|
Q. The upstairs portion of my home is always hot - winter or summer! Why?
A. Hot air rises in the winter traveling from your first floor to the second floor where it exits through penetrations in the ceiling such as Pull-Down-Attic Stairs and recessed light fixtures (it makes no difference whether the light are ON or OFF). The air that exits has to be reploaced so outside air comes in through penetrations on the first floor such as worn weatherstriping around doors or windows, range vent-a-hoods and others.
In the summer the opposite occurs, since Hot Air always displaces cool air, the hot attic air comes into your residence through these same penetrations and again makes your upstairs hot.
By air sealing these and other penetrations you will experience more comfort and cheaper utility bills.
Q. I want to add insulation and other energy saving home improvements to my house. Are there any government assistance programs available?
A. Yes! The state of Texas under the Texas Electric Choice Act provided that you could not only choose which electric company you can go with, but also provided a slush fund of money to improve your home as long as the improvements cut your electric usage (read "cut you electric bill!") The amount you can get is based on a sliding scale and some people can get the improvements for Free while others have to pay a portion of the bill. Either was its a program that will pay for itself through energy savings.
Q. Josh came to my house and changed my thermostat and he told m that my ducts were leaking air to and from the attic. He suggested that I have them sealed. Since my grandson worked in the air-conditioning business 1-summer, I had him do it. Now my air conditioner is freezing up (thank you for your telephone directions so I could self diagnose the "freeze-up"!) Anyway, my air-conditioner froze up and no air was coming out. What happened?
A. Sealing the air ducts is a rather technical and labor intensive project not performed well by those not specifically trained for it. Most Do-It-Yourselfers fail. One of the most frequent failures is that the unit freezes up. Low air flow across the coil is the reason. The coil is engineered for a specific volume of air to cross it each minute. If that air volume is diminished too much, you will get a frozen coil.
Q. You installed a heat-pump condenser for us 2-years ago. I had a $600 electric bill for August 2007. My girlfriend's husband at work is an AC technician and we had him look at our system since it was going to be free and he said that the system was wrong! He said that we have a gas furnace and should not have a heat pump. Can you explain?
A. Actually, in today's energy market it is more economical to heat your home with a heat pump than with either gas or electric resistance heat. The efficiency of the new heat pumps makes it more efficient than the other two. Obviously your girlfriends husband hasn't kept up with the new "Duel Fuel" technology. Mike checked your house and explained the concept to your husband. Mike found that you have a hole in your evaporator coil and your unit is having to run longer than normal to get your home comfortable. That is the reason for your high electric bill, not the fact that you have a gas furnace and heat pump combination.
Q. Frank, you're and Air-Conditioning contractor! Doesn't everything look like an air-conditioning problem to you? Aren't you doing this to just sell air-conditioners?
A. No. Although we are air conditioning contractors, I feel our primary business is to provide comfort and economy. If you need a new air-conditioner I'll tell you, but I truly believe that I can benefit you best by showing you how to make your home more efficient. I don't want to put a newer, better air conditioner into your home only to find out that it neither cuts your bills nor makes you more comfortable. I would rather see you make your home an 18-SEER home first then add an 18-SEER air-conditioner.
I can put a race car engine in a 1953 Buick, but that doesn't make it a race car! I can put an 18-SEER air-conditioner into your 1979 home, but that won't necessarily make it work efficiently and economically.
Q. My air-conditioner isn't cooling and there is no air coming out of the vents, why?
A. Something has probably caused the inside cooling coil to freeze over. You can tell by looking at the large copper pipe on your outside unit. If it has ice on it, its frozen up. Turn the unit off for several hours, until it thaws. Then check for a dirty filter first. If the filters not dirty you'll have to call for service.
Q. My air conditioner isn't running at all! Neither the inside unit nor the outside unit. What do I check?
A. The first thing to check is the breakers. Don't miss the one in the attic or closet that turns the inside unit on and off.
Q. Does Radiant Barrier work?
A. Radiant barrier is a thin sheet of reflective material designed to reflect heat, that is normally acquired by your roof and radiated into your attic, back out of the roof. According to the Department of Energy the value of radiant barrier is inversely proportionate to the amount of conventional insulation you have. The more conventional insulation the less value radiant barrier has. The DOE says the payback is normally between 2% and 17%.
Q. My attic is so hot, what can I do to get it cooler?
A. Why are you concerned about the temperature of the attic? That temperature is immaterial unless you plan on living up there. What you're really concerned about is stopping the hot attic air from moving into your living space. You do that by sealing up the penetrations between your home and the attic (such as recessed light fixtures, attic hatches, etc.) then installing the correct amount of attic insulation.
Q. What can I do to to my home to cut my electric bills?
A. Seal Up The Holes!!! The Department of Energy says that the First and Most important thing to do is to seal up the holes between the living space and outside. You can pile attic insulation 3 feet deep, install new doors and windows, and have the most efficient air-conditioner on the market today, but if you leave a window open 24/7 it would all be useless. We do a computerized test to determine how big a hole would be if you took all the little holes in a residence and combine them into one big hole. On average the size is usually equal to a medium sized window (43 x 48) open 24/7 all year long.
Seal your home first.
Q. My windows leak so badly I'm thinking of replacing them with new ones. Is it a good investment?
A. I'm not an investment counselor, but if I were I'd steer you away from an investment that only returned 4%! According to estimates from the Department of Energy, that is the expected return on your investment when you install new windows.
If on the other hand you want new windows for their beauty and ease of cleaning go for it, but don't "Invest" in windows.
Q. My home is so dusty I'm going to get my ducts cleaned. What do you charge?
A. A Dust problem is seldom cured by cleaning the ducts. Usually the dust comes from leaky air ducts, not dirty air ducts. If there are holes in the air duct system (and they ALWAYS have holes) the attic air is siphoned into the holes and blown into your residence.
The second most common cause of a dusty house is recessed light fixtures. These lights are actually penetrations directly into the attic and will leak dusty dirty attic air into your home.
As far as price for getting air ducts cleaned, go the the EPA's website by doing a search from our search engine. Use the words "Should I have my air ducts cleaned," it will give you all the information you need to make an educated decision on getting your air ducts cleaned.
Q. I'm confused by SEER Ratings. What does that mean?
A. The simplest way to understand SEER is base it on the older systems that were rated at 10-SEER. Assume you have a 10-SEER air-conditioner and it uses $100 a month in electricity (OK, OK I know I'm dreaming, but let's keep it mathematically simple). If you change to a 13-SEER unit, you could expect your new cooling bill to drop to $70 per month. Change to a 16-SEER and your cooling bill drops to $40 per month. It never works exactly like this but this is the simplest way to understand it.
Q. I had a company install a new 14-SEER air-conditioning system and I have see no reduction in my utility bills, why?
A. Without seeing it I can't tell you exactly, but what we most often see in this instance is where the contractor didn't address the duct problems. When we get this complaint, we usually find the Static Pressure inside the ducts to be so high that the new system just can't move enough air. (Static Pressure is the duct's resistance to air flow) It is easily measured before hand, but few contractors understand it.
Q. My roof got damaged in the hail storms this spring. What kind of attic ventilation should I have them install?
A. According to research done here in Texas by Texas A&M for the City of Austin, the best type of attic ventilation is "Ridge Vent." It provides an outlet for the hot air as it rises from the soffet vents. We recommend against Powered Attic Ventilators because the same report indicates that, "Powered attic ventilators suck air from your home through holes in the structure (i.e. recessed light fixtures, attic stairs, etc) and exhaust it to the outside causing you to re-cool the replacement air," furthermore they say, "powered attic vents don't even pay for the electricity needed to run them."
|
