The winters in northern Florida are short and mild, and now that it’s late February we can already start to look toward the time when the air conditioners in our houses will turn on and work steadily. However, there are still cool and rainy days ahead, with the temperature sometimes dropping into the 50s. Our heating systems aren’t ready to go into hibernation quite yet, and so it’s smart to make sure that they aren’t suffering from any major or minor repair issues. You don’t want to be caught by surprise when you try to turn your heater on at the end of the year and find that it doesn’t work just when you need it again.
Kool Breeze of Northwest Florida, Inc Blog: Archive for the ‘Heating’ Category
Watch for End of Season Repair Needs for Your Heater
Monday, February 22nd, 2016Addressing Some Special Customer Questions
Monday, January 18th, 2016On our blog, we approach each post as a way to answer specific concerns that customers may have, or to provide additional information on a particular topic. However, there are some questions we receive that won’t take up a whole blog post, and we’d like to go over a few of them here. Always feel free to ask your technicians any questions that you may have; they’ll be glad to provide you with honest answers every time.
How Best to Use Your Thermostat during the Winter
Monday, January 4th, 2016There’s a downside to needing to use a home heating system for only a short stretch of the year: people often aren’t sure exactly how to set the thermostat to maximize energy savings and comfort. Many homeowners in Florida often push their thermostats up too high, which wastes power without providing the right temperatures. We’d like to help you find the ideal settings on your thermostat for this winter. It’s not difficult at all, and the difference on your bills can be substantial.
Consider an Energy Recovery Ventilator Installation
Monday, December 28th, 2015Florida homes usually have very effective levels of insulation on them to help keep out the heat during our frequently boiling summers. This insulation is useful as well during the mild winters. But insulation also has an unfortunate side-effect, which is that it prevents the easy exchange of indoor and outdoor air that helps to keep the air inside a home fresh. You can open up windows and doors, but no matter the time of year, this will usually result in energy waste: heat escaping during cold weather, heat entering during warm weather.
How Developing Technology Increases the Efficiency of Gas Furnaces
Monday, December 21st, 2015Natural gas furnaces have been around for a long time, and they’ve spent many decades at the top of the list of the most common types of heating systems in the U.S. There’s a reason for this continuing dominance: advances in technology have allowed gas furnaces to stay competitive as energy-efficient systems. Installing a gas furnace is still one of the best ways to provide warmth for a household while keeping utility bills under control.
Why Getting Fall Heating Maintenance Done Is So Important
Wednesday, November 4th, 2015It’s already November, and that means that colder weather is not far ahead on the calendar. Of course, “colder” is a bit of a relative term here in Florida. We enjoy mild winters compared to most of the rest of the country. However, we don’t escape the chill entirely, and rainy days and clear nights can mean some uncomfortable temperatures when you will need your heating system working.
AFUE Rating and Furnace Energy Efficiency
Monday, October 26th, 2015Back in July, we wrote a post about the importance of SEER when it comes to determining how energy efficiently an air conditioning system will run. Now that it’s October and people are getting ready for cooler weather, the time has come to think about how efficiently a heating system is going to run. This is especially important in a place like Florida, where heaters don’t run as often: we want to make sure that each time a heating system turns on that it isn’t wasting large amounts of power.
Are There Other Choices for Central Heating Aside from a Furnace?
Monday, October 19th, 2015If you are considering having a residential heating system installed this fall, either for a new home or as a replacement for an aging heater, then you have more choices available to you than ever before. It’s easy to get trapped into thinking that a furnace, the most popular type of heater in the country, is the only viable option, but it’s simply not true. Furnaces are very effective at what they do, but if you’re looking for a change or you no longer want to rely on gas power, there are some excellent central heating system alternatives. We’ll look at a few of them.
Heating Question: Is It Time to Replace That Old Furnace?
Monday, October 5th, 2015If the furnace that works to keep your home warm during the short winter seasons in Navarre, FL seems more like a family heirloom than a functional piece of contemporary equipment, then it’s probably long past the time when it should have been placed into retirement and a new furnace put in its place. Unlike wine, furnaces do not get better with age. Although you may think that it’s best to simply let a furnace keep working away until it finally expires, this isn’t a wise course of action, as we discuss below.
What to Expect During Heating Maintenance
Wednesday, March 25th, 2015Heating maintenance is a regular task that you need to have done once a year in order to ensure that your home’s heater will work for years with high energy efficiency and a low number of repair troubles. Keeping up with maintenance will also help prevent surprise breakdowns at times when you need your heating system the most.
Because Florida has mild winters and only a few truly cold days, it is too easy for homeowners to forget about regular annual heating maintenance. But this is a mistake, and it’s simple to have it corrected with just a call to Kool Breeze. When you sign up for air conditioning maintenance with us (a job that’s much easier to remember) you’ll also be signing up for heating maintenance as well. You’ll have both issues taken care of with one program. Contact us today and ask about our program for AC and heating maintenance in Pensacola Beach, FL.
Here’s what you can expect to occur during a heating maintenance session (depending on your specific heating system):
- Thermostat calibration check (all heating systems)
- Inspection of the evaporator and condenser coils in the indoor and outdoor unit, plus cleaning them if necessary (heat pumps)
- Check of safety precautions, such as the load limit switch (primarily furnaces)
- Clean or replace the air filter (all forced-air heaters)
- Look for water damage behind air handler units (ductless mini splits)
- Check on refrigerant pressure and refrigerant levels, with refrigerant added if the charge is low (heat pumps)
- Cleaning the blower assembly (all forced-air systems)
- Check and adjust electrical connections (all systems, including gas furnaces)
- Clean the heat exchanger and gas burner, check for gas flow to the burner (gas furnace)
- Check motor amperage and lubricate moving parts where necessary (all systems)
- Check airflow and temperature difference (all systems)
If at any point during the various checks and adjustments the technician comes across a malfunction or impending malfunction that will require repair work, he or she will notify you of it. You can decide when to schedule the necessary work, although it is best to have any repairs done as soon as possible. After all, one of the points of maintenance is to prepare the heater for any sudden cold shift in the weather.
Call up Kool Breeze and speak to one of our staff members about signing up for our air conditioning and heating maintenance program in Pensacola Beach, FL. Our program provides extra benefits, such as priority scheduling and discounts on non-warranty parts.