Install a New and Efficient HVAC System

Upgrading to a high efficiency HVAC unit is an effective way to save money on home heating and cooling. If you find it can be time for you to upgrade your old furnace or air conditioning system, contact Healthy Duct Cleaning specialists to discuss your options. The installation of a high–efficiency HVAC unit could possibly be an even more cost-effective alternative to spending money on HVAC system repair service several times throughout the year; nevertheless, it’s a good idea to seek advice from a professional HVAC specialist who could help you come to the decision. Feel free to contact us at any moment if you currently have questions regarding furnace or AC unit installation.

Replacing Your Furnace

Even though older furnace and boiler systems had efficiencies within the range of 56% to 70%, modern conventional heating systems may achieve efficiencies up to a whopping 98.5%, turning almost all the fuel to effective heat for your residence. Energy efficiency upgrades and a modern high-efficiency heating system will often be able to reduce your energy bills and your furnace’s pollution output in half. Upgrading your furnace or boiler from 56% to 90% efficiency in an average cold-climate house will save 1.5 tons of carbon dioxide emissions every 12 months if you heat with gas, or 2.5 tons if you heat with oil.

When your furnace or boiler is and long used, worn out, inefficient, or considerably oversized, the least complicated answer to the problem would be to replace it with a modern high-efficiency model. Old used coal burners that were switched over to oil or gas are number one candidates for replacement, along with gas furnaces with pilot lights rather than electronic ignitions. More recent systems may be more efficient but are still likely to be oversized, and can often be modified to lower their operating capacity.

Before purchasing a brand new furnace or boiler or replacing your existing unit, first of all make every effort to improve the energy efficiency of your house, then have a HVAC contractor size your furnace. Energy-efficiency improvements help you to save money on a new furnace or boiler, considering that you can buy a smaller unit. A correctly sized furnace or boiler will work with most efficiently, and you’ll want to choose a dependable unit and compare the warranties of each furnace or boiler you’re taking into consideration.

When looking for high-efficiency furnaces and boilers, search for the ENERGY STAR® label. For those who live in a chilly climate, it typically makes good sense to spend money on the highest-efficiency system. In milder weathers with lower total annual heating costs, the extra investment recommended to go from 80% to 90% to 95% efficiency may be too difficult to justify.

Specify a sealed combustion furnace or boiler, which is able to bring outside air directly into the burner and exhaust flue gases (combustion products) directly to the outside, without the need for a draft hood or damper. Furnaces and boilers which are not sealed-combustion units draw heated air into the unit for combustion and then deliver that air up the chimney, wasting the energy which had been used to heat the air. Sealed-combustion units avoid that problem and also pose no risk of bringing dangerous combustion gases into your residence. In furnaces that are not sealed-combustion units, backdrafting of combustion gases might be a big issue.

High-efficiency sealed-combustion units typically generate an acidic exhaust gas which is not suitable for old, unlined chimneys, which means that the exhaust gas should either be vented through a whole new duct or the chimney needs to be lined to accommodate the acidic gas.

Two-thirds of all homes in the United States have air conditioners. Air conditioners use about 5% of all the electricity produced in the United States, at an annual cost of more than $11 billion to homeowners. As a result, roughly 100 million tons of carbon dioxide are released into the air each year — an average of about two tons for each home with an air conditioner.

Air conditioners employ the same operating principles and basic components as your home refrigerator. Refrigerators use energy (usually electricity) to transfer heat from the cool interior of the refrigerator to the relatively warm surroundings of your home; likewise, an air conditioner uses energy to transfer heat from the interior of your home to the relatively warm outside environment.

An air conditioner cools your home with a cold indoor coil called the evaporator. The condenser, a hot outdoor coil, releases the collected heat outside. The evaporator and condenser coils are serpentine tubing surrounded by aluminum fins. This tubing is usually made of copper.

A pump, called the compressor, moves a heat transfer fluid (or refrigerant) between the evaporator and the condenser. The pump forces the refrigerant through the circuit of tubing and fins in the coils.

The liquid refrigerant evaporates in the indoor evaporator coil, pulling heat out of indoor air and cooling your home. The hot refrigerant gas is pumped outdoors into the condenser where it reverts back to a liquid, giving up its heat to the outside air flowing over the condenser’s metal tubing and fins.

Throughout the second half of the 20th century, nearly all air conditioners used chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) as their refrigerant, but because these chemicals are damaging to Earth’s ozone layer, CFC production stopped in the United States in 1995. Nearly all air conditioning systems now employ halogenated chlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) as a refrigerant, but these are also being gradually phased out, with most production and importing stopped by 2020 and all production and importing stopped by 2030.

Production and importing of today’s main refrigerant for home air conditioners, HCFC-22 (also called R-22), began to be phased out in 2010 and will stop entirely by 2020. However, HCFC-22 is expected to be available for many years as it is recovered from old systems that are taken out of service. As these refrigerants are phased out, ozone-safe hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) are expected to dominate the market, as well as alternative refrigerants such as ammonia.