Heating E-Book

Hi. My name is Jim Cotton. I have been involved in the H.V.A.C business for some 6 years now and I’ve heard it all from my customers. From, our house is always dusty, the complaint of cold rooms and allergies, our fuel bill has sky rocketed to we didn’t know we could have our heating system cleaned. I am employed by the largest Power-Vac company in British Columbia, Canada. My area of expertise is Vancouver Island and I love my job. I am very passionate about my work and consider myself to be the best Power-Vac Technician on Vancouver Island. My call back ratio is less then 1% annually. My sole purpose is to assure to my customers that they are doing / and can do everything possible to keep their heating costs down, to properly maintain their H.V.A.C systems and to provide clean Indoor Air Quality for their families. There are plenty of variables involved and I will do my best to cover them all. I am now looking to expand my clientele and reach out over the web to help as many home owners achieve the same results my customers on the Island are. Over the next few weeks I will be adding pages from my EBook to hopefully help everyone out so please keep coming back and let me know if I have helped you in any way.

• Have you noticed a room or more in your home that always seems to be colder then the rest of the house?

• Have you inquired with any company as to why this is and they have no answers or tell you that it’s because ”the room is too big” or “it’s the farthest from the furnace” or “it’s because you get no sun on that side of the house” or my favourite, “you have an INEFFECIENT FURNACE”

A brand new furnace has an AFUE rating in the mid 80’s.

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Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency

This number succinctly describes in percentage terms how efficiently fuel is converted to energy. The higher the number, the more efficient the furnace.

Typical AFUE ratings for different types of furnaces and boilers

Type	Pre-1960	1960-1969	1970-1974	1975-1983	1984-1987	1988-1991	Post-1992
Gas furnace	60%	60%	65%	65%	68%	76%	78%
Gas boiler	60	60	65	65	70	77	80
Oil furnace	60	65	72	75	80	80	80
Oil boiler	60	65	72	75	80	80	80

• Say your furnace (most furnaces have a date stamp on the fan/blower housing) is a 1984-1987 oil furnace. Being 20+ years old the AFUE rating would have dropped to somewhere around the mid 70’s.So a new furnace(with an A.F.U.E rating in the mid 80’s) would help eliminate your cold room(s)(TEMPORARILLY).That is to say until your new furnace’s A.F.U.E drops because of age. Then your cold rooms return and you’ll find yourself in the market for a new furnace once again.

• When the Heating/Sheet Metal Companies’ install new furnaces they are not given the time to properly seal the systems. This result is heat loss which is the SOLE REASON we suffer cold room(s).

• As you can see, the companies responsible for the installation of these heating systems have not sealed any of the joints on this system. This is the norm. Years ago they used to take the time and seal the systems properly. Unfortunately they used Asbestos tape. Looking at your duct work if there is white tape on the joints and around the furnace please do not attempt to remove it as this is Asbestos. (more on this later)Other companies have sealed systems with duct tape. Duct tape is good on anything but ducts. The heat dries the glue on the tape and the tape starts to fall off. As our homes settle and move these joints will start to come apart. Have a look at yours. Is there white tape or duct tape hanging off your ducts? Do you see sprayed dirt on the edges of the joints or around the duct work right at your furnace? That’s heat loss. That’s money flying out the window. With these gaps in the duct work our furnaces run longer trying to heat the cold room(s) in our homes.

SERVICING RESIDENTIAL FURNACES/BOILERS

Oil furnaces and Oil boilers should be on an annual yearly service contract with your oil company. The Burner Mechanic will maintain the motor operation of your system. Oil is fed into the furnace using a set of Jets. When these Jets foul they usually cause your furnace/boiler to run rich .When oil burns it leaves behind a deposit called soot. When a system’s Jets run rich they introduce way more then normal amounts of soot in to the system. Soot acts as insulation inside your furnace. As it is allowed to build up this causes the furnace to attain the temperature you’ve dialed on your thermostat way before your house temp does thus shutting down your furnace. Say you dial in 70 degrees. The soot in your furnace allows the furnace to hit that temperature before your house does. You find that to get to 70 degrees you have to dial in 72 / 74 / 76 degrees. “Money flying out the window”. For every 1/8 of an inch of soot in your furnace, your furnace/boiler loses 8% efficiency. I have seen soot built up so bad in furnaces that it has caused what we call a BLOWBACK. Because the soot is so built up and has nowhere to go it blows back into the furnace and back into your home. What a mess! I have seen it so bad in boilers that when the boiler fired up it really fired up. Flames licked across the floor a good 8 feet. Your oil company should not only be able to make sure your system runs efficiently but they should be able to refer to you a company to clean the soot out of it as well. Another thing to keep in mind is your thermostat itself. To save money you should invest in a programmable thermostat. They run in the neighborhood of $100 but will easily save you that on your heating bill. Make sure that it’s away from windows and doors as this will affect the temperature.

I had a great response to my free e-book give away but since then not many of you have requested my e-book.I assure you all that my book can and will save you hundreds even thousands of dollars on your annual heating bills. After a few months of commercial work I am now back on residential jobs and again I am enjoying saving my customers the money they deserve. Please feel free to email me your concerns and I will quickly and honestly help you out to the best of my ability.

Dryer Vents

I have noticed that 100s of you are coming into my Blog looking for info on dryer vents. I will try to answer any concerns you might have. Dryer vent cleaning is something that should be done at least every other year unless your dryer is on an exterior wall,in which case cleaning shouldn’t be an issue. Cleaning should be done on runs of 10 feet or more, after all it’s the last 4 to 6 feet where the problems start. For venting you should use the flexible aluminum dryer hose. The plastic is no longer code and the hard metal ones tend to bend and break open. For an outside vent you might consider a rodent deterrent vent to keep out birds as well as small rodents. The number 1 problem in dryer vents is too much length, number 2 is birds in the vents and number 3 is the wrong type of hose. All 3 of these problems are easily and cheaply fixable and I am here to help you figure out a way to solve your problem. Please feel free to email me any questions.

Thanks

WOW!!! I would like to thank everyone who obtained a free copy of my E-Book. The response was more then I expected. By the time I was able to shut things down we gave away 113 books. I look forward to hearing from those of you who are now going to save hundreds of dollars annually. For those who still wish to get a copy of my E-Book,  the cost of the book will be $14.95 Canadian. Please email me at jjsdreamproducts@gmail.com and we can talk about payments and about how you will receive my book.If you have any worries about if what you’re buying is worth the$14.95 please email me why you are considering my e-book and I’ll let you know if it will be worth it for you. Obviously I am selling my book to make money but more importantly I am here to help homeowners save money.

At this time I would also like to apologize to those who frequent my Blog. I have been away these last three weeks and subsequently no new posts have been added. I am back now so please watch for the up coming new posts.Thanks to everyone new and old my Blog is picking up momentum and I am reaching more and more people every day.

Too Late!!!

A home we just visited had all the same problems I’ve been talking about for the last month. The owner, in December ‘08 just purchased a new heat pump. Her reason for buying was cold rooms and that her gas bill was through the roof. Any guesses why? After she bought she still had cold rooms ( not as bad as before but still cold). Her gas bill was under control now but her electric bill went through the roof. That’s right. Upon inspection of her system  she had two glaring problems. Her heating system had never been sealed properly. All her heat was escaping into her crawl space not flowing through her home like it should of been. Secondly, when they installed her heat pump they put her thermostat in her foyer which was the biggest room in her home, adjacent to the double front doors. Even if her system were sealed properly she still would have had an excessive  electric bill because the system would have kept running until the foyer had reached the desired temperature. Positioning of the thermostat in your home is very important. You want it in area away from doors and windows and definately not in the largest room of the house. When I sat down with her to ask about who installed the system she shared with me that the same installation company also stated that they could clean the ducts for her. This goes back to a post I wrote not too long ago about not using companies that do everything. When they come into your homes your best interests are not the number one thing on their minds. She loves the idea of air conditioning in her home now, however, the reason she bought in the first place wasn’t nessacary. A proper seal of her heating sytem would of fixed the cold room problem for her. Buying a heat pump is not a cheap investment. It’s an investment you should make solely because it’s what you want not because you’re being told that it will resolve a heating problem in your home ( which ultimately it won’t). We missed helping this customer out by five months. Had we had the opportunity to visit her prior to the installation company she would have had no more cold rooms and would have bought a heat pump for all the right reasons. After I have a completed a job I am always available to my customers via my office or email. I take responsibility for my job and my actions before, after, and during each job I go out on. All home owners deserve the same type of service so please make sure when you are shopping around for a company to clean or install a heating system for you that they will go the extra mile for their customers.

Customer Service

I have read so many articles on how to improve indoor air quality in our homes so that we can live healthier lives and I just gotta laugh. Most of them, if not all of them are just looking at us, as home owners, to fork out huge amounts of money to rectify this problem. In my experience, only in certain circumstances does the customer need to spend huge amounts of money. Usually it’s just an easy, cheap fix that will solve the problem. As easy as a clean up and a better filtration system. My advice into this issue is to call around. If the air quality in your home is poor (headaches,itchy eyes, ahems in your throat) and you want to improve it then you have to do a little leg work. Call around to different companies for advice. Try to stay away from the one company does all companies. I find these types of companies are not experts in any one thing. The first person you talk to from any company should know what their company is all about and what they do. If you get the “Well I’m not sure” attitude then just say thanks and move on to the next one. Once you are convinced that you’ve found a good company to deal with then the first step is over.  When the workers enter your home you should get a comfort level about them right from the get go. They should be able to set your mind at ease that they know what they are doing and that they are professional. Again if not say thanks and start all over again. I have followed behind plenty of companies that customers have asked to leave for numerous reasons. For knocking their competition (a big no-no) to just out right being rude to the customer. Not listening to the customers wants and needs. We work hard for our money and as customers we are due the respect in our homes of any company representative to treat us with a high level of respect and to assure us of high quality customer service. Before a job is started the customer should be informed on the cost of the job, not after the job is completed. Everyone is  looking to up- sell the customer. To get as much money out of them as possible. Gouge a customer once and you’ll never see them again, treat them with respect and  high quality customer service and they will not only come back to you but they will bring their friends and families to you as well. In my job I can sell quality filters to my customers. The only customers that pay for these filters are the ones already running them in their systems ( they usually ask for them because it’s easier then them having to go out to replace them). If I am up grading a poor quality filter, my customers first quality filter is ALWAYS my treat. I see this as one step towards high quality customer service. (hopefully my boss doesn’t read this).Servicing Vancouver Island I am thinking about starting a company that for a small fee ($40-$50) would come to your home and inspect your heating system, your filter system and would be able to show you how to both save money and how to improve the air quality in your home. If it’s not possible to show you how to save money, the visit would be of no cost to the customer. I would very much appreciate any feed back on this idea that you might have. I would also like to start the service online to help out customers afar. With todays technology it would be easy enough to do. Please keep in mind that I come into  my Blog on a daily basis so any questions that you have I will definately answer to the best of my ability.

In Response

I have been getting quite a few responses to my ideas on Indoor Air Quality. People want to know if it’s really a big deal.Clean air is essential for good health, and this is especially true when it comes to indoor air.Multiple chemical sensitivity (M.C.S) is the name given to a condition in which various symptoms reportedly appear after a person has been exposed to any of a wide range of chemicals. The exposure may occur from long-term contact with low-levels of chemicals, such as in an office or home with poor ventilation. As a result of exposure, people with M.C.S develop sensitivity and have reactions to the chemicals even at levels most people can tolerate.
I.A.Q is a very real, very big problem in our lives today. I.A.Q levels in our homes and in our places of employment are sometimes as much as 10 X worse then the outdoor air quality. Proper filtration and ventilation are the MUST things to do to improve the I.A.Q.in our homes and our businesses.I am strongly for H.R.Vs to help the ventilation issue but there are less expensive alternatives to an H.R.V. I will be doing a POST in detail on my thoughts and my advice on how you can do this very shortly. Please keep checking back for this and other related Posts. If you have any questions at all please email me and I will get back to you within a couple days.

Heat Pumps

As if we didn’t have enough to worry about. I have started to run into something that’s been bothering me of late. RETRO FIT HEAT PUMPS!That is a Heat Pump installed on an existing furnace. The problem with this type of Heat Pump is two fold. Number one, after installation, the Coil can never be cleaned. It sits atop the furnace and there is absolutely no way of getting the cleaning tools around inside to clean the coil. Number two, unless the duct work on both sides of the Plenum duct is accessible, the unit, after installation, can no longer be cleaned. Now I am an advocate on Indoor Air Quality and the fact that you can no longer keep these types of Heat Pumps clean really bothers me. Unless you, the customer, know or is told the truth about filters then you have just thrown thousands of dollars towards a Heat Pump that you are going to have to spend hundreds, $500,$600,$700 or more to have the coil inside the heat pump cleaned. Running a poor quality filter in any system is a bad idea but especially in heat pumps. The most important part of a heat pump is the A Coil. The filter sits right in front of the A Coil and is responsible for keeping dirt out of it. A poor quality filter say, is removing 10% of the dust and allergens. That’s 90 % that’s running through your A Coil. At this rate it won’t be long till the coil is clogged and you’ll find yourself making that very expensive appointment to have the coil removed for cleaning. Now as far as having the ducts themselves cleaned. Only and I mean only if the ducts on BOTH sides are accessible. You absolutely, positively CANNOT pull duct work debris through your A Coil. The company (at least the one I know of here) couldn’t care less about the cleaning end of things. They got their $3000 – $7000 and are now installing the same unit at the Jones’ down the street. Their answer is: WE’LL JUST HAVE TO MAKE SURE WE GET THE DUCTS CLEANED BEFORE WE INSTALL THE PUMPS! WOW!!! There are things you can do if you’ve already gone with a RETRO FIT or are sold on the idea of one but the fact remains that it is very costly to have these cleaned if it’s possible at all. I look forward to any questions you might have on this issue.

Dryer Vents

Just another thing for home owners to think about. Dryer fires are something we should keep in mind. Check with your insurance agent because I know here in BC Canada if a fire is traced back to your dryer and you are still using a plastic flex hose for exhaust your insurance will not cover your loses. The code now is an aluminum flex hose which runs under $20 and can be picked up at any hardware store. With the plastic flex hose the condensation was building up inside them, trapping the lint and causing build ups inside the hose. This would cause the dryers to over heat resulting in dryer fires or element burn outs. When you are choosing a new aluminum flex hose please make sure that the one you choose is the bendable type. You do not want the rigid types because there is no give at all in them.If you try to bend them too much they will break. Do not use duct tape to attach the hoses. We are dealing with heat, which will dry the glue on the duct tape.Make sure you use a foil tape which is made for heat.

You should look at having your dryer vent cleaned every other year if it is less then 25 feet in length, any thing longer should be cleaned every year and you might want to look at having this re-plumbed to a shorter distance. Typically a dryer vent starts to clog up at the furthest point away from the dryer. The last 4 – 6 feet is usually the problem but in longer systems the dryers just don’t have the power to blow the lint to the end so it starts building up way before the end of the system. I have seen vents so long that dryer lint wasn’t the problem. Water was! Because it was so long the dryer couldn’t even get rid of the condensation inside the pipe and it just kept building up. If you’re dryer vent is this long (more then 40 feet) then seriously think of re-plumbing it. Your Power-Vac company can take care of this chore for you.

An absolute no-no with dryer vents is to not  put a screen on the vent outside your home. It takes no time at all for these screens to clog up and then you’ve got problems with drying. Another issue is birds. They love to nest inside dryer vents. Make sure you have a flap on yours at the very least. Pest guards are available at any hardware store and this is what I would suggest using. No blockage and peace of mind knowing no birds can get into your vent.

How will you know you need to clean out your dryer vent? If you are constantly replacing heating elements, if a load of wash is taking more then one drying cycle to dry or if you see a lot of lint on your roof or sidewalk underneath your vent then you should start thinking about having it cleaned out.

Be careful out there

Today I would like to talk a little bit more about the Companies that clean heating systems. It was brought to my attention yesterday that there are companies offering Cleaning services that also sell, install and repair heating systems. In my opinion this is not good practice. When choosing a company to come into your home and clean your system make sure that that’s all that company does. They will be the EXPERTS! A company that also sells, installs and repairs heating systems only clean them because they are trying to corner the market. Their expertise will lie on the installation side of it not the cleaning side of it. Imagine, if you will, two companies: the first is a power-vac cleaning company, they notice your system is losing heat into your crawl space. All they do is clean, no installs, no sales, when they tell you this news it’s to your benefit not theirs. They are not trying to sell you anything. Now the second company notices the same problem but they are into sales. Dollars to doughnuts they’re going to tell you that you need a new furnace or at the very least new ducting, either way not in your best interest.They will try to sell you something their company offers.

My sister manages a restoration company in Lethbridge, Alberta. After they completed a clean up following a house fire she hired a company that sold, repaired, installed and cleaned residential heating systems. After this certain company completed the job of cleaning the soot and ash from the system, the system was fired up. Her restoration company then had to go back through the entire house and re-clean ducts it because of soot and ash being blown all throughout the house. I did a follow up on the company she hired and found out that the employees that did the clean up were given one whole day training on how to run a power-vac system. Cleaning was not their forte.

Companies that offer too many services cannot be experts at all they offer.