From your air conditioning unit to your furnace, heating and cooling systems are essential in many a home and place of living all throughout the United States. After all, the winters are long and cold and the summers humid and hot. In many places, heating and cooling systems such as the typical air conditioning unit and furnace aren’t just important for comfort, but for survival and safety as well.
Of course, these systems can eat up a good chunk of energy wherever they are placed, be that in a commercial building or, as one might suspect, in the typical home environment. An air conditioning unit alone can use up a good amount of energy, and heating and cooling services on the whole make up as much as half of the typical energy bill that the average household will receive. In some cases, heating and cooling costs will actually end up making up even more than just this half, already a considerable enough amount in and of itself.
Fortunately, there are a number of ways to keep all systems in your home as effective and efficient as is possible, something that will certainly lead to greater savings down the line. First of all, it’s important to replace your air conditioning unit or heating system once they have reached a certain age. And some of the homes throughout the country have very old air conditioning systems indeed, as recently gathered data has found that up to one fifth of all homes that were first constructed back in the 1980s still have air conditioning units that are at least 20 years of age, if not even older than that.
When an air conditioning unit is that old, it is not likely to be working to its peak efficiency anymore. And even if this air conditioning unit is regularly being provided with maintenance and servicing, it is unlikely that peak efficiency is even possible anymore. Switching to a newer air conditioning unit that provides a high efficiency cooling system to your home is likely to be more than ideal – and can even save you a good chunk of change in the long run. In fact, your overall energy usage could drop by as much as 50% simply when you install a high efficiency air conditioning unit – and even if energy costs don’t drop by a total of 50%, they are still likely to drop by at least 20%, if not more than that.
In addition to getting a high efficiency air conditioning unit, contacting AC services for regular maintenance is also something that is quite important. Unfortunately, it’s estimated that only about 40% of homes are even getting annual servicing done, even though it is recommended to service your heating and cooling systems as total of two times throughout the course of a year. Doing so will not only help to improve the efficiency of your heating and cooling systems alike, but can even help to improve your health as well.
This is particularly true when ducted systems are in use, as these ducted systems can easily accrue contaminants when they are not regularly serviced. These contaminants will lower the overall efficiency of the system, of course, but they will also lower the overall air quality as well. This is due to the fact that these contaminants and particles will actually end up being circulated through the air as many as seven times over the course of just one day – and typically no fewer than five times at the very least.
An air conditioning service can also become beneficial when AC repair becomes necessary. It is hopeful that this will never be the case, but sometimes problems happen and the services of an AC repair company are needed. It’s important to call such an AC repair company as soon as the need for repairs is noted, as this will help to prevent the damage from becoming worse the longer that it goes broken, something that has happened far too many times to far too many air conditioning units and heating systems all throughout the country of the United States.