mechanical ventilation to ensure the air inside is fresh. According to Jean Deslandes, Marketing Director for Venmar Ventilation, the country’s leader in indoor air quality management, proper ventilation is crucial for optimal indoor air quality. “Ventilation dilutes the air of pollutants in your home and revitalizes stale air,” explains Deslandes. “For your home to ‘breathe’ effectively it needs a constant source of fresh, filtered outdoor air to flow through, resulting in improved indoor air quality.”
Deslandes says the best results are achieved through mechanical ventilation combined with HEPA filtration, such as Venmar’s HEPA 3000 air exchanger. The combination of ventilation and filtration works to reduce humidity, volatile compounds (gases, moulds), and maintains healthy indoor air quality.
5. Consider replacing your old furnace or heat pump. Just like a car, heating equipment doesn’t last forever. If your system is more than 12 year- old, and you are planning to stay in your home more than a few years, many authorities recommend considering replacing it before it fails permanently. A new system is safer, more dependable, and can pay for itself through energy savings, as it is up to twice as energy efficient. For more details on how to eliminate dangerous indoor air pollutants visit http://www.jcjmechanicalinc.com
What size furnace do you need?
The right amount of heat in your home is very important, an oversized furnace can waste a lot of energy and a lot of your money in the process – and an under sized furnace will not be able to heat your home to the necessary level for you and your family to be comfortable.
Sometimes it’s not just a matter of replacing your existing furnace with a furnace that’s exactly the same size because the methods of sizing a furnace appropriately have changed quite a bit over the last several years; it’s very possible that your current furnace may be oversized for the application.
Furnaces today also operate much more efficiently than furnaces from twenty, ten or even five years ago, so that could also contribute to what size unit you would require for your home.
Your Furnace Size depends on many Factors
So many different variables can contribute to the size and type of furnace that you will need to adequately heat your home. Things like geographic location; overall square footage, level and type of insulation and the heat loss through old windows, unsealed chimneys and holes where pipes and wires come into your home can all be major contributing factors to the size of heating unit you need to heat your home.
The design of your current heating system and the layout of your home can both be major contributing factors to the size of furnace you need as well. For example, if you have split level home with two operating zones to control your heat and there are only occupants of one zone at any given time (like upstairs bedrooms being occupied at night and remaining empty during the day controlled by one zone), this could mean that you only need a smaller BTU furnace despite having a higher overall square footage. Having two or more controlling zones can play a very large part in determining exactly what size furnace is needed for a home.
Blindly basing the size of a furnace on any one of these factors alone can be a big mistake, many contractors who come into your home to bid on the job of replacing your furnace will want to base the size of the new unit on the square footage of your home alone because this is the easiest way to get a general idea of your homes needs. The problem is – that the square footage alone will only give a very general idea of what size furnace your home needs and by going this route you’ll often get a furnace that’s either one size too big or one size too small (at least) which will either have you wasting a bunch of money unnecessarily, or not heating your home enough to live comfortably.
Go by the Numbers
In order to get a furnace that’s properly sized, you should have a company come out to do a heat loss calculation on your home. The heat loss calculation is the only true way to determine exactly what size furnace you need to heat your home thoroughly and efficiently, and it’s a quick and simple process.
A qualified technician will come out to your home and using a variety of equipment will take into account the heat loss caused by all of the aforementioned factors – which will give the true measurement of power necessary from your new furnace.
It’s not just about heating your home efficiently either, though the cost savings of having an appropriately sized boiler could be dramatic, different sized furnaces come with different sized price tags. If a contractor estimates that you need a 120,000 BTU when in reality a 95,000 BTU furnace would do the job – the initial investment of the job could be several hundred dollars more – causing you to lose a substantial amount of money up front and then to continually lose money with each and every energy bill.
The size of your current furnace and the square footage of your home alone tell you very little when it comes to sizing a new furnace for your home – to get a truly accurate gauge of the size furnace you need a home heat loss calculation must be performed by a qualified professional.
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A/C Tips
Before each cooling season, it is recommended that central air conditioners get a professional tune-up. This is the biggest step to preventing major malfunctions in an AC unit.
Probably the most important step that can be done by a homeowner is to clean or replace the air filter every month. Electrostatic filters are the best. Do not run the unit with the filter removed. Check the owner’s manual for filter cleaning procedure. Let a washed filter dry completely before reinstalling it.
Every month, especially during the summer months, remove any leaves or debris from outdoor condenser units.
Help keep the outdoor condenser fan running efficiently by cleaning the fan blades and the coils before each cooling season. (Always turn off the power before attempting anything other than superficial cleaning). Remove the fan grill and the fan blades. Gently brush off debris from the blades. Then uncover the condenser coils and gently brush the dirty side. Then hose water from inside the unit, using plastic bags to protect the motor and other components. Also check the base pan (under the unit) and remove any debris that has accumulated there as well.
If the condenser fan makes a clicking or grating noise it may indicate that the blades may be striking an obstruction. If a blade becomes bent, do not try to straighten the blade. A straightened blade may become unbalanced and can loosen the fan motor or hit the condenser coil. Replace a bent blade with a new blade. After replacing a blade, make sure the fan blades rotate freely and don’t wobble. If fan often becomes loose, apply a drop of thread-locking compound.
Keep vegetation at least 2 feet away from outdoor units on each side and above. Aim grass clippings away from the unit when mowing the lawn. During the fall, keep the fan grill free of leaves.
Lubricate the condenser fan motor once a year if it has oil ports. (They’re usually plugged with rubber or metal caps). Use non-detergent lightweight SAE 20 oil and add no more than 10 drops per port.
If possible, shade the outdoor compressor unit. Air in shaded space is typically 5 to 6 degrees cooler than the surrounding air. Proper shading can be up to 10 percent more efficient over a cooling season.
During the winter months, protect the condenser unit with a form-fitting cover. To avoid damaging the compressor, don’t operate the unit when it’s below 60 degrees F outside.
A dirty indoor evaporator coil will hinder the unit’s ability to cool the air moving through the unit. To clean the evaporator coil, remove the front panel of the air handler/ furnace to expose the coil. Ensure that the coil is dry. Use the soft brush attachment on the vacuum cleaner to gently remove any dust or debris from the coil. Check and make sure that coil fins are straight. If not, straighten them with a fin comb available from refrigeration supply dealers.
Warm indoor air contacting the evaporator coils will condense causing moisture to collect and drip. In most units, a plastic pipe carries the water outdoors or to a floor drain. Algae and bacteria growth can clog the pipe. When this happens, backed-up water can puddle, causing rust or other damage. To clean the evaporator drain, remove the plastic tape holding the trap to the pipe elbow. (It may be necessary to saw through the pipe at the elbow). Flush the trap with water from a hose, and then disinfect using 1 tbsp of chlorine bleach. Reattach the trap to the pipe with new tape.
Raise the temperature settings. Each degree of temperature can represent up to 9 percent savings in cooling costs.
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Air Conditioning Basics
The home heating, ventilation and cooling system (HVAC) consumes about 40 percent to 50 percent of all the electrical power in a house, so the efficiency of the HVAC system is extremely important to the overall power draw of the home.
What Is HVAC?
HVAC is an acronym for indoor air. So remember that when a builder or subcontractor uses the term “HVAC,” he or she is talking about the entire air system of the home.
Air Conditioning Units
AC units can be compared on a multitude of dimensions. Certainly efficiency is one of the main drivers, and given what’s happened lately with the cost of gas and electricity, efficiency has become extremely important.
In general, there are three factors to be aware of when selecting an air conditioning system:
1. Efficiency — Buy the most efficient air conditioning unit available, especially in the desert Southwest. Efficiency refers to how much energy the system will require to do its job. HVAC specialists use what are called “S.E.E.R” numbers to rate and compare different cooling systems. SEER stands for Seasonal Energy Efficiency Rating. This is a standardized test, and the higher the SEER number, the more efficient the air conditioning unit is. Now the minimum efficiency, the builder’s model, is rated a 10 and they go all the way up to 18. So make sure the air conditioning unit has a rating of 10 or higher.
2. Regional Climate — When designing a home, it’s important to know the external factors that will need to be solved. In the desert southwest, it’s one of high summer heat. In the northwest, it may be one of damp, cold winter weather. In the northeast, it’s most likely frost in the winter and high humidity in the summer.
3. Noise — Internal sound is just as important as the sound coming externally from an air conditioning unit that’s installed outside the kitchen or living room window. Be sure to purchase a unit that’s as quiet as possible.
With all three of these areas, the builder and air conditioning distributor can help point you in the right direction.
Addition to the Home Building Team
The next person to join the home building team is an HVAC contractor, and the builder will hire him. Not only will he oversee the installation process, he or she will also make sure that one of the important elements of a good AC system — its ability to create sufficient air movement throughout the house — is included.
Note: Having proper return air and supply air is 100-percent dependent upon the installing contractor. So having a good, qualified HVAC contractor is the first and primary concern when installing an HVAC system.
“The first thing about being on the job site and being in charge is to make sure that everything goes in safely,” Gary Ostler, president of Four Season Heating & A.C., Inc., said. “After that is to make sure that everything gets done properly and, upon completion, that it works properly.”
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Radiant Floor Heating
Radiant floor heating is a wonderfully efficient heat-distribution system that takes advantage of the whole floor to heat the home, as apposed to forced air coming out of one small vent and trying to heat a huge space.
How does radiant floor heating work?
This innovation in home heating provides warmth for a house from underneath the floors. It’s an effective method of heating that works in an unusual way — hydronics or water going through a PEX tubing in the floor. The water in the tubing radiates the heat into the structure. It’s an efficient and cost-effective way to heat a house.
Running hot water beneath the floor — or hydronics — is becoming more popular in residential homes thanks to a flexible plastic tubing called “PEX” — a polyurethane, durable tubing that has a lifespan of more than 100 years. It serpentines underneath the floor and uses the whole floor as a heat-distribution system.
Comfort and efficiency are two reasons why new homeowners like radiant floor systems. Comfort, in fact, is the No. 1 advantage with its warm-feet, cool-head environment. And because the whole floor is used, it’s an extremely efficient system. The aesthetic quality is another reason some homeowners love this system. The heating system remains hidden beneath the floor; there are no vents or radiators in sight. This can be a huge advantage when it comes to interior design.
Three Types of Radiant Floors
There are three radiant flooring systems that can be applied to a home:
Radiant Air Floors — Don’t hold large amount of heat, and for this reason they are used mainly in commercial buildings.
Electric Radiant Floors — Do a great job at heating any kind of home, but they’re extremely expensive.
Hydronic or Liquid Floors — These cost less and are, therefore, used more often in residential construction.
Radiant floor heating is a distribution center for the home by taking advantage of the floor and putting tubing throughout the whole floor, mild temperatures of water and concrete application. Beautiful tile, marble and slate floors are being utilized in homes, but they’re ice cold. With radiant floor heating, it’s possible to have a beautiful floor and barefoot comfort.
Using a hydronic floor system is a great way to heat a home, but it also can be used on a smaller scale, such as in a basement.
Note: Since a radiant floor system is different from a traditional centralized heating system, your builder will need to hire specialized contractors with experience in this area.
Installing a Radiant Floor System
There are two categories of installation for radiant floor heating — wet and dry. Wet installation is most commonly used in the ground floor.
Here are the five steps to the wet installation on a ground level:
1. Excavate the area to be heated. This will be the sub-base.
2. Add a layer of insulation to create a base over which the rest of the floor system will lay.
3. Add rebar to the space. This will add strength to the floor system.
4. Add plastic tubing, tying it to the rebar for support.
5. Use concrete to create a slab foundation for the floor.
When installing a radiant floor system on the upper floors of a home, the most common method is called “dry installation,” which is a system that suspends the tubing underneath the subfloor, between the joists.
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