Serving the Greater Portland Metropolitan Area
A good HVAC contractor in Troutdale, OR will be more than happy to answer every single one of your questions. On top of the usual questions like “how much will this cost?” and “Do I really need this or that?” we have a few more questions you can add to your list.
With these questions, our goal is to help you save some time and money in the long run. In our experience, brand-new air conditioning owners end up asking these questions at some point—better to answer them now than later.
Having a much-needed heating or cooling system installed is a wonderful feeling, but that’s only half the battle… If you want to reduce your energy costs every month, you’ll need to maintain the balance between comfort and efficiency. Luckily, we have a few tips to help you with that.
Central air conditioners rely on a series of ducts to take cooled air through your home in the summer. The air is cooled in the AC itself and then blown into the ducts with a fan. That allows the system to circulate the cooled air evenly, ensuring that the entire house is cooled evenly. Ducts are usually protected by their location: behind the walls or in similar spots like the crawlspace in your attic. That can turn around and bite you, however, if your ducts suffer damage.
Most homes in the Beaverton, OR area use centralized furnaces to keep their homes warm in the winter and air conditioners to keep them cool in the summer. Those systems rely upon a series of ducts branching out from the central system itself to the various rooms in your home. Conditioned air (either hot or cold) moves through the ducts, which keeps the temperature steady and ensures that the whole house is heated evenly. Ducts are usually placed in the crawlspace of the walls, the attic, or similar hidden locations. This has the benefit of keeping them safe from harm, but leaks do spring up, and even breaches can affect you from time to time. The good news is that a trained service can usually repair the damage quickly. But before that happens, you need to be able to spot the signs that something is amiss.
The ducts are a key part of your air conditioning system, moving cool air from the unit itself to the various rooms and corners of your home. They’re usually out of sight and out of mind: tucked away in the crawlspace of your home and left to do their job quietly. They’re often protected from damage since they’re out of the way, but worn bolts, troublesome pests and other factors can sometimes result in rifts or breaches.
Ducts are a vital component in your household air conditioning system – transporting cooled air to the various rooms in your household – and because they don’t have a lot of moving parts, they rarely require repairs with the frequency that the main system does. That doesn’t mean that repairs aren’t needed sometimes, unfortunately, or that – considering the damp weather in Portland, OR – you don’t have to deal with potential issues like mold growth in your ducts. A good technician can repair most issues with your ducts, but you still need to be able to notice that there’s a problem before picking up the phone. Here are 3 easy-to-spot signs that you need duct repair.
Ducts are one of the most unobtrusive, and vital, parts of your heating system. They serve the same function in your home that your lungs do in your body. Even though your home won’t die if the ducts aren’t working correctly, the quality of life inside will definitely suffer. Most homeowners ignore their ducts, not because of any intentional neglect but because they simply don’t think about them. It’s time to get rid of that kind of attitude and really be aware of the role that your ducts play in your home. Let’s take a look at why duct repair is so important for your heating system.
The sad fact of the matter is this: ducts are often not very well constructed. The primary needs for a piece of duct to do its job properly are: be light enough to be easily secured in walls and ceilings, be cheap enough to be easily replaced if necessary, and be small enough as to be unobtrusive to the occupants of the home. When these three factors are added up, you get a part of your heating system that is not very sturdy or long lasting. At this point you may be thinking that your ducts work just fine, and they haven’t been touched in years. Well, it may surprise you to know just how in need of repair your ductwork is.
As previously mentioned, ducts are relatively flimsy and vulnerable to damage. Now, because of their location there isn’t much that can actually deal a lot of damage at once to your ducts. Unfortunately, there doesn’t have to be. As the ducts have warm air flowing through them, they expand and contract due to the temperature changes. This causes small leaks to form in the ducts, allowing heat to leak out of the ducts before reaching their destination. An average forced air system can actually lose up to 30% of its total heat output this way, according to the US Department of Energy. This is why duct repair is so important for the efficiency of your heating system.
If you haven’t had your ducts checked in a while, contact Clean Air Act. We provide duct repair throughout Beaverton.
Energy efficiency and performance often go together. When your AC performs well, it is often making an efficient use of its electrical energy, so that it uses neither too little nor too much energy, but just the right amount to keep your home comfortable. Even still, with the ever-rising costs of energy, homeowners throughout the Portland, OR area are constantly looking for ways to reduce their energy consumption. While we cannot control the price of electricity, we can control how we use it. We’d like to share with you some ways of cooling your home more efficiently. For more AC tips, or to schedule a professional Portland OR air conditioning service, call the experts at The Clean Air Act, Inc. today!
For more information about Portland air conditioning services, including those related to energy efficiency, call The Clean Air Act, Inc. today!
