There are several factors to consider when choosing an HVAC contractor. Remember, a quality installation is vital to the long term good health of your new system. A poorly installed heat pump or furnace will drastically lower the efficiency of the system and result in less-than-expected savings on your energy bill. How do you ensure that your contractor will properly install your new system?

The answer is simple. Although most homeowners are unaware, installing any HVAC system requires the issuance of a mechanical permit from the City or County Building Department. Your contractor can and will pull them. Upon completion of your installation, a mechanical inspector from the city (or county) will come to your home and inspect all work done by the contractor. Any code violations and/or substandard work will be listed by the inspector and must be corrected by the contractor before the work will be approved. This is an important protection that all homeowners should utilize when purchasing a new system.

Paragon Heating routinely pulls permits on all new installations. Our customers know that Paragon Heating is committed to installing all new equipment under the most stringent guidelines and in full compliance to all applicable codes and regulations. Upon completion of the installation our Start-up technician performs a comprehensive check of all new equipment to ensure not only that it is operating properly but also that it is totally code compliant. An appointment is then made for the mechanical inspector to come to the home and inspect our work.

Unfortunately, many local contractors prefer to do their work without obtaining a permit. Last year an estimated 60-70% of new systems installations were done without any type of permit being pulled. This allows the contractor to install equipment without having to follow the mechanical or electrical codes or have their work inspected by a third party. Pay attention homeowners. Do not allow your HVAC contractor to tell you that a permit is “not required” or “unnecessary”. It is an important protection for you and any contractor who refuses to permit his work certainly does not have his customer’s best interests in mind.

Its not hard to get your duct cleaned. A professional air duct cleaner will use specially designed tools and an industrial style vacuum to scrape and suck up the dirt, dust, from your ducts. The vacuum will keep particles from entering your living space and the tools will remove debris from the ducts, making them clean and breathable again. Mold inhibiting agents may also be applied if needed and the air conditioner and furnace components should also be air washed during the cleaning.

2) When people have hard wood floors and no carpeting their floors are freezing so you can either buy a couple of area rugs which may add up costs or a much cheaper thing to do is always have socks and slippers on your whole family. ( MY CHILDREN LIKE THE SOCKS WITH THE GRIPS )
It keeps their feet warm and also allows them not to slip and fall.  Also those runners on the bottom of the doors is a great way of keeping the cold weather out

3) Also make sure you have your home on a timer for when you are not home no need to heat up a house if you are not in it. Unless you have tenants and or you control the heat for the building or something like that in that case make sure the timer is on as well as a set temperature.

4) Also wearing long sleeve and pant pajamas are a sure way to keep warm while you are in bed sleeping.

5) Always having a HVAC Company come and check your furnace before its to late and your furnace goes out and need to replace it in the dead of winter when most heating companies are extremely busy.

They may be building a new house.

No matter what your reason, choosing a new furnace can be an intimidating process. There are nearly 100 different brands, and thousands of different models on the market. There are budget models, fully featured models and high efficiency models. There are upflow, downflow and cross-flow models. How can you make an informed decision without going back to school to get a furnace PhD? To make matters worse, a furnace is a big-ticket item. You can expect to spend anywhere from $1000 to $15000 or more by the time your new furnace is installed and working. And, you can expect to enjoy (or resent!) your furnace for the next 25 years or more!

Many people deal with this decision by simply placing all of the choices in someone else’s hands — they open the yellow pages, call the first Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) contractor in the book, and ask them to replace their furnace. And, provided you find a reputable HVAC contractor on your first call, this can greatly simplify the process.  I’m going to give you an overview of how the HVAC market works, and how to identify reputable HVAC contractors.

HOW THE HVAC MARKET

Upgrading or installing a new furnace is not a do-it-yourself project.  You will need the help of a fully qualified and lisence HVAC contractor. A tipcail job will go something as this.

1. You identify and contact several HVAC contractors
2. You set up an appointment with each of them to visit your home. You should not be charged for this initial appointment. At the appointment, they will inspect your existing furnace, and collect a wide range of information about your home — how many windows it has, which direction they face, how thorough is its insulation, etc. The contractor uses all of this information to calculate the load — the correct capacity for the furnace that they would install.
3. You should receive a written estimate from each contractor. Make sure that the estimate breaks out the different charges that the contractor expects to encounter — i.e. how much will the furnace itself cost? How much in labor? Do they recommend work on your home’s ducts? Are they pully Permits?
4. If one of the contractors submits a bid that is dramatically different from the other bids, don’t be shy about asking the contractor to explain the difference — they may have noticed something that the other contractors missed.

Some HVAC contractors and companies represent a single brand or furnace manufacturer. Hiring one of these contractors has advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, the contractor has probably gone through specialized training offered by the manufacturer. Should the job end badly, you may have additional leverage, since you may be able to approach the manufacturer with complaints. On the other hand, this contractor will only offer furnaces from this one manufacturer. If you get estimates from contractors that represent a single brand, make sure the get estimates from several contractors, and make sure they are recommending equivalent furnaces.

Energy prices are on the rise across the nation. As a result, heating costs will consume an increasingly larger portion of a household’s energy budget. That’s why it’s important to check your home to insure that your heating dollars aren’t being wasted.

When cold weather approaches, use this checklist of simple ways to make your home more comfortable and keep those escalating energy bills at bay.

Check for Leaks

Weatherstripping and caulking is probably the least expensive, simplest, most effective way to cut down on energy waste in the winter. Improperly sealed homes can waste 10 to 15 percent of the homeowner’s heating dollars. Take these steps:

1. Check around doors and windows for leaks and drafts. Add weather-stripping and caulk any holes you see that allow heat to escape. Make sure doors seal properly.
2. If your windows leak really badly, consider replacing them with newer, more efficient ones. Keep in mind, however, that replacing windows can be expensive – it could take you quite awhile to recover your costs from the energy savings alone. But new windows also provide other benefits, such as improved appearance and comfort.
3. Every duct, wire or pipe that penetrates the wall or ceiling or floor has the potential to waste energy. Plumbing vents can be especially bad, since they begin below the floor and go all the way through the roof. Seal them all with caulking or weather-stripping.
4. Electric wall plugs and switches can allow cold air in. Purchase simple-to-install, pre-cut foam gaskets that fit behind the switch plate and effectively prevent leaks.
5. Don’t forget to close the damper on your fireplace. Of course the damper needs to be open if a fire is burning; but if the damper is open when you’re not using the fireplace, your chimney functions as a large open window that draws warm air out of the room and creates a draft. Close that damper – it’s an effective energy-saving tip that costs you nothing!
6. Examine your house’s heating ducts for leaks. Think of your ductwork as huge hoses, bringing hot air instead of water into your house. Mostly out of sight, ducts can leak for years without you knowing it. They can become torn or crushed and flattened. Old duct tape – the worse thing to use to seal ductwork, by the way – will dry up and fall away over time, allowing junctions and splices to open, spilling heated air into your attic or under the house. It’s wasteful. You can save roughly 10 percent of your heating bill by preventing leaky ducts.

Check Your Insulation

1. Insulate your attic. In an older home, that can be the most cost-efficient way to cut home heating costs. Before energy efficiency standards, homes were often built with little or no insulation. As a result, large amounts of heat can be lost through walls, floors and – since heat rises – especially ceilings.How much insulation should you install? Typical framed homes now being built in California’s Central Valley must meet insulation requirements of R-38 insulation in ceilings and R-19 for walls and floors.
2. Weather-strip and insulate your attic hatch or door to prevent warm air from escaping out the top of your house.
3. Seal holes in the attic that lead down into the house, such as open wall tops and duct, plumbing, or electrical runs. Any hole that leads from a basement or crawlspace to an attic is a big energy waster. Cover and seal them with spray foam and rigid foam board if necessary.
    

Check Your Heating System

1. Get a routine maintenance and inspection of your heating system each autumn to make sure it is in good working order.
2. Replace your heater’s air filter monthly. Your heating system will work less hard, use less energy and last longer as a result. Most homeowners can replace filters and do such simple tasks as cleaning and removing dust from vents or along baseboard heaters.
3. If your heating system is old, you might consider updating it. A pre-1977 gas furnace is probably 50 percent to 60 percent efficient today. That means only half of the fuel used by the furnace actually reaches your home as heat. Modern gas furnaces, on the other hand, achieve efficiency ratings as high as 97 percent. By replacing an old heating system with one of the most efficient models, you can cut your natural gas use nearly in half!
4. Use your set-back thermostat. California houses built today must have them. If you have an older home, consider installing one. A set-back thermostat allows you to automatically turn down the heat when you’re away at work or when you’re sleeping at night, and then boost the temperature to a comfortable level when you need it. Remember – it takes less energy to warm a cool home than to maintain a warm temperature all day long. Properly using your set-back thermostat could cut your heating costs from 20 to 75 percent.
5. Reverse the switch on your ceiling fans so they blow upward, toward the ceiling. Ceiling fans are a great idea in the summer, when air blowing downward can improve circulation and make a room feel four degrees cooler. A cooling draft is a poor idea when it’s cold, however. By reversing the fan’s direction, the blades move air upward in winter. This is especially valuable in high ceiling rooms, where heat that naturally rises is forced back down into the room.
6. Make sure all hearing vents are opened and unblocked by furniture or other items. This will ensure that the air is evenly distributed through the home.

Change a Light Bulb

1. Lighting our homes can represent 20 percent of home electricity bills and is one of the easiest places to start saving energy. If every household changed a light to an ENERGY STAR® one, together we’d save enough energy to light 7 million homes and reduce greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to that of 1 million cars.

Your heast exchanger is a combination of one or more chambers or “cells” that heats the air in your home.

Your heat exchanger is designed as a barrier, its job is to contain a fueled fire, transmit the fire’s heat in our living space, and vent the toxic exhasut gasses and by-products tothe outdoors, without harming you or your family.

What is chamber or cell?

Heat exchangersare made of one our more chambers called cells.  Cells are formed from two fairly thin metal “shells”‘ sealed around the edge with two opening one for the fire to enter the other to exhaust the fires toxic combustion gases.

How do they fail.

The most commom failures are holes and crackes. Holes are usually caused by corrosion.

Cracks are usually caused by stress that occur during the heating cycle.

Other deffect include things like; defective draft diverters, front panels, gaskets, ect.

How do they Fail?

Moisture that has mixed with exhaust gases become acidic. When it comes into contact with the heat exchanger it will corrode the metal, unitl eventually, it penetrated the heat exchanger.

Cracks:

Your heat exchanger cells are made out of very thin metal. When the burners ignite, the heat causes them to expand slightly in every direction. When cooling off, they shrink to ther normal size and shape.

Getting a yearly Maintanence will make your furnace last longer and find cracks sooner if there are any.

This well-proven technology has been in use for decades and Heat Pumps are at work all over the world providing safe, reliable heating and cooling at affordable prices.

Where Heat Pumps are used for heating, they are capable of highly cost-efficient energy applications because they tap into a limitless supply of clean, pollution-free heat – either the surrounding air or heat captured in the ground – all you pay for is the energy to transport that heat, and in some applications, most of this energy can be reclaimed, too.

The Basic Principle

As with many technologies that we use in every-day life, the basic principles of how a heat pump works are simple.

All our surroundings, even a block of ice, has heat. The purpose of a heat pump is to absorb heat in one place where it is plentiful, then to transport and release it in another location where it can be used for space.

Useful heat can be found in the air outdoors, in the ground, and is present in water, rivers, lakes and the sea. Even on the coldest winter days, sufficient heat is present to warm our homes, what’s more, it is free. All we have to pay for is the machine to recover it and the cost of the energy to run the machine.

Even then the savings continue. Modern heat pumps allow a significant quantity of the electrical energy that drives the heat pump to be returned to the building as useful heat.

How Does a Heat Pump Work?

At the heart of a modern heat pump is a refrigeration system. Paradoxically, the refrigeration cycle is an efficient provider of heat as well as cooling and the basics of its operation are quite easily understood.

There are two principle locations in the transfer of heat; the place where heat is absorbed, (the source), and where it is rejected, (the destination). The compressor in the refrigeration system also produces waste heat, and a significant proportion of this can be recovered, thereby reducing running costs and the ultimate release of CO2.

The mechanical refrigeration cycle consists of an arrangement of heat exchangers; one that absorbs heat, the other that rejects it. All but the largest industrial systems are hermectrially sealed and pressurised, thereby reducing noise, space and heat losses. This means that the compressor and the motor that drives it are encased in a welded shell.

This heat absorbed is transported through a sealed system of pipes by a fluid, the refrigerant, circulated by a compressor. The refrigerant is a fluid that has a low boiling point. A metering device to control the flow of refrigerant completes the arrangement and it is all connected by pipes. As the refrigerant works under pressure, the whole system is sealed for life.

In order to absorb and release the heat into and from the refrigerant, we exploit the ability of the refrigerant fluid to boil from a liquid to a vapour and then to condense back into a liquid. This is a continual process while the compressor is running and circulating the refrigerant.

For all volatile substances, there is a known relationship between its pressure and its boiling point; by controlling these in the refrigerant we can achieve cooling and heating in the same machine at the same time.

High pressure liquid refrigerant is fed through the metering device into the evaporator heat exchanger where it evaporates into a vapour by absorption of heat from the heat source (air, water, ground, other) passing through the heat exchanger.

The relatively cool return vapour is drawn back to the compressor. The compressor and the electric motor that drive it are constructed in a fully sealed hermetic shell. The cooled return vapour from the evaporator is passed over the compressor motor windings within the heat pump, thus cooling the windings of the motor.

Much of the energy absorbed by the electric motor driving the compressor is absorbed into the refrigerant.

The combined heat from the source, plus much of the waste energy from the electric motor is then compressed to a high temperature vapour and enters the condenser heat exchanger where it is cooled and condensed into a high pressure liquid ready to begin the cycle again.

The heat released during the process of condensing the refrigerant to a liquid is rejected via the heat exchanger directly into air or transferred to water to heat the building. The air or water temperature at this point could be 43ºC to 60ºC, depending on the design of the system.

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Change your filter reguarly

Check your filter every month, especially during heavy use months (winter and summer). If the filter looks dirty after a month, change it. At a minimum, change the filter every 3 months. A dirty filter will slow down air flow and make the system work harder to keep you warm or cool — wasting energy. A clean filter will also prevent dust and dirt from building up in the system — leading to expensive maintenance and/or early system failure.

Tune up your HVAC equipment yearly

Just as a tune-up for your car can improve your gas mileage, a yearly tune-up of your heating and cooling system can improve efficiency and comfort.

Install a programmable thermostat

 A programmable thermostat is ideal for people who are away from home during set periods of time throughout the week. Through proper use of pre-programmed settings, a programmable thermostat can save you about $180 every year in energy costs

Seal your heating and cooling ducts

Ducts that move air to-and-from a forced air furnace, central air conditioner, or heat pump are often big energy wasters. Sealing and insulating ducts can improve the efficiency of your heating and cooling system by as much as 20 percent — and sometimes much more.

Focus first on sealing ducts that run through the attic, crawlspace, unheated basement, or garage. Use duct sealant (mastic) or metal-backed (foil) tape to seal the seams and connections of ducts. After sealing the ducts in those spaces, wrap them in insulation to keep them from getting hot in the summer or cold in the winter. Next, look to seal any other ducts that you can access in the heated or cooled part of the house.

Consider installing qualified heating and cooling equipment (American Standard or Coleman)

If your HVAC equipment is more than 10 years old or not keeping your house comfortable, have it evaluated by a professional HVAC contractor (Paragon Heating) . If it is not performing efficiently or needs upgrade. Depending on where you live, replacing your old heating and cooling equipment with qualified equipment can cut your annual energy bill by nearly $200. But before you invest in a new HVAC system, make sure that you have addressed the big air leaks in your house and the duct system. Sometimes, these are the real sources of problems rather than your HVAC equipment.

Ask about Proper Installation of your new equipment

Replacing your old heating and cooling equipment with new, energy-efficient models is a great start. But to make sure that you get the best performance, the new equipment must be properly installed. In fact, improper installation can reduce system efficiency by up to 30 percent — costing you more on your utility bills and possibly shortening the equipment’s life