Dowd Mechanical Heating & Air Conditioning Blog: Posts Tagged ‘Hatboro’

What Are My Options for a New Home Heater?

Monday, February 6th, 2023
heating-and-cooling-icons

If you’re reading this, you might be planning to have a new heating system installed in your home during the coming spring. Or you’re in an emergency situation where your current heating system is failing and you’ll need to call our experts for heating installation in Hatboro, PA soon.

Whatever the case, we’re glad to help! The best way we can assist is to come to your home, look at your current heater and heating needs, and give you our professional opinion about what type of heating system ideally suits you. 

To help you get an idea of what’s ahead, here are your major options for a new heating system.

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Why Is My Heat Pump Not Sending Out Warm Air?

Monday, December 12th, 2022
cold-man-with-thermostat

We encourage our customers to look into using heat pumps for year-round cooling and heating. Heat pumps are not only effective at delivering comfort for all seasons, they operate at high-energy efficiency (especially when compared to using an electric furnace for heat), and can benefit the environment because of their low emissions and superior efficiency. 

If you’re currently using a heat pump for the winter weather, you’ve probably arrived at this post because your heat pump just isn’t doing the “heat” side of its job. The cold weather has arrived, and you expect to get warm air flowing from the vents. Instead, you’re either getting room-temperature air or even cold air. Why is this happening? 

We’re pros when it comes to heat pump repair in Hatboro, PA, and we can explain the common reasons for this problem.

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Tips to Keep Your Gas Furnace Running Safely This Winter

Monday, November 14th, 2022
gas-furnace

Gas furnaces are not dangerous appliances to have in your home. The modern gas furnace is built with safety uppermost in mind, and if they did regularly pose dangers they wouldn’t even be allowed in residential buildings. 

However, many appliances can become dangerous if handled wrong or kept in poor condition, and this definitely applies to any gas-powered appliance. Combusting natural gas, such as in a gas furnace, can lead to carbon monoxide leaks and fire hazards. If you know the right steps to take each year with your gas furnace, you can reduce the chances of furnace dangers to almost nothing. 

Below are the best ways to ensure a safely working gas furnace this winter.

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Does an AC Do Enough to Control Indoor Humidity?

Monday, August 22nd, 2022
humidity-on-window

The answer to the question in the title depends on how much humidity your home deals with during the summer. If you don’t normally experience extremely high indoor humidity (relative humidity higher than 70%, although some people find more than 60% uncomfortable), then your AC will be able to keep you cool and happy. The air conditioner is not exactly controlling the humidity—although it’s doing some dehumidification—but it doesn’t have to work hard against humidity to deliver a comfortable environment for your house.

If high humidity is a problem you often encounter during warm weather, then it’s unlikely your AC can do much about it. It can provide cooling, but it won’t make a noticeable effect on humidity because an air conditioning system isn’t equipped to do that job. 

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Why Your AC Is Tripping the Circuit Breaker

Monday, June 27th, 2022
electrical-schematic

When you set the thermostat for your air conditioning system to cool the house, you expect the AC to turn on and do its job. But what if the air conditioner does come on—but soon after, if not immediately, it shuts down? If you know the basic troubleshooting steps in this situation, you’ll go to the house’s electrical panel to see if the AC’s circuit breaker has tripped. If it has, you reset it and your AC gets back to cooling.

This may not be the end of the story, however. Your AC can trip the circuit breaker again. And again. If this situation occurs, we recommend you stop resetting the breaker. Something else is wrong with your AC, and you may require professional air conditioning service in Hatboro, PA to resolve the problem.

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Why Air Filters Often Need Pairing With Air Purifiers

Monday, June 13th, 2022
air-fliter-cu

If you’re looking to have cleaner air in your house—and more people are concerned about this than ever before—you have several options. Most people usually think of having special whole-house air filters installed. These filters need professionals to plumb them into the ductwork (the filter that’s already in place on the HVAC system isn’t for air cleaning purposes). Filters are an excellent method for improving indoor air quality, and most homes can benefit from them. 

However, air filters sometimes need the assistance of air purifiers. The right air filtration and air purification system combination can remove more than 98% of unwanted particles from the air circulating through a home. Let’s look into more of the details about when air filters need the help of air purifiers.

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How Cool Can My AC Make My Home?

Monday, April 4th, 2022
air-conditioner-condenser-3D-render

As we continue with preparations for the arrival of warm weather, we’d like to address a question we often hear from customers: “How cool can an AC make my home?” People often look at the BTUs of an air conditioner, which is a measurement of how many units of heat an AC unit can remove from a house per hour, as an indication of the air conditioner’s cooling power. 

This is mostly correct: the BTUs removed per hour measure the air conditioner’s capacity, the amount of work it can do. An AC that is under-capacity, also known as undersized, for a house will not remove enough heat from the building to provide the desired comfort. When our professionals install a new air conditioner for a home, we carefully measure the home’s cooling requirements so we can match the air conditioner’s capacity to it. 

However, capacity is unrelated to the question of how cool an air conditioning system can make a house. This is a question of the temperature differential. We’ll explain more below.

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How Your Home’s Ducts Can Pickpocket You

Monday, March 7th, 2022
inside-an-air-duct

At this moment, you might have a sneaky thief crawling about your home, maybe in the attic, maybe hiding in the walls. This thief won’t carry off your most valuable possessions, but it will lift money from your pocket bit by bit so that it can add up to hundreds of dollars over a year. This thief can even cause other damage to your house without you knowing about it at first.

You don’t need to call the police to catch this thief. To stop this pickpocket, you’ll need an HVAC expert! Because this thief is actually the ductwork of your home: the air channels carrying heated and cooled air throughout the rooms. When air ducts start to spring leaks, it will take money from you on your utility bills, month after month until you have professional duct service in Hatboro, PA.

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At What Point Is Repairing Your Old Heater No Longer Worth It?

Monday, January 24th, 2022
Furnace-standard

You shouldn’t think of any central heating system in your home as “the last heater you’ll ever need to buy” (or inherit if the heater came with the house). No such heating system exists. Although you can get a longer service life from a heating system with regular maintenance and attention to repairs as needed, eventually wear and tear will deteriorate the system to where it’s no longer worth keeping. 

Getting a new heating installation in Hatboro, PA is a major decision, one you don’t want to make hastily. Below we’ll look at some of the ways you can judge if your heating system is past the point of repairing and you’re ready for a new one.

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When Your Heater Starts Making These Noises, It’s Time to Call Us

Monday, January 10th, 2022

One of the main ways your heating system can send you a warning that it’s encountering trouble is by making unusual noises. What counts as “unusual”? We’ll list several below, but if you’ve already had your heater for a few seasons you’ll know the standard sounds it makes as it runs. Anything that catches your attention because it’s different counts as unusual. If your heater becomes louder than normal, that’s also a potential warning sign that something is wrong and it’s best for you to call for heating repair in Hatboro, PA from our team.

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