One of the (very few) blessings of cooler weather is that the annual frost comes, effectively shutting down vegetation that can cause a tremendous amount of allergy problems for many. However, a large number of allergy sufferers aren’t challenged just by outdoor allergens: they also struggle with indoor allergens like dust and pet dander. Sneezing your head off all winter long is not something anyone wants to deal with, so if you suffer from indoor allergies, or someone in your home does, it’s important to make sure that you continue to use an upgraded air filter in your home.
Boehmer Heating & Cooling Blog: Posts Tagged ‘Baldwin-Whitehall’
Just Because It Is Almost Winter Doesn’t Mean You Can’t Have Allergy Problems
Monday, November 2nd, 2015Do You Need to Replace Your Heating System Before This Winter?
Monday, September 28th, 2015It creeps up quickly: first the slight change in the leaves, then the need to have an extra blanket at night. Soon we’ll be opening our windows during the day but closing them at night, and then after that, they’ll stay closed for a while. If you ended last heating season grateful that you no longer needed to heat your home because your heater was ready to fall apart, it is time to get going on that replacement system.
Is Your AC Losing Energy Efficiency? Schedule a Mid-Summer Maintenance Appointment!
Monday, August 10th, 2015If there’s a month that represents summer’s heat, it’s August, and your air conditioning system is working full time to make sure your home has the cool air you need. Have you noticed that your system may not be running as well as it was in the beginning of the summer? Not in the sense that something is wrong, but that it just seems off? The experts at Boehmer Heating & Cooling have a great solution for that: mid-summer maintenance.
South Fayette Heating Contractor Guide: Basic Boiler Maintenance
Monday, January 23rd, 2012The boiler in your South Fayette home is a sensitive piece of equipment that needs routine maintenance and repairs. Regularly maintaining your boiler is especially important for safety reasons. Many boiler malfunctions and accidents are due to neglecting some of these basic tasks.
Even if you’ve just installed a new boiler, the safety valves and settings should be checked by a professional on a regular basis to prevent a breakdown or hazard. We recommend that you schedule a boiler inspection and cleaning at least once a year. Call Boehmer Heating & Cooling if you have any questions about boiler maintenance.
A service technician will measure the pressure, drain and remove sediment buildup, test the efficiency ratings, and make sure your boiler is set at the right temperatures. Regular maintenance can also help you determine whether or not you need a boiler replacement. By keeping track of performance levels, you will be able to tell when it’s time for an upgrade.
Other tasks performed during an annual maintenance visit include cleaning and lubricating all the components, checking for any leaks or clogs, and testing gas boilers for any carbon monoxide intrusion. If you have any gas appliances in your home, you should always have carbon monoxide detectors and test them once a month.
Boiler pressure is something that you can check often on your own. If you aren’t sure how to read the pressure gauge, or if you aren’t sure what the right pressure should be, just call one of our technicians to walk you through this process.
Always call Boehmer Heating & Cooling if you have any problems with the boiler in your South Fayette home. We are here to help and answer any questions you may have.
Oakmont Heating Tip: Signs of an Oversized Furnace
Wednesday, January 4th, 2012Most people in Oakmont, when they choose a new furnace, think that “bigger is better”. However, an oversized furnace can present just as many if not more problems than an undersized furnace. So, if you feel you may have overdone it in the past or you want to avoid making a mistake in the future, here are some signs that your furnace may be oversized.
Short Cycling
The most common sign of oversizing is short cycling. Short cycling occurs when your furnace turns on and off frequently because it reaches the thermostat setting so fast. Basically, your furnace is so powerful that it can produce what you need rapidly and then shuts off. But, because it does this, the temperature in your home is likely to cool much faster as well since the furnace isn’t on all the time.
Additionally, the on and off short cycling has a negative effect on your furnace, causing excess wear and tear on the system and eventually leading to extra repairs and in some cases early replacement.
High and Low Temperatures
When your furnace is turned on for a comfortable indoor temperature like 70 degrees F, the high and low temperature between cycles should be relatively close to that temperature. In an ideal situation, you shouldn’t even notice a fluctuation.
So, if the high temperature gets close to 75 degrees F and the low temperature is around 66 degrees F, you have a furnace much too large for the size of your home.
Furnace Room Issues
You might find that the space and exhaust given for the furnace are not sufficient either, especially if your previous furnace was replaced with this oversized unit. Backflow of a gas or oil smell or excess heat in and near your furnace room are both common signs that the furnace is much too large.
So, what should you do about your oversized furnace? If you have had that furnace for some time or just moved into a new home, it’s a good idea to have a new one installed. Have a proper load calculation done and then get a new furnace installed so you don’t have to worry about the system cycling on and off so often. If it’s a newer unit, call your Oakmont technician and discuss possible options to reduce the negative effects of the miscalculation of its size.
Benefits of Replacing Your Furnace in Baldwin-Whitehall
Monday, November 28th, 2011You are about to make one of the largest purchases in your life – a new furnace for your Baldwin-Whitehall home. Maybe your old furnace is on life support and needs immediate replacement or you are looking for a better, more efficient furnace that will raise the comfort level of your home while reducing utility bills and carbon emissions.
If the furnace in your basement, crawl space, or attic is 15-20 years old, it may be a single-stage 80% percent efficient model, which doesn’t meet the higher efficiency standards of today’s models. It uses more energy, i.e. gas, oil, or electricity, to operate. And a single-stage furnace does not always provide even heating to all rooms in the home, based on the varying winter weather conditions. There may be large temperature variations from room to room.
Your new furnace will likely be more efficient and environmentally friendly than the one it is replacing – which are the two biggest benefits to replacing an old furnace. So, let’s take a closer look at these benefits, which link energy efficiency to the latest technology – namely two-stage furnaces and variable speed motors.
Two-stage furnaces start out by running in a first stage, which uses less than 70% of its capacity. This stage works well on moderate winter days. On colder days, the furnace will meet your extra heating demand by adjusting to the second stage in the heating cycle. Since the furnace spends most of its time operating in its lower capacity (first or single stage), it burns less fuel than a traditional furnace that always runs at full capacity and then shuts off when heating demand is met. You will see lower utility bills and a shorter payback period on your new furnace investment.
Variable-speed motors can actually save you money on your energy bill as they consume less electricity than standard motors. Variable speed furnaces save you money by having a higher SEER rating. SEER is the abbreviation for seasonal energy efficiency ratio. The higher the SEER, the more energy efficient the unit. The low operating costs of a variable speed furnace can allow you to run your furnace blower. With the low operating costs of the variable-speed furnace you can constantly run your blower without the worry of driving up your utility bill, allowing for continuously filtered air.
And when you shop for a new furnace, look for add-on equipment such as electronic air filters, humidifers, and programmable thermostats. Each will raise the comfort level you will be enjoying from your new furnace.
Variety of Ways to Cool Your Home Naturally: A Guide From Oakdale
Friday, August 19th, 2011It is normal these days to simply switch on the air conditioning when the temperature begins to rise outside in Oakdale. But this can get expensive quickly, so it is a good idea to look into some alternative cooling methods as well. Fortunately, there are actually some great ways to help keep your home cool without touching that air conditioning at all. You will probably still want to have it around for extreme circumstances, but the less you need to use it, the more you will save in the long run.
Using fans, ceiling fans in particular, can certainly help to keep you cool on many moderate summer days. But they are far from the only options available. In fact, the design and composition of your house itself will have a lot to do with how easy it is to keep it cool all summer long.
One of the main reasons that your house gets so hot inside during the summer is that sunlight heats the air inside when it hits the walls, roof and windows. Closing your blinds will help to keep some of this out, but there will still be plenty of heat from the sun working to increase the indoor temperature.
What you really want to do to keep your house from heating up because of sunlight is to actively reflect the sun’s rays away from your home. You can do this by having light colored roofing and exterior paint or siding put on. While the dark colors typically used for this type of work absorb the vast majority of the sunlight that hits them, lighter colors will reflect it away.
This works well for the walls, but on your roof it can be a bit more difficult to stop the absorption of heat from the sun because of the nature of typical roofing materials. What you can do, however, is add a reflective coating like white latex on the roof. This will dramatically reduce the amount of heat that is able to come into your home in this way.
Also, natural shade can do a lot to keep sunlight from getting to your home to begin with. Planting trees close enough to your home that they will block out the sun but far enough away that they have room to grow will eventually help to keep your home much cooler without any extra work whatsoever.
For more tips about keeping your house cool, talk to a air conditioning contractor.
Is it Possible to Vent Hot Air from a Garage? A Question From Verona
Wednesday, August 10th, 2011If you have a garage in Verona, you know how hot it can get in there on a warm summer day. In fact, the air in your garage is likely hotter and more humid than the air right outside. Of course, you may not spend a lot of time in your garage, so reducing the temperature in there might not be an immediate concern for you.
But just like heat buildup in your attic, higher temperatures in your garage can have negative effects on the temperature in the rest of your home. Heat seeping into the house from the garage will cause your air conditioning system to work harder to keep it comfortable indoors. And that’s going to cost you money.
Getting the Heat Out
For all of these reasons, it’s a good idea to reduce the temperature in your garage as soon as possible. Of course, if you’re actively working in the garage or right outside, you can always leave the door open. This allows an influx of fresh, cooler air to clear it out.
But that’s not really a practical solution when you’re not immediately on hand. After all, you can’t leave your garage door open indefinitely and as soon as you close it, the heat will start to build right back up again.
Vents and Fans
One thing we don’t want to forget is that heat rises. That means installing a vent and fan in the roof where the hottest air will be can help remove the majority of the excess heat building up in your garage. Just like an attic fan, this fan can be triggered to come on when the temperature inside the garage reaches a certain point. Usually, the fan comes on when the indoor temperature reaches a point that is likely higher than outside – 90 degrees F or higher.
The fan then draws hot air out through your vent, reducing the temperature inside the garage to equalize the outdoor temperature. This will be effective in and of itself, but if you want even better results, you can also install another vent towards the bottom of your garage door. That way, as the hot air is pulled out of the top of the garage, fresh air will be drawn in through the vent, providing a constant stream of cooler, fresh air and promoting healthy circulation within your garage.