Homeowners know that a great deal of energy is required to power heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, especially once winter or summer.
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Home Heating and Cooling | Repairs Tips Blog
British summers have become hotter of late and more and more people are looking for ways to cool their home. There is nothing worse than having sleepless nights caused by humid, sticky air. Opening your windows is not enough and it can actually make things worse.
At the first sign of hotter weather, we typically reach for the desk fan we have stored in our attic space, knowing it will only bring light relief as it only moves the hot air around. The person in direct line of the fan gets light relief from the resulting draught but it does nothing to cool a room down.
Air conditioning systems we are used to seeing at our workplace are expensive, not to mention unsightly, i don’t think the neighbours would be too happy seeing a ten foot square metal box stuck to the side of your house would they?
It’s amazing to know that the vast majority of people still living in the UK think there is no viable solution to cooling down their homes.
Well this isn’t the case. Portable air conditioning units have been available in the UK for some time. With prices starting at around 100, you can own your own your home aircon unit, one that you can move around the house as required.
One argument i hear is that climate change is causing the rise in temperatures and that by using an air conditioner, you are directly contributing to this.
What many don’t realise is that many portable air conditioners are now CFC free and much kinder to the environment.
It is true to say that air con units are power hungry although in reality they may cost only around 10 pence an hour to operate. It’s a small price to pay for a sound nights sleep and you should look to offset that power usage by cutting back in other ways, unplug your tv instead of leaving it on stand by for instance. It really is a matter of priority, and being able to wake up every morning feeling refreshed is a higher priority in my eyes than being able to turn on the tv without having to plug it in first.
There are a number of specialist online air conditioning retailers that stock a wide range of portable air conditioners, coolers and dehumidifiers, just make sure you look out for those retailers that sell CFC free products.
By shopping online, you can save on car fuel (itself kinder to the environment), save on parking fees, avoid intrusive target chasing sales staff and avoid carrying big boxes around.
Stay cool this summer and benefit from a great nights sleep.
Don’t waste your money over something as small as a door and window draft problem. Studies show that almost 50% of a home’s heating and cooling energy can be lost to this wasteful issue in a modern home. Indeed, the American Council for the Energy Efficient Economy predicts that during the course of this year, almost $13 billion of energy is lost due to the drafty doors and windows of the nation’s homes.
As a house matures it settles. This can cause the window and door fittings to misalign and a gap develops. Once air passes through the resulting gaps, it will raise or decrease the set internal temperature.
There are many solutions to fix a door and window draft. Blockers are great for stopping drafts and cost-effective too. Some folks use homemade door snakes or even old blankets, but these are not as effective as a draft blocker. The material is important as blockers made using polypropylene have been designed and tested to block air flow. Inside, the blocker should have a well known insulant; many products use finely ground corn. Further, the draft blocker must be pliable so that it fits well beneath the window or door.
To pinpoint door and window draft areas, feel the bottom of doors and around windows. You can also listen for a whistling sound, which is common around drafty windows. If you feel air leaking in, you need to take action to seal off the draft. Doors and window in older home are more likely to have problems with drafts, but there could also be concern in homes with new replacement windows if they were installed improperly.
All types of doors and windows can cause problems. Whilst front and back doors are most common places for a door and window draft, it is important to also consider your basement door. sliding glass doors, attic entrance and whilst all windows are potential culprits, check out your porch and basement windows first.
One tends to think about the winter season when addressing door and window draft problems and this does represent the bigger problem. In the cold months, the home’s heating hardware labors to keep a set temperature, but with window and door drafts winning the battle, the system is constantly turning on and off or just running for ever. Just think of the effect on the next utility bill!
Door and window draft openings can cause problems in warm weather months, especially if you have central air, or use air conditioning or fans. While cooling systems are trying to cool down a home and maintain a comfortable temperature, hot air flowing in from doors and windows makes the cooling system work harder. The more a cooling system has to work, the more energy it is using. For the homeowner, that means a higher electric bill.
Draft blockers are a long term solution for a home’s door and window draft problem. Most homeowners are astounded to hear that they can save 25% of their energy consumption by addressing the issue. A draft blocker is easy to install in place, needs no nails or glue and is very resilient. Even if it gets wet, the draft blocker can be air-dried and maintains shape and effectiveness. The draft blocker is a long-term solution.
What you will soon learn when you begin looking to purchase portable air conditioning units is there are many different models to select from. Most such equipment is used in homes that are located in a hot and humid climate and are designed to help keep the room in which situated and the surrounding area cool. Also they actually help to prevent the temperature in the rooms going above that of the temperature outside.
Today as already mentioned there are many different kinds of portable air conditioning units you can buy. Not only are there many different models but they also come with a wide variety of different features as well. So you need to spend time looking carefully at them all to ensure you get one that meets your particular requirements closely.
If you are thinking of buying portable air conditioning units for your home there are certain things that you need to be taking into consideration and below we look at what some of these are.
1. You need to work out if the unit will have the right amount of capacity to adequately cool the room in which it is to be placed. You need to see what kind of thermal unit measurement it has. Ideally the air conditioning unit you should be purchasing is one that has a BTU (British Thermal Unit) measurement of more than 10,000.
2. Next you need to take a look at what system is used to help remove the water. The best kinds of either the self evaporating water systems or the ones which come with a built in pump then removes the water automatically. Both of these systems means that you then won’t need to spend time each day removing the water from the collection pot inside the unit.
3. You may think buying cheaper is better, but to be truthful buying the branded well known models is going to be more cost effective in the long term. Yes well known models tend to cost more but they are more efficient and will last a lot longer. However, it is worth reading through various reviews and testimonials to determine which model is best suited to your requirements and the internet can offer you such information quickly and easily.
When carrying out this research be aware that not all the reviews are what they seem. In some cases they will have been written by people who are trying to get you to purchase the product from them so they make some money from it. However, as mentioned there are plenty of places online including article sites that offer you the kind of information you want.
Above we have shown you want are some of the things that should be considered when thinking of purchasing portable air conditioning units. It is important that you spend as much time as possible looking at what is on offer before you make your final decision. This way you will be able to find portable air conditioning units that meet your requirements perfectly.
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 youll 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.
There are many types of tools needed to work on air conditioning systems and heating systems. Understand though before you are able to work on heating and cooling systems that use refrigerant, you will need to be EPA 608 certified for the type of refrigerant pressure you will be working on.
I will be going over the tools needed for residential air conditioning systems, and the first tool an HVAC technician should acquire is a pair of HVAC gauges. These will consist of one high pressure gauge, one low pressure gauge, pressure release fittings, and three hoses, one for suction, one for charging, and one for the high pressure gauge.
A recovery tank will be needed to recover old Freon from the HVAC unit. If you are replacing a air handler or condensing unit this is necessary, you can also use the old refrigerant to put into the new condensing unit as refrigerant does not go bad.
In order to transfer the refrigerant from old HVAC system to the recovery tank you will need a recovery machine. They are not cheap but they are needed to properly transfer the refrigerant to the recovery tank, they can also be used to move the refrigerant from the tank back into the new air conditioning system.
Now that you have the tools to remove the refrigerant from the old HVAC system you will need to make some cuts at the copper piping, get yourself a good pair of copper cutters for this, they are fairly cheap. You will also need to be able to join the copper piping to the new HVAC system, this is done by soldering.
The soldering torches will make it a breeze to connect the copper piping, although a good set up will cost you a bit. Some of the items you should keep in the soldering set up are an inspection mirror, soldering sticks made for HVAC systems, and a roll of sandpaper.
Once you have the new system all soldered to the piping, we must remove all of the air from the system. This is made easy by using a vacuum pump, which will also let you know if you have any leaks in the system, you should vacuum the system out for at least 30 minutes.
You will also want to have a good voltage meter on hand, as you always need to test a unit before servicing the electrical side. Some other tools you might need are a coil fin straightener, refrigerant leak detector, and a thermometer made for HVAC systems.
The tools that I mentioned will be used the most by an HVAC technician who is servicing residential homes. There are of course many others he or she might need, but these are the essential ones that are used the most, especially if you are replacing an air handler or condensing unit.
