It seems like overnight everyone has started offering ductwork testing, saying that leaks in your ductwork can make your energy bills dramatically higher. Companies are springing up all over the place wanting to test your ductwork. Does it seem fishy to you?

Well there's a reason nobody ever talked about this before. Until recently the tools and equipment needed to diagnose problems in your ductwork simply didn't exist or were so outrageously expensive that they were rendered impractical.

Leaky ductwork is a serious problem. Not only can it sky rocket your energy bill but it can also effect your health, safety, comfort and the life of your system. Advanced Energy has done studies in North Carolina showing that on average 15%-25% of the money spent to heat and cool your home is wasted by leaking ductwork. That means that if your gas bill is $100, you probably spent $15-$25 of that heating or cooling your crawl space or attic. I'm sure the silverfish and camel crickets appreciate everything you do for them, but that's no reason to waste money like this.

But no matter how distressing it is to throw away money there are even more serious issues caused by leaky ductwork. If your ductwork is located in your crawl space with the camel crickets, that means every time it comes on it is sucking air from that crawl space into your house. Anything that might be in your crawl space - moisture, mildew, bug spray, etc. - is now being circulated throughout your house. The same thing goes for the attic where leaky ductwork sucks in insulation particles, dust, and anything else that might be lurking up there.

Another risk leaky ductwork exposes you to is "negative pressure". Negative pressure cannot be seen or felt, what it can do though is create pressure pockets in your house which will cause appliances like gas logs, water heaters and furnaces to back draft and dump carbon monoxide into your home. Just like the situation with leaky ducts, it was known for years that carbon monoxide was a danger before there was a good way to test for it. This is not a problem people are only now becoming aware of. It is a problem that technology has just now finally caught up with.

If you are building a new home, insist that you get a sealed duct system. A system sealed with mastic, not tape, and that it is pressure tested. If your home is like most others and the duct system has already been around a while, have a professional evaluate it for you. Given the paybacks, the investment is well worth it.

When manufacturers make air conditioners, they know that these pieces of equipment will spend their entire lives outside, exposed to the elements. They are designed to be sturdy. However, you can't escape the fact that they require regular maintenance, but there is something simple you can do to help protect your investment: Cover your air conditioner during the winter. Here's why...

The evaporator coil in your air conditioner consists of lots of metal folded tightly on itself to create as much surface area for air to pass over as possible. Refrigerant flows through this coil to make it cold and unfiltered, outside air passes over it to be cooled off before being blown into your house. This unfiltered, outside air contains dirt, dust, seeds, bugs, grass clippings, grease, pollution and bacteria that form an insulating barrier on the coil. Your air conditioning system is perfectly balanced with refrigerant to allow you the highest efficiency possible. Anything that effects that balance, such as a layer of muck on your coil, effects your system's efficiency translating into higher operating costs as well as unnecessary wear and tear on your system.

Even when your air conditioner is off and isn't actively pulling dirty, outside air over your coil, the coil is still just sitting there exposed to everything. One of the best things you can do for your air conditioner is simply to cover the thing during the winter. This one action will prevent months of buildup, helping to keep your system healthy and make your routine maintenance that much more effective.

The weather has been gorgeous! Why can I not stop thinking about heating? We are experiencing one of the "warmest" Octobers on record since they started recording the weather more than a hundred years ago. "Warm" for October translates into beautiful sunny days. The only thing that would make it better would be if we could get some rain.

Only a guy in the heating business would be think about heat right now, and that's exactly what I'm doing. I know that your heating system has been lying dormant all summer and this means that the electrical components of your system will have to turn on from a dead stop and that all types of gunk and grime has been building up on the latent moving parts of your heating system.

This is why most heating system failures occur the first or second time your system comes on. When you first notice it getting chilly in the house and switch that thermostat over to heat, those grime covered parts are going to have to grind into action. That's a really great way to kill your heat. It's kind of like playing football without properly warming up first. You set yourself up for all kinds of unnecessary injuries.

Why do I worry about things like this? Because I'm in the heating business. I want you to let me send one of my technicians to your house now, before you need heat, to make sure that everything will work. This will make me happy in two ways. I'll get the opportunity to take care of you and I won't have to try to take care of you during the first cold snap when everybody and their brother who didn't plan ahead for the heating season turns that old system on and realizes they are in trouble.

The tires on your car wear from constant grinding and flexing over pavement. It's easy to know when they're dangerous and need replacement because they wear from the outside in and the wear is easily visible.
Your furnace heat exchanger also wears and can become dangerous. It wears from the expansion and contraction caused by the burners as they continually go on and off, heating the metal and then allowing it to cool. The resulting damage can be compared to bending a paper clip back and forth until it breaks. But unlike your car tires, you have no way of knowing how dangerous your furnace is becoming because it wears from the inside out.
Here's a closer look: The heat exchanger in your furnace consists of a series of closed metal chambers that are heated with gas burners. The burning process within the chambers generates deadly carbon monoxide gas, which is safely vented out through the flue on your furnace, just like the tailpipe vents carbon monoxide from your car.
To heat your home, air is blown over the heated chambers. A crack or hole in the chambers allows the deadly carbon monoxide gas out of the chamber and into the air being blown into your home.
Furnaces should be inspected every year for signs of wear or damage and carbon monoxide leaks. It is recommended that you replace your heat exchanger or furnace immediately if damage is spotted.
Operating an older, untested furnace is as dangerous and life-threatening as taking your family out for a drive on a set of bald tires.

Every couple of years someone makes a legislative proposal to Congress to impose regional efficiency standards on heating and air conditioning equipment. On the surface the argument makes sense. Of course an air conditioner in Florida is going to perform differently from an air conditioner in Maine. However, once you go beneath the surface and see the nightmare that regional efficiency standards would create in the manufacturing and distributing aspects of heating and air conditioning you soon come to understand that whatever efficiency might be gained by the regional standards would be made irrelevant by the effect it would have on the efficiency of the manufacturing and distribution processes. The end product would no doubt use less energy but the costs required to manufacture equipment to the specifications of eight different standards versus one standard would far offset the savings. The same goes for the distribution process. Distributors shift inventory from one location to another based on demand. With different regional standards a distributor would no longer be able to pull inventory from a North Carolina warehouse if Florida has a hot summer. This would result in each local distributor having to carry more inventory. So not only has the cost of manufacturing increased but the cost of distribution has also increased. In the end you are left with a significantly more expensive specialized product that does not even come close to saving enough energy to balance out the excess cost required to produce and distribute it.

Simply because you use us for service one time, it would be easy for us to think that you are our customer for life. I wish it worked that way, but it doesn't. You lead a busy life. You don't sit around thinking about heating and air conditioning. In fact, a couple of months after having their air conditioner repaired, most people don't remember which company they used.


So our goal is to make your experience with us a positive one that will keep you coming back again and again. How do we do that? First we treat you, your time, and your home with the respect that they deserve. We promise to complete the service to your satisfaction and when mistakes happen (which are inevitable in a service business), we make it right.

But we want to do more. We want to give you the power of knowledge. That is why this blog was created. What a great place to share information. I am excited to see what shape it takes in the coming months. Please check back often for updates or subscribe today!

Yours for Service,
Dewey Jenkins
Owner