The Quietest Air Conditioners

Where I live, we are just about to go into the best weather of the year.

This has a lot to do with the fact that we have once again managed to overcome the hurdle that is summer.

And summer heat around here is no small challenge. Thankfully, there is reliable, efficient HVAC cooling that we can count on to get us through the high heat and humidity of summer. That said, HVAC cooling can also be a rather expensive proposition. As a family, we try to bring all sorts of tactics together in our strategy to keep the air conditioning costs down. Of course, it starts with making sure the house is tight, the direct sunlight is mitigated and there is consistent thermostat discipline. But there are plenty of little things that can also be done. And when you start adding up all these little choices, you get significant HVAC cooling cost savings. We keep the thermostat set in the low to mid 80’s during the peak heating hours of the day. But we use fans to help us feel cool. It tricks our skin and costs less than a tenth what it cost to run the heat pump. We don’t use the over or the stovetop in the summer to avoid heating up the house. I simply cook on the grill. And we hang our laundry out during the summer to keep the dryer from producing heat inside. It really does add up to hundreds of dollars in HVAC savings over the course of a summer.

 

heating and air conditioning products

I have tried to get my children more involved with chores and housework, but it’s difficult when they’re still in elementary school.

• They kept making excuses about “forgetting” to do their basic chores, so I made a huge display for the refrigerator in the kitchen.

I even rotate some of the tougher chores like weed pulling and window washing. Since neither of these jobs needs to be done daily, I’d be happy if they simply kept up with cleaning their rooms. However, they like to push everything into a pile in the corner of their floor instead of actually organizing their toys and possessions. I taught them to organize using plastic storage tubs, but it has been a relentless battle to get them to take up their responsibilities with more dedication and hardwork. They sometimes rotate sweeping and mopping the tile floors, but I discovered something particularly frustrating when I was doing my heating and cooling system inspection yesterday. After confirming that the air handler was working at normal capacity, I carefully inspected the ventilation system. This is when I found something that frustrated me greatly. Apparently my kids have been sweeping dust, dirt, and food crumbs into our baseboard air returns instead of using a dustpan to collect it properly. I was so angry because the dust pan is barely extra work or any more effort required on part of the person sweeping the floor. Needless to say, they were scolded and taught how to sweep the floor properly from here on out. I told them that I don’t want to ever find floor debris swept into the baseboard air returns again.
Duct cleaning

One of my favorite locally owned businesses is a delicious bakery that was started in the 1970s when my parents were kids.

Even though it has seen five decades of changes in this city, it has been passed down by one family member to the next.

Now the grandson of the original founder is the one who runs the bakery and cooks a lot of the food each. Every other Wednesday they serve fresh pretzels and get a line that runs down the street to the end of the block. Although I’m not obsessed with pretzels like other patrons, I am a sucker for their homemade donuts that are available early every morning until they run out. Since they’re nearly as famous as their pretzels, you really have to make an effort to arrive at the bakery before 9am. If I can, I get a dozen in a box and I bring them home to share with my wife. When I arrived this morning for my box of donuts, I noticed that the air inside felt cold and crisp for a change. Usually it’s warm and humid in the bakery from the heat in the kitchen. This time I felt a rush of cold air that enveloped my entire body. I asked the worker behind the counter and he explained that the bakery had a new air conditioner installed the day prior. Everyone seemed to be happy with the improvements, especially the employees. He told me that it was getting really hot in the kitchen with the old air conditioner. Hopefully the new a/c system will improve everyone’s attitudes and productivity in the bakery.

air quality

After insulating my attic from the elements, I decided to make an effort to keep it clean and use it for storage. Before I came up here to make my improvements, there was enough dust and cobwebs in here to fill the bed of a pickup truck. I used my shop vacuum and filled the drum twice gathering everything bit of dust and dirt that I could find. Insulating the attic wasn’t difficult because of the reflective foil insulation that I purchased. It’s lightweight and easy to work with, but it’s also incredibly effective at reflecting radiant UV rays from the sun. The reflective foil insulation looks almost identical to sun visors for cars, but usually the foam core is more robust. Some people use the same thing but with bubble wrap inside instead of foam; personally, I think this results in less UV reflection. Between the cleaning and the new insulation, my attic is shaping up to be a wonderful storage space. I like to keep my space heater and portable air conditioner up there whenever I’m not using them. The portable air conditioner is for emergencies while the space heater is used every year during winter for added heat in my bedroom. It was the second week of October so I decided to pull the space heater out of storage and turn it on to start using it again. Without fail, my space heater always produces a gross odor when it’s used again after a long period in storage. It’s a natural byproduct of dust and dirt settling on the heating coils and burning off when the machine is powered on again. After an hour or so of burn-off time, usually the space heater loses its gross odor.

air conditioning company

Too often someone gets cheap just to save a dollar, and ends up spending much more in the long run with fixes, repairs, or replacements.

My college roommate tried to forgo oil changes in his old Pontiac Grand Am.

With over 300,000 miles on the engine, he could not afford to mix a single oil change let alone five. It was no surprise to any of his friends when his car inexplicably died on the side of the interstate while driving to work one day. We all told him that the oil changes would keep the car running and neglecting them would kill the engine much faster than it would normally. He eventually learned his lesson, but now he’s making a similar mistake with his air conditioner and the filters he puts inside. His condo is a block down the street from mine and I often drop in to say hi at the last minute. Yesterday I caught him cleaning his washable air conditioner filter in his bathroom tub. I couldn’t believe it, because I had heard nothing but bad things about these a/c filters. First of all, their mesh isn’t fine enough to collect small dust particles let alone bacteria or viruses. You might as well run the a/c with no filter at all while all of your home’s dust gets to coat the evaporator coil as the system cycles. Surprisingly, that’s not the worst thing about washable air conditioner filters. For me, I am more worried about how they’re difficult to dry completely and the mold that can grow in your air conditioner after cleaning the filter and putting it back into the machine. I told him that he’s better off spending $12 on a good filter every four to six weeks instead. His health is at stake with this kind of cheap behavior.

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I never thought that I would become obsessed with essential oils like I am now.

I always bought and burned candles in my apartment, especially during the winter holidays.

My closet is full of boxes of votive and tea light candles in various scents from pine to peppermint. Although organic candles don’t have any potentially toxic fillers, they’re also a lot more expensive to purchase than the cheap ones with synthetic ingredients. If you use these candles daily, you could end up developing an expensive habit that rivals some drug addictions in cost. Discovering essential oils couldn’t have come at a better time because my rent increased and my salary hasn’t budged in over two years. I bought an essential oil diffuser for $20 and have become enamored with the affordable $6 bottles of oil at the local supercenter. They are sometimes equal in quality to the $20 bottles of “premium” oil, and they tend to last for weeks if I rotate them. Recently I learned that I can get the aromas to circulate throughout my entire house if I put the diffuser near my air return. Whenever the air conditioner starts to cycle, it pulls the oil vapors into the ductwork and then redistributes it to every room. By the time the air conditioner is finished with its cycle, you will have a pleasant essential oil aroma in every room. This prevents having to put oil directly on my air conditioner filters, which I’m not fond of doing. It’s so much easier to just strategically place my oil diffuser so the vapors get into the HVAC air return.

cooling system

I wasn’t happy in my old job and the cramped studio apartment that swallowed me alive everyday.

My position was at a prestigious insurance company and I was finally making enough money to afford a tiny apartment in a coveted area of my city.

But despite the pay, I was basically living paycheck to paycheck with my high living expenses in that city. My only option to stay in the city was to make more money, but I couldn’t find any jobs over a six month period where I looked multiple times each day. It wasn’t until I included neighboring states that I was able to find a suitable replacement for my old work position. The catch was having to move up north right before the start of winter. Even though I bought warmer clothing ahead of my move, there was no way I could have prepared myself for how insanely cold the weather is here from October until April. Now that I have been here long enough to purchase a house, I have a storm generator to protect me in the event of a power outage during a snowstorm. It happened once when I had nothing but an electric furnace and a few space heaters. I had to stay bundled up for several days before the electricity was restored and I had heat again. Thankfully I was smart enough to turn off the water to the house as soon as the power went out. I then emptied the pipes by running the sinks throughout, thus draining the pipes completely and preventing freezing and bursting. Now that I have a powerful storm generator, I don’t ever have to worry about losing my heating system during winter again.

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If I drip with sweat at the end of my visit with a client, it will seem like I am a hard worker.

I am a fulltime electrician like my father before me. My entire family is full of men who work in the trades, as my grandfather was a carpenter while my two uncles are both plumbers in different places in the country. At first I wanted to go into show business, but that dream faded by the time I reached high school and started using one period each day for trade school. Since our high school partnered with the local trade school, classes were free for students. You’d use a period that would otherwise go to an elective course and instead you’d get on the bus to head over to the technical college down the road. This turned out to be one of the single most important decisions in my life because it put me on the path towards my life-long career. Being an electrician like my father gave me two things—an outlet to work with my hands, and a way to feel connected to my dad and his personal history. However, my current employer needs to either fix the air conditioner in my work van or provide me with a new vehicle. It’s getting to the point where I am sweating while I’m driving around in between jobs. If I drip with sweat at the end of my visit with a client, it will seem like I am a hard worker. But if I arrive at the client’s house already wet from head to toe, it just looks bad. Appearances aside, it’s a threat to my comfort level as well. It drives me insane when we have hot summer heat waves and I can’t get relief after leaving a client’s house.

climate control

Although I have always been obsessed with pets, I had never actually owned a cat or a dog until my girlfriend and I moved in together last year.

She was homesick and missing all of her pets at her parent’s house.

I had everything from fish tanks to gerbils and rabbits. Secretly I always wanted a dog, but my parents refused to get me a larger pet that came with more responsibilities. Now that I have a cat and dog together, I realize in part why my parents were so reluctant to do this when I was younger. These animals take a lot of work and responsibility. Although cats can be easier to maintain on a day by day basis, you have to work with them and train them early or they will climb all over the countertops and appliances in the house. Dogs are notorious for chewing on shoes, baseboards, and furniture legs. I think my least favorite part about having cats or dogs is the immense amount of hair that they leave all over your house. Whenever I previously changed my air conditioner filters after four to six weeks of use, there was so much pet hair that I had to start doing it every three weeks instead. I still find hair after three weeks, but it isn’t enough to completely cut off the air flow going into the air conditioner. Once I get paid again, I’m going to purchase air purifiers for the house so this hair and dander can get collected in their filters before it can find its way into our air conditioner filter.

seer ratings

I’ve done the math and realized that the cost of heating and cooling adds up to around 50% of our household energy expenses.

It’s not all that surprising due to the demands of our local weather.

The summers are hot and humid with temperatures often soaring into the upper eighties. The winters are especially brutal with conditions in the negative digits, harsh wind chill and feet of snow. Fall and spring are usually wet, chilly and windy. For the majority of the year, it’s necessary to run either the furnace or the air conditioner. I’m either paying a gigantic gas bill or a huge electric bill. I’ve made it my mission to reduce those costs. I enrolled in a maintenance program with a local HVAC contractor that includes two services per year. A technician inspects, cleans and adjusts the air conditioner in the spring and does the same to the furnace in the fall. Because of this regular upkeep, I can be sure that both systems are operating at peak efficiency and reliability. I make sure to change the air filters regularly, and I’ve invested into a smart thermostat. The thermostat includes occupancy sensors that register whether or not the various rooms are in use. When the area is empty, it automatically adjusts temperature to conserve energy. I spent a small fortune on new windows and exterior doors for our home and carefully caulked and weatherstripped. I spent a really awful Saturday crawling around in the attic and installing new insulation, and I put up ceiling fans in most of the rooms. The ceiling fans work to push the heat down toward the floor during the winter and encourage it up and out in the summer. All of these efforts have helped but I’m still unhappy with the cost of temperature control.

 

 

Heat pump service