Vital Facts About Your HVAC System

Most homeowners take for granted the equipment that keeps their home comfortable … until there’s a problem. Most people focus mainly on adjusting their home’s thermostat, presuming that the cool or warm air will just keep coming as long as they need it to.

But the fact is, the more you know about your home’s forced-air furnace or air conditioner, the better equipped you’ll be to troubleshoot problems that arise, communicate with your heating and cooling company when service is needed, and make informed decisions about repairs, maintenance, and the eventual replacement of your HVAC system. If you become savvy enough about your home’s heating and cooling system, you might even be able to fix some issues without calling in your trusted Cincinnati-based HVAC repair company at all.

Here’s what you need to know about the cooling and heating systems that keep your home comfortable.

How a Home AC System Works

• In a typical split-system AC, a chemical solution that boils at a very low temperature, called refrigerant or coolant, is pumped through thin copper or aluminum tubes between two units.
• One of these units (the evaporator) is inside the house and the other (the condenser/compressor) is outside, usually right next to the house. When the refrigerant is pumped through the evaporator coil, the solution boils, transitioning it from a liquid into a gas.
• This process extracts heat energy and moisture from the air. This results in cooler and dryer indoor air. The cool air is distributed throughout the house via a blower, ductwork (depending on the type of system) and registers. Your indoor air feels even cooler than it actually is, because we experience drier air as cooler than humid air.
• The AC system pumps the now-very-hot refrigerant outside to the condensing coil and compressor. There, it’s compressed back into a liquid.
• As this happens, a fan distributes the released heat energy (from inside) into the surrounding outside air. The refrigerant then begins its cycle again.
• Heat pumps work similarly, except the condensing and evaporator coils switch their functions when the system converts from cooling to heating (with the help of a reversing valve).

The Importance of Your HVAC Air Filter

The air filter in your home’s HVAC system plays an important role in keeping your family healthy and your heating and cooling system working well. The filter extracts dirt and dust (and pollen, mold spores, pet dander, bacteria and other contaminants) from the air before it’s pulled into the furnace or AC, thus keeping this debris from circulating throughout your home.

This protects sensitive equipment inside your HVAC from getting dirty and breaking down, too. An air filter that’s clogged with dust and debris will erode system efficiency, potentially to the point of a full system breakdown. This is because the blower fan has a harder time circulating air through the system when the filter is clogged. It also will allow more contaminants to get on and into sensitive equipment causing friction which can eventually lead to equipment breakdowns.

Check your HVAC air filter every month and change it when it gets dirty. Avoid buying the very cheapest flat-panel filters. Their efficiency is relatively low. For such an important function in your house, it’s well worth the expense to pay $10 instead of $2 for a more efficient air filter. (But you also want to avoid buying “more” filter than you need – very highly rated HVAC air filters often don’t fit into residential heating and cooling systems, and buying a filter that blocks too much airflow can wreck the efficiency of your system, and even damage it. Talk to your HVAC company for advice if you’re unsure of the best filter for your system.)

Why Routine HVAC Maintenance Matters

Don’t cut back on HVAC maintenance. Regular professional maintenance from a trusted, local AC and heating repair company in Cincinnati (in addition to the simple jobs you can do as a homeowner, such as changing the air filter) will make your cooling and heating equipment last longer and operate more efficiently, while delivering optimum comfort and performance.

Regular maintenance will also reveal small, inexpensive problems before they morph into big, costly ones. Use a local HVAC repair company with a stellar reputation, such as Jansen Heating & Cooling if you’re in the Cincinnati area.

Schedule service on your AC in the early spring and your furnace in the early fall – before the busy season for each system. Consider joining a Maintenance Club like the one we offer here at Jansen. Among other benefits, we’ll remind you when it’s time for seasonal professional maintenance.

Give Your Furnace or AC a Break

There are plenty of ways you can reduce the amount of heating or cooling that’s required to keep your home comfortable):

1. “Weatherize” your home, including sealing air leaks in the home’s outer envelope with weather-stripping, caulk or spray foam.
2. Upgrade insulation in key areas such as the attic, outer walls, ductwork and basement.
3. Repair or replace defective and leaky ductwork.
4. Use a programmable thermostat to avoid heating or cooling the home when nobody’s home.
5. Employ ceiling fans to provide a cooling effect in the summer and circulate warm air in the winter. The movement of cool or warm air against our skin changes our experience of the temperature, even if the air temperature doesn’t change.
6. Open curtains and drapes to the sunshine on sunny winter days, and close them to the sun on hot, sunny days in the summer. When the outside weather allows it, open windows and turn off the AC. (Just make sure you close up the house before it gets hot outside.)
7. Try a day or two when you lower the thermostat two to four degrees in the winter or raise it two to four degrees in the summer. This way you can see whether you and your family can get accustomed to more energy-saving, system-preserving temperatures.

Whatever your home’s heating and cooling system needs, we’re here for you at Jansen Heating & Cooling. We provide expert service, installation, and maintenance for all types of HVAC systems, all throughout the Cincinnati area. Give us a call to learn more about how to maintain your heating and cooling systems so that they last as long as possible and make your family comfortable for years to come.