HOME COMFORT & THE ENVIRONMENT
The History
What's The Easiest Thing I Can Do To Help?
What's Can I Do To Make The Most Impact?
How Can I Avoid Damage From Refrigerants?

WHY IS MY HOME SO DRY?
Humidity Overview
What Can I Do?
How Expensive Are Humidifiers?
How Do Automatic Humidifiers Work?

THERMOSTAT WARS?
About Zoning
How Much Control Can I Get?
Does Zoning Save Money?
How Does Zoning Work?

IS IT WORTH FIXING?
Repair Or Replace?
When Does It Save Money To Replace It?
How Can I Save The Most Money Today?
Will Comfort Improve?

A Few Flat Rate Facts
Flat rate pricing is commonly used in many service industries today, such as automotive repair. A growing number of progressive contractors use "flat rate pricing" today. Flat rate pricing means you pay a fixed, flat rate for a repair no matter how long the technician takes to complete the repair. Flat rate pricing was developed so that homeowners would know the cost upfront, before work begins. Flat rate eliminates unpleasant surprises that come from higher than expected bills after the work has been performed.

In focus groups and surveys, consumers overwhelmingly express a preference for flat rate pricing over time and materials charges. With flat rate, they do not need to worry that a technician might pad the bill by taking his time if work is slow.

Flat rate prices come from a standard, national flat rate price book. The repair times are based on national averages so that you will pay the same price as your neighbor for the same repair, no matter how long the repair takes. (Back to Top)

Does Flat Rate Save Money?
Flat rate pricing repair costs are designed to be the same as what you would pay if charged an hourly labor rate, plus materials. There are some overhead savings under flat rate. Because flat rate simplified paperwork and administration, overhead is less. These savings are passed on to you. (Back to Top)

Why Is Flat Rate Sometimes Called Repair Insurance?
Flat rate can save you a lot of money when a repair takes longer than expected. Because you are given an up front price, flat rate pricing acts like an insurance policy, eliminating unpleasant surprises. (Back to Top)

How Can Contractors Afford To Offer Flat Rate?
Frankly, contractors have no choice if they want to keep up in the marketplace. Consumers prefer flat rate, so more and more contractors have begun to offer it. Usually, flat rate is offered by more progressive contractors who hire better quality technicians and train them well. Sloppy, unorganized contractors find it difficult to perform under the discipline of a flat rate system. (Back to Top)

What Am I Paying Per Hour?
With flat rate you are no longer paying by the hour. Parts, labor, and overhead are all bundled into a single fixed price that will not vary. Hourly rates no more apply than they would to the purchase of a product off the store shelf. (Back to Top)

The History
Many consumers have grown more aware of their personal impact on the environment. People want to find ways to maintain comfortable, modern lifestyles, but they also want to do their part to protect the world we share.

The heating and air conditioning industry has been one of the most responsible about reducing the industry's impact on our environment. Yet, we cannot do it alone. Some of the greatest environmental gains come from simple steps you can take. Thanks to the heating and air conditioning industry, our cities are much cleaner today than they were a century ago. It's true. Remember the foggy London of Dickens' England? It wasn't really foggy, it was smoggy London, thanks to coal fireplaces and boilers.
Though unheralded, modern gas and electric heating systems have probably done more than any single innovation to clean the air in our cities. The heating and air conditioning industry is a leader in environmental protection. Long before there was a Montreal Protocol or Kyoto Agreement, the heating and air conditioning industry voluntarily began to reduce and eliminate the use of ozone damaging CFCs and HFCs. (Back to Top)

What's The Easiest Thing I Can Do To Help?
One of the simplest, most economical, and smartest things you can do to reduce your home's environmental impact is to tune-up the air conditioner every Spring (heat pumps should be tuned in the Spring and Fall) and to clean and adjust the furnace burners in the Fall. This helps the environment by restoring system efficiency and capacity, which reduces waste and run time. It also cuts utility expenses, reduces the potential for an equipment breakdown, and extends equipment life. It's not just smart for the environment. It's smart for your wallet and your time. (Back to Top)

What's Can I Do To Make The Most Impact?
The most significant way you can reduce your home's environmental impact is to purchase one of today's most efficient systems. Heating and air conditioning technology has improved dramatically in recent years, both minimizing the industry's environmental impact and energy costs. The most efficient gas furnaces release the least amount of nitrous oxide and other by products of combustion. The most efficient air conditioners and heat pumps use the least electricity, cutting smokestack emissions at generating plants. (Back to Top)

How Can I Avoid Damage From Refrigerants?
Older residential air conditioners use HFCs, which do impact the ozone layer, but far, far less than the CFCs found in household refrigerators. Since your air conditioner is a sealed system and we capture and recycle HFCs from your air conditioner, there is little risk that your refrigerants will impact the environment as long as there are no leaks. If your systems leaks refrigerant, it is important to get it repaired or replaced as soon as possible. If you replace your air conditioner, many new air conditioners use a different type of refrigerant that is environmentally neutral. (Back to Top)

Humidity Overview
Your home may be drier than the Sahara in the winter. If the air outside is 35^oF with a 60% relative humidity, heating it to 72^oF will drop the humidity to 15%! By comparison, the average humidity in the Sahara is 25%.

When air warms, it can hold more moisture. In the winter, when we heat our homes, the air dries out…dramatically. This can lead to a host of problems, such as excessive static electricity, viral infections--such as colds and the flu, agitation of asthma and allergy problems, rashes, chapped lips, and dry skin, cracks in wood floors, shrinkage in wood furnishings, gaps in molding, wallpaper peeling at the corners, loose drawers and even out of tune pianos!

Static electricity as low as 500 volts can damage microchips in computers and electronics. You cannot perceive static electricity until it reaches 1,500 volts. Simply walking across a rug can produce static electricity of 12,000 volts. While not harmful to people, static electricity can damage microchips. Proper humidity helps control static electricity.

One of the main reasons we get colds and flues in the winter is dry indoors air. The mucus in our upper respiratory tract traps bacteria, viruses, and allergens as they enter our body and sweeps them into our stomachs before they can enter our bloodstream. With excessively dry air, our mucus dries and thickens, effectively reducing our immunity. Fortunately, we can correct these problems with an automatic central humidifier. (Back to Top)

What Can I Do?
Your grandmother intuitively knew the answer to dry winter air. She left a pot of water simmering on the stove to add moisture to the house. While effective, this is not necessarily safe or economical. Alternatively, hauling water to a series of room humidifiers is messy and inconvenient. The best solution is to use an automatic furnace central humidifier that will maintain indoor humidity at the optimum level without the need to ever give it a thought. (Back to Top)

How Expensive Are Humidifiers?
Actually, humidifiers are free. They will pay for themselves in a couple of seasons from energy savings. Though you may not notice it, your body is constantly perspiring. When the air is dry, your perspiration evaporates instantly, creating a cooling effect. This is why rubbing alcohol feels cool when applied to the skin, even though the rubbing alcohol is kept at room temperature. Thus, proper levels of humidity result in a more comfortable home, at a lower thermostat setting. Simply lowering your thermostat a degree or two will pay for the cost of the humidifier in a couple of seasons. It doesn't take much. (Back to Top)

How Do Automatic Humidifiers Work?
We will mount a humidistat on the wall inside your home and a humidifier on your furnace or duct system. You dial in your desired level of humidity (i.e. 30% to 40% is recommended), the humidistat measures the humidity in the surrounding air, and adds moisture if the humidity is low. It's simple, efficient, and automatic.
(Back to Top)

About Zoning
You adjust the thermostat and your kids change it. You say it's too hot and they say it's too cold. It's the start of a thermostat war and there's no compromising. Or is there?

By adding simple air control valves to your duct system that are tied to individual thermostats, everyone can get their way. With zoning, you can increase to air to the computer room or kitchen, reduce it for unused rooms, and let everyone dial in the temperature they want.

Due to the solar load from the sun striking Eastern exposures in the morning and Western exposures in the afternoon, to heating and cooling requirements of different rooms vary throughout the day. Without a zoning system, some rooms are always receiving too much or too little heating and cooling.

When the supply of conditioned air is matched to the demand, less energy is used overall. This is why almost all high rise office buildings that face expensive air conditioning bills, take advantage of zoning. Common place in commercial buildings, zoning is growing in popularity for homes. (Back to Top)

How Much Control Can I Get?
You can get as much control as you want, down to individual control for each room of your house. In most cases, rooms are grouped together based on their usage and exposure to the sun. (Back to Top)

Does Zoning Save Money?
Zoning saves money in a couple of ways. It matches the supply of conditioned air with demand, reducing or eliminating over conditioning (i.e., waste).

Also, with zoning, you do not waste money heating and cooling unused rooms. If you have a formal dining room, for example, you probably leave the dining room lights off most of the year. Why leave them on when no one is using the room? Zoning works the same way, though you never completely eliminate heating and cooling, you dramatically reduce it and reduce your utility bill accordingly. (Back to Top)

How Does Zoning Work?
We install a damper or air valve in certain ducts. A small electric motor modulates the damper open or closed in response to calls for heating or cooling from a room thermostat. If air conditioning needs are less than the minimum air flow capacity of your comfort system, a special "bypass" damper bleeds off the excess and feeds it back into your system, further reducing the heating and cooling costs. (Back to Top)

Repair or Replace?
Yes, we can repair any problem with your heating system in most cases. But is that really what you want?

Usually repairs make sense. But sometimes they do not. How do you know when it's not worth fixing? For each person, the answer is different. In this Answer Guide, we will give you the information you need to make an intelligent decision, to determine when you are at risk of throwing good money after bad.

As heating systems age, their performance declines. They have a harder time keeping up with heating demand. Efficiency falls. As parts age and wear, breakdowns increase in frequency. It becomes increasingly likely that you will be faced with the hassle and inconvenience of a repair during the coldest time of the year (when equipment is running the hardest), when service companies are backlogged.

According to the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, many gas furnaces and boilers installed before 1990 were no more than 50% to 60% efficient when new (remember, efficiency declines as equipment ages). If you own one of these furnaces, half your fuel bill may be for waste heat that's vented up the flue! By contrast, today's modern high efficiency furnaces and boilers convert more than 90% of your gas into heat for your home.
(Back to Top)

When Does It Save Money To Replace It?
If your equipment has a few years on it and you are facing a repair of several hundred dollars, it may be time to consider replacing it. Remember, Not only can you apply the money you would spend on the repair towards the new system, but you save the expense of more repairs this year or the next.

A rule of thumb is to multiply your repair bill times the age of the furnace. If the result is 3,000 or more, replace it. If it is less than 2,000, repair it. If it's in between, repair it if you plan on moving within the next couple of years. If not, consider replacing. With a ten year old heat pump or a fifteen year old furnace, you will need to replace it in a few years anyway. Today's repair may be little more than money down the drain. It can make more sense to spend money on a new system instead of more repairs.
(Back to Top)

How Can I Save The Most Money Today?
With our convenient financing programs, you can finance the entire cost of a new heating and air conditioning system. Payments are low and may be entirely offset by your utility bill savings from a modern, new, more efficient system. Plus, you will not have the nasty surprise of more unexpected repairs. Your out-of-pocket costs are usually less when you replace your equipment and finance it. (Back to Top)

Will Comfort Improve?
Yes. Newer, more efficient heating systems usually result in dramatic improvements in the comfort of your home. Of course, it may be necessary to replace old, worn, leaky duct systems to ensure you get the most from your system. (Back to Top)