Listed below are a few of the routine maintenance items that should be performed by a certified heating system professional on a forced-air system. And remember, before the technician begins the maintenance process, they should always begin by turning off the electric power supply to the equipment.

• The systems fan should be cleaned along with the fan motor. The motor should be lubricated regularly to maintain the proper airflow required for smooth operation. While checking the fan motor, the fan speed should be checked as well. A systems performance can be hindered by incorrect pulley settings, loose fan belts, or incorrect motor speeds.
• Ductwork should be inspected and cleaned to ensure that proper air flow is not restricted by foreign objects such as loose insulation, abnormal buildup of dust, or any other obstacles.
• The return-air grills and warm-air vents should be clean and free of obstructions. It is also possible that parts of the venting system may have deteriorated over time. Because of this, your vent connection pipe and chimney should be inspected.
• The air conditioning coil (indoor evaporator) in the furnace should be cleaned or vacuumed as part of furnace servicing.
• The physical integrity of the heat exchanger should be evaluated periodically. By doing this visual inspection, leaky heat exchangers sometimes leak water and can easily be detected. Warning: Furnace heat exchangers mix combustion gases with house air when they leak. For this reason alone, it’s important to have this checked.
• Monitor the boiler and/or furnace to insure optimum water and air temperature settings for both system efficiency and home comfort.

The reason why this is so important to you is because preventative maintenance can not only save you money and but also give you piece of mind. Don’t wait until it’s too late. Schedule your air conditioning maintenance today by calling American Air and Heat, Inc. at (877) 875-1754.

The first tip that we provided was caulking, which is the best method for sealing cracks, gaps, or joints less than 1-quarter-inch wide in various places throughout your home or building, including around windows and door frames. Our second tip to winterizing your home or building is replacing or installing weatherstripping to seal air leaks around movable joints, such as windows or doors.

Weatherstripping is usually made of felt, foam, vinyl, rubber or metal. It is very effective in eliminating or at least significantly reducing air-drafts, which ultimately lowers your air conditioning and heating costs. Like caulking, it is easy for home and business owners to do, and if done properly, the money you will save in energy efficiencies will far outweigh the minimal materials expense.

Contact American Air and Heat to have a qualified technician inspect your home to determine the best course of action to improve your energy efficiencies and the level of air-comfort in your home.

How Much Weatherstripping do I need?

Start by adding the perimeters of all windows and doors that to be weather-stripped, then add another 5-10 percent for waste. Prior to installation, you will need to select which type of material best fits the job for which it is sealing. Things to consider with each location are weather, temperature changes, and wear and tear. Below is a list of various types of weatherstripping materials and its common uses.

• Felt /Foam – Easy to apply which make them extremely popular and valuable in low traffic areas. However, the material is susceptible to weather. It’s the least expensive material.
• Vinyl – Durable and able to withstand high moisture conditions. It is slightly more expensive than felt or foam.
• Metals – The most durable material, which should last for several years. Metals such as bronze, copper, stainless steel, and aluminum are very popular with older vintage homes. It is affordable, but is the more expensive than felt, foam, or vinyl.

Also, it’s possible to use more than one style of weatherstripping to seal an area that has a irregularly shape. Something else to consider when selecting the type of weatherstripping material

Since weatherstripping is being installed to seal air leaks around movable joints, the material must hold up to the type of movement for which it’s intended. Windows and doors slide up and down, sideways, and in and out. One last thing to consider is that the material must seal when the door or window is closed but just as important, it needs to allow it to open freely as well.

There are several simple do-it-yourself things you can do to weatherize your home or business. Anyone willing to put in a few extra hours and purchase a few minor supplies at your local hardware store can make a huge difference in reducing your energy costs, improving your air conditioning unit’s efficiency and improving the air comfort level inside your home or business. Implementing these tips could be one of the simplest, yet most impactful things you can do to benefit your home or business all winter.

Tip #1 – Caulking to Eliminate Air Leaks

Caulking is one of the most basic and common steps to sealing air leaks. However, it’s amazing to see so many homeowners and business owners neglecting to perform this elementary and cost saving task properly. In fact, it is one of the biggest reasons homes lose heat in Central Florida. Most of you know where the obvious air leaks exists in your home, such as the draft under the door, but it’s just as important to locate the not-so-obvious gaps, joints, and cracks if you want to properly seal your home.

Performing an Energy Assessment

Begin by focusing on areas where unlike materials connects. Examples include the areas between siding and brick, your walls and your foundation, and the chimney and siding. Also closely inspect around the areas listed below for any joints, gaps, or cracks that could cause air leaks:

• Door and window frames
• Mail chutes
• Electrical and gas service entrances
• Cable TV and phone lines
• Outdoor water faucets
• Where dryer vents pass through walls
• Bricks, siding, stucco, and foundation
• Air conditioners
• Vents and fans.

Below are some steps to depressurize your home, which could aid in detecting air leaks.

1. Turn off your furnace on a cool, very windy day.
2. Shut all windows and doors.
3. Turn on all exhaust fans that blow air outside, such as bathroom fans or stove vents.
4. Light an incense stick and pass it around the edges of common leak sites. Wherever the smoke is sucked out of or blown into the room, there’s a draft.

If you don’t want to turn off your furnace, you can just turn on all your exhaust fans to depressurize your home.

Useful Air Detection Tips

• Shine a flashlight at night over all potential gaps while a partner observes the house from outside, using cell phones to communicate with each other. Although it’s not a great method for finding small cracks, it does shed light on the larger ones which will show up as rays of light.
• Shut a door or window on a sheet of paper. If you can pull out the paper without tearing it, you’re losing energy.

For a thorough and accurate measurement of air leakage in your home, Contact American Air and Heat to have a qualified technician conduct an energy assessment of your home or business. An energy assessment will also help determine areas of your home that need additional insulation.

Household Tip: In addition to sealing air leaks, caulking can also do wonders in preventing water damage inside and outside of the home when applied around faucets, ceiling fixtures, water pipes, drains, bathtubs and other plumbing fixtures.
Caulk Selection

Although there are some pressurized caulking cartridges that do not require guns, the most popular compounds are sold in disposable cartridges that fit in half-barrel caulking guns. Make sure to purchase one with an automatic release. When deciding how much caulking to purchase, consider that you’ll probably use about a half-cartridge per window/door and four cartridges for the foundation sill. Caulking compounds can also be found in aerosol cans, squeeze tubes, and ropes for small jobs or special applications.

There are countless caulking compounds on the market today. They all vary in strength, properties, and prices. Water-based caulk can be cleaned with water, while solvent-based compounds require a solvent for cleanup. If you have any questions about ways to reduce your energy costs contact American Air and Heat today.

Even though the weather throughout Central Florida over the past few months has been very mild, we still have about 6-8 weeks of potential cold weather this winter. When the weather gets cold, many residents living in older homes are the ones that are most vulnerable to heat loss.

In order to make your living space more comfortable in cold weather, it’s important to winterize your home by creating fewer opportunities for the cold air to enter and the warm air to escape your home. Residents with homes that are not properly sealed and/or poorly insulated are far less comfortable and are at serious risk of encountering high energy bills when the mercury falls.

Understanding Why Homes Lose Heat?

There are a few primary reasons homes and buildings lose heat. They are heat conduction and air infiltration. Heat conduction is when heat transfers through a material. Air infiltration is when air moves through cracks and crevices. The loss of heat inside a home is caused by both heat conduction and air infiltration.

Heat conduction occurs when heat transfers through a substance and energy is transferred from one molecule to another via direct contact. The molecules themselves do not necessarily change location, but merely pulsate more or less quickly against another.

An example of heat conduction is when the handle of tablespoon that is resting in a cup of hot coffee gets warm. Even though the handle is not actually submerged in the hot coffee, the fluid is close enough to the heat source to get hot. The reason is that when a fluid is heated, some of fluid near the source of the heat tends to be less dense and expand outward. When these less dense areas rise, cooler portions flow in to replace them, which are then themselves subject to heating.

Infiltration is a word that is probably most familiar from its association with the military. In this form, infiltration is the movement through or into an area by either friendly or enemy troops. Air Infiltration also is defined by the word movement. It is defined as the amount of air that escapes in and out of a home through its cracks and crevices.

In our next post we will look at a list of things you can do to weatherize your home or building, such as caulking, weather stripping, insulating, and many other things you can do to help protect you from high energy bills and reduced comfort.

Most people would be surprised to learn that some everyday household items contaminate the air we breathe. These items include: pollen and spores, pet dander, human skin flakes, candle soot, infiltrating dust, viruses, bacteria, and fungi, radon gas, tobacco or wood smoke, cooking smoke and airborne grease and various chemical fumes.  With every breathe we breath, millions of airborne particles are taken in. And believe it or not, the smallest of particles are the one that cause the most concern. Viruses, bacteria, smoke and grease are at the top of the list of these small indoor contaminates that can do the most damage to our health and home.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the demand for cleaner air in our homes has been on the rise.  The effectiveness of the filtration process depends on the type of air cleaner used, and the number and size of the particles in the air. When visiting our customers, we often learn that they are not aware that the basic throw away fiberglass filters collect as little as 3% compared with more effective HEPA filters that capture approximately 99.9% of airborne particles.

These are some of the main air cleaners and filters and how they are categorized:

Basic Filters, which come standard with most HVAC systems. These filters do very little in preventing the small particles and are primarily useful in collecting the large dust that can clog your equipment.

Media Filters, which filter the air using webs of polypropylene fibers. These are the least used filters amongst residential consumers although they are probably among the best available when it comes to efficiency and cost.

Electronic Air Cleaners, Electronic air cleaners draw air through an ionization section where particles obtain an electrical charge. The charged particles then accumulate on a series of flat plates. Ion generators disperse charged ions into the air, similar to the electronic air cleaners but without a collector. The more effective electronic air cleaners capture up to 99.9% of airborne particles.

High-Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) Filters are composed of a mat of randomly arranged fibers, generally made of fiberglass. They are designed to block pollutants and particles by trapping airborne particles to the filter fibers using one of three techniques: interception HEPA filters, impaction HEPA filters and diffusion HEPA filters.

In Florida, the need for ductless heat pumps is sometimes a necessity. A mini-split system can be a viable option when adding on to your home with “non-ducted” heating systems. These can include hydronic (hot water heat), radiant panels, and space heaters (wood, kerosene, propane). They can also work for room additions, where extending or installing distribution ductwork is not an option.

Like standard air-source heat pumps, mini splits have two main components: an outdoor compressor/condenser, and an indoor air-handling unit. A conduit, which houses the power cable, refrigerant tubing, suction tubing, and a condensate drain, links the outdoor and indoor units.

Advantages

The main advantages of mini splits are their small size and flexibility for zoning or heating and cooling individual rooms. Many models can have as many as four indoor air handling units (for four zones or rooms) connected to one outdoor unit. The number depends on how much heating or cooling is required for the building or each zone (which in turn is affected by how well the building is insulated). Since each of the zones will have its own thermostat, you only need to condition that place when someone is there. This will save energy and money.

Since mini splits have no ducts, they avoid the energy losses associated with ductwork of central forced air systems. Duct losses can account for more than 30% of energy consumption for space conditioning, especially if the ducts are in an unconditioned space such as an attic.
In comparison to other add-on systems, mini splits offer more flexibility in interior design options. The indoor air handlers can be suspended from a ceiling, mounted flush into a drop ceiling, or hung on a wall. Floor-standing models are also available. Most indoor units have profiles of about seven inches deep and usually come with sleek, high tech-looking jackets. Many also offer a remote control to make it easier to turn the system on and off when it’s positioned high on a wall or suspended from a ceiling.

Split-systems can also help to keep your home safer since there is only a small hole in the wall. Through-the-wall and window mounted room air-conditioners can provide an easy entrance for intruders.

Some of the Disadvantages …

The primary disadvantage of mini splits is their cost. Such systems cost about $1,500–$2,000 per ton (12,000 Btu per hour) of cooling capacity. This is about 30% more than central systems (not including ductwork) and may cost twice as much as window units of similar capacity.
Some people may not like the appearance of the indoor part of the system. While less obtrusive than a window room air conditioner, they seldom have the built-in look of a central system. There must also be a place to drain condensate water near the outdoor unit.

(Source: Department of Energy)

• In general, INDOOR air is two to five times more polluted than OUTDOOR air
• More than 15 million Americans are estimated to have asthma, including one in 13 school-age children
• Because children breathe faster than adults, children inhale 50 percent more air per pound of body weight than adults and are especially sensitive to air quality problems
• It is recommended we drink approximately two quarts of clean water each day. By comparison, we inhale approximately 15,000 quarts of air each day
• Poor indoor air quality negatively affects the health of more than 15 million Americans who have asthma and the 28 million who suffer from hay fever and other allergies.

TIPS FOR A HEALTHIER HOME ENVIRONMENT

• Install an air cleaning filtration system to remove airborne, health-damaging particles and allergens too tiny for your nose and mouth to effectively filter naturally
• Control Dust Mites – Use anti-dust mite covers and wash sheets in hot water at least once a week; 130 degrees is recommended
• Eliminate Mold Sources – Fix leaky pipes and keep bathroom grout clean
• Stay Smoke-Free – Avoid non-ventilated, smoky rooms and second-hand smoke
• Avoid Pet Dander – Keep pets off the furniture, out of the bedroom, and if necessary, consider taking the pet out of the home
• Close Doors and Windows – Keep windows and doors shut to keep outdoor pollens, molds and irritants outside

As we’ve mentioned in previous posts, heat pumps move heat rather than generate heat. This can provide up to four times the amount of energy then they consume. In this post, let’s talk about the different types of heat pumps.

Heat pumps come in various shapes and sizes and the most common is the Air-Source Heat Pump. It transfers heat between your home and the air outside. If you heat with electricity (which most homes in Central Florida do), a heat pump usually reduces the amount of electricity consumed for heating by as much as forty percent. These hi-efficiency heat pumps also dehumidify better than standard central air conditioners. This results in lower electric bills and a cooler home in Orlando’s hot summer months. Here are a few other types of heat pumps …

Ductless Mini-Split Heat Pumps – The main advantages of ductless mini splits heat pumps are their small size and flexibility for zoning or heating and cooling individual rooms. Many models can have as many as four indoor air handling units (for 4 zones) connected to one outdoor unit. The number depends on how much heating or cooling is required for your house. Because each of the zones has its own thermostat, you can easily shut off a zone when not in use. This obviously saves energy and money.

Geothermal Heat Pumps – These heat pumps have been around since the 40’s. Although not that popular in Orlando, they are common in areas that experience extremely hot & cold temperatures. Normal heat pumps use air from outside. A geothermal system utilizes the constant temperature a few feet below the earth’s surface to generate its heat and/or cool air.

Absorption Heat Pumps – mostly used in commercial properties or very large homes. Unlike the more common heat pumps powered by electricity, these heat pumps rely on natural gas (some by propane, solar-heated water, or geothermal-heated water).

In the next blog, we will talk about proper service and maintenance of your heat pump. In the meantime, if you have any questions please give us a call. American Air and Heat, Orlando’s air conditioning experts for the over 25 years!

Let’s start with “what is a heat pump?’ The explanation given by Wikipedia is this … “A heat pump is a machine or device that diverts heat from one location (the ‘source’) at a lower temperature to another location (the ‘sink’ or ‘heat sink’) at a higher temperature using mechanical work or a high-temperature heat source. A heat pump can be used to provide heating or cooling. Even though the heat pump can heat, it still uses the same basic refrigeration cycle to do this. In other words a heat pump can change which coil is the condenser and which the evaporator. This is normally achieved by a reversing valve. In cooler climates it is common to have heat pumps that are designed only to provide heating. ” I don’t know about you but that wasn’t that helpful.

I’ll try to give a better explanation. Unlike the more common or “standard” cooling systems where the furnace operates in colder months and the air conditioner operates only when the temperatures outside get warmer, the heat pump uses both indoor and outdoor units year-round.

Basically in Central Florida’s summer months, heat pumps use refrigerants to removes the indoor heat from your home and exhausts it outside. At the same time chilled air is pumped through the duct work of your home to cool your house. In winter months, the opposite occurs. The refrigerant is used to take heat from outside and then the compressor pumps the refrigerant to the inside unit where the heat warms the inside of your home. This heated air is distributed throughout your home by a blower that pushes the heat through your duct system.

I hope this gave you a basic understanding of heat pumps. In our next blog post, we will get into the different types of heat pumps that are available and which ones might be right for you.

If you have any questions, feel free to call or email our expertly trained staff members at American Air and Heat.

Are you maximizing your energy savings?

In this post we are listing an additional five tips (6-10) that can help reduce your home cooling costs.

6. Take a cold shower

Just like drinking a cold beverage cools your internal body temperature, taking a cold shower will do the same. This may sound obvious, however did you know that cooling your body is just as effective as cooling a room

7. Plant shade trees and shrubs

Seek help from mother nature by purchasing and strategically planting a few trees and shrubs around your home. This can have a tremendous cooling effect on your home not to mention helping to beautify your home as well as your neighborhood. Living in Central Florida we can plant a wide array of trees around our homes. However, many of them are palm trees and flowering plants which albeit ecstatically pleasing, don’t provide much shade. Click here to view a list of trees that offer great shading opportunities.
Also, place large indoor plants in front of sunny windows during the day. This will add more shade, which will also help reduce your cooling costs.

 8. Install Canopies or awnings

As stated before, shading can make a big impact with cooling your home. Like shade trees, canopies or awnings will reduce the heat that your house absorbs thus reducing your energy bills; while at the same time improving the look and value of your home.

9. Add insulation

One of the simplest ways to save money immediately and over time is by adding insulation to your attic. Look across your uncovered attic floor; if your insulation is level with or below the attic floor joists then you probably need to add more insulation.

The recommended insulation level for most attics is R-38 (or about 12–15 inches, depending on the insulation type).


10. Seal your air ducts

It’s estimated that most homes are losing about 20% of the cooled air that moves through the duct system due to leaks and poorly sealed connections. The result is higher utility bills and difficulty keeping the house comfortable, no matter how the thermostat is set.

Again, this is a series of tips that we are providing. In Part A we listed 5 tips (1-5) that can help reduce your home cooling costs. They are as follows:

1. Open your windows if the temperature is lower outside
2. Use fans
3. Regulating the thermostat
4. Cook cold meals
5. Turn off the lights

To read more about the above tips (1-5) click here.
Hopefully, you have found these tips useful to maximizing your energy savings this autumn. If you would like to learn more please contact us at 877-875-1754.