A few Air Conditioning tips to help you breathe better
AIR CONDITIONING CAN MAKE YOU HEALTHIER
AIR CONDITIONING CAN HELP YOUR BODY DURING EXCESSIVE HEAT
AIR CONDITIONING IS VERY AFFORDABLE
Air Conditioning Toronto
JCJ Mechanical Air Conditioning, Heating, Furnaces and Boilers is a full service air conditioning contractor offering sales, service and installations of residential and commercial air conditioning units, located in Toronto and serving Brampton, Mississauga the GTA.
We specialize in heating ventilation and air conditioning along with great customer support.
Our product manufacturers includes Carrier, Olsen, Keeprite, Slant/Fin, Lennox, Amana, Ducane, Goodman, Mitsubishi, Navien, Evapco, Baltimore Air Coil, Fujitsu, Burnham and many more.
Visit http://www.jcjairconditioning.com
How to buy a good air conditioning system
Buying an air conditioner is not like buying a car. Your car is assembled at the factory and each dealer gets the same quality for that make and model while yc air conditioner is shipped to the dealer in to be assembled by the contractor at your house.
If each car dealer had to assemble your car the way each air conditioning contractor has to assemble your cooling system you would be a lot more careful when choosing a car dealer. It would be very important that the car dealer you chose knew how to assemble the car properly.
The same is true when buying an air conditioner. It must be sized accurately and installed correctly to work properly, This may include making changes to the existing ductwork to ensure adequate air flow.
In the 40 years I’ve been in the heating and air conditioning business it has been my experience that 75% of the problems with new central air conditioners were caused because they were not sized accurately and were not tested correctly after they were installed.
In the any air conditioner less than five tons was classified as an appliance and people working on them did not require a licence or mandatory training. People learned from the boss who little or no technical training available to him. Five years ago residential air conditioning became a two year apprenticeship trade but it will take time for things to change.
It is important that the contractor have the air conditioner checked by a licensed mechanic during and after the installation to ensure the work is done correctly. Don’t try to save money on the installation because you will pay for it later.
JCJ Mechanical Heating, Air Conditioning & Boilers
JCJ Mechanical Contractors Inc. is your full service HVAC contractor offering sales, service and installation.
We welcome the opportunity of providing you with sound advice and quality products and service.
We are your one-stop-shop for all your heating and cooling needs providing preventative maintenance to home owners to large commercial properties and industry.
Areas of Expertise: Residential and Commercial
Air Conditioning, Heating, Ductless Air Conditioners, A/C, Hot water boilers, Cooling Towers, Central Air Conditioners, Server Room Air Conditioners, Computer room Air Conditioners, Elevator Room Air Conditioners, Chillers, Residential Furnaces, Commercial Furnaces, Custom Home HVAC, Heat Pumps, Tankless Water Heaters, Natural Gas Heating, Infrared Heaters, Tube Heaters, Roof Top Commercial Heating & Air Conditioning, Attic Systems, Ductwork, Infloor Heating, Unit Heaters and Hotwater Piping.
Sales and Service: We sell and Install all products below
Keeprite, Frigidair, Gibson, Carrier, Lennox, Ducane, Amana, Olsen, Trane, Burnham, Slantfin, Bradford White, Navien, York, Goodman, Allied Commercial, Evapco, Baltimore Air Coil and Fujitsu.
Areas we serve:
GTA, Toronto, Mississauga, Oakville, Georgetown, Bolton, Brampton, Vaughn, Newmarket, Durham, Whitby, Oshawa and Pickering.
Visit JCJ Mechanical Heating & Air Conditioning www.jcjmechanicalinc.com or visit www.jcjairconditioning.com for more information on air conditioners and www.ductlessair.ca for details on Ductless A/C systems.
How to maintain your heating system throughout the summer months
Now that Spring is here and Summer is around the corner and we will no longer require a heating systems such as the furnace, we need to plan on how to maintain it over the Spring and Summer months.
The easiest way to maintain your furnace is to clean it by using a cleaning wipe, and checking to make sure that there is no loud noises or strange noises coming from it.
Visually inspect the flu pipe and make certain there is no corrosion, holes and that the gas can move through the pipe.
Turn furnace off, open access panel, replace filter and vacuum to clean excess dirt and grime.
If you have a combustion furnace like gas or oil, its good to have a professional analyse the combustion every few years to make sure your furnace is burning at its highest efficiency.
Is your furnace ready for the winter?
With the summer that wasn’t behind us, perhaps the only thing we have to look forward to are the glorious fall colours – soon to be followed by the grey drab of winter, which means heating season is fast approaching.
It’s another one of those undocumented but ubiquitous Canadian rituals: check the furnace, change the filter and fire ‘er up to make sure everything works because when that first chill hits you don’t want to be shivering under a blanket and hoping the service van will show up soon.
It’s also that time of year when we should be assessing all the components that go into our heating systems – and that goes way beyond the furnace. Even if you could install a 100 per cent efficient furnace, if your home is a sieve with gale force drafts, it’s not going to heat up enough to make you and your family feel comfortable.
As John Mel, president of JCJ Mechanical Inc. Heating & Cooling, which serves, Toronto, Brampton, Mississauga, Scarborough and the GTA points out, making sure you’ve done everything to seal your home – called the building envelope – and installing energy-efficient windows and doors, along with high “R” value insulation, is the only way to minimize your energy consumption and minimize your heat loss. It’ll also help keep your house cool in summer, if we ever get another hot summer, that is.
“The energy audit program is an excellent way to see how airtight your home is,” he says of the $300 test which triggers a $150 Ontario rebate and can also generate up to $10,000 in provincial and federal rebates if you subsequently upgrade your home’s energy efficiency by installing high efficiency windows, doors, insulation or furnace.
With that in mind, however, the first thing top of mind for most homeowners is assessing their heating system this fall and deciding if it’s time to replace the furnace or heating system.
For the most part, homes in Toronto are heated with forced air gas, though there are a few oil furnaces around and quite a few hot water radiator systems, which are also generally run on gas. Other heating options include radiant floor heating in which hot water is run through tubes below ceramic floors but those options are usually an adjunct to a primary forced air or hot water heating system. There’s even a hybrid system, which heats water in a tankless gas-fired system and then runs the water in a loop through a heat exchanger while a fan forces air over it and into the ductwork.
For any furnaces there are a few simple things to keep in mind, says John.
“The life cycle of a furnace is between 15 and 25 years,” says John, noting at some point it’s more cost-efficient to replace your furnace with a new, high efficiency unit than to maintain the old one.
If you’re at all concerned about the age of your furnace, have it checked sooner-than-later by an HVAC company. They usually offer packages or include the pre-season check as part of an annual service contract. Be warned though, that if the inspection uncovers a cracked heat exchanger or other problem, your furnace will be “red tagged” as unsafe and you won’t be able to use it until it’s replaced.
If your furnace is at the end of its life cycle, making a decision on what kind of furnace to buy will actually get easier after Jan. 1, 2010. That’s because mid-efficiency gas furnaces will no longer be certified for use in Canada. There will obviously be some old stock available but once that is sold, all furnaces retailed must be high-efficiency rated at 90 per cent AFUE (Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency) rating or higher.
It’s both good news and bad news, points out John.The new standards are much more efficient and installation is simple with a two-inch vent through the side wall instead of a vertical flue, although that could be a problem for some.
“In many older homes there’s no way to vent through the side because of clearances,” he says. “It’s the same with some townhouses and condos.”
While single family, detached homes have a simple venting option, other homes will have to use some creative thinking to get around the venting issues, since running up the existing flue can be done, but will require more work.
The good news is that the new furnaces are much smaller and take up less space in the basement. There’s also the option to rent your furnace (and tankless water heater and air conditioning system) if money is tight, through companies like JCJ Mechanical Inc.
The high-efficiency furnaces also come with a much more complex technology, notes Nepom, such as two speed DC motors (which use less power), variable heat exchangers and computerized circuit boards which interact with “smart” thermostats to determine what kind of heating boost is needed depending on the temperature and time of day. An early morning start-up, for example, would quickly bring the household up to temperature as everyone gets out of bed and ready for work, while a late evening top up needs only a gentle burn.
The trick in choosing a new furnace is to size it correctly, says Fugler. Too big, as measured by the heat output in British Thermal Units (BTUs), and your furnace will never reach optimum temperature, so slightly small is better.
“Most installers tend to oversize the furnace because that way they’ll never get a call back on those coldest days of the year,” he says. “But on those coldest days in Toronto when it’s minus 22, your furnace should be running 45 minutes out of each hour.”
Again, he says, the Ontario Energy Audit, will also help calculate a heat-loss model of your home to establish the right size furnace.
If you’re good to go, fire it up before that first cold day since many homeowners will wait until the last minute to turn their furnaces on, only to discover it won’t light and HVAC companies will be snowed under with “no heat” calls.
Visit www.jcjmechanicalinc.com for more information
Furnace and Heating Tips
Here are some low- and no-cost ideas of things you can do to reduce the amount of energy it takes to heat your house.
- Make sure heat vents and return air vents aren’t covered.
- Change your fiber furnace filter twice a year and clean it monthly during the heating season.
- Set the thermostat at a maximum of 68 degrees.
- Set back the thermostat a maximum of 10 degrees at night, unless you have a heat pump or cable heat. Save up to three percent on heating costs for every degree your thermostat is lowered. Consider installing an automatic setback thermostat for your furnace.
- If you have zonal heating (thermostats in each room) you can turn down the heat to 50 or 55 degrees and close doors.
- If you suspect your thermostat is not accurate, place a thermometer nearby and see if they record the same number.
- Don’t use the oven to heat your kitchen.
- Weatherstrip and caulk around all doors and windows.
- Keep dampers closed when fireplace isn’t in use. Unblocked, a good chimney can draw up to 20 percent of the warm air out of the house each hour.
- In cold weather, keep drapes and shades open on sunny days and close them at night.
- Repair broken or cracked glass and putty older windows; check to see that windows close properly and window locks pull sashes together.
- Make sure doors close properly; repair or replace non-working doorknobs, latches and striker plates.
- Caulk foundation cracks and openings. Make sure kitchen and bathroom vent dampers close properly.
- Install automatic setback thermostats that adjust the heat to your schedule.
- Routinely have a professional contractor perform a pre-season check-up. Having your air conditioner inspected and tuned can save you money on costs and prevent premature breakdown. Schedule your tune-ups early in the spring. You’ll have more scheduling flexibility, and you will be less likely to experience problems during warmer weather.
- Clean your drain lines: The hoses connected to your furnace can develop “build up” inside them over time. If it gets bad enough, water can back up into the furnace and cause damage.
- Change the batteries in your digital thermostat annually: People forget that their digital thermostat has batteries in it. If you get in the habit of changing the batteries annually, you can eliminate a no-heat situation.
For more energy saving tips from JCJ Mechanical Heating, Furnaces, Boilers & Air Conditioning visit www.jcjmechanicalinc.com
How to reduce your air conditioning bills
Are you experiencing high air conditioner bills that are burning a deep hole in your household budget? Do you know that with a well-maintained air conditioning unit, you will be able to save 15% to 40% of the energy which will directly affect your bills?
To reduce your air conditioner bills, the best way is to have a well-maintained air conditioner unit. Although tasks like cleaning can be easily done by you, for more complicated technical tasks, it is best to leave the hard work to an air conditioner professional to have you fulfil it.
An air conditioning unit is more complex than what you think it might be. Any adjustments or repairs should always be done by professionals. In a unit, there are refrigerant gases, compressors, fans, fins, coils, electrical starters, thermostats, and so many more. It is just to overwhelming for you to do the task by yourself.
When you find that the bills are shooting really high for the past few months, it is time to ask for a servicing so as to make your unit more efficient and save energy. You can engage a professional service technician I would recomment JCJ Mechanical Inc., and he should be able to clean the evaporator and condenser coils, check refrigerant pressures, and adjust and lubricate moving parts. Sometime, there will not be enough refrigerant gas.
In this case, the technician will also help you to top up the unit. A professional technician will be able to detect symptoms that can lead to energy wastage or inefficiencies, and rectify them. One major culprit for tremendous energy wastage is that your unit does not have a damper or have a malfunctioning one. A damper is place in the duct of an air conditioner unit so as to prevent cool air from entering the furnace cabinet in summer, and warm air from escaping to the air conditioner unit in winter.
If the technician finds that you have a damaged damper, he will help you to repair or replace it. You might ask how often do you need to call a professional technician to check on your air conditioner unit. Actually, it really depends on how your unit cooling system operates. Different model of air conditioners unit will have different cooling operations.
However, as a rule of thumb, the followings are a general interval guideline that you can take for reference:
1. Hot regions. If your unit operates for 8 or more months per year, you need to engage a professional once a year.
2. Warm regions. If your unit operates for 5 to 8 months per year, you need to engage a professional every 2 to 3 years.
3. Cold regions. If operating for less than 5 months every year, engage a professional every 3 to 5 years. With a well-maintained and energy saving air conditioning unit, you will get to see a slide in your air conditioner bill.
Call JCJ Mechanical Inc. at 416 967-0717 for more information or visit www.jcjmechanicalinc.com
Money Saving Heating & Furnace Tips
Sky-high energy bills, diminishing resources and a healthy concern for our environment have brought a great deal of attention to the topic of home energy efficiency in recent years. Homeowners everywhere are struggling to spend less, use less and pollute less without giving up the warmth and comfort they’ve grown to cherish. So here are a few tips for conserving energy during the winter months.
- Make certain you set your thermostat to a level you are comfortable with. We recommend setting your thermostat from 68 to 70 degrees. Once you have the thermostat set and you are content with the comfort level we also recommend that you leave it there. It takes less energy to heat air 3-4 degrees than it does to heat air 6-8 degrees. This will also help save on your heating bills. Washington DC winters can be cold so set that thermostat and leave it to save money!
- We recommend that you make certain, you clean or replace filters on furnace once a month.
- Make certain that any clean warm-air registers, baseboard heaters, and radiators; are not being blocked by furniture, carpeting, or drapes. In other words try to maintain your vents ability to flow warm air freely.
- You should consider placing heat-resistant radiator reflectors between any exterior walls and the radiators.
- Although fans may help you save money in on your air conditioning bill in the spring and summer, we recommend that you use kitchen, bath, and other ventilating fans wisely. These fans can pull out a houseful of warmed in no time. Make certain that you turn them off as soon as they have done their job.
- Consider keeping draperies or shades open on the south of your home and facing windows during the winter or cold months to allow sunlight to enter your home. You should also close them at night to reduce the cold.
- Make certain that you purchase energy-efficient equipment if you are replacing any of the appliances or the furnaces in your home. Magnolia technicians are trained on repair, maintenance and installation of all major energy efficient brands and are also an authorized re-seller of most major well known brands.
- So that you don’t waste your hard earned money you should always before calling a Magnolia Technician check these three items to make certain you need a technician:
Make certain you check your thermostat to verify that it is set for “heating”.
Go to your breaker box and make certain that the breaker is on.
You’ll want to check your furnaces switch to make certain that your gas is on.
Visit www.jcjmechanicalinc.com for more information
Heating your home efficiently
These tips will help you lower your home’s energy use, which will save you money and help protect the environment, while you continue to stay warm this winter.
Save power
Reduce your hot water consumption by up to 50 per cent by using low-flow aerated showerheads, and save 15 per cent off your monthly power bill. The air added to the water keeps the water pressure strong while saving you hot water and money
Save the environment
Recycle your heating appliances
Things you can do
Open curtains and blinds during the day to let heat in, and close them at night to help keep the heat inside your home
Vacuum baseboard heaters at least twice a year to prevent dust from building up, so heat can more easily move through your house
Space heaters
A space heater used 8 hours a day can cost over $21 a month to operate, making it one of the worst winter power culprits
Turn off your space heater when you leave the room or go to bed at night
Furnaces
Clean your furnace filter regularly and make sure your chimney and outdoor vents are not blocked
Have a trained professional inspect your furnace in the fall every year to make sure it is working efficiently. If your furnace is taken care of, it will be safer, use less electricity and cost less to operate
If your furnace has a continuous pilot light, shut off the pilot light for the summer and have a technician relight it in the fall during your annual inspection. An inspection costs around $100, but could more than pay for itself in power savings if your furnace isn’t running properly
Thermostats (natural gas tips)
Set your thermostat lower in the winter
Install a programmable thermostat that you can set to automatically lower the temperature when you normally leave the house or go to bed. You can also set it to automatically raise the temperature shortly before you get up in the morning
By simply lowering your thermostat by 2 degrees for eight hours every night, in the winter, you’ll save approximately 4 per cent on your heating bill
Install an ENERGY STAR programmable thermostat away from natural cool and hot spots in your home. They provide more flexibility than standard models and perform one or more of the following functions: Save and repeat multiple daily settings, which you can change when needed without affecting the rest of the daily or weekly program; store four or more temperature settings a day; and adjust heating or air conditioning turn-on times as the outside temperature changes
Water heaters
Your water heater is one of the biggest energy users in your home, second only to the furnace
Make sure your water heater is insulated properly
Taking long hot showers is an expensive way to warm up. Consider taking short showers instead
If you’re keeping an older hot water appliance, insulate the heater and the first metre of piping. The insulation pays for itself by preventing energy being wasted into thin air
Lower the thermostat to 55 degrees to save energy. Make sure it is at 55 degrees and not any lower, as this would risk the growth of disease-carrying bacteria such as legionella. Some older dishwashers need to have the water at 60 degrees in order to work properly. If your dishwasher doesn’t have an element to boost the temperature, you may have to set the thermostat at 60 degrees
Hot tubs
Turn your hot tub thermostat down if you won’t be using it for a week or more. It costs less to re-heat your water than to always keep it hot
Make sure your hot tub cover fits properly and is in good condition. Keep your hot tub covered as much as possible. Adding a floating thermal blanket under the cover will help retain even more heat
Put your hot tub in a sheltered area to prevent wind from cooling the water down.
Visit www.jcjmechanicalinc.com for more information
