If your air conditioner is running but not cooling enough, we have two simple checks you can do yourself:
1. check for a dirty furnace air filter that is blocking airflow, and
2. checking for a dirty outdoor coil that is restricting airflow from the outdoor unit.
Dirty Furnace Air Filters Can Cause the Air Conditioner to Not Cool Enough
The first thing to check if your air conditioner is running but not cooling enough, is your air filter. The air filter is typically easy to access for most people. Pull out the filter and make sure that it is relatively clean. If a dirty air filter is causing the air conditioner to not cool well, you can see a mat of dust and dirt over the surface. Home centers sell filters that are pleated-type filters that are extremely restrictive to air flow. Your filter could turn into a piece of cardboard as far as airflow. A really restricted air filter cuts down the air flow to the air conditioner to the point where affects how well it cools.
Trim Bushes and Branches Around Outdoor Unit To Not Block the Outdoor Unit From Expelling Heat
The second thing to check if your air conditioner is running but not cooling enough. is the outdoor unit. (The outdoor unit is called the condensing unit.) Look at the outdoor unit to see if there are overgrown bushes that are blocking the airflow out of the top of the unit. Make sure everything is trimmed back at least a couple of feet all around the air conditioner so you have a free flow of air.
Check For Dirt On Outdoor Coil
Another thing to check is to see if there is dirt on your outdoor coil. This can be a bit difficult to check as you typically need to look up through louvers to see the exposed aluminum coil on the inside. There are little fins on it you can clearly see. Dust, dirt and in our area, cottonwood seeds will completely impact the coil which cuts down the air flow.
Pro tip: You can wash the outdoor coil, but it needs to be carefully washed from the inside out. It is very easy to damage the outdoor unit if it is not cleaned properly.
Dirt and airflow restriction are the main reasons why your air conditioner is not cooling enough. Therefore, if you don’t see a problem with the filter or the outdoor coil, contact the professional.
An air conditioner SEER rating stands for Seasonal Energy Efficiency Rating. This rating is made by the regulating authorities taking all the air conditioners out for a test drive. They have evaluated the air conditioners for efficiency based on how they cycle on and off. The SEER Rating is a number that is often overlooked by homeowners, however it can actually be quite useful.
How Can You Use a SEER Rating?
If you know your Air Conditioner’s SEER rating, you can use it to calculate how much you spend on electricity for your air conditioner.
In order to do this calculation we need to know a few other numbers.
The capacity of your air conditioner.
Your air conditioner’s SEER Rating
The number of hours of electricity you pay for during the month
Below is the calculation used in the video below to determine electricity costs:
1. Capacity (Tons x 12,000 BTUs)
divided by SEER rating
= Watts
2. Watts divided by 1,000 = KW
3. Kilowatts x Hours of Use = Total kw hours
4. Total kw hours x electricity cost kw hour ($0.12-$0.15)
= Total $$$ to run A/C for the Summer
If after you do this calculation and the total amount is lower than you typically pay, it is probable you are losing efficiency in your air conditioner. If your air conditioner has lost efficiency it is actually operating at a lower SEER rating than what it should be.
What Would Cause Your Air Conditioner to Operate at a Lower Efficiency Rating?
Dirt and airflow are the biggest culprits in air conditioner efficiency. Dirt both indoors and outdoors can cause problems for your air conditioner’s efficiency if it is not properly maintained. If the outdoor coil is dirty the heat transfer capability goes down. When the aluminum fins on the outdoor unit lose their shine they are not as efficient and don’t transfer heat as efficiently as it did in the past. Dirt also causes wear and tear forcing motors to work more overtime than they did originally.
That’s why after having them professionally cleaned using the proper coil cleaners the heat transfer capabilities will improve.
What Is The Minimum Air Conditioner SEER Rating?
It is possible you live in a house with a 10 SEER air conditioner, but the new minimum SEER rating is a 13 SEER. This will sometimes depend on where you live, but in our area of Johnson County, KS the minimum will typically be a 13 or 14 SEER.
What SEER Rating Should I Get? (What Is The Difference Between a 14 SEER And a 16 SEER Air Conditioner?)
If you are in the market for an air conditioner the question may come up on what SEER rating should you get. There is a difference in upfront costs. A higher SEER rating on an air conditioner will cause the price to increase. However, from our perspective, the increase in upfront cost will rarely be worth it if you are buying thinking a higher SEER rating will save you more in electricity. It will save on electricity, but only a small amount.
HOWEVER, the higher SEER ratings on air conditioners also correspond with other features that are valuable. Often, a 16 SEER air conditioner will have a two speed compressor that allows for benefits as far as how your home feels, the humidity control, etc. The other features on the 16 SEER in relation to the 14 SEER is what we find to be the biggest difference over the efficiency rating.
The quantum leap in efficiency is getting rid of that 10 SEER air conditioner and putting in even the most basic of air conditioners today such as the 13 SEER.
The MicroPower Guard Air Cleaner uses an electric charge to polarize and trap harmful particles while simultaneously cleaning the air in your home. It is important to change the filter correctly in your electronic air cleaner.
In this video Ramon shows us how to properly replace the media filter in his MicroPower Guard Electronic Air Cleaner. If you leave the power on to your furnace while you change the filter, it could damage your system.
The MicroPower Guard an air filtration system designed to trap microscopic contaminants that traditional filters can’t catch. See below for a demonstration of how an electronic air cleaner works.
How does duct cleaning work? What is the full duct cleaning service process?
We are asked all the time, does duct cleaning work?
In this video we show the entire duct cleaning process start to finish.
We show the clean filters at the beginning of the residential duct cleaning process all the way to the end and show how much dust, dirt and debris we are able to clean out of a residential home. The duct cleaning process is a great solution if you would like to know how to have less duct in your room or how to have less duct in your home in general. Duct cleaning works great for dusting less in your home.
We hope this video answers your questions about how duct cleaning works and what you could expect before and after duct cleaning.
How is professional duct cleaning service different than DIY Duct Cleaning?
How do you spot a duct cleaning scam? These are good questions that we set out to answer in the video below with Ben from One Hour Heating and Air Conditioning.
Duct cleaning scams are everywhere so we teach you how to spot the difference between a professional duct cleaning that does wonders for your indoor air quality and scams from fly by night companies that are here today and gone tomorrow.
Professional duct cleaning service protects your HVAC system, cuts down on dust and allergens, and improves the efficiency of your heating and air conditioning system. Professional duct cleaning is done by a crew of at least two people and takes at least a half a day or a full day depending on the size of your home. Ben encourages you to take before and after pictures of your ductwork so you can see the difference after a professional duct cleaning.
In the video below we discussed the advantages of Duct Sealing with Aeroseal.
Please check out this video for a full duct sealing demonstration:
Do you love the circulation an attic fan provides? (or whole house fan depending on your area) In this video we show you how to simulate the circulation of an attic fan by using your existing heating and air conditioning system. Using a variable drive blower for circulation can simulate the circulation you love with an attic fan, but doesn’t let in all the allergens. It is also a safer choice as an attic fan creates a negative pressure on your house that does not allow for proper venting of gas fired appliances.
If your air conditioner is not cooling well, it is possible you have a freon leak. Due to the cost most people are hoping that the problem with their air conditioner is anything but a freon leak. Symptoms of a freon leak can vary, but a common symptom is when your air conditioner doesn’t seem to be keeping up the set temperature. Typically a freon leak happens slowly so if the air conditioner is slowly getting worse about keeping the desired temperature you may have a freon leak.
Every summer we get calls from customers who tell us that they think their air conditioner needs to be charged up. Your air conditioner is a closed system. Refrigerant doesn’t go bad, it doesn’t get stale, and doesn’t wear out. If we have to add refrigerant is because it has leaked out. That’s the only reason we would be putting refrigerant in.
What Are Symptoms of a Freon Leak?
Symptoms of an air conditioner that is running short of refrigerant would be that it is short of capacity. It is operating at less than it’s full capacity. Ask yourself, “Is this how an air conditioner that was too small cool my house?” It’s going to be running all the time, and the air is not going to feel as cold as it should. The air conditioner will have a general lack of performance. So it may be working, but not working very well.
Why Is Freon Expensive?
The cost of freon has gone up exponentially due to government regulations and supply and demand for freon that is no longer being produced.
The rules laws of supply and demand has made refrigerant quite expensive and it’s a whole different type of repair than what it was 20 years ago.
Can A Freon Leak Stop Your Air Conditioner?
It actually can make the air conditioner stop. However what usually happens is that refrigerant leaks slowly over time. When there is a slow leak, there’s still enough refrigerant in the system that it can refrigerate it can do some cooling. However it will not be operating properly and it will cause the pressure to be too low for the coil inside. This causes the coil to “freeze” and eventually stop the air conditioner from working.
Where Do You Find A Freon Leak?
You could find a freon leak in many places on the heating and cooling system. There are access points to the refrigeration system that sometimes can leak, such as the service caps and schrader valves, and solder joints can begin to leak over time. Vibration can cause these components to vibrate and rub against each other and cause leaks.
There are a number of different ways vibration can cause a leak but it usually starts out as something very slow. You find yourself asking, “is it really cooling like it should?” And you realize your air conditioner is not operating as good as you remember it was last year. However a leak can also happen rather quickly. Sometimes something catastrophic can happen where something breaks or cracks after something has gotten brittle and moved over time.
Can You Smell Freon?
You can smell freon, it has a kind of oily smell. There is a lot of oil in refrigerant, however when you are working with residential units there is not enough refrigerant in your system where you could smell a leak from inside your home. Keep in mind, refrigerant is dangerous and you should never breathe it in. However, trying to detect a freon leak by trying to smell it will not be a successful way of finding a leak.
Does Freon Leak Only When The Air Conditioner Is On?
If your air conditioner has a leak, it is leaking all the time. Your heating and air conditioning system is supposed to be a closed, sealed system. Refrigerant doesn’t wear out, doesn’t go bad and should never leak.
This means that one summer your air conditioner may be working, but perhaps you notice that it is not keeping up the desired temperature as well as it usually does. Then the first time you turn it on the next season, it might be totally out and cause the air conditioner to not work at all.
It sat there all winter leaking just a little bit. It’s leaking every day of the year all day every day. So if you had a problem in the past, it’s always wise to turn the air conditioner on early. Turn it on before it gets really hot outside. Flip it on and and then find out if all the refrigerant has leaked out. Maybe do a preemptive check into things and make sure everything’s cool literally.
How Do You Find A Freon Leak?
If you have a freon leak, we can find it. We have the tools and experience to do that. However, it does take some time to find it. We check critical points first that are most likely to have a leak. There are common areas on the system that tend to have leaks and sometimes we know that particular brand or type of coil that might have a tendency to leak over time in a certain place or certain way.
Can You Spot a Freon Leak Visually?
You can sometimes spot a leak visually if it is a really big, catastrophic leak. You might have a wet coil and see a little bit of bubble or moisture. However, typically we need electronic Leak Detectors. These are very sophisticated electronic devices that are trained to detect refrigerants, and have helped us greatly in pinpointing where there is a problem.
Where Would You Expect A Leak To Be?
There are joints that are all field-engineered. Certain components to the air conditioning system are installed in the field. These are places we are most likely to find a freon leak. Once again, it goes back to the most important day in the life of the system is the day it was installed.
What To Do If You Think You Have A Freon Leak
What you need to know is if you have an air conditioner and it is not running as well as it should, give a professional a call and have it checked out. It is a false economy thinking it’s too expensive to have it looked. If you try to just put up with it, it is going to be running many, many more hours than it needs to.
That causes your utility bill to go up and you’re not comfortable. Plus, it’s still leaking. So let’s get it looked at and figure out the problem, because nobody likes a leaky air conditioner.
How Do You Prevent A Freon Leak?
Regular maintenance of your air conditioner is the best way to prevent a freon leak. During a maintenance inspection, we’re checking an air conditioner for components that move over time. There are components that are bendable or can move. We’re looking for components that are rubbing up against something that they shouldn’t be and could cause the problem. If the technician finds something that may be causing vibration, they will want to get some separation between those components because something could rub up against something and over time it will create a problem. Catching these types of possible problems are a big part of our maintenance tune up.
Has this ever happened to you? Your air conditioner is running, but it is just not quite keeping the house at the temperature you want it to be. It always is working hard and not cooling the house enough. We get this question in many different forms and the answer as to why can vary.
Air Conditioner Not Cooling Enough?
Is there something you can do about your air conditioner not cooling enough or are you stuck with certain areas of your house never getting below 85 degrees in the summer time?
When it comes to your air conditioner, just about every symptom could have several different possible solutions. There’s always multiple explanations as to what could possibly be going on. For that reason before we get started fixing the problem, we need to cover our bases and get to the bottom of what is really causing the problem if your air conditioner is not cooling enough. The first thing you should do is to take an inventory of what is happening.
Take An Inventory Of What Is Going On With Your Air Conditioner
When you think you have a problem with your air conditioner the first thing to do is nothing. That’s right. Don’t touch anything. Just leave it alone and take an inventory of what is happening. Go to the thermostat. Is it set on cooling? What temperature is it set at versus what is the room temperature?
If you know the air conditioner is set to cool, and you can see that it is not getting to the set temperature, you know you have a problem.
What’s working and not working? Is the furnace blowing air inside? If you go over to a register and put your hand in front of it is it blowing air?
Now to the unit outside. Is it blowing air? There’s a little fan on the top or side of your air conditioner. Is that fan blowing or not blowing. If it is blowing air what is the temperature of that air? Hot or cold? If you know those things we can really help figure out what’s going on.
What Is The Temperature Of The Air Coming From The Outdoor Fan?
What difference does it make what the temperature is of the air coming off the outdoor unit fan? When you put your hand over the outdoor fan, the air coming from it is usually hot. What your are feeling is the heat that was inside now being pushed to the outside.
So, if you feel air coming for the outdoor fan and it feels cool instead of warm, that means the hot air is not being taken out of the inside of your house. Under normal circumstances the hot air from inside is rejected outside.
What Is The Solution To Your Air Conditioner Not Cooling Enough?
So let’s say everything appears to be working but just not quite cooling enough. Usually around 80% of the time it needs maintenance. A dirty coil for example, can cause your air conditioner to not be efficient and to not cool as much as when it is clean. Dirty filters will also cause your air conditioner’s performance to suffer and can cause a multitude of problems relating to efficiency. When the air is not allowed to circulate properly, your air conditioner will feel like it is not keeping up to the desired temperature especially in the heat of the summer.
The good news is that if your air conditioner is not cooling enough, a simple maintenance visit will more than likely fix the issue. However, we strongly recommend a trained professional to do the maintenance on your air conditioner. A maintenance visit and the complete cleaning of a cooling system involves high voltage electricity and refrigerants at high pressure. There are also many smaller components that can be damaged in the process of cleaning your air conditioner if you do not know how to do it properly.
So, if your air conditioner is not cooling enough, don’t fear the worst. It is probably something very simple that can be fixed during an air conditioner tune up or maintenance visit.
It is a good idea to get your air conditioner checked out if it is not cooling enough because it is currently using much more electricity that it needs. So it’s already costing you more money than it should, plus you’re not comfortable. Maintenance will help that a lot by cleaning up all of the components.
Check Your Air Conditioner Early In The Season Especially If You Think It May Have A Problem
In addition to getting an air conditioner maintenance and tune up to address the problem of your air conditioner not cooling enough, we recommend you do some in-house things to keep the cool air in your house. Take an inventory of your house to make sure you are not blocking registers or releasing the conditioned air. One common issue we see every summer is a customer complaining about the duct work sweating near the basement. Water dripping from the duct work isn’t normal and the issue is usually resolved by finding a basement window that got left open and closing it.
If a basement window is left open during the spring, it lets in an endless amount of humidity in your basement. This causes condensation to collect on everything that is cool and will cause things like the duct work to “sweat” and cause water issues in your basement.
Double Check Those Storm Windows
Another thing you can do on your own to make sure your air conditioner can keep the desired temperature is to make sure your storm windows are closed. If your storm windows are left open during the heat of the summer you go from what could be the equivalent of a double or triple pane glass to a single pane window. You don’t notice these things when it is 72 degrees outside, but you do when it is 100 degrees outside which can cause your air conditioner to not cool enough.
As a life-long allergy sufferer, he is allergic to pollen, ragweed, animal dander, you name it. However he always says that when he is home, he doesn’t feel like he has allergies. “Growing up I was a mess. But now I can open my windows in my house, and because of the filtration that I have in my system, it’s actually helping clean the air out constantly, so that that’s where it really helps and I don’t suffer.”
Allergy Sufferers Keep Their Homes Closed Up
Homeowners, especially if they have allergies, are reluctant to open their windows. Therefore they are going from heat to air conditioning immediately because they they just cannot handle opening the windows because the suffering is not worth the economic savings that they’ll get by opening the windows and not running the air.
This is a good call because that is exactly what the Mayo Clinic recommends if you have allergies. Here is the list of recommendations from the Mayo Clinic to combat the allergy season:
Use a portable high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter in your bedroom.
Clean floors often with a vacuum cleaner that has a HEPA filter.
If you keep your house closed up and do not have a high efficiency filtration system or UV sterilization system, it is like breathing in a bubble. Homes are built so tight we are all just sharing the same air over and over again and that would be the equivalent of me blowing up a balloon and then having somebody else breathe what’s in the balloon. We’re doing it every day in our homes. Gross. Let’s freshen up that air.
What Does An HVAC Professional Use In His Own House to Combat Allergies?
Two things. One is a UV (Ultraviolet Light) Sterilization System.
The UV Sterilization System has two bulbs in it that produce two different types of UVC rays, which are used for killing germs and bacteria and viruses. This is the same type of light they are using at hospitals where they wheel it into a hospital room and shine UVC rays on the surfaces of the room that could potentially have bacteria. The UVC Light is there to kill bacteria and viruses.
There is a seperate bulb inside the chamber that produces UVB rays which helps to take care of all of the chemicals that we have in our homes. So many items in our homes off gas chemicals and we breathe them. Think of anything in your home that has a smell: Glade plugins, candles, aerosols, detergents, beaches, even the paint on your walls and the glues in the carpet have chemicals in them and we breathe in those chemicals potentially triggering allergies and illnesses.
Second is a Micro Power Guard Air Filtration System
The Micro Power Guard takes care of the particles floating around our homes. There are particulates in the air such as dust, pollen, animal dander, smoke, etc. that regular air filters don’t do a great job at removing. Regular disposable air filters will catch the bowling ball-sized particles but will leave the finer particles that can effect your allergies.
How the Micro Power Guard is so efficient is because it has an electronic polarized media. It uses the electricity to polarize or magnetize itself and turns it into a magnet for particles and it does it through a carbon insert. It uses electricity to pull the small the small fine particles towards it so that it definitely doesn’t get through for you to breathe.
We’ve been putting these in four years now and they work better than anything else we’ve used. They’re amazing.
They’re safe and reliable too. Our Micro Power Guards have a lifetime warranty.
True Story: The only time we had a Micro Power Guard fail was when a customer submerged it in the bathtub in order to clean it. Other than that, they’ll work forever.
Air Envy?
Yes. It’s a thing. We’ve actually had cases of air envy where where one homeowner says, I don’t know what you did next door, but I want air like his. Whatever you did over there. That’s what I want.
Once you experience clean air you will notice when it is not there in other homes or buildings. Matt doesn’t notice two cats in his house and he’s allergic to cats. Matt said “I’ve had I’ve had friends over for hours and later said ‘you have cats?’ and I say actually we have two of them and I’m badly allergic to cats. They cannot believe they didn’t notice when they came into my home.”
UV Sterilization System and Micro Power Guard Help With More Than Just Allergies
In a study done by Environmental Health and Engineering, Inc.* researchers set out to measure the potential exposure benefits of whole house high efficiency in-duct air cleaners. The study focused on sensitive subpopulations such as those who have asthma or severe allergies. The results indicated that the use of high efficiency in-duct air cleaners provide an effective means of controlling allergen levels not only in a single room, like a portable air cleaner, but the whole house.
The National Environmental Education and Training Foundation recommends the use of portable air cleaners in bedrooms of asthmatics. While the use of portable air cleaners in the bedroom did prove to be beneficial in the study, the researchers found that in reality, the use of high efficiency in-duct air cleaners provide a more effective means of controlling allergen levels and the influenza virus not only in a single room, but the whole house.
Perhaps the most interesting result from the study…
Involves the estimation of the risk of influenza infection from an individual who remains in the home over the course of a five-day infectious period with someone who currently has the illness. Since influenza can trigger asthma, the researchers were interested in the effect of high efficiency filters on the transmission of the illness.
The study assumed that the infectious individual spent one-half of their time in the bedroom and the other half in the family room, while a healthy individual spent 69% of the corresponding time indoors at the home during which they were exposed to the house-wide average concentration of quanta in air. For this scenario, the risk of infection by influenza was greater than 30% in the ventilation configuration with a portable air cleaner in both of the two rooms frequented by the infectious individual. In comparison, the risk of infection was less than 4% for the high efficiency in-duct system.
The “high efficiency air cleaner” used in this study was a high efficiency electrostatic air cleaner with HEPA-like removal efficiency for aerosols. One Hour Heating and Air Conditioning has this product for your home as well as more options that add even more protection for the health of your indoor air.
Olathe, KS (April 26, 2019) – Direct Energy®, along with Clockwork, Inc., (Clockwork) honored Ramon Blachly of One Hour Heating and Air Conditioning® (One Hour) with its annual President’s Club Award during Clockwork’s National Convention in New Orleans, Louisiana this past week.
A multiple time President’s Club Award winner, Blachly is the owner of the local One Hour, a member of Direct Energy’s home services company, the Clockwork, Inc. family of brands.
The President’s Club Award is the company’s top honor. To achieve this distinction businesses must have a superior customer service score and show significant growth and success.
“We are extremely pleased with the Blachly team. They put their customers first, provide excellent service and quality work. We congratulate them on this achievement,” said, Mark Baker, President of Franchise. “I’m proud of what they have accomplished.”
The business was originally founded in April of 1987 and Ramon chose to join the Clockwork system in 2004. “Comments from our customers are overwhelmingly about the people and the level of service we provide,” said Blachly. “The system has taught me to focus on that and everything falls into place.”
For more information, or to schedule service please call 913-829-1505 or visit www.onehourairkc.com today.
Before you understand how a heat pump works you must understand how an air conditioner works. A heat pump works just like an air conditioner except it also runs in the opposite direction in order to create heat as well. In heat pump mode we are taking heat out of the air outside moving it inside.
With an air conditioning system, you have the unit outside and a unit inside (usually the furnace down in your basement). The furnace contains the blower which is our means of moving air. You also have a cooling coil located on top of your furnace. Inside of the air conditioner unit outside is a compressor we’ll think of it as a pump that pumps refrigerant between the indoor and outdoor units. Above the outside compressor is a fan.
In the spring and summer when your thermostat says “hey it is getting a little warm in here.” It sends two signals out. It sends one downstairs to the basement and it turns on the blower. The blower now comes on and it starts pulling all the air out of the house via your return air grills. (You see the return air grills usually high on the wall toward an interior wall.) It starts pulling all the air out of the house and it takes it down to the furnace and it then accelerates it and pushes it through that cooling coil.
The cooling coil is hooked up to the unit outside via the refrigerant lines. That the second signal the thermostat sends out is a signal to the unit outside in the yard. This turns on the compressor and it starts starts pumping refrigerant through the coil inside and circulates to the coil outside and back again. It just got this creates this loop of refrigerant going from inside the house to outside the house.
What we’re doing is were actually absorbing the heat out of the house and into the refrigerant. It is being circulated then outside to the coil where we’re circulating it through that coil and we’re releasing the heat outside in the yard. (If you’ve ever placed your hand above the fan on your outdoor unit you feel hot air. That is actually the hot air that was taken out of your house!)
On the inside portion of your cooling system, we’re taking the warm moist air out of the house. Then we’re blowing it through that cooling coil and chilling it making it cooler. Then that cool air gets blown back inside the house.
That’s how an air conditioner works.
A heat pump does that very same thing. Normally you wouldn’t know the difference between an air conditioner or a heat pump. They look exactly the same but unlike your air conditioner, it also starts up in the wintertime. In the winter time we need heat in the house. When you need heat, the thermostat sends out those same two signals. It turns on the blower downstairs and we start gathering all the air up and blowing it through that coil downstairs.
The thermostat also starts up the unit outside and gets the fan going and everything. However, the heat pump is literally running backwards than how an air conditioner works. The refrigerant flow is the opposite of what it is in the air conditioning mode.
In heat pump mode we are taking heat out of the air outside moving it inside.
Then we release the heat from the outside air into your home inside. It is just the opposite of what the air conditioner does.
If it is already cold outside, how are you taking heat out of the air outside and moving it inside in order to heat your home?
Ah you are paying attention. Though it is 32 degrees outside It is outside feels cold to us. There is still usable heat in the air. Absolute zero is way way way below zero. So, on a 30-35 degree day, there’s plenty of heat that we can absorb out of the air outside and release it inside the home.
Pros and Cons of a Heat Pump
Heat pumps do a great job heating your home, however let’s say the temperature overnight gets down to zero. As it gets colder outside, there is less heat available outside. When it is colder outside, the air we are blowing inside will not feel as warm.
At 30-35 degrees there is plenty of heat available outside to heat a typical home. As it gets colder and colder and colder outside at some point the heat pump is going to be running all the time trying to keep up with the demands of what you need inside. Eventually it will need supplemental help. Supplemental help could mean a gas furnace or electric heat strip heat because it is just too cold outside.
The Economics of the Cost of Heating Your Home
For years here in Johnson County, Kansas City Power and Light would have a heat pump rate. There was a dramatic cut in the rate for electricity. In the winter months you would get a drastic cut off your utility rate. And so it was economically advantageous to operate that heat pump instead of burning natural gas. If you think back 10 years ago, natural gas prices were unstable. They would spike up one year, were would see a fifty to a hundred percent increase in gas prices from one year to the next, so it made it very advantageous to use the electric source to heat your home. When you’re using that heat pump you’re using electricity.
Right now we are in 2019. Kansas City Power and Light has taken away those incentives as far as electric rates. (I have a heat pump sitting out in the yard, but I do not use it.) I also have a high efficiency gas furnace and with the price of natural gas and the efficiency of my appliances, I’m better off just using natural gas to heat my home instead of electricity. Without that break in the electrical rate, there is no economic advantage in using the heat pump and personally I find the warmer air from the gas furnace more comfortable.
Now, some climates are perfect for heat pumps no matter the utility rates. There are places in the south were they don’t have weather that goes much below 40 degrees so only having a heat pump is a perfect solution to heating the home.
Also, as far as efficiency goes, with the all electric heat pump, you can think of it as always twice as efficient as that furnace. The furnace air feels warmer, however the heat pump is running twice as efficiently. It will deliver twice as much heat per dollar as the furnace does.
So it just depends on what your options are on weighing the pros and cons of using a heat pump.
How Do You Know if You Have a Heat Pump?
The dead giveaway is on your thermostat. You’ve got a few more switches on your thermostat if you have a heat pump.
With a regular air conditioner thermostat, there are heat | cool | off positions for your system. There may also be a blower switch which either says automatic or on. A heat pump thermostat has few more switches on it. If you have a heat pump you’ll see a term like emergency heat on the thermostat and you’ll have a heat | cool | off switch just like an air conditioner. The emergency heat is a setting that you can manually turn off the heat pump, and turn on the gas furnace or whatever you use for supplemental heat.
If something malfunctions a with the heating option on the heat pump, you can go to manually go to the emergency heat setting turn off the unit outside and still have a source for heat in that house.
What Is That Loud Noise Coming From My Heat Pump?
There are a few common noises that you may have with a heat pump.
Often you may hear a loud shaking from the outdoor unit. That is most often the heat pump going through a defrost mode. Depending on the weather conditions, there will be times when the heat pump has frost form on the unit outside. It is working normally but when the temperature drops outside the heat pump will ask itself every 90 minutes if there is frost on the outdoor unit. It has little sensors so it will know if there is frost or not. If frost is detected it goes through a defrost cycle. That sounds like a “whoosh”. What happens is in order to get rid of the frost the heat pump will reverse the direction of the refrigerant and run backwards. The unit is trying to use the hot gas of the refrigerant to defrost the unit outside.
If you’re fortunate enough to see this defrost mode, it is quite a show. Since it melts the frost off it turns to steam and so it literally looks like their outdoor unit is getting ready to explode.
Seriously, we have gotten terrified calls from homeowners witnessing the defrost mode thinking that something was blowing up outside.
Pro Tip For Being Kind To Your Heat Pump
If you are running your heat pump during winter storms, it is common to hear a rattling noise outside. Ice can form on the fan blades and possibly even get out of balance because there are ice formations on it.
Ice storms is another can be a problematic time for a heat pump. Sometimes it doesn’t hurt to just go ahead and turn it off and run the furnace instead.
The second thing to check if your air conditioner is running but not cooling enough. is the outdoor unit. (The outdoor unit is called the condensing unit.) Look at the outdoor unit to see if there are overgrown bushes that are blocking the airflow out of the top of the unit. Make sure everything is trimmed back at least a couple of feet all around the air conditioner so you have a free flow of air.
