Author Archives: proairfl

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When is it time to change your air filter?

To change the temperature in your home, your heating and air-conditioning system sucks in air from a room, pulls it over coils to heat or chill it, then blows the tempered air through ducts to the other rooms in your home. The air filter is stationed at the point where air is pulled into the system. It traps air-born particles that get sucked in with the air and keeps them from blocking the blower and clogging up the coils. Clogged coils can’t heat or cool the air passing over them, and they may damage the system. So, the air filter helps your heating and cooling system do its job, keeps it running efficiently and protects it so it will last longer.

Filters also help to keep dust from building up in your ducts, or being blown into other rooms of your house. In recent years, this air cleaning function has become more important to homeowners, and manufacturers have designed filters that use your heating and air system to remove microscopic particles like dust, pollen, pet dander, bacteria, plant and mold spores, and even smoke from the air in your home.

You always hear: Clean air filters save energy and money. Routinely changing or cleaning the filters from your home’s heating and air conditioning system helps the units run more efficiently and enjoy a longer lifespan. But what do these filters really do? How can you tell if they’re working? How often should you change them, and what should you do if they look clean when it’s time to replace them?

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, indoor air pollution is among the top five environmental health risks. Dust, pet dander, pollen and an array of other elements have been linked to asthma, musty odors, window condensation and even structural rot—all of which can wage war on your health as well as your pocketbook.

Luckily, you can defend yourself and your home with an air filter, the first line of defense in the battle for indoor air quality. But they need to be used properly, which means you need to change your air filter frequently.

Here are five tips to help you know when it’s time to change your air filter.

air filter

When your air filter is dirty

This is simple. Anytime you notice dust and other debris covering the filter, it’s time to change your air filter. They can’t work properly if they’re dirty.

When the manufacturer suggests

If you’re like most people and don’t frequently pull the filter from your furnace, you can mark your calendar based on manufacturer recommendations. Generally, standard one- or three-inch air filters should be changed every 30 to 60 days.

When spring & summer roll around

Now that spring is in full swing, you’re probably noticing a lot more dust and dirt in your home. Your doors and windows have been pried open after winter—and all the dust, pollen, fresh cut grass & dirt being kicked up into the air is making its way inside.

When you’re remodeling

Remodeling kicks up a lot of dirt—from sheetrock, sawdust and the comings and goings of contractors. One way to protect your air quality is to change your air filter.

When you start sneezing

Mold spores as well as pollen migrate indoors, joining the partial remains of dead dust mites and dander from cats and dogs that are already inside. Escaping the symptoms very often means escaping the causes, and that means air filtration. If you or a family member suffers from allergies, you can by or have specially built HEPA air filters for your furnace and air conditioner.

Read more: http://www.ehow.com/how_4744317_change-home-air-filters.html#ixzz35egygca4

Contact Professional Air Solutions for more information about air filters, when to replace them and how they can improve the air quality in your home.

Call us today! 727-822-6600

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Does Your Home Need Dehumidification? These Questions Can Help You Find the Answer

Humidity can really get to you, especially when it’s muggy outside this is Florida and it is an extremely humid and muggy climate. Dehumidification is necessary to control moisture and keep your home a healthy, comfortable environment.

To find out if you need a dehumidifier in your home ask yourself these questions. If your answer is “yes” to any one of them, you may need to invest in a dehumidifier:

  • Do you frequently find yourself sweating in your house, even when temperatures are normal?
  • Does your skin feel sticky in the summer or clammy in the winter?
  • Does your home or specific rooms smell musty?
  • Have you noticed wood floors, trim and furniture suffering from warping or rotting?
  • Are you having problems with insect infestation in your home?
  • Do you notice condensation on windows, mirrors and cold drinks?

Left unresolved, excess moisture in your home can lead to mold and mildew growth, dust mite proliferation, and health issues such as allergies and asthma.

Controlling Home Humidity

Other than the humid Florida climate daily activities such as the shower or bath tub, doing laundry, washing dishes, and even your body itself, add moisture to your home on a daily basis. While your air conditioner is there to keep your home comfortable, its primary function is to control temperature, and provide some dehumidification. Some extra dehumidification may be necessary to maintain a comfortable, healthy home environment.

Whole-House Dehumidifiers Offer Superior Humidity Control

Working as part of your A/C or independently when needed, whole house dehumidifiers remove the ideal amount of humidity from your home, solving moisture problems. By monitoring your home with automatic sensors, this quiet equipment offers top-notch humidity control. Unlike portable models, they’re conveniently located away from your living space. Maintenance is simple, requiring only an annual filter cleaning, and the fresh air ventilation they offer also removes or dilutes polluted air inside your home.

Ready for dehumidification in your home? Contact Professional Air Solutions today!

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How to Keep Summer Cooling Costs Low—In Only 4 Minutes

What can you do in 4 minutes? More than you think.

Here are 4 simple ways to keep your utility bills low this summer and each only takes a minute to get done. Ready, set, GO!

Minute 1: Close your blinds/drapes

Don’t let heat coming blazing through your windows. It causes your air conditioner to work harder and run longer.

Take a minute and close your drapes and blinds to keep the heat out.

Learn more about the most energy efficient blinds and drapes from the U.S Department of Energy.

Minute 2: Check/change the air filter

Your air filter goes from friend to foe fast when it gets dirty.

According to ENERGY STAR,  “A dirty filter will slow down air flow and make the [air conditioner] 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.”

So take a minute to check the filter in your return duct. If it’s dirty, replace it! Make sure to check it once a month.

Out of air filters? Here’s our beginner’s guide to buying air filters where we list the pros and cons of the different types of air conditioning filters.

Minute 3: Trim the bushes around your A/C

Your central air conditioner outside unit needs breathing room to cool your home efficiently. So if your air conditioner has bushes or tree limbs smothering it, that’s going to hinder your air conditioners energy efficiency and raise your utility bills.

Take a minute to trim the foliage around the outside unit. Leave at least 18 inches clear on all sides of the outside unit.

Minute 4: Turn your ceiling fan on and your thermostat up

Want to save money while still staying cool?

Turn on your ceiling fan and you can raise the thermostat up by about 4°F with no reduction in comfort, according to the U.S Department of Energy.

A ceiling fan is far less expensive to use than an air conditioner. So any chance you can use it instead of your A/C is money you’re saving.

How much will you save? Depends on how much you’re home and need cooling. But, according to ceilingfan.com here are some general energy usage costs of each:

  • A central A/C unit runs about 3 kilowatts and costs about 36 cents per hour
  • A ceiling fan runs on only 30 watts and costs about 1 cent per hour

Just make sure you turn off your ceiling fan when you’re not in the room. A ceiling fan only makes you feel cooler through wind chill, it doesn’t actually lower the temperature of your home. So leaving the fan on when you’re not in the room or not home is a waste of money.

Professional Air Solutions is Tampa Bay‘s trusted heating and cooling specialist. Give us a call 727-822-6600.

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Top 3 Reasons Why Your A/C Will Overheat This Summer

Imagine living in Florida without air conditioning—during summer. Sounds miserable, right?

That’s exactly what will happen if your air conditioner overheats.

When an A/C overheats, it increases the electrical current it pulls in and can trip your circuit breaker. It will continue tripping the breaker until you find the cause and fix it.

Let’s avoid this sweaty scenario by showing you what causes your air conditioner to overheat.

AC Repair CLearwater

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your A/C may overheat and shut down due to…

1) Choking on a dirty air filter 

Imagine someone stuffing a pillow over your face. Hard to breathe, right?  Your A/C has a similar problem when you leave a dirty air filter in the return vent.

According to ENERGY STAR:  “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.”

“Work harder” means it runs longer to cool your home to your thermostat’s setting.

If this keeps up, the air conditioner will keep running until it overheats and shuts down.

So if your air filter looks like the one on the right…

AC Repair St. Pete

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…It’s time to change it. (You should change your filter at least once a month.)

2) Getting low on blood

Wait, blood?

Yes, refrigerant is the lifeblood of your air conditioner. It’s how your A/C absorbs heat from your indoor air and boots it outside. That’s why it’s called a “heat transfer fluid.”

Note: Most people know refrigerant as “Freon”, the DuPoint brand of refrigerant.

But when your air conditioner is low on refrigerant, it has a hard time absorbing enough heat to cool your air to the thermostat setting. So it runs constantly, overheats, and can trip the circuit breaker.

Signs you’re low on refrigerant include:

  • Vents blow hot air even though your thermostat is set to “cool.”
  • Vents blow hot/lukewarm air only sometimes (usually when it’s extremely hot outside).
  • Air conditioner runs constantly.
  • Lots of ice builds up on the inside unit.
  • Higher electric bills compared to other summers
  • Water forms on the floor by your inside unit

Not sure if you’re low on refrigerant? Have an A/C contractor check it as part of a regular maintenance visit.

if it is low on refrigerant, there may be a refrigerant leak that may need repaired.

3) Wearing a sweater of dirt

Your outside air conditioning unit is always exposed to the elements. So it’s likely to get covered in grass, dirt, dust and leaves.

But all that junk makes it hard for refrigerant coils (the tubes the refrigerant flows through) to release heat, just like a sweater keeps heat from escaping your body. (imagine your body wearing a sweater in summer; you’d overheat, too!)

Remember, the refrigerant needs to release heat so it can absorb more heat from your indoor air. If it can’t release heat, it can’t absorb more. Meaning your A/C runs longer to cool your home, just like if it were low on refrigerant.

Either clean the air conditioners outside unit yourself, or have Professional Air Solutions Specialist take care of it for you!

These and much more…

These are 3 problems you can spot and fix right away to prevent your air conditioner from overheating. But, of course, there are many other issues that can cause your air conditioner to malfunction and break down.

If that happens, have a reliable air conditioning repairman you can trust so you don’t stay without cool air for too long.

Stay cool, everybody!

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Help! There’s a water leak in my A/C Unit!

OK, so you come home and there is water coming from the ceiling or the closet and you know there’s no plumbing in those areas but there is an air conditioner air handler in the ceiling or closet. So what do you do and how do you prevent it from happening again?

Turn your A/C system off at the thermostat but leave the fan set to on. The reason for this is that while the unit was running and cooling the system is taking a lot of moisture out of the air (we are in Florida hot and humid). The evaporator has a lot of water in it when it is cooling and if you shut off the air handler all that water drains off the evaporator coil and causes more water damage. Usually the reason you would have a water leak is because there is a drainage problem.

So let’s think and find out what the problem may be. For the Do-It-Yourself types, you would think easy fix, the drain is clogged and if we can blow it out and discharge the blockage, problem solved. Sometimes, (about 20% of the time) there is another problem causing the water leak but first let’s try the easiest solutions.

Go outside and find out where your condensate line is coming out of your house. Make sure nothing is blocking the outlet and if you can take a piece of wire or a flexible item and fish it through the p-trap that is normally at the end of the drain line. If water starts coming out, you have fixed the problem. Now let’s do a little preventive maintenance at this time. Take a rag and wrap it around you garden hose end and the end of the drain line. Have someone quickly turn on the water hose and shut it off immediately! Or you will have a flood in your house. The reason you do this is to wash as much slime as possible out of the drain line. Another thing you might try doing at this time is to extend the drain line out about 12″ from the house. The reason for this is that they have found that if you have water standing at the base of your house, it may draw termites to your house. This way the water disperses and dries out. If you have made it this far, good job!

Now if your air handler is in the closet and you can get to it, look to see if there is a cap on a pipe at the drain line leaving the air handler. Remove the cap and pour a bleach solution down the opening. This kills that slime I was talking about. Most units do not have this port installed at the air handler. You must put the cap back on. This procedure should be done once a year if not twice a year here in Florida.

If your air handler is in the attic you need to get up there to do the same thing. For the more advanced Do-It Yourselfers, turn the unit off at the disconnect, open the side panel and remove. Take flashlight, look in drain pan to see if there is blockage or slime in the drain pan. If so, clean it out and then pour a bleach solution in the drain pan and watch it drain out. Put the side panel back on, turn on the disconnect switch. Go to thermostat and set for proper setting.

If this still does not help or you are not the Do-It- Yourself type, give us a call & we will take care of it all!

 

Professional Air Solutions 727-822-6600

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What affects the overall performance of my AC?

There are many things that can cause your air conditioning system not to function as well as it should, but here are a few key components that can cause you to both loose efficiency with your AC and increase the allergens in your home.AC Service Clearwater

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remember, your AC system moves 1.4 million cubic feet of air per day.  Pretty impressive, right?  Well, there are a few things to keep in mind when it comes to getting the best performance out of your air conditioning system.

“A dirty filterwill slow down air flow and make the system work harder to keep you warm or cool.  This will waste energy and lead to expensive repairs and/or early system failure.” – Energy Star

“1/8th of an inch of dirt and dust build up on the blower wheel can reduce airflow by up to 30%”  – Texas A&M Study

“A build up of .042 (1/20) inches of dirt on the heating or cooling coil can result in a decrease in efficiency of 21%” – Environmental Protection Agency

“Removing the dust from the blower and the air ducts can increase air flow from the registers by up to 20%” – Environmental LLC

So make sure you change your air filters regularly, remove the dust from the blower & the air ducts & keep the coils clean. These are just a few things you can do to protect your air conditioning system and maximize the efficiency.

Professional Air Solutions is Tampa Bay’s most reliable & trusted heating and cooling specialist.

For more information call 727-822-6600. 

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Why is Fall the best time to have your Air Conditioning serviced?

Why is Fall the best time to have your Air Conditioning serviced?

Central Air conditioning is something you really can’t live without in Clearwater, Largo, St. Pete or pretty much anywhere in Florida, and finding a trustworthy air conditioning repair technician is a necessity.

With the hot Florida summer coming to an end and fall fast approaching, this is often the best time to get great deals on Air Conditioning Services. Winter is the slow season for most Air Conditioning Companies so it is a great time to find the best rates or take advantage of many advertised specials.

Unfortunately most of us wait until it starts to get hot just before the summer is here to realize we have a problem with our air conditioning unit. Summer is the busiest time of year for air conditioning companies so it makes sense to address any potential issues before they happen, at a time when you can take advantage of lower prices.

So before the holidays begin to roll around, start planning for next summer with some A/C maintenance.  A little preventative maintenance could save you big bucks before it’s too late and too hot.

Professional Air Solutions is your trusted AC provider and we are available  24/7 to provide excellent customer service and  satisfaction. Our customers are lifetime customers!

Call us today  to take advantage of our everyday low prices and monthly specials.

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Coil Cleaning

Coil Cleaning your A/C unit in St. Pete, Clearwater or Largo

Is it really necessary?  In a word, yes!  Keeping the evaporator and condenser coils of an air conditioning system clean and free of foreign materials can do more to maintain operating efficiency and increase equipment life than any other maintenance procedure.

As a matter of fact, a regularly scheduled coil cleaning will help keep your equipment running longer and more efficiently.

The coils are where the system provides for the actual transfer of heat. Anything that dirty coilsinsulates against heat transfer robs the system of its efficiency, ultimately increasing operating cost, and the likelihood of equipment failure. Just about everything that contacts the coil surface can have an insulating effect. Dirt, grease, dust, corrosion, cigarette smoke, and even bacteria and other microorganisms can act as an insulating barrier. All of these things must be removed for the system to perform efficiently.

Most condenser coils are exposed to the elements, including direct sunlight, extreme temperatures, leaves, dust, and dirt.  Grass clippings, lawn mower bumps, and weed whackers all serve to damage and inhibit the operating efficiency of condenser coils as well.

Evaporator coils are almost always indoors, but they need to be cleaned as well. With nearly all the air in a building passing through these coils, they are repeatedly exposed to everything in that air. Even with good filtration, there can be a substantial buildup of dust particles, grease, and smoke. Anything floating in the air small enough to get past the filter will build up on the evaporator coils.

By regularly maintaining and cleaning the evaporator and condenser coils, your system will operate much more efficiently.