Buying and maintaining a home is a costly affair and grows costlier every day. To handle the rising cost of living smartly, it’s important to take a look inwards and spot areas where you may be overspending.
One such area is HVAC systems where bad maintenance habits cost thousands of dollars to homeowners every year. These mistakes include everything from choosing the wrong unit in the first place to indulging in HVAC practices that could be harming the system, without you even knowing.
As we step into a brand new year, it’s time to shun these old habits and take up new ones that keep your HVAC unit healthy, your energy costs low, and your air quality finer than ever.
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HVAC Practices To Avoid
1. Purchasing an incorrectly sized system
People usually go for smaller systems when installing a new one in the house because they cost less. While the low cost may sound attractive in the short term, the trade-off is diminished air quality, comfort levels, and unit health.
If your system is smaller than your house, it’ll have to work that much harder to treat the air and distribute it evenly throughout the house. As a result, the unit will wear itself down quickly, maintenance costs will become higher and frequent, and you may end up in need of buying a new system sooner than you would have planned.
To avoid all that, buy the right-size AC unit for your house the first time around and save up thousands of dollars in recurring costs.
2. Turning down the thermostat too low
During summer months, most people just crank down the thermostat in an effort to quickly cool down the surroundings. Not only the practice doesn’t work, it actually is quite harmful to the processing capacity of the HVAC unit and puts it under a lot of unnecessary pressure.
To achieve cooler air temperature without damaging your AC, use the ceiling fans around your house. With fans working, the treated air will quickly float throughout the atmosphere and bring the temperature down.
3. Irregular maintenance
Your HVAC system can quickly fall into disrepair if you don’t invest in its regular upkeep. The dust can accumulate on air filters, parts may become loose, and leaks may go unnoticed. All of this can contribute to the gradual failure of your furnace, air ducts, and AC unit.
To catch these issues in time and fix them before they get worse, regular annual and seasonal maintenance from a professional HVAC service is essential. A bit of upkeep that you can do yourself is to make sure to change air filters every 30 days, don’t turn off the vents in rooms that are unused (it builds up pressure and damages the system overtime), and don’t change thermostat settings frequently.
Take care of your HVAC system on a regular basis and give it TLC on a daily basis to add years to its life.
4. Obstructing airflow
A common HVAC mistake that usually goes unnoticed is not being conscious of the layout of the house and ignoring the placement of vents and registers when decorating the home.
If there are things obstructing the airflow — things like plants, sofas, bookcases, and such — the treated air takes that much longer to get to every corner of the room. This means the unit has to work harder to achieve a consistent temperature in the building, which increases energy costs. Inefficient airflow also puts undue strain on the system capacity, affecting its functional life.
If you have vents and registers on low heights or built in the ground, take care to place furniture and other items where the vents etc., aren’t being blocked — partially or otherwise.
5. Choosing DIY over professional service
We talked about HVAC maintenance service NJ. Now let’s talk about professional vs DIY. From a cost management point of view, YouTube tutorials of HVAC maintenance tips sound divine. They don’t cost a thing and keep your system in top shape. What not to like?
Let us tell you what.
- DIY-ing your HVAC maintenance may cause you to lose your HVAC warranty. Most warranties require that a certified professional work on the system. If you don’t have the license, your warranty may be void.
- You may not know what to look for. HVAC systems are complicated machines with electrical and mechanical parts. If you are not trained, there’s a risk of missing signs of damage that could have been prevented.
- Since it’s a complicated system, you pose a risk to yourself if you undertake its DIY maintenance. It comes with sensitive electrical components as well as dangerous chemicals that you probably should not be handling yourself without proper training.
- Handling certain parts of HVAC systems, without relevant certification and license, is against the law. You could be putting yourself and others at risk of harm.
When you consider all these costs, professional HVAC maintenance sounds like a dream. For way less money than you’ll probably spend on DIY tools alone, a trained professional can come to your door twice a year and keep your home comfortably cool/warm all year round.
6. Not tracking your monthly bills
Most of us look at our monthly bills and take them on as is basis. ‘Energy costs keep rising’, we say to ourselves, shrug, and move on.
The fact is, energy costs do rise but only gradually year-on-year. Sudden, unexplainable spikes need a deeper investigation. Usually it could be due to some changes in your routine. Perhaps you read somewhere that you should close the vents in rooms that you aren’t using. And you started doing that without knowing how it makes your system work extra hard to supply the treated air because now some vents are closed and the air pressure builds up.
Most typically, though, surprise hikes in energy bills indicate a problem with the HVAC system. A licensed HVAC technician can come take a look at what may be wrong and either fix the issue or suggest a course of action.
In either case, it’s important to track your monthly bills and if you see an increase you can’t explain, call in the experts.
Conclusion
Bad habits build up quickly but are hard to break away from. This new year, we implore you not to let that stand in your way as you learn new ways to keep your HVAC system working effectively and efficiently.
It will only extend its life but also ensure you enjoy a comfortable home temperature without interruptions or delays.