Looking at Your HVAC system

There are two prongs to keeping your home energy efficient and your energy bills low and reasonable and the first prong is a proper insulation package in place your home. With the correct type of insulation in your walls, attic and crawl space in addition to energy efficient windows and doors your home should be sealed tight against air circulating in from the outside or air escaping from the inside. This investment in your home and your environment should translate into big energy bill savings but if it hasn’t your HVAC system may be at fault. Your HVAC system is the second prong to your home being energy efficient.

Older homes, even under twenty years of age were often installed with heating or cooling systems that weren’t sized right for the home. You can probably tell without any expert training if your system is too big or to small for the space with a simple assessment. In the winter time for example do you run your heat for a long period of time without ever getting warm? In the hot months of summer do you run your air conditioning and the air inside feels wet and cool but not cold? Or does the house get cool and the system shuts off to soon as the house quickly reheats to an uncomfortable level?
The ideal system should be creating an interior environment that is comfortable. If your system makes you feel like Goldilocks- it’s to hot, or to cold and nothing is just right- your system should be checked.

A trained HVAC technician can look at what system you have in place and the layout of your home including the square footage and how the ducts were installed to tell if you have the right size unit or not. If your unit size is good the technician may need to look at the layout of your duct work.

The ducts are as important as the system size- if they aren’t delivering the cool or warm air correctly because they are laid out in an inefficient manner you may have a home that simply isn’t comfortable. The technician will also look at your home’s weatherization and insulation to make sure you have the right insulation in place for your home. If the technician comes back with the recommendation to replace your system make sure you understand why. Is the system the wrong size or just old and ineffective or both? Be an informed consumer and in the end the overall cost will pay for itself with lower energy bills.