Monthly Archives: November 2017

Short answer: yes! Schedule your service now!

Getting your furnace serviced at least once per year is an important part of HVAC health. The reason? Think about how hard your furnace worked last year during the coldest months. Clogs, dirt, and more can affect the efficiency and even how hot your heat may be. If you skip service on your HVAC system, you may be taking years off of your HVAC system’s life — and we’re not just saying this to be dramatic. The average modern day furnace can last around 15-20 years, but it all depends on how well you treat it. Anyone would much rather get 20 years from their furnace rather than 15, so make sure to keep up on your annual maintenance!

A faulty furnace can be both costly and deadly

The thing about furnace maintenance is you don’t want to wait until it’s not working entirely to get help. Not only will you be cold, but you also may experience issues if you’re not home or don’t catch it in time such as frozen pipes. A crack or leak can also go undetected and can spew hazardous and undetectable gasses into your home. Catching these things before you’re running your furnace constantly can help save you a headache — figuratively and literally.

What does a maintenance routine involve?

Your yearly “tune up” can vary depending on the type of system you have, so what a tune-up and maintenance for your heating system includes will also vary. Don’t get pulled in by companies offering a rate that’s too good to be true. These offers usually include less service than what’s normally done on a full tune up. Remember what mom said? “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is”. Expect to pay $100 to $200 on average for a decent tune.

With Home Air Plus, Inc scheduled furnace maintenance, we inspect HVAC systems for signs of wear and tear and try to nip any problems in the bud. We clean out your burners, check your heat exchange for any cracks or damage, and change your standard air filter. We check and service the blower, oil bearings in the motor, check the limit switch, and test the system operation. On newer style systems we also check the flame sensor and clean it, and clean the condensate line. While we believe that all furnace and HVAC systems can benefit long-term from yearly maintenance, it is doubly important for older furnaces that you may think may not have as much life left to them. This is just the short version of what we do at Home Air Plus to make sure your furnace is working at peak efficiency — we do more testing to keep your home running the best it can and keep you warm during those cold months.

Ready to schedule your furnace maintenance service? Contact us today to get started.

Short Cycling… Have you heard this term before? Your air conditioner or even furnace can suffer from a short cycling issue, but it is something that can be fixed, and it won’t cost you an arm and a leg.

Symptoms

  • My AC or furnace keeps turning on and off repeatedly
  • My AC or furnace seems to be running more frequently than usual
  • I haven’t changed my temperature in my house, but my AC or furnace is still trying to turn on and off to fulfil a demand I haven’t made

Diagnosis

Your system could be short cycling. When a system short cycles, it can kick on and off repeatedly, sometimes multiple times per hour or in extreme circumstances, multiple times per minute. This happens when your system is asked to produce a certain temperature (whether hot or cold), and the requirements have not been met, but your system turns off as if it “thinks” it met the requirement.

Let’s say you set your thermostat at 70 degrees, and it’s currently 65 in your home. Your thermostat will tell your furnace to turn on and produce heat until it gets to the threshold of 70 or above. Your furnace, thermostat, or otherwise may “think” that it has met 70 degrees before it actually has, and another request may occur where the thermostat is telling the furnace, “hotter, please” which causes frequent on and off cycling of the furnace.

Is short cycling harmful?

Yes, short cycling is harmful in many ways.

  1. Your electric bills will skyrocket. Because your system is constantly coming on and turning off, it’s going to be drawing more power without executing the requirements of your heating or cooling demand. Plus, you’ll be using more electricity, oil, gas, or otherwise to keep heating and cooling as necessary.
  2. You will put more strain on your system. You’re asking your system to work one way, but it’s not working the way it should. Constant kicking on and off of the motor, thermostat, and otherwise can make components malfunction or breakdown prematurely.
  3. You won’t be comfortable. Whether you have a noisy system that you don’t want to hear run all night or day, or if your system is never getting to temperature, your comfort will suffer.

What causes short cycling?

An exact determination of what is causing short cycling in your system can be difficult for the typical DIY user. The best way to figure out why your system is short cycling is to call Home Air Plus or a certified HVAC technician. There are a few ways you can try at home to stop short cycling, however.

  1. Check your air filter. A clogged or dirty air filter can cause short cycling. A clogged or dirty air filter can strangle off airflow to your system. Reduced airflow can not only put strain on your system, but it can also cause short cycling symptoms.
  2. Check your thermostat. If you have a very old thermostat, sometimes they can be faulty. It may be time to upgrade to a digital thermostat if you’ve been considering it. If you have a digital thermostat, check your settings and make sure those are set properly. Even a properly set thermostat can be faulty, however, so a replacement may help to take that out of the equation. Even a faulty connection can cause short cycling as well.
  3. Plugged up vent. A vent can be the culprit of short cycling, including improperly installed vents and plugged up ones. Make sure all of your vents, especially your intake vent, are clean and clear.
  4. Other problems that you may want to leave to an HVAC technician: dirty flame rod, water in the tubing, overheating, malfunctioning inducer, circuit board issues, and others.

If you’re suffering from short cycling in your furnace or AC, we can help! With our 24 hour, 7 days a week, 356 days a year service, we can help get your system up to par. Contact us today!