What's Happing This Week  Fri, 09 Mar 2012 17:57:00 +0000 The EPA An article in the Indoor Comfort News states; On Jan. 4th the U.S. E.P.A. published a proposed rule titled " Protection of Stratospheric Ozone: The reductions being proposed by the EPA are significant-ranging from 11% to 47% per year over the period 2012-2014. And , these proposed reductions are in addition to the 10% annual reductions already built into the 2009 rule. So there it is that is why R-22 is going up so high in price.  I'm sure if you want more info. on this you can go to the EPA web site. EPA Vs Thermal Cool Wow, The EPA has accelerated their time table on the phase out of R-22. Starting 2010 the restrictions started on production of R-22. R-22 is the refrigerant that is used in most home air conditioners. The EPA started their caps on production in 2010. Manufactures could not produce more than what they produced in the year 2000. (I think) It is to drop 10% every year there after till it is phased out. January 2012 The EPA decided the step it up and go to 45% this year. What does that mean? The cost of R-22 jumped up 100% in cost. It will be a big shock this summer when people need to have their AC serviced and it cost 300 to dollars for R-22. Summer Is Over Yes, summer came and left about that fast. We didn't have a very hot summer at all. Things have not changed much with the economy in the last few months. But good news is that Venstar has a new Thermostat out. It has a nice screen and is fully programable. You can load your own pictures and have a nice slide show on your wall. Up to a hundred pictures. You can check it out at venstar.com Summer is getting close. Summer is just around the corner and it will be 100 degrees. So have your Air Conditioner check and serviced before it is busy and you have to wait. If you are a do it your self kind of person then get out and wash the unit and change the filter. Oil the motors. Check all the electrical connections. Clean the condensate drain. Do this and you should not have problems this summer. If you are not the type that will service your unit then call us Thermal Cool Inc. and we will take care of it for you. That is if your in the Riverside area of Southern California. We will go to some far away places but you have to pay the air fare. I like Hawaii. www.thermalcool.com What does it all mean It means that you will pay more for the same thing. Only now you know that it is the right unit for your house. Other factors have driven the cost of air conditioning equipment to rise. The cost of raw materials, copper. aluminium and steel have all gone up. That with Government regulations, insurance cost, gas cost, and labor cost all going up have caused that replacement unit that cost $2,000.00 dollars 5 years ago now cost $5,000.00 dollars.  What size do I need The size will depend on how efficient your house is. If you are having a new house built then you will have a set of plans and title 24. Title 24 is  part of the building code and it is a set of regulations that tell you what you can put in your structure.IE; insulation windows, lights, etc; etc; etc;. You get the idea. The other thing it tells you is the size of the heater and air conditioner you will use. I think this is a good time to explain how Air Conditioning  works.  http://www.energyquest.ca.gov/how_it_works/air_conditioner.html This link will give you more info if needed. but in simple terms, it removes heat inside your house and moves it to outside. This is why they make you put in double pane windows. insulate your walls and attic and build an air tight envelope. It is all for slowing down the heat that is conducting (moving) through your ceiling and walls into your house. Lets face it, if you didn't have stucco and drywall your house would never cool. In the fifty's and sixty's that is all you had. In the seventy they started using insulation and started down sizing the units. with the cost of electricity this is a good thing. Now here is the problem as I see it.All things being equal. Using a rule of thumb to size your air conditioning needs will till you that a 1600 square foot house will need a 3 ton unit. You do the title 24 calculation and it will till you that you only need a 2 3/4 ton, the thing is you have to buy a 2 1/2 or a 3 ton unit. So you spent $800.00 to $1500.00 dollars to use the same unit you would have before the requirement. I know that is not always the way it goes but I would say it is more often that not. I also know that a three ton unit in Palm Springs will not produce the same cooling as in Monterey but the sizing for your area and the design temperatures will change. If you have questions or commits you can e-mail me at dcouch@thermalcool.com Getting a Permit What is required? I have briefly discussed what is required from most city's in California. Depending on where you live depends on what is required. In some county's to replace your AC you pay a permit fee. Somewhere around $100.00. Inside the city limits, you may pay $500.00. You will be required to submit a load calculation, duct leakage certification, and even a drawing. For more information on load calculations go to http://www.acca.org/ It will take from 2 hours to 16 hours to do a load calculation an a home depending on the size on the home. Most homes will take 6 to 8 hours from start to finish. You have to get all the information from the house then input it into a computer to get the load. Why is this required? Will the way we (contractors) would size a system for a house, in the 60's was to stand out  side on the curb and hold your hand up and how ever many fingers it took to cover the house is how many tons you needed, the 70's and 80's for some reason we started using 400 sq. ft per ton. 1200 sq ft home = 3 tons of air it was easy and if your not sure if that would cool add a ton. Electricity was cheap. Then the 90's came and things started to change, the utility's started running out of electricity and it was not cheap to build power plants, so what do they do, REGULATE... All our usage. They say that we have been putting in to big of units. Energy Star and rebates were invented. Buy energy Star and save money. It did get some momentum but not enough, so the government steps in. This is why it takes weeks to get a permit and why it makes that $1500.00 unit that sits outside cost $3,000.00. No matter which side of the fence your on contractors are stuck in the middle trying to make a living. It cost the consumer and it cost the contractor, and the government they just keep regulating. Title 24 Now you have gone through 100 Lbs of ice, and it is the day of your appointment. So you wait, at 8:00 AM you call the repairman to fine out when he will be there.After hours of waiting he shows up and looks at your AC unit. Comes in and tells you, get this... it's broken ! Really ! Do you think that's why your here. But then you find out it can't be repaired. How much will it cost to replace it? You ask. He says. I will have to get prices's. How long will it take to replace. A few weeks. What!! Well now we have to get a permit, so we have to draw a plan up and show the location of your unit, then we have to get a duct leakage test done by an independent company, then we have to send some one out to measure all the rooms and windows, then we have to do a load calculation and submit it to the city to get a permit. All these cost have to be figured in to the cost of replacement. (Now I know some of you think I am making this up. No this is what you have to go thru to get a permit.) I have not even talked about if you have a house that was built in the 50's or 60's you may have asbestos wrapped duct. Then men in space suits come over to remove your duct. This may run several thousand dollars depending on the size of your house. Questions Email Me at dcouch@thermalcool.com www.thermalcool.com Permit Process II So, if you remodel your house or build a new one you will hear about Title 24. If you have questions, here is a link to check it out http://www.energy.ca.gov/title24/ . Title 24 is part of the building code in California and any reputable contractor will abide by it. As they say; It' The Law. So how does it effect you. Let say it is 110 degrees outside in the middle of July. Your sitting on your couch watching your favorite TV show and you notice it getting a little warm in the house. You get up and check the thermostat and it shows the AC is on. You get up and go feel the air coming out of the vent, it's cool but not cold. So you wait to see if it comes back on. After five minuets you start sweating, you check the thermostat again, what's up, says its on. Check the vent again, warm air. It is not coming on. You turn the temperature down. Still nothing. You go and look at the AC unit outside and see it is not running. This is when you decide to call your local AC repairman. He tells you how busy he is and can't come out till next week. You schedule an appointment go to the store and buy a block of ice and a fan, and then you wait and wait. To continue: The Permit Process Energy efficiency really didn't start until the late 1970s. Up until this time, electricity was cheap. I would say that the first oil embargo started it all. I think that caused everyone to realize that oil was not endless and it came at a cost, so we started looking at how it was wasted. Hence our energy programs. We started big government agencies to deal with theses problems. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) AQMD (Air Quality Management District) and the list goes on, there are hundreds if not thousands now. Can't tell you which one created title 24 of the building code and it doesn't matter at this point it is the law in California and all new or remodeled building must comply. Permits for Construction Back in the fifty's and sixty's there was not much enforcement when it came to getting a permit from the city. You would pay a fee and get a permit. Then you met the inspector at the donut shop when the job was done and got the permit signed off. That was then and this is now. It works a lot differently now. I would have to say, for the consumer it is better. I say that with hesitation. For a contractor it is much more difficult and expensive, which we all know is passed on to the customer. It can add as much as $3,000.00 dollars to the bottom line. Government Regulations What does it take to change your unit out now in 2011. This is a complicated question. We will try to explain the process that you as a consumer and us as a contractor has to go thru to get cold air in your house. To understand this we have to start at the beginning. So keep checking back as this story is told. Also keep in mind that my opinions will creep in to this story from time to time, I will try to keep it as factual as possible. Central heating didn't start being installed until the early 1900's. Most homes had only fire place to heat the house. Up until the 1940;s only the rich could afford a central heat system.When WWII ended is when they began to install central systems in most homes. In the fifty's home builders would offer a air conditioners as an add-on to the home sale.Up until this time heaters were installed by plemmers. There really was not an  air conditioning industries until now. Most air conditioning mechanics were plumbers. This is why you will still see a lot of company's that do both plumbing and air conditioning. (Most plumbers don't know that water flows down hill and this is why Air Conditioning technicinian get a bum rap, a lot are plumbers.) (My Opinion). We'll stop here. http://www.thermalcool.com/ dcouch@thermalcool.com Operating Cost How much does it cost to operate an air conditioning unit. Every summer customers complain that there electric bill is so high there must be something wrong with there A/C. Well when your looking at your electric bill the thing you want to look at is the wattage used. You are billed by the amount of watts you use. Then you need to look at the temperature and compare it to the days and temperature of last year. I find that the usage is the same with a given temperature, just the cost went up. Here is a web site that you can use to figure how much your unit cost to operate. http://www.hvacopcost.com/ http://www.thermalcool.com/ If you have questions you can email me at  dcouch@thermalcool.com Why NATE NATE (North American Technician Excellence) is a certification that technician get, that requires they complete a certain amount of training. What good is this for the consumer? Will it gives them a certain amount of confidence that they will get a qualified tech to fix the problem right. For more information you can go to http://www.natex.org/ to fine a contractor in your area. If you are in the Inland Empire then we hope we are your first choice. All our technicians are NATE certified. www.thermalcool.com Furnaces The AFUE is the most widely used measure of a furnace's heating efficiency. It measures the amount of heat actually delivered to your house compared to the amount of fuel that you must supply to the furnace. Thus, a furnace that has an 80% AFUE rating converts 80% of the fuel that you supply to heat -- the other 20% is lost out of the chimney. The US Department of Energy (DOE) determined that all furnaces sold in the US must have a minimum AFUE of 78%, beginning January 1, 1992. Mobile home furnaces are required to have a minimum AFUE of 75%. If you have more  questions email me at dcouch@thermalcool.com Safety First this Thanksgiving I am going to stray away from the energy savings subject this week and talk about safety in regards to your home. As a service tech with 30 plus years service experience, I have seen a lot of safety violations when it comes to heating your house. I have found people turn on all the burners and stove to heat there house because the heater broke. Please if you do this , STOP! a gas range is not vented so the flue gas which has high concentrations of CO (carbonmonoxide) will build up inside of your house. If left on long enough you could die from CO poisoning. If you use your stove to cook with you should always turn your kitchen hood vent on to help exhaust the CO. Do not bring the Bar-B-Que in to the living room to heat your house. Do not bring any open flame appliance into your house to heat it. If your heater breaks call a reputable service company out to fix it. If you can't get some one out soon enough get a hotel room or stay with friends. Always have your heated check and serviced before using it each season. Have a happy Thanksgiving, be safe and you can e-mail me with any questions you may have about your air conditioning and heating system at dcouch .@thermalcool.com Visit us at www.thermalcool.com Air Conditioning SEER Ratings When buying a new Air conditioning unit you want to get the highest SEER rating you can afford.(Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio) The higher the number the higher the efficiency. The minimum is 13 SEER, they go up from there. A high efficiency unit installed on a poor undersized leaky duct system will not give you the savings you would expect, so have your ducts tested before you buy. www.thermalcool.com http://www.science.energy.gov/sbir/awards_abstracts/sttr/cycle4/phase2/abstract/3.htm Duct Leakage One place you can save a lot of energy is in your duct system.The U.S. Department of Energy says that (The typical duct system loses 25 to 40 percent of the heating or cooling energy put out by the central furnace, heat pump, or air conditioner)If your house was built before the 1980's Its a good bet that you could benefit by having your ducts tested. Even if it were built after the 1980's chances are you have leaky ducts and could benefit. If your heater is located in the garage and your platform is leaking you could be sucking chemicals from the garage into the house. WARNING: Do not try to seal up your duct system if you have not been trained. Their are test that should be done before and after the duct system is sealed to make sure that there is not a combustion safety problem. This should only be done by qualified technicians. Any questions about any heating or cooling e-mail us at dcouch. @thermalcool.com www.thermalcool.com Air Filter Vs Air Cleaner This is a good question. There is a big difference. Air filters do exactly that, they filter, and are mainly there to protect the system, not for air quality. They do not remove air contaminants or odors. Depending on your house, and life stile you should change your filter sooner than later. (At least 2 times per year). The dirtier they get the more it cost to operate your system and the worst the performance of your system. If you notice that your system is not heating or cooling properly, the first thing you should do is replace your filter. Air cleaners on the other hand are designed to clean and remove air contaminants. Here is a good source for information on air cleaners. http://www.epa.gov/iaq/pubs/airclean.html  Before you buy an air cleaner do your home work. There are a lot of claims and some, flat aren't true. Bottom line to save energy change your filter. www.thermalcool.com www.thermalcoolinc.com  Thermostats Programmable thermostats are a good way to save energy. It is not recommended turning off your thermostat. The amount of energy it takes to cool or heat your house after the system has been off for 8 to 10 hours, is more than the amount of energy it takes to maintain the temp at 82 to 84 degrees. If the thermostat is programed to 78 degrees during occupied time the recovery time and the energy consumption is less, saving you money and giving you better comfort.www.thermalcool.com http://www.thermalcoolinc.com/thermostats.asp You can find the thermostat here for the one that works best for you This is our first attempt at blogging. We hope to give advice and tips on keeping your air conditioning system and house energy efficient. We'll give a weekly tip of how to to keep your equipment operating efficiently and safe. We will answer any questions you have about your heating and air conditioning system air quality, duct cleaning, whole house fans, or what ever is on your mind about your house.www.thermalcool.com