6 Reasons You Don't Want to Skip HVAC Maintenance

An investment in the maintenance of your heating an AC units is insurance your system will make it through the demands of the season. This small investment offers big rewards, providing your family with cleaner air to breathe, protecting the environment, and helping you guard against unexpected system breakdowns and repair bills. Still not convinced preventive maintenance is a worthy investment? Let’s take a closer look…

5 Ways Preventive Maintenance Helps You Save Money

1. Lower energy bills.
   When your system is operating at peak efficiency, it uses less energy, shaving up to 30% off your monthly energy bill.
2. Prevent costly breakdowns.
   Regularly maintaining your system reduces the likelihood you’ll need to contact emergency 24/7 HVAC repair to handle an unexpected, costly breakdown. In fact, preventive maintenance can reduce the likelihood of breakdown as much as 95%.
3. Longer system life.
   Just as your automobile requires regular maintenance so you don’t get stuck roadside, your HVAC system needs routine care so it doesn’t go down during temperature extremes.  As the most expensive appliance in your home, preventive maintenance costs pale in comparison to replacement.
4. Warranty preservation.
   Most HVAC manufacturers require proof of annual maintenance to honor warrantied repair claims.
5. Home safety.
   Preventive maintenance safeguards your family against the risk of carbon monoxide, a colorless, odorless gas that can be deadly. A prime source of this is from cracked/failed furnace heat exchangers. Luckily, preventive maintenance checkups include tests for carbon monoxide hazards. And that’s not all. Everyone’s heard the horror stories about people who went away on vacation and returned to a frozen home with a downed heater and severe water damage from frozen/burst pipes. Ensuring your system is equipped to safely handle the next ‘polar vortex’ is a wise investment.

How Preventive Maintenance Improves Air Quality

Indoor air quality can be 2-5 times worse than the air quality outside according to the EPA. Pollen, dust, and dander can take a toll on allergy and asthma sufferers, and mold, chemical VOCs and smoke can create a hazardous cocktail that can affect the health of your entire family. Routine maintenance including new air filters and duct cleaning can help you ensure the air in your home is as clean as possible. You can also improve it further with the addition of a UV light air purifier to your system.

The Impact Of Your System Maintenance Decisions On The Environment

Concerned about your carbon footprint? A well-maintained system uses considerably less fuel, and that’s good for the planet. Adding a programmable thermostat to your system can help you reduce this impact further, maximizing the performance of your system while keeping you comfortable. System more than 10-years old? It may be worth considering an upgrade to keep the earth (and your wallet) greener. Newer systems such as Mitsubishi ductless air conditioners use a kind of refrigerant that’s more environmentally friendly, and they’re far more efficient.

Ensure peace of mind with a well-maintained system. Schedule your annual heating and air service with H&H Heating & Air Conditioning today.

This blog was originally posted on https://www.delcohvac.com/6-reasons-you-dont-want-to-skip-hvac-maintenance/

5 Tips for a Healthier Home

You spend the majority of your time within your home, and healthful changes here can ensure it remains a safe haven for you and your family. Though creating a healthy home is no easy feat, it is one of the best investments you can make in your future health.

How Can You Provide a Healthy Home Environment?

These 5 tips from your local home air conditioning company can help you create a healthier home.

1. Guard Against VOCs
   Chemicals from cleaning products, air fresheners, and the breakdown of carpet and building materials can release dangerous compounds into the air. These volatile organic compounds (VOCs) can cause headaches, fatigue, respiratory issues, and serious disease, including cancer. Talk to your local heating and cooling professional to ensure adequate ventilation to reduce VOCs in the air. Today’s tightly sealed homes often struggle with this issue. Whenever possible, opt for natural cleaners and building materials. Keep levels under control within your home with the right ventilation tactics.
   Upgrading to HEPA home air filters or integrating a whole house air purifier into your heating and cooling system can also help you in the fight to reduce VOCs and improve indoor air quality. Learn more.
2. Tackle Moisture Issues & Prevent Mold
   Mold poses serious health risks. Musty, moldy smells and areas of mold greater than 10-sq.ft. should be addressed by a pro immediately. To prevent these issues, enlist the help of an indoor air quality professional. They can test the air quality in your home and help you mitigate mold through proper ventilation or the simple addition of a whole house dehumidifier to your central HVAC system to control moisture.
3. Vacuum Regularly
   Dander and pollen that cause allergies are top offenders in the home environment. However, these can be easily controlled with regular vacuuming. How often? Every other day, or at least weekly. If possible, choose a vacuum outfitted with a HEPA air filter, which is capable of removing smaller particles a regular vacuum cannot trap. For optimal control, you must also maintain your vacuum, cleaning the filter and associated components (or changing bags) every couple of months. To avoid introducing mold, always let parts dry thoroughly before reassembly.
4. Check Dirt at the Door.
   These ‘old-fashioned’ cleaning tips will help improve air quality in your home.
   • Leave shoes outside.
     This will reduce the amount of chemicals, allergens, and dirt brought into the home.
   • Splurge on a ‘paw-wiper.’
     Paw wipers or dog ‘booties’ can help prevent tracking unwanted particulates in as well.
5. Reduce Your Carbon Footprint
   Upholding the air quality outside is key to ensuring the air quality within your home remains at its best. To this end, reducing your carbon footprint by upgrading to a more efficient heating and cooling system, your home’s largest energy consumer, is essential. Uncover the impressive efficiency of ductless Mitsubishi home air conditioning systems, and how their superior efficiency can reduce your carbon footprint and energy bills.

Not feeling so good? Learn how to improve indoor air quality in the home with the help of H&H Heating & Air Conditioning today.

This blog was originally posted on https://www.delcohvac.com/5-tips-for-a-healthier-home/

Reduce Allergy Symptoms with the Help of Your HVAC System

Spring and summer allergies wearing on you? Ensure a healthy, enjoyable indoor environment with the help of your heating and air conditioning system. A great ally in the fight against indoor allergens and lung-irritating pollutants, take advantage of all the benefits your system has to offer with these 5 tips…

Make the Most of Filtration

Keep your air filter clean, changing it every 1-3 months, or more often if you have kids and pets. Filthy filters force your system to work harder to distribute air and spread more allergens and contaminants throughout your home. Consider upgrading your standard filter to HEPA-rated air filters for your home air conditioner. Standard filters are constructed to keep your system clean, not the air in your home. True HEPA filters with a MERV rating of 10 or higher can remove more allergy-inducing particles from the air, including smaller particles standard filters miss.

Keep Surfaces Clean

Control dust, pollen, and pet dander with weekly vacuuming. Bathe your pet regularly as well. Keep your home spic and span to prevent the buildup of allergens and irritants like mold. Store shoes outside, showering and changing after outdoor activities to prevent the inadvertent spread of irritants collected outdoors. This can prevent the buildup of these particles within your air filter and ductwork. Regularly clean vent registers and ductwork as well. This not only boosts system performance, but prevents the spread of allergens and other pollutants throughout your home.

Seal Allergens And Pollutants Out

Seal gaps and holes around windows, doors, plumbing and outlets with caulk, spray foam, or weather stripping to keep pollen and particulates out of your home. Keep windows and doors closed when pollen counts are high.

Give Indoor Air Quality A Boost

Adding a whole house UV air purifier with an ionizer to your HVAC system can help remove additional allergens and airborne contaminants, helping you ensure the distribution of clean air throughout your home. Recommended by the American Lung Association and Environmental Protection Agency for asthma and allergy sufferers, these special systems include electrically-charged HEPA filters that trap small particles, effectively removing contaminants from the air. UV light additions destroy bacteria and mold.

Keep Humidity Levels In Check

Keep humidity levels in check with the addition of a whole house humidifier or dehumidifier to your heating and cooling system. Air should neither be too dry nor too humid. Relative humidity levels around 40% are best. Most know humid air can lead to the proliferation of mold and mildew, which can produce spores that worsen allergy and asthma symptoms. However, many do not realize dry air is also detrimental. When there is too little moisture in the air, allergens and pollutants can remain airborne longer, causing asthma and allergy flare-ups and increasing the spread of particles throughout your home.

Put down the tissue box. Eliminate allergens from your home with the help of the local air conditioning contractors at H&H Heating & Air Conditioning today.

This blog was originally posted on https://www.delcohvac.com/reduce-allergy-symptoms-with-the-help-of-your-hvac-system/

Is a Ductless System for Me? Pros & Cons

Ductless heating and cooling systems get a lot of great press when it comes to comfort and energy efficiency. Are they too good to be true? Today, the local air conditioning contractors at H&H will take a look at the reality of living with a ductless system, examining their pros and cons to help you determine if this style of system might be right for your home.

What Makes a Ductless System Different?

A ductless ‘mini split’ system gets its name from it’s resemblance to more common split heating and cooling units. Like split systems, a ductless system is made of two parts, including a large outside compressor and one (or more) ceiling/wall-mounted units within the home. Unlike their split system cousins, which rely on large ductwork to distribute, ductless systems rely on tubing dispersed through the home via a few small 3-inch holes. This tubing accommodates refrigerant lines between the exterior and interior, where one or more interior units, each with their own adjustable thermostat, deliver conditioned air. This type of ‘zoned’ setup allows for superior efficiency.

The Advertised Benefits Of A Ductless System

Mitsubishi ductless air conditioners offer a number of benefits over the typical ‘split system’ setup:

• Superior Efficiency
  Top-performing ductless systems offer near 30 SEER performance, compared to the typical 14-17 SEER range of split systems. This could save you up to 50% on monthly heating/cooling costs
• No Heat Loss
  Leaky ducts in unconditioned attics/crawlspaces can cause thermal loss of up to 25% in traditional systems. With no ducts, however, ductless systems eliminate heat loss, vastly improving comfort and efficiency and delivering substantial savings.
• Easy Installation
  With no air handler or drainage, and minimal work necessary to run refrigerant lines, heating and air companies can install ductless systems quickly.
• Space-Saving
  The smaller footprint of ductless systems makes them an ideal option for small and older, historic homes. No closet, utility, or basement space need be sacrificed for a ductless addition.
• Quiet Operation

Quiet as a whisper, ductless systems are only as noisy as common kitchen refrigerators.

Facing Reality: Ductless System Cons

Despite the stellar benefits of ductless systems, they aren’t for everybody. These realities of ductless systems can send homeowners searching for other options:

• Bulky Components
  The interior units for ductless systems, of which there may be up to 7 based on  home setup/size, look like large printers strapped to the ceiling or wall.
• Higher Initial Investment
  These systems have a higher up-front cost (though this is easily recoverable via energy savings over the life of the system).
• More Involved Maintenance
  In addition to the typical annual maintenance, the air filters of ductless systems require more frequent attention. Monthly air filter maintenance is advisable, but more frequent attention will be necessary in homes with children/pets. Fans must also be cleaned regularly and will not work properly with accumulated debris. This requires professional attention to prevent shortening the lifespan of the system.
• Limited Heating Performance
  Though certain ductless models provide some heating, performance is limited to certain climate zones.

Which home comfort solution is best for your home? Get help from the HVAC installation service pros at H&H Heating & Air Conditioning today.

This blog was originally posted on https://www.delcohvac.com/is-a-ductless-system-for-me-pros-cons/