When you get your heating and cooling bill every month, getting better energy efficiency from your home HVAC system probably rockets to the top priority on your mind. What might surprise you is that there is more that you can do to get better energy efficiency than just turning down your thermostat during the winter and turning off the A/C in the summertime.
Getting a better understanding of how your HVAC components actually work together can help you to start realizing much bigger savings on your bills with better energy efficiency. Read below or talk with the heating & cooling experts at Galmiche & Sons to learn more!
How Your HVAC System Works
When you use the boiler or furnace to get your home to your desired temperature, that system takes the hot air from that machine and then uses a blower to push it out through your ventilation ducts to all the rooms in your house. Cooling systems operate by similar principles, but in reverse: your central air system extracts heat from your rooms and then vents it outside.
Problems in any one of the components can lead to serious losses of energy efficiency for the whole system. The real problem area might not be the furnace or boiler – it could be the ventilation system, an unchanged filter, or something else that is causing you energy efficiency issues.
- Prevention is always better than cure: If you do not have your HVAC system inspected and maintained at least once per year, you are almost certainly putting more stress on the system than is wise for your comfort and your wallet. Your filters need to be changed, your components need to be checked, and so on. Keeping the system in good working order makes for greatly improved energy efficiency. Maintenance is almost never a waste of money – and it helps to keep the energy efficiency levels of your system as high as they can be.
- Poor ventilation could be harming your home’s energy efficiency: Duct problems include poor placement, improper sizing, leaks, missing or damaged insulation, and insufficient numbers of return grilles. This can all impede the overall energy efficiency of your home by forcing the furnace and A/C to work harder to achieve the same result.
- You might have an out-dated blower: Many old homes have old-fashioned fixed-speed blowers. Such machines only have two settings: 100% and 0%. They are either going at full blast or not at all. This is much less energy efficient than more modern variable speed blower technologies that only push out as much air as the system needs to maintain your thermostat temperature. Variable speed blowers are inherently more energy efficient because they only use as much energy as is needed to keep your home at the right temperature.
Learn More About What Is Causing Energy Efficiency Problems in your HVAC System
At Galmiche & Sons, we love helping St. Louis homeowners achieve greater energy efficiency in their HVAC systems. We know you want to cut down on your electric or gas bill – so let us help you optimize your HVAC system for the best energy efficiency possible. We will identify the weakest links in your heating & air conditioning systems and figure out how to strengthen it within your budget. Contact us today!
