DuAll Heating & Cooling Blog : Archive for July, 2014

The Benefits of Regular Commercial AC Maintenance

Tuesday, July 29th, 2014

Commercial air conditioning systems keep clients, customers, tenants, and employees content. Of course, you know to call for repairs as soon as you notice problems with your AC so that you don’t receive any complaints from the people in your building. But if you don’t schedule regular commercial HVAC maintenance with a commercial specialist, you may need repairs sooner than you think.

Commercial HVAC maintenance benefits your business in many ways, increasing the energy-efficiency of your unit, ensuring high performance, and reducing the need for repairs throughout the year. Here are some of the services covered with annual maintenance and how your commercial property benefits.

Clean and Adjust Components

One way technicians keep your commercial AC system running efficiently is by cleaning the coils and removing debris whenever necessary. The evaporator and condenser coils are responsible for removing heat from your home and releasing it outdoors. If these are dirty, you may have limited cooling, causing your system to work harder than it needs to, and you may eventually feel no cool air at all.

Additionally, a technician will look at the refrigerant levels to see if they require any adjustment. Low refrigerant significantly reduces the cooling power of your system and may cause the compressor to fail. The technician may also add lubrication to the motors and adjust any bent parts such as the condenser fins.

Inspect Your System

Furthermore, a commercial specialist will inspect your system for any damages that may require attention. This way, you can schedule repairs as soon as possible so you won’t run into sudden problems later on.

However, if you don’t choose a commercial specialist experienced with large commercial systems, the technician may be unfamiliar with the layout of your packaged system. Residential technicians may not know the proper refrigerant level required for larger systems, or they may skip over crucial components during inspection.  Our technicians are experienced with larger packaged systems and can help your system cool your commercial property efficiently for years to come!

Don’t trust your commercial HVAC maintenance needs to just any technician. Contact the experts at DuAll Heating & Cooling for commercial HVAC maintenance in Naperville.

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Reasons to Replace Your Current Zone Control System

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2014

If you have a zone control system in your home that can regulate the temperature in separate rooms, you probably wonder how you ever got along without it before. Thanks to zone control, you can heat and cool a home exactly as you like it, and don’t need to expend excess energy for rooms that no one is using. The individual zone controls permit people in the house to adjust local temperatures to fit their personal needs, and rooms can have temperatures set to suit their purpose.

A zone control system can age and wear down like any other electro-mechanical system, or it might become obsolete and no longer match your requirement. Here are some reasons you may need to call DuAll Heating & Cooling and speak to our installers about new zone systems in Naperville, IL and how you can benefit.

Why you might want to replace the zone control system in your home

  • To upgrade the thermostats: Zone controls work through a network of thermostats that control the individual zone dampers and then hook into a central control panel. If you have older, non-programmable digital thermostats, you should consider upgrading them. This won’t involve tearing out the dampers in the ductwork, so the job is not an intrusive or difficult one for specialists. They will create a new zone network that will give you superior control and energy savings.
  • Uneven temperatures: A zone control system that has aged too much will begin to lose its ability to regulate air in the ductwork. Old dampers will become stuck in open or closed positon, or they will lose their sealing. This will lead to rooms that shouldn’t be receiving heating or cooling to start to receive it anyway, and other rooms may have problems shutting down the unwanted temperatures reaching them. Although targeted repairs can fix individual dampers, you should have a new system put in if the problem becomes chronic and occurs throughout the house.
  • A new HVAC system: If you are making an upgrade to a new, high-efficiency heater or air conditioner, your current zone control system may not be up to the challenge, and could interfere with the efficiency of the system. Check with your HVAC installers to find out how best to keep your zone control current and if a replacement of the dampers and the thermostats to take advantage of new technology is the optimal choice.

Contact DuAll Heating & Cooling for all your needs for zone systems in Naperville, IL. We install, replace, and repair zone controls, as well as offer a wide range of air conditioners and heaters to take care of your comfort needs.

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When Should I Schedule Duct Cleaning?

Monday, July 14th, 2014

*DuAll Heating & Cooling no longer offers duct cleaning services. Take a look at our other indoor air quality services to find the best solution for your needs.

Having professional cleaning for your ducts is an essential service for maintaining an efficient air conditioner and forced-air heater and to protect the quality of the air in your home. Duct cleaning experts use high-level tools such as enormous power vacuums and agitation equipment to remove buildup of dirt, dust, pollen, lint, and other contaminants that will place heavy resistance on airflow and which can end up pushed out into your air.

A question we often hear from customers is, “When should I arrange to have duct cleaning done?” It’s a good question, and one that isn’t simple to answer, since there are a variety of times when it’s good to schedule it and a number of signs to watch for.

More than two years have passed since you last had cleaning done

…or if you’ve never scheduled cleaning before. Although not all ventilation systems will need cleaning on the same regular basis, two years is a good general rule of thumb for how often you should schedule cleaning. Your cleaners will be able to tell you if you should adjust the frequency up or down.

A visual inspection reveals serious clogging in the ducts

You should make an occasional visual check on the inside of your ductwork. Here is how to do it: Remove one of the covers from a vent, then reach down inside with a digital camera and take a flash photo of the interior that is normally out of your sight. If the image captured shows you a tangle of dust and lint that looks like a clogged intake filter, then you definitely need to schedule cleaning.

An increase in health problems from airborne contaminants

If you have people with asthma and allergies living in your home, any increase in their symptoms should prompt a visual check (see above) and then scheduling duct cleaning. You may also notice allergy and asthma symptoms in other people in your house, and in this case the problem is probably very serious.

You struggle keeping your home clean

Excessive dirt and dust inside the ventilation system will lead to a buildup in your home as well. For example, a six-room home will, on average, circulate 40 lbs. of dust over a year through the ventilation system, and most of that will settle across your floors and furnishings. When you can’t seem to keep your home free of dust no matter how much cleaning you do, then it’s time to look into duct cleaning services.

A long-handle broom and hose vacuum cleaner will not do the job of cleaning out your ductwork.

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When Are Air Cleaners Right for My Home?

Wednesday, July 9th, 2014

Deciding to install a whole-home air cleaner is a decision each homeowner has to make for him/herself. The best way to determine if an air cleaner is right for your home is to review the benefits of what an air cleaner can do for you and your property. DuAll Heating & Cooling has installed many air cleaners for Plainfield customers to great satisfaction; to see if a whole-home air cleaner is right for you, we’ll outline some information below to help you assess this.

What Is an Air Cleaner?

The term “air cleaner” is a generalized term for both air filters and air purifiers. Both clean your air, but each do it a little differently, and there are different types. The important item to note is that either one cleans your air far better than the filter that comes with your air conditioner. Why? The standard filter of your AC is there to filter the large particles of dust and dirt from your air conditioning system, not improve your air quality. Due to the wide weave of the standard filter’s fiberglass, this filter simply isn’t made to capture the small particulates of pollen, bacteria, viruses, etc., that a whole-home air cleaner is made to do. If cleaning your indoor air of these smaller kinds of particulates is what you need, it may be time to consider installing a whole-home air cleaner.

Types of Air Cleaners

There are several types of air cleaners available for whole-home use:

Mechanical Air Filters

Air filters have tight weaves of fiber acting as fine sieves that filter out particles as your air circulates. This filter uses the fan from your system to draw the air through the filter in order to purify it. The impurities remain on the filter, leaving pure air to continue on through your air conditioner. The finer the sieve is, the smaller the particles it can trap in the filter. These kinds of air cleaners can filter out such particulates as pollen, dust mites, mold, mildew and pet dander, just to name a few. The types of air filters available are:

  • Pleated – can remove up to 35-40% of particles
  • HEPA – can remove up to 99.97% of particles

Air Purifiers

There are 3 commonly-used types of air purifiers used:

  • Electrostatic – filters up to 90% of particles
  • Electronic – filters up to 95% of particles
  • UV lights – kills over 99% of particles

Both electrostatic and electronic air filters (also known as precipitators) use ionization to capture particles. Both of these purifiers electronically charge the pollutants in the air, such as allergens, but an electronic purifier will capture these particles on oppositely-charged plates. An electrostatic filter will also charge particles, but does not have a collection plate; rather, the charged particles will attach to other oppositely-charged particles, and collect on surfaces in your home.

UV germicidal lights destroy biological contaminants such as bacteria and viruses by emitting UV-C light. This light destroys the DNA of the biological particle, disabling it from reproducing.

Is An Air Cleaner Right for You? Ask a Professional

An air cleaner in your air conditioning in Plainfield can help any allergy sufferers in your home, those with respiratory issues such as asthma and COPD, and help with overall indoor comfort.

To find out if a whole-home air cleaner is a good fit for your property, call DuAll Heating & Cooling today and schedule an appointment with one of our professionals.

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Denmark Also Celebrates the Fourth of July

Friday, July 4th, 2014

Maybe an elementary school teacher tried to trip you up with this test question: “Do other countries have a Fourth of July?” If the teacher had phrased the question as, “Do other countries celebrate the Fourth of July?” you would be less likely to slip up and answer “no.”

Except… and your teacher probably didn’t know this at the time… there is another country that celebrates the Fourth of July. They don’t celebrate a holiday that happens to fall on July 4 (there are quite a few of those spread across the globe), but the actually celebrate U.S. Independence Day.

That country is—Denmark.

Every July 4, in the Rebild Region in the north of Denmark, thousands of people gather in Rebild National Park to hold the largest Fourth of July celebration outside the U.S.A., an events known as Rebildfesten. This tradition has continued for over a hundred years now, starting in 1912. The origins of this unusual celebration is that in 1911 a ground of Danish Americans purchased the 140 acres of the parkland between the woods in Rold and the Lindenborg stream. The next year, they deeded the land to the Danish King and people of the country as a memorial to Danish Americans, under the condition that the place remain undeveloped, open to the public, and used to celebrate U.S. holidays. Today, the park also hosts a museum on the history of Danish immigrants to the U.S., housed inside a log cabin.

This display of solidarity with the U.S. is because of the country’s warm welcome of 300,000 Danish settlers who were among the earliest to migrate across the seas. The celebration continues as sign of the long friendship between the two nations.

Since its inception, the celebration has hosted famous speakers such as the members of the Danish royal family (the queen and princess both attended for the 100th anniversary), Walt Disney, Keith Carradine, and Richard Chamberlain. The festivities actually start two days earlier, but on the fourth is when the major parade is held (which marches over 3 miles from the train station) and the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra performs a selections of music from both countries.

Although we doubt you will be celebrating your Fourth of July in Denmark this year, we at DuAll Heating & Cooling hope you have a fantastic Independence Day.

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