Touchstone Heating & Air Inc Blog | Air Conditioning and Heating Tips

Options for Air Conditioning Replacement

February 5th, 2015

It wasn’t too long ago that your option for whole-home air conditioning was limited to a single type of system. These days, homeowners have multiple choices, and knowing which one will be the best fit for your home takes some research and help from a trained expert. It may seem like you should wait until the warm weather hits before installing or replacing an existing unit, but the truth is that off-season installation can often be better than waiting until the warm weather comes. The experts at Touchstone Heating and Air, Inc., can help you with your air conditioning installation or replacement in High Springs, FL, from start to finish, so call us today.

Available Options

Here are the air conditioning options available from Touchstone Heating and Air, Inc.:

Traditional Split System

Traditional split system air conditioners are one of the most common types used in homes. A split-system AC has an outdoor unit that contains the compressor and condenser and an indoor unit that contains the evaporator unit and blower. Ductwork is needed to disperse the air with this type of system.

Heat Pump System

Heat pumps do not generate cool air; instead, they move heat from one place to another with the help of refrigerant. Heat pumps look very similar to traditional systems in that they have an outdoor unit and an indoor blower, however, heat pumps can also offer heating thanks to a component called a reversing valve. Heat pumps can be part of a ducted or ductless systems.

Geothermal System

Geothermal systems use a ground-source heat pump, so they can also offer heating and cooling. However, the set-up is different. Geothermal systems use a ground loop buried below the frost line to transfer heat back and forth, with the help of an environmentally-friendly fluid inside the loop. During winter, the latent heat in the ground is absorbed and transferred into your home; in summer, the heat from your indoors is absorbed and transferred to the ground loop and absorbed by the surrounding ground, known as a heat sink.

Ductless System

Ductless air conditioners have an outdoor unit that contains a compressor and condenser and individual indoor blowers that deliver the cool air. The blowers are about 35” long and connect directly to the outdoor unit via a conduit in an exterior wall. Ductless blowers operate individually, which allows you to use only the amount of cooling you need.

As you can see, there are a number of choices available for your air conditioning replacement in High Springs, FL.

Call Touchstone Heating and Air, Inc., today and schedule an appointment with one of our installation experts.

Finding the Most Efficient System for Air Conditioning Installation

January 29th, 2015

Every whole-home appliance uses energy which is why it’s important to review the energy efficiency of a given system before installation. There are different rating systems for appliances and whole-home systems; for instance, heating systems use a rating called AFUE. When it comes to air conditioners, the rating to review is called SEER. Energy efficiency can, and should, be an important factor for any air conditioning installation in Lake City, and we’ll explain more about this below.

What Is SEER?

SEER stands for seasonal energy efficiency ratio. SEER is based on a scale of 1 to 23; the higher the SEER number, the better the energy efficiency of the unit. SEER tells you how much cooling a particular AC will provide for every unit of energy it uses.

SEER Minimums

In 2006, federal law mandated that all air conditioners have a minimum SEER of 13; prior to this, the minimum SEER was 10. If you are replacing an outdated system, you may see a significant savings from your new system because each SEER point higher can save you up to 10% on your annual cooling costs.

How SEER Works

SEER doesn’t tell you that one unit will cool your home better than another; what it tells you is that if you have two comparable units, and one has a SEER number of 13 and the other has a SEER number of 16, the unit with the SEER of 16 will cost you less to cool your space versus the unit with the lower SEER number. As such, the unit with the higher SEER number will save you more money by being a more energy efficient unit. However, a more efficient unit can cost more initially, so it’s important to balance between the monthly savings a particular unit can cost you and the initial costs.

Confused about SEER? Working with a trained expert can help ensure that you choose and install an air conditioner that has the energy efficiency you want for your home.

Contact Touchstone Heating and Air, Inc., today and schedule an appointment with one of our experts.

How Can I Tell When It’s Time for AC Maintenance?

January 22nd, 2015

If you’re like most homeowners, you probably don’t think much about the state of your air conditioner until it finally breaks. And once that repair bill is in your hands, you may begin to wonder: is there something I could have done to prevent this? In some cases, common AC issues are easily preventable if you schedule annual maintenance. While AC maintenance doesn’t guarantee that your AC won’t need repairs through the year, it certainly reduces your chances of a major breakdown. Ask yourself the following questions to decide if it’s time for maintenance.

How long has it been since you last had a technician check over your system? You may have looming repair needs that you simply cannot detect just yet, but these can be caught early on with a maintenance visit. Most experts recommend scheduling a visit once a year at least.
How much are you spending on monthly energy bills? Does it seem to have increased over last year’s bills? If so, some minor adjustments may restore some efficiency to the unit.
Can you afford a sudden repair need in the next few months? A maintenance visit is less expensive than most repair calls and may prevent parts from failing throughout the year.
Have you noticed your air conditioner struggling lately? If so, this is a sign you should call for AC repairs instead of maintenance. Making repairs right away is key to keeping the problem from worsening.

The Steps of Maintenance

The maintenance process is thorough enough to target the areas of your unit that can cause the most trouble.

Inspection: First, technicians inspect the entire unit, inside and out. They’ll let you know if anything seems off and tell you if a major repair is necessary so that you can schedule it now before a breakdown.
Adjustment: Any other adjustments are made on the spot, such as straightening bent coils, screwing in loose bolts, and tightening electrical connections.
Cleaning: Finally, the technician will clean the parts of your system that can contribute to inefficiency if dirty, including the inside and outside coils.

At Touchstone Heating and Air Inc. we know how to help you get the most from your air conditioning system year round with complete AC maintenance service in Fort White.

What Is a Hybrid Heating System?

January 15th, 2015

Although many people outside of Florida assume that we have warm, sunny weather all year long, residents know that the weather can get very chilly. And since your air conditioner uses so much energy the rest of the year, you may dread running your heater if the system you currently own is somewhat inefficient. So when you need to replace your heater, you might decide to go with a hybrid heating system, one of the most energy-efficient heating systems available.

Hybrid heating systems contain both a heat pump and a gas furnace, so that homeowners get the efficiency of a heat pump and the performance of a gas furnace. A hybrid heating system is a heat pump first and foremost, but it uses a furnace as a backup. Let’s look at how a heat pump and furnace work to see how this unit can help your home to run more efficiently.

Heat pumps are essentially just air conditioners with a couple of extra components and settings that allow for both heating and cooling. In air conditioning mode, refrigerant moves from the compressor unit to the indoor air handler, absorbing the heat from the home and then moving it back outside. In heating mode, refrigerant moves in the opposite direction via an additional component called the reversing valve. The reversing valve allows refrigerant to flow the other way while check valves help it to avoid passing through the components reserved for cooling mode.

Moving heat from one area to the next is a very efficient way to heat a space, usually more so than generating heat. But generating heat via combustion, as a furnace does, means reliable heating in any weather. Furnaces don’t rely on outside conditions to heat a home, and all of the parts are located indoors. While a heat pump may struggle to heat when outdoor temperatures drop too low, a furnace typically will not. This means it’s there a source of heating when the temperatures drop or when a component of your heat pump breaks and you need a backup source.

Call Touchstone Heating and Air Inc. to learn about all of the ways homeowners benefit from installing hybrid heating systems in Gainesville.

What Kinds of Contaminants May Be Living in the Ducts?

January 8th, 2015

No one really wants to think about the “things” living in the cool, dark places of their home, but it may surprise you just how many contaminants can be in your home’s ductwork. Any type of contamination in your home is reason for concern, but the contamination in your ductwork can be blown directly into your living spaces, giving these contaminants direct access to you. Understanding what types of contaminants can live and thrive in your ductwork can help you prevent them from taking up residence in your home and improve your overall indoor air quality in Gainesville.

Types of Contaminants

Here are some of the more common contaminants you can find inside ductwork:

Mold and mildew – mold and mildew need only a little bit of moisture in a cool, dark place to grow and thrive, making your ductwork a top residential area for them. Faulty ductwork can be especially prone to mold and mildew growth as the holes and cracks offer ample, excess moisture to keep the growth thriving.

Dirt and dust – this is probably one of the more expected contaminants, but don’t underestimate what dirt and dust build-up in your ductwork can do to your HVAC system.

Vermin – mice, squirrels, raccoons and other vermin love the protection and warmth of ductwork, so if they can get to it, they will – and they don’t come alone. Additionally, they’ll use the nest as both a bathroom and kitchen, so you can wind up with animal feces and food residue in your ductwork.

Insects – there are few kinds of insects that enjoy the protection of a ductwork system, but none so much as cockroaches. Cockroaches tend to be more pervasive in urban areas, but they will seek shelter from the cold during the winter months no matter where they are. Some people have severe allergies to cockroaches which can contribute to allergy discomfort and even asthma triggers, so it’s important to make sure they don’t create a community in your ductwork.

The “ick” factor of ductwork contaminants can be pretty high, but with a thorough duct cleaning, you can substantially reduce the contaminants in your ductwork and improve the indoor air quality of your Gainesville home.

Think your ducts need cleaning? Call Touchstone Heating and Air Inc., today and schedule an appointment with one of our experts.

Tools Used for Professional Duct Cleaning

January 2nd, 2015

The ducts that lead from the air handler to your home are vital to proper heating and air conditioning, but they can also contribute to poor indoor air quality. Contaminants like dust, pollen, pet dander, bacteria, and viruses can dwell in the ducts and may be forced into your home as you run your heating and air conditioning system. But professionals are equipped with the proper tools to eliminate these pollutants and help you to maintain the quality of your home.

Access Tools: First, a technician must access the remote areas of the ducts by using some sort of tool to access the inside of the ducts from multiple locations. They may use these tools to pierce a small hole in the ducts to seal up later or to remove an entire section of ductwork to replace afterwards. First, however, they must access the type and design of the ductwork in order to determine the proper steps to follow.

Inspection Materials: A quality technician will inspect your ducts before any cleaning takes place to make sure there are no areas with major leaks or portions of ductwork that require a particular set of tools for cleaning. They may use anything from small handheld mirrors to video cameras, depending on the size of the job, the level of experience of the technician, and the tools they have on hand.

Vacuums: Perhaps the most important tool at a professional’s disposal is a high-pressure vacuum. This vacuum creates negative pressure in the ducts so that debris is knocked loose from the lining of the ductwork and gets sucked into the hose. These vacuums have far more power than home vacuum cleaners, and are rather difficult or homeowners to access themselves.

Brushes: During, before, or after the duct cleaning, the technician will also use soft brushes or other cleaning tools to rub off any remaining dirt and contaminants. Contaminants may cling to the ducts even after the powerful vacuum is employed, but a simple brush and perhaps a non-toxic cleaning agent can take care of anything that remains. However, the technician will need to make sure that the brush is soft enough not to damage the ducts, particularly if your home uses a flexible ductwork that can easily collapse.

The professionals at Touchstone Heating and Air Inc. can ensure that your next duct cleaning in Fort Worth is handled with care and that no harmful contaminants threaten to enter your home. Give our team a call today!

12 Grapes for 12 Months: An Unusual New Year’s Tradition

January 1st, 2015

Across the world, many cultures have specific traditions to celebrate the transition from the old year to the new. In the U.S. and Canada, we associate New Year’s with the ball in Times Square, kissing at the stroke of midnight, resolutions, and singing “Old Lang Syne.” But for many Spanish-speaking countries, one of the key traditions has to do with eating grapes as fast as possible.

The “twelve grapes” tradition comes from Spain, where it is called las doce uvas de la suerte (“The Twelve Lucky Grapes”). To ensure good luck for the next year, people eat one green grape for each of the upcoming twelve months. However, you cannot just eat the grapes during the first day of the new year any time you feel like it. You must eat the twelve grapes starting at the first stroke of midnight on Nochevieja (“Old Night,” New Year’s Eve) as one year changes to another. And you have to keep eating: with each toll of midnight, you must eat another grape, giving you about twelve seconds to consume all of them. If you can finish all dozen grapes—you can’t still be chewing on them!—before the last bell toll fades, you will have a luck-filled new year.

Where did this tradition come from? No one is certain, although it appears to be more than a century old. One story about the Twelve Lucky Grapes is that a large crop of grapes in 1909 in Alicante, Spain led to the growers seeking out a creative way to eliminate their surplus. But recent research through old newspapers shows that perhaps the tradition goes back almost thirty years earlier to the 1880s, where eating grapes was meant to mock the upper classes who were imitating the French tradition of dining on grapes and drinking champagne on New Year’s Eve.

It can be difficult to consume grapes this fast, and the lucky grapes of New Year’s Eve have seeds in them, making the job even trickier. (Seedless grapes are not common in Spain the way they are over here.) For people to manage eating all the grapes before the last stroke of midnight requires swallowing the seeds as well and only taking a single bite of each grape.

Oh, there is one more twist to the tradition: you have to be wearing red undergarments, and they have to be given to you as a gift. The origins of this part of the tradition are even more mysterious, and it’s anybody’s guess why this started.

Whether you go for the grape challenge or find another way to ring in New Year’s, all of us at Touchstone Heating and Air Inc. hope you have a great start to the year and a fruitful 2015.

The Composition of Snowflakes: Are No Two Alike?

December 25th, 2014

“No two snowflakes are alike.” This is a statement nearly every schoolchild has heard at least once, either while crafting unique snowflakes with a sheet of folded paper and some scissors or while learning a lesson on the science of snow. While even most scientists don’t quite understand what causes a snowflake to form such complex and beautiful columns and points and branches, one thing is for certain, the composition of snowflakes guarantees that no two will ever be identical. However, it is possible for two snowflakes to appear to be nearly exactly alike.

A snowflake begins to form when a piece of dust catches water vapor out of the air. Water is created when two hydrogen molecules attach to an oxygen molecule. The two hydrogen molecules are angled from one another in such a way that they form a hexagonal shape when they come together during the freezing process; thus, a snowflake begins as a simple hexagonal shape or as layers of hexagons called diamond dust. The emergent properties that follow from the original hexagon are what differentiate one snowflake from another, as the humidity, the temperature in the air, and many other factors (some of which remain unclear to scientists) allow each snowflake to form in an entirely unique way with a seemingly endless variety of shapes.

However, in 1988, a scientist named Nancy Knight claimed to have located two that were the same while studying snowflakes as part of an atmospheric research project. And it appeared to be so; when put under a microscope, the emergent properties looked nearly identical. But while it is feasible that two snowflakes can appear to be exactly alike on the outside, they are never identical on an atomic level. Deuterium is an atom that appears attached to about one in every 3000 hydrogen molecules in the air. Because there are millions of atoms that make up a snowflake, the random assortment of deuterium in any two snowflakes—even in two that so very closely resemble one another—simply cannot be the same.

Here at Touchstone Heating and Air Inc., we’d like to remind you to grab a cup of cocoa and relax with your family this holiday, perhaps by crafting some unique snowflake creations of your own. We wish you a very happy holiday season, from our family to yours!

Why Do Heat Pumps Need Refrigerant for Heating?

December 18th, 2014

A heat pump is an effective and efficient heating and air conditioning system. In order for any system to provide cool air, it requires a medium to transfer heat out of a space first, usually using a chemical blend called refrigerant. But most heating systems don’t need any refrigerant at all, instead generating heat to heat up the air before it moves into the ducts. So what’s the difference with heat pumps? And why do they still need refrigerant for heating?

When homeowners need installation, repair, or maintenance for heat pumps in Fort White, they know to count on the expertise of the technicians at Touchstone Heating and Air Inc.

Heat Pumps and Refrigerant

We hear it surprisingly often: “Isn’t refrigerant used for cooling and not for heating?” But a heat pump uses refrigerant to pump heat from one area to another, out of the house in the summer and into the house in the colder season.

See, heat pumps are designed much like conventional air conditioning systems. A refrigerant line connects the indoor and outdoor units. The outside unit contains a compressor, while the indoor and outdoor units have a set of coils. In the summer, the indoor coil allows refrigerant to evaporate into a gas and absorb heat while a large fan blows air over the coil. The outside coil allows the refrigerant to condense and give off heat, essentially pumping the heat from one place to another.

In the winter, the heat pump utilizes a component that air conditioners do not have, the reversing valve. A reversing valve allows refrigerant to flow in the opposite direction, absorbing heat from the outside to bring into your house. This can work even in very cold temperatures, which is why heat pumps have become a popular replacement for air conditioning units.

Heat pumps are extremely efficient for heating since refrigerant only has to move heat rather than generate it. This means that if you choose a heat pump for new HVAC installation, you’ll see energy savings in the summer and in the winter.

Contact Touchstone Heating and Air Inc. for your new installation or for any other questions regarding heat pumps in Fort White.

How Can You Tell Your Ducts Are in Need of Repair?

December 11th, 2014

Your ductwork is the delivery system for your home’s heating and cooling, and when something is wrong with it, you’ll see the effects in a few ways. It can sometimes be hard to tell when your ductwork has become faulty, so here are some signs to look for if you suspect you may need duct repair in Starke:

High energy bills – faulty ductwork can account for up to 30% of your home’s total air loss – a pretty significant amount that can seriously increase your energy bills.

Poor indoor air quality – are you noticing large amounts of dust and/or dirt in your home? Particles can enter through cracks and holes in the ductwork and accumulate in your home. If you are seeing a great deal of dust and dirt settling on your furniture, it may be time to have a professional take a look at your ductwork.

Strange odors – just as dust and dirt can enter your home through faulty ductwork, so, too, can odors and fumes. Additionally, mold is more likely to grow in faulty ductwork due to extra moisture and contaminants entering the system, so if you smell a stale odor coming from your vents, it may indicate that mold is present.

Uneven heating and cooling – ductwork doesn’t corrode or disconnect uniformly; as such, one of the telltale signs that you may have ductwork issues is uneven heating and cooling. Some of your vents may be in good working order while others won’t be, causing uneven heating or cooling in your home.

Not enough heating or cooling – depending on the level of air loss, your living spaces may not receive the volume of warm or cool air they need to be comfortable.

Why Hire Professionals for Duct Repair?

Ductwork can be long and complicated, and reach to the deeper parts of your home, including crawl spaces and attic spaces. It is also important to know what to look for and to understand how to repair the ductwork so it lasts a long time. Trained professionals have the expertise and knowledge to be able to repair your ducts in Starke quickly and efficiently.

If you are seeing the signs of faulty ductwork, call Touchstone Heating and Air, Inc., today and schedule an appointment with one of our experts.