Helpful Tips

• Did you know that a properly maintained unit can give you years of life while keeping your gas or electric comsumption to a minimum?  It may seem elementary, but 25% of our service calls from both homeowners and business owners can be fixed over the phone, for free, by simply having the caller replace or cleane their filter.  Manufactures recommend that your unit and/or air handler be serviced yearly to prevent costly repairs and/or damage to the unit.  Spiders and their webs, along with dust, dirt, debris, and pet dander can severely damage your hard earned investment.
• Make sure you clean warm-air registers, baseboard heaters, and radiators as needed.  And also, make sure they're not blocked by furniture, carpeting, or drapes.
• Bigger is not necessarily better; you can actually increase your energy bill and decrease your comfort by buying or reusing a system that is too big for your space.
• You may have noticed that manufactures now sell 90 day replacement filters.  These pleated filters are great but we don't recommend waiting the 90 days to replace them.   We suggest to all of our customers that in order to protect your heat exchanger, evaporator coil, and blower motor, the filters be changed every other month.  They do trap more debris but it's imperative you change them more often.  We buy our filters at the local hardware store for $1.13 each.  We buy 3 or 4 at a time and replace them every month.....the same day we pay our home mortgage, so we don't forget! 
• We also tell our customers not  to waste their money on buying those plastic, outdoor air-conditioning covers you'll see advertised in the circulars.  They can actually cause damage to your unit by harboring spiders and their webs.  It is not neccessary to cover outdoor units; they are designed  to withstand all weather elements.
• If you have an older home, as we do, you might find that the upstairs seems to stay cooler or warmer than the downstairs.  Unfortunately, its usually the opposite of what you'd prefer.  Hot in summer and cold in the winter. If so, you probably already know that you may need more insulation, or new weatherstripping, or you may even need new windows. UGH................. We can't help you there but we can give you a little advise that a lot of people don't know or pay attention to.  If you change your themostat setting to Fan On rather than Fan Auto, it will greatly improve your situation.  Your fan may  run more often but don't worry.......the fan uses much less energy than your furnace or air-conditioner.  You won't believe the difference!