Also, we are going to limit our discussion to only units that use the new R-410A refrigerant. We have discussed R-22 and dry charge units on this blog already so please reference those articles. R-410A is the current and standard refrigerant (Freon) for new systems.

Air conditioning units are a bit simpler to talk about than furnaces. The most complicated topic on the furnaces was the blower motor, and now that we have chosen a furnace, that discussion is out of the way. That leaves just two topics to talk about with air conditioning. The first is efficiency, which is strictly a topic about what it will cost to run the unit. The second is staging. Just like the furnace, our new air conditioning unit can work in stages to more appropriately match the needs of the house to the unit.

Finally, we will talk about dehumidification as well. While it’s not necessarily a decision point, it is an important topic to discuss, especially in our humid southern climate. Sometimes the humidity control is as important, if not more important, than the temperature control. So, we will finish our air conditioning series with this topic.

We will start with efficiency later this week.

So far we have looked at efficiency which relates to how much you will pay each month for your furnace to run, as well as the 3 different types of blower motors. We learned when discussing the blower motors that an upgraded motor will first of all save you money every time air moves through your system, but we also learned that a variable speed motor will allow your furnace to do things that several years ago we never imagined.

The variable speed blower allows us to dehumidify your house in the summer time as well as gives us staging in the heat (and the AC if we choose it). So today, let’s talk a few minutes about heat staging.

The simple way to think about heat staging is to view your new furnaces as 2 furnaces in one. For the mild winter days, which are most days in our Atlanta climate, a small furnace will run and keep your house nice and comfortable. But occasionally, we have days in the low 30s, 20s and sometimes even down in the teens. For those days, the small furnace won’t be quite enough, so the big furnace kicks in and takes care of the heating needs in your home.

Remember that our furnaces are built for all of the US. In the northern part of the country, they need more heat than we do. The manufacturers match particular sized blower motors (for air conditioning) with certain heat sizes. So, to get a 3 ton blower for example for the air conditioning, we usually end up with a 70,000 btu furnace which is about twice the size that we will typically need in Atlanta.

So what happens if we just have a single stage furnace is that our heat comes on, runs for just a short time, satisfies the thermostat and then shuts back down. When this occurs, we have a couple of issues. First of all, a furnace isn’t operating at its rated efficiency until is is all warmed up and running – similar to a car running on the highway as opposed to start and stop in town; you get much better gas mileage on the highway. This is no different for a furnace. If the furnace starts and stops often, you are paying to heat the inside of the furnace each time again which is a huge waste of gas.

The other thing that occurs when a furnace only runs for a short time is that the air does not get a chance to mix evenly so you end up with hot and cold spots in your rooms.

With a 2 stage furnace, this is eliminated because the furnace turns on at a lower btu. It heats the inside of the furnace up to an efficiency place and then runs longer. Longer run time at lower btu leads to two benefits. The first is increased efficiency (lower operating cost) because it running at the “highway” mileage. The second is increased comfort in your home. The air gets a chance to circulate and mix more completely which results in eliminating, or reducing, the hot and cold spots. This lower btu and increased circulation also will not tend to dry out the air quite as much so again, the result is a more comfortable space.

And finally, this 2 stage furnace allows you to pair it with a 2 stage air conditioner which we will talk about in the next couple of weeks.

As always, please call us to discuss any of your heating and cooling needs or questions. We are always ready to help you make a decision on your next heating and cooling system purchase.

The blower motor in the furnace runs every time the system is on; whether in heating, cooling or simply running the fan to circulate air through your house. So the efficiency of the motor is very important. Running the motor all the time in your unit can add up to a lot of money over a month or year. The blower motor also allows the system to operate differently for varying conditions in your house – more on that soon.

Let’s start with the efficiency of the motor. Again, efficiency is simply related to what it will cost to run the furnace fan. Traditionally motors have been either on or off and are called PSC motors (PSC is an acronym for permanent split capacitors – you don’t need to remember that). These PSC motors are still found in furnaces today. The main problem with these motors is that they can be expensive to run. They can require 500 – 800 watts of power (5 to 8 – 100 watt light bulbs).

Several years ago, motor manufacturers came out with a new style of on-off motors called ECM motors (ECM stands for electronically commutated motor – you won’t need to remember that either). These motors have a built in controller that changes the voltage to DC and allows the motor to run very efficiently. These motors can use 1/2 or less of the energy of the PSC motor. Note that sometimes these motors are called X-motors or Boost motors (because they boost the efficiency of your system).

Note on the graph the difference in wattage of the PSC vs the boost motor. While the furnaces with the ECM motors are a bit more expensive, the payback with energy efficiency can be 1-3 years. Closer to 1 year if you use your fan all the time for circulation. They also boost the air conditioning efficiency, so a 14 SEER unit will operate close to 16 SEER when paired with this type of furnace.

Let’s take the ECM motor one step further and match it with an additional control and now we have a variable speed motor. This is our 3rd type of furnace motor available in the market today. These motors have the high efficiency of the ECM motor, but instead of being on or off, they can literally vary the speed that they run. This allows us to use 2 stages in our furnaces and our AC systems (more on that in future articles). When a furnace or AC unit is operating in low stage, which is most of the time, the motor is running even more efficiently.

Lennox iComfort

So there we have it, 3 types of motors – PSC which are on-off motors using the most electricity, ECM motors which are still on-off but use significantly less energy. And finally, the variable speed motor that are the most efficient and give us the benefit of dehumidification in the summer as well as equipment staging.

Next time, we will finish our furnace conversation and talk about staging.

Efficiency for furnaces is rated in AFUE. This is the Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency. It is stated in terms of a percentage. Here is a simple way to look at it. If a furnace is 80% efficient, for every dollar of gas you buy, you get $0.80 of heat into the house and $0.20 goes up the flue. So, the higher the AFUE or efficiency, the lower your gas costs will be.

Many of the older furnaces that I see are in the 60% efficiency range. The minimum efficiency by law in 2012 is 78%. Most manufacturers’ standard units are rated at 80% efficiency. So, even a standard unit made today is a big increase in efficiency over older units.

The next step up in efficiency is to go to a 90% furnace. Manufacturers efficiency vary by model between 92% all the way up to 98% with Lennox’s top of the line furnace. So with this furnace, $1.00 of gas will buy $0.98 of heat. As a side note, if you are interested in Energy Star efficiency (which is set by the US Department of Energy), they require 95% efficiency for gas furnaces to meet their criteria.

The benefit of a higher efficiency furnace is strictly what it will cost you to heat your home. There is basically no difference in the way a furnace will heat if it is 80% of 98%. It won’t feel any different in the house and you won’t even know what you have installed from an operation standpoint – it is strictly a matter of how much you will be spending on your gas bill.

So for a homeowner, it comes down to a basic decision on this issue – do I want to spend more up front (95% furnaces are more expensive than 80% furnaces) in order to save each month. It’s completely your call on this one. All of the other features and benefits available in furnaces are available in each efficiency level.

Next time, we will look at the blower motor in the furnace. In the mean time, as always, please call or email us with any questions as you work through the decision process on which type of furnace you want.

This Spring, I want to focus on some of the details within these categories. Most of what I will talk about over the next few weeks will be decisions that will be totally made by the homeowner. They won’t deal with sizing or installation practices, which are items that are my responsibility. They will focus more on efficiency and comfort benefits.

To begin, I want to toss out a thought that most people in the south don’t consider. Your furnace is the most important consideration when purchasing a new system. This seems counter intuitive because in Atlanta it doesn’t get all that cold. Heat and humidity are much bigger issues. And of course, that is very true.

But the furnace is really the heart of the system. Not only does it heat your home, it provides the fan to push air into your home for both the heating and the cooling. Your furnace is also the direct connection to your thermostat, so it is taking the information from your home and making the decision of what your system needs accomplish and how to best do the required work.

So for the next 3 blogs, let’s focus on the furnace. We will talk about 3 different decisions that will need to be made about furnace. The 3 furnaces features to consider are:
1. Efficiency
2. Type of motor
3. Staging

After we work through these items, we will move on to the air conditioning unit and look at the considerations when selecting a cooling unit. But, the key thing to remember at this point is that the furnace is the heart of the system and will enable or limit the type of air conditioning unit you can use and be a key component to overall system efficiency and comfort of your home.

This is also the time of the year when we get outside and start thinking about getting our homes ready for the hot weather that will soon be here. We also review all the things that need to be upgraded, fixed and painted.

While you are working through your project lists, don’t forget to put a few things on the list that can save your money every month on your utility bills.

I received this chart in a newsletter from Walton EMC and thought it was very interesting. Hopefully, this chart will give you some good ideas for your lists.

If heating and cooling are on the list, all of our major manufacturers have published their Spring Rebates. There are plenty of ways to save up front and every month. Call us and will will be more than happy to come to your home and help you evaluate ways you could save on your heating and cooling costs – which account for over 40% of you energy dollars.

Enjoy your Spring, it is one of the best times of the year to live in Atlanta.

You may ask, what are these? or why do I care? Truthfully, you may not need to know or care, but with the predictions in the air conditioning market this year, many will need to understand them.

As we saw in the first three blogs on this topic, R-22 Freon is being phased out and is due to be eliminated (except for recycling) by 2020. This is regulated by international and US law and is governed in the US by the EPA.

However, two years ago, one of the manufacturers of residential air conditioning equipment found a loophole in the law. The intent of the law was that no more R-22 units would be made after a certain date. However, the loophole allowed for R-22 unit to be made, they just could not ship them with any R-22 in the units (units typically come fully charged with Freon from the factory). Hence the name “dry” charge. The units are pressured and shipped with dry nitrogen instead of Freon.

These units can be installed on existing older coils and don’t require new lines or cleaning of existing lines. Therefore, the units are less expensive than a new R-410A unit (the new Freon for air conditioning units). My thought on these units is that they would be a “fad” and would never take hold in the market. Why should they? If someone buys one of these units, they are buying something that is already obsolete.

However, others apparently don’t hold the same opinion of these units that I do. One manufacturer is rumored to have geared up 1/2 of their 2012 air conditioning production to produce these dry charge units. Some have predicted that this type of unit could account for up to 30% of the entire residential air conditioning market this year.

So, this year, we are going to be forced to deal with these in the marketplace. And, with all of the tax credits off of the table, there is less incentive for homeowners to upgrade to higher efficiency units which all use the new Freon. Dry Charge units are only available in base efficiency models.

My concern with these units is twofold. One is, as I stated above, these units are using a refrigerant that is already obsolete. An air conditioning unit has a typical life expectancy of 15 years. In just 8 of those years, R-22 will not be made any longer. Yes, there will be some recycled refrigerant available after that time, but we don’t know how much and at what cost.

The second issue is the cost of R-22 Freon itself. As we saw earlier this year, this is a wild and extremely unpredictable market. Since the units are dry charge, all of the Freon has to be added to it which could add several hundreds of dollars to the cost of the job. The other consideration is a future repair. If your unit requires a repair in the future that necessitates new R22 Freon, who knows what that repair will cost. It’s just too volatile a market to be able to predict. Of course, the possibility also exists that the EPA may cut production targets or, like they did in January, totally shut down the production of R-22 for a time. Your unit may need a repair and there won’t even be any Freon available for it. All of this is speculation and we will not know until we get to that point.

All of this to say, ACS Heating and Air Conditioning recommends that ALL new units installed should use the new refrigerant (R-410A). As always though, the decision is up to you. BUT, please be sure to understand the potential implications of installing a Dry Charge Unit. Purchasing one of these units will certainly be a gamble.

Please feel free to call or email us at any time to discuss this. We are more than happy to help you through the decision process if you are considering a new cooling system this year.

I thought that after the EPA allowed production to begin back again in January, the markets would settle out and the price would come back down to a relatively reasonable level. However, as of the end of last week, the pricing is still almost as high as it was in January and some vendors are still rationing the product.

As a consumer, you really don’t need to be concerned with this issue unless you have a leaky system or have a repair that requires refilling your system with Freon. Refrigerant is not consumed in a properly working system. If you have to add refrigerant at any point in the life of your system, there is a problem. As systems grow older, leaks often occur. The leaks are typically very small and inside your coils, so they can rarely be repaired. And, in time, leaks grow worse.

In the beginning, you may just need to add a pound or two per year. If that’s the case, you may elect to just keep doing that and start saving for a new system. But eventually, the leak will get so large that the refrigerant charge will leak out as quickly as it is put in. At this point, you won’t have a choice other than to replace the unit. Also, keep in mind, with any size leak, your system is not going to operate efficiently or at full capacity.

My suggestion is that if you have a leak of any size, and you can work out a replacement in your budget, replace your unit as soon as you can. You will end up spending a good bit of money over time keeping a leaky system limping along that is already on its last leg.

The second scenario for having to use Freon is when you have a significant repair, such as a compressor or expansion valve replacement. In this case, once the repair is completed, you should not have to continue to add refrigerant (as long as there isn’t a leak in the unit). So, it will likely be a one time expense. However, before you give the go ahead for a costly repair, consider replacement. You may end up spending a fair portion of the replacement cost on a repair and still have an old unit. This will often be strictly a financially based decision that you alone will make. As a contractor, it is our job to offer advice and options, but the decision is yours.

As always, please call us to discuss your options. We can look at the service history of your unit and give you your options. We are always happy to help you work through this decision process.

This was going to be the 3rd of 3 articles on what’s going on with R-22. However, during the time that I have been writing this series, I have learned alot more about this unstable and crazy market. Particularly the fact that several manufacturers are going to try to flood the market with dry charge R-22 units. That being said, I want to address this product in a separate 4th article.

The EPA has to legislate these allocations. They have tried to reduce these allocations to not only comply with the law, but also to anticipate the market and demand. That being said, as of the 1st of January 2012, the EPA had not released their allocations for this year. So as of January 1st, the manufacturers of R-22 did not have the authority to produce or import and R-22 – production totally stopped.

If you remember from your high school economics courses, when supply goes down or stops and demand remains relatively constant, the price goes through the roof. As contractors, we saw an increase of almost 3x between December 2011 and January 2012. We also saw rationing – one of our suppliers will only sell 5 drums of R-22 per contractor per week.

On January 20th, the EPA set a letter to producers and importers of R-22 allowing them to resume the production and importing of R-22. But, they have not set final allocation numbers for this year. so, the market is still unsettled.

Over the last month, pricing has settled down a bit, but it is still 2-2 1/2 times the price in December. No one knows exactly where this will go moving forward and how much R-22 will be available for use this year.

The reason that we wanted to post this and give you the details is because a large majority of residential and commercial cooling systems still use R-22. And, while R-22 is not a consumable in the system, as your systems become older, they can begin to leak slowly which will require R-22 to be added.

Hopefully, this information will help you be able to make a good decision about whether to repair or replace a leaking system. Obviously, as R-22 wholesale pricing is up 2-3x, retail will be the same. We saw retail pricing of R-22 in the $80-$90 per pound range. And since a residential air conditioning unit may contain 5 pounds or more, it can get quite expensive to repair an R-22 system.

Next time, I will focus on more of the practical issues facing consumers and contractors this year. I will also discuss “dry-charge” R-22 units that have become available on the market – should you buy one or not?

As always, please feel free to call us at any time to discuss this or any other issues relating to your heating and cooling systems.

The one that we want to pay particular attention to is refrigerant 22 or R-22. This is the refrigerant that home air conditioners have used since they began to be mass producted in the mid-1900s.

In the 1980s, there was reseach that concluded that a hole was developing in the ozone layer of the Earth. Left unattended, the hole could potentially grow worse and in time allow harmful radiation to enter the atmosphere causing changes in weather patters, etc. Some of this was eventually labeled “Global Warming”.

No matter where your politics or theories lie, in 1989, a multinational treaty called the Montreal Protocol was put into law. Part of the treaty discussed the phase out of certain chemicals that could potentially damage the ozone layer. Refrigerants as a family were top on the list. The treaty set a schedule for the elimination of refrigerants. R-22 is on the list, but not at the top. R-12, which was used in cars and appliances was top on the list and has been completely eliminated for some time now.

This set the air conditioning manufacturers on a journey to find a replacement. After a number of years, R-410a was established as a suitable replacement for R-22. While R-410a is still a refrigerant, it is inert with respect to the ozone. Along with this refrigerant change, our industry as a whole has changed how we handle refrigerant. To explain that is a bit more than the scope of this blog.

The bottom line though is that by 2020, all R-22 production will stop and only recycled material will be available after that. From 2004 until 2020, the EPA regulates the production capacity of R-22. It is set to decline each year. Please note the graph on this page. For a detailed article directly from the EPA, please click here.

Next time we will look at the shake-up that occured early this year and what it may mean for 2012.

The system has now been in for over a week. Dana let us know at the end of last week that the system is working very well.

“How wonderful! I am so glad you were able to document the process and get pictures. What an incredible difference the renovation has made. We can’t say thank you enough!! Everyone has been so amazing!”
-Dana Duggan

I can’t wait to see the hard numbers over the next year. As the data is published, we will post the results on our website.

Thanks to Jorge, Brandt and Mike for 2 days of very hard work!

Duct leakage is one of the most under-emphasized components when looking at the energy usage in a house. This is especially the case when your house is heating and cooling relatively well. But the truth is that you could be sending stacks of dollar bills to your utility provider every month that you don’t need to.

When I arrived at the jobsite, I found our installation crew working on the new ductwork and Mike was busy cleaning Dana’s air conditioning coil. Now, coil cleanliness is not part of duct leakage, but it is also an area that increases your monthly bills and puts a strain on your AC unit, causing potential service issues and possibly premature failure. Dana’s coil was full of dirt and pet hair. We decided that this coil was far beyond our ability to clean and Lennox came to the rescue and provided a new coil for her.

This could have been prevented with routine maintenance. A coil should be checked and cleaned if necessary at least once a year. A good filter that is changed regularly will prevent this from happening. If you have a high efficiency media filter like an Aprilaire or a Honeywell medial filter, your coil will stay “like new” clean for many years. Please don’t neglect this very important home maintenance.

As I walked into the house and began to see the existing system, I noticed that the old furnace didn’t have a return air plenum. It had been set on the floor and 2 holes cut into the floor for return. No sealing and a completely improper way to install a duct system. Dana’s new system will have a return plenum and be mastic sealed at all joints.

Next, a quick look at her supply ductwork revealed the same issues. The ductwork was never properly sealed, not properly insulated and was falling apart. This was costing her hundreds of dollars each year. Her new duct system will be sealed at every joint and insulated properly from one end to the other.

If you think that you may have a leaky duct system, it’s fairly easy to find out. A visual test can reveal many problems, like we found for our Decatur homeowner. We can also do a duct blaster test where we can tell exactly how much air is leaking in your system. More on this at another time. As always, please don’t hesitate to call to discuss your particular system.

Next time, I will show you the finished product!

UPDATE:

This is an update to a previous post. The Federal Tax Credit program has ended effective December 31st. There are a few exceptions to this, but for the most part, it is over.

However, there are a number of other rebates and credits that you may be eligible for. We will keep you updated throughout the year as these become available.

If you have specific questions, please call us to discuss them.

#1 Closing the vent saves energy

This is a very common practice that I run across all the time. We don’t use that spare bedroom or back den, so let’s close the vent to that room. This actually can cause the system to work harder. Closing vents will disrupt the airflow in the system and potentially make the fan work harder and wear out sooner.

You can add a zoning system to your unit if you want to control different part of your house separately. These systems won’t harm your unit.

#2 Setting the thermostat higher heats my home faster

Your furnace (or air conditioning unit in the summer time) only has a fixed capacity. When it needs to heat up, it can only provide this fixed heating capacity. If you turn it up too high, you risk over heating which will cost you extra money. Set the unit on the temperature you want; relax and let it do it’s thing.

Some of our new furnace are multi stage or modulating (variable). These furnaces vary their capacity based on the work you ask them to do. These furnaces not only increase efficiency, but comfort as well.

#3 Using an electric space heater saves money

Electric resistance heat, which is what space heater use, is the most expensive way to heat a house. Running two or three electric heaters may end up costing you the equivalent of heating an entire house with a natural gas furnace.

These are just a few of the myths that are related directly to heating and cooling. Please click here for the full article which also includes links to other tips.
As always, if you have any questions on energy efficiency or heating, please give us a call.

1. Open your curtains

Open your curtains on south facing windows to take advantage of the sun’s light and heat.

2. Cover drafty windows

Cover any draft windows with clear plastic or tight-fitting shades or drapes.

3. Set the heat back.

If you are gone during the day, set your thermostat back 10 degrees or so. A programmable thermostat will do this for you automatically and pay for itself in no time.

4. Seal leaks.

Seal any leaks in the house that felt drafty last winter. Often times, inexpensive caulk or weatherstripping will do the trick.

5. Have your heating system serviced.

Get your furnace or heat pump checkout – this keeps it operating efficiently.

6. Seal leaky fireplaces.

Keep your fireplace damper closed when not in use. One of the leakiest places in your house is your fireplace.

Find more and get the full article at energysavers.gov.

Next time, I will give you some energy saving myths – they may surprise you.

Early fall is the time of year here at ACS where the hot weather is gone and there is a shift in focus…..for me, the focus becomes the anticipation of being a part of the Susan G Komen 3Day Breast Cancer Walk for the Cure.

Approximately 3,000 women and men walk 60 miles through Atlanta after having raised over 6.5 million dollars for research. Nearly every walker has been personally touched by this disease. Many have been diagnosed and survived the disease or often they have lost loved ones to it. My role in this event is working on Pit Stop 3, supplying food, water and medical attention to these walkers.

Debbie (middle back) and Her Crew

In October I spend 3 days with such incredible people and one common goal – to find a cure. As the great basketball coach John Wooden said “You cannot live a perfect day without being able to do something for someone who will never be able to repay you”. In my case, every October I get to do this for 3 days.

This statistic shocked me. There are so many rebates and incentives for making energy saving improvements to your home. Don’t be a statistic. If you have questions about energy saving rebates and credits, please give us a call. It doesn’t have to just be about heating and air conditioning.

For a comprehensive review of all the rebates and credits available to you, click over to the DsireUSA.org website or find it here on a previous blog.

For the full LA Times article, click here.

Fall is here and many of you are turning on your heating systems for the first time (or soon will be). Here’s how to save money on your utility bills:

1. Don’t let heat escape unnecessarily.

Keep your doors and windows shut when the heat is on. If your home has a fireplace that you aren’t using, be sure the flue is closed and glass doors are in place to minimize heat loss.

2. Cooking and showering create heat.

You generate heat when you cook a meal or take a shower. Keep the bathroom door open when showering and don’t turn on the fan. The warmth will stay in the rooms rather than be sucked out of the room by the ventilator fan. Open the oven door after cooking. The heat will make its way into the rooms.

3. Install carbon monoxide detectors.

Carbon monoxide can be produced from places you might not think of – your fireplace and your running car in your garage as well as your heating system. Call us, and we can recommend a carbon monoxide detector for your home.

4. Have your heating system maintained by a professional company like ACS Heating and Air Conditioning.

Manufacturers recommend that you get your system checked and maintained once per year to save money on your gas and electric bills. Better yet, join our exclusive planned maintenance program for hassle-free maintenance and great benefits. Call us to schedule your maintenance check.

Our September Energy Savings Tips are complements of Ruth King. Ruth is a nationally know and respected consultant to the HVAC industry. Ruth can be found at HVACChannel.tv.

The hottest summer in over 70 years is finally behind us.  This is a great time of the year when the days are warm and the evenings are cool.  Windows are opening and fresh air is flowing through our house for the first time in months.  I really love this time of the year.

Within the next few weeks the leaves will be changing and we will be digging our sweatshirts and jackets out of the closet.

This is also the one of the times of the year when we start thinking about getting ready for the colder weather ahead.  If your furnace is old, now is a great time to replace it.  The manufacturers are offering Fall rebates and there are many incentives to make it a good time to buy.  See our Fall Installation Specials.  If it doesn’t need to be replaced, give us a call to have it serviced and checked-out.

But its not just time to get your furnace ready for the winter.  It may be a good time to look at your whole house.  Seal those cracks and leaks that allow the blustery winter winds to roll through your house.  Duct sealing can also help keep the heat in the house instead of the attic or crawlspace. 

Here is a great article in the AJC – Ready your nest for Fall.  It’s a good and quick read. 

Enjoy this great time of the year!

But how do we know what credits are available?  Even being in the business of energy efficiency, it would be almost a full time job to keep up with all of this.  Now there is a website that does all of this hard work for us.  When you are planning to do any type of energy efficiency project, start with the box below or spend a few minutes at Dsireusa.org.  This site is sponsored by the US Department of Energy.

If you are looking for a local group to support and/or work with, please consider Ground Zero Grace. For more information about them, find them at groundzerograce.com

We were able to help out with some air conditioning needs last month. Read their recent newsletter here.

Now we are moving into the areas that are totally the responsibility of the homeowner. I don’t mean it is the homeowner’s responsibly to know all the details and make ail the decisions, but ultimately the homeowner will make this choice based on their needs and budget (which we will talk about in out next blog).

My job as a contractor is to thoroughly and completely lay out all of the options for efficiency so that a homeowner can make the best and most informed decision.

When we begin to talk about efficiency, we need to define a couple of terms first. Both air conditioners and furnaces are rated with standard efficiency terms. Air conditioner are rated in terms of SEER for residential units and furnaces in terms of AFUE.

SEER stands for seasonal energy efficiency rating. I like to think of it in terms of miles per gallon for an air conditioning unit. The higher the number, the further it will go on a dollar of electricity. A 13 SEER unit and 20 SEER unit will cool a house equally, the only difference is what it will cost to do it. 13 SEER is the minimum required by the Department of Energy.

For furnaces, AFUE stands for annual fuel utilization efficiency. This term is used for appliances that burn gas. I like to think of it this way. If I buy a dollar of gas, I will get a certain amount of heat in my house and the rest goes up the chimney. An 80% furnace gives me $.80 in the house and $.20 up the chimney. Again, just like on the air conditioner side, a 75,000 btu furnace will heat your house the same whether it is 80% or 95%. 80% is a standard furnace, required by DOE. An upgrade will fall in the 92% and even now up to 98% with a few units.

When we had the large Federal Tax Credits the last couple of years, the thresholds to qualify were 16 SEER air conditioners and 95% AFUE furnaces. These are a nice level of efficiency that seem to balance the extra up front cost with the monthly savings over the life of the system.
As we move into the higher efficiency levels, we also start getting into some other features like 2 stage, variable speed motors, solar capable and many other options. But for now, our focus is strictly on efficiency.

Energy cost are not going down, so talk to your contractor and make sure they offer you several levels of efficiency. At ACS, we typically offer 4 levels. Consider how long you plan to stay in your home and go to the highest efficiency that works within your budget. You won’t regret it when the utility bills arrive.

As always, call or email us anytime with questions about any of your heating and cooling needs.

Joe

Courtesy of Ruud

As I said in the intro to this series, buying a new air conditioner is not as simple as it used to be.  There are a variety of factors that come into play.  The first that I will discuss here is sizing.  Sizing is how much cooling or heating ability a system has.  For air conditioning, we measure it in tons.  Sizing should be a non-negotiable decision point.

Courtesy of Lennox

Buying a new heating and air conditioning system is not a simple thing to do any more. Years ago, it w a simple as “give me a heater that will keep me warm and an air conditioner that will cool me off in the summer”. Today, we are overwhelmed with options, features and all the bells and whistles that you can imagine.
For most folks, this is a decision that we will make just a few times in our lives. We don’t do it often enough to become good at it, and the technology is moving so quickly that if we haven’t bought a new unit in the last three or four years, we likely don’t know what is available in today’s marketplace.
It is important in today’s increasingly complex market to find a reputable and, even more important, a trustworthy contractor to help guide you through this decision process. Your contractor doesn’t need to be someone that is only interested in making the sale, but is primarily interested in informing you and educating you so that YOU can make the best decision.
Over the next few day, I will go over 4 of the factors in helping you make an informed decision. These factors are:
1 Sizing of the system
2 Installation of the system
3 Efficiency of the system
4 Budget or cost of the system
As always, please let me know if you have any specific questions that I can address publicly or privately.
Joe

For the last 2 years, the Federal Government has allowed homeowners a tax credit of up to $1500.  This applied to a variety of energy improvements including insulation, windows and doors, and of course, heating and cooling equipment.  For heating and cooling equipment, this $1500 allowed homeowners to upgrade to a much more efficient system for a net cost of almost nothing.

The yes part of the answer is that this $1500 credit is indeed gone.  It expired on December 31st and was not renewed in the most recent tax package that was signed into law.

Now for the no part of the answer.  If you didn’t get to use the $1500, there is still an opportunity to take advantage of a tax credit.  Since 2006, we have had an energy saving tax credit in place.  Most people don’t know about it and the home improvement industry hasn’t promoted it.  However, this credit was extended through the end of 2011.

The maximum amount that a homeowner can receive with this credit is $500.  If you haven’t used this $500 credit or the expired $1500 credit, you are eligible.  It will apply to many, if not all, of the energy saving improvements as before.

For heating and cooling systems, it breaks down as follows:

For a 95% efficient furnace – $150

For a 16 SEER AC system or 15 SEER heat pump system – $300

Any furnace or air handling unit with an advanced circulating fan – $50

So don’t miss out.  If you have needed to add insulation, replace windows or doors, or upgrade your heating and cooling system, now is a great time to do it!