Touchstone Heating & Air Inc. Blog: Archive for the ‘Air Conditioning’ Category

Do You Have an Old R-22 Air Conditioner? Let’s Find Out!

Monday, May 17th, 2021

refrigerant-from-ACIf you read the title of this post and thought, “A what air conditioner?”, don’t feel like you’re missing vital information that you’re supposed to know. Most homeowners aren’t aware of the specifics of the manufacture of their air conditioning systems, such as what type of refrigerant they use. 

However, if you don’t know about R-22 air conditioning systems, we’re glad to provide you with this info. It’s likely that you don’t have an R-22 unit, but if you do, you’ll want to have it replaced as soon as possible.

So, on to the details of what we’re actually talking about… 

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Does My AC Have a Cooling Limit?

Monday, May 3rd, 2021

sun-and-snowflake-badgeYour house is getting warm on a hot day, so you set the thermostat to switch on the air conditioning system. Soon, your house begins to feel comfortably cool, and the AC runs for as long as necessary. 

At least, this is home cooling is supposed to work. If your air conditioning in Lake City, FL was professionally installed so it has the right cooling output to provide comfort to your house, then you can expect to have few problems staying cool during the summer. 

But you might wonder if there’s an upper limit to your air conditioning system, a level of heat that it can’t beat. You look at the thermostat and see the lowest setting is 60°F, which is pretty cold and not a temperature you’d normally want to be at during the summer. But it does make it seem like the AC can always get the house down to that low a temperature if necessary.

It’s not true, however. Yes, your AC has a cooling limit because of its temperature differential. Understanding this can help you better manage settings for the air conditioner during the summer.

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Want to Pay Less to Cool Your House This Summer?

Monday, April 19th, 2021

MoneySummer weather means higher electricity bills for your house. There’s no way to avoid a rise in costs because the compressor that allows an AC to provide cooling draws on a great deal of power when it runs. The average central air conditioning system uses around 3,000 to 3,5000 watts an hour, adjusted up and down depending on the AC’s size. How much this costs you is predicated on the price of electricity in your area.

As a comparison, if you run the AC in “fan only” mode where the compressor does not turn on, it uses 750 watts an hour on average. This will give you an idea of the increase in electrical use that is part and parcel of running an air conditioner.

However, you might be paying more to cool your house than you should. In fact, you likely are, because there are many ways you can pay less for central cooling that don’t mean having to sacrifice your comfort and sweat it out all summer. Below are a few ways to cut down on the high cost of summer cooling.

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Why an AC Might Cool—But Not Cool ENOUGH

Monday, March 22nd, 2021

heat-and-family-before-fansWhat do you expect from a central air conditioner in a house? The answer is simple: you want it to make the house cool and comfortable when the weather is hot. If the AC can’t do that, what good is it?

Unfortunately, it’s possible to have a central air conditioning system that, while it sends out cool air, doesn’t make a house cool enough for comfort. That’s not something you should tolerate! Instead of spending the summer with the family gathered around the room vents to get closer to the cool air supply like you’re huddling around a dying fire in winter, call us for the air conditioning service in Alachua, FL that will solve the problem. We can find out what’s wrong and see that you have a comfortable home all summer.

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The End of Maintenance? You May Need a New AC

Monday, March 8th, 2021

ac-units-scrapyardIn our past two posts, we wrote about the importance of having regular AC maintenance each spring. We could post plenty more about this topic, since it’s that important—you can have most of your potential AC problem vanish thanks to keeping up with maintenance. There is one AC problem you can’t avoid this way, however, which is that the time will come when your air conditioner must be replaced. Maintenance will postpone that day, but no cooling system can last forever, no matter how much care it receives.

This year might be the year. You schedule maintenance with our technicians, we examine the AC, and explain that it’s not likely to last much longer unless it has expensive repairs—repairs that won’t be worth it compared to replacing it with a new AC.

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What Can Go Wrong With an AC That Isn’t Maintained

Monday, February 22nd, 2021

old-acOur last post was our annual reminder about scheduling air conditioning maintenance every spring—or a bit before spring for Florida because of the way our seasons work. But we aren’t finished with all we have to say about AC maintenance yet. It’s important enough for a second reminder as well as some more in-depth information about what makes maintenance so critical.

So we’re going to go into “scary mode” in this post. We’re not alarmists, but when it comes to air conditioning in Alachua, FL, we’re experts who have seen what can go wrong when an AC isn’t given regular professional care. We want you to avoid these problems, so putting a bit of a scare into you is healthy. It’s much better than being trapped with no AC on a 90°F + day!

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Maintenance for the Air Conditioning—It’s Time Again!

Monday, February 8th, 2021

time-service-clockIt’s not yet officially spring. That doesn’t happen until the third week of March. But Florida weather is Florida weather, and we have to be ready for hot spells at almost any time, and the season for air conditioning seems to start earlier each year. We’re sure you’ve used your AC a few times during the last couple of months, which is when people in many other parts of the country have their furnaces going full-blast through the day to fend off below-freezing temperatures. 

What we’re getting at is that now is a time to plan for your regular air conditioning maintenance to get ready for the coming hot weather. 

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You Want a New AC for Next Year: Now What?

Monday, October 19th, 2020

air-conditionerThis sounds a bit like a Christmas request (we don’t think Santa can cram a new central air conditioning system down your chimney, and we also doubt he has the proper certifications to accurately size it), but it may be a big question you’ve got for the upcoming season. You know that the current AC you have is near the end of its service life, and trying to push it through another summer in Florida may end in disaster. 

If you’re concerned about the performance of your central air conditioning system, we suggest you take steps soon for AC installation in Gainesville, FL. Our winters may have cooler weather than our summers, but the hot days never go away for too long. You may need the air conditioner up and running soon—so it’s better to have the air conditioner be a new one.

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Let’s Do Some Forward Thinking About Your Home Cooling

Monday, October 5th, 2020

air-conditioning-with-flowersFall is one of the best times of the year to start thinking about your Lake City, FL, HVAC system. And not just the heating system, which you don’t rely on nearly as much as your air conditioning system in the Florida climate. This is a good time to consider the future of your home’s central cooling system because it’s much easier to make changes during the upcoming cooler weather, and you’ll be under less stress regarding the heat.

So let’s work together and think ahead, not just to next summer but the summers after it, and see what we can do for the best central cooling for your household.

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What AC Service Do You Need More: A Repaired AC or a New AC?

Monday, September 21st, 2020

question-markFlorida doesn’t go by the same seasonal playbook as many parts of the country. Air conditioning service in Gainesville, FL is something people consider throughout most of the year. Fall and winter offer better opportunities to have air conditioning jobs done, but the gap between periods when we won’t need our ACs running and when we do is narrow.

Since it’s now officially fall, it’s the right time to bring up a crucial question about air conditioning services: which job do you need done the most in the coming months, repairing your air conditioner or getting a new one?

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