Vacuum Your Furnace Filter

Our home and our business are located in South Texas where the cost of cooling can be quite expensive. The summer of 2009 broke all of the heat records since records have been kept with more than 59 days with temperatures over 100 degrees, many of which were 103 or better. With temperatures above 90 degrees until midnight on some days the air conditioning system was working overtime to try and keep up.

furnacefilterA good operating AC system will use refrigerant to lower the temperature of the cooling system and generate a high volume of airflow through the cooling system to keep your home cool. It is important to keep the air flowing through the central cooling system as quickly as possible to maintain a high efficiency of cooling and keep your electric bills low. A clean furnace filter is critical to both maintaining system performance and protecting your AC cooling coil, the radiator like device with small fins made from metal that transfers the cool from refrigerant to the airflow that is used to cool your home. Without a filter your AC coil would quickly become clogged with dust and your systems performance would quickly drop. With a clean filter you are allowing the maximum amount of airflow through the system but protecting the AC coil from damaging dust. A dirty AC intake filter chokes airflow from your system which requires the entire system to run longer in order to provide the same level of cool as a system with a clean filter, this is why a clean filter is so important.

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Christmas In July

xmass_treeBeginning in January a very unique phenomenon occurs in the vacuum cleaner business, starting in our repair shop for portable vacuums. With a rush of vacuum cleaners for repair the first week after New Years day we begin to find peoples christmas tree’s. Clogged in the hose, jammed in the nozzle housing, stuffed in the wands and tools. Thousands and thousands of christmas tree needles just exploding from peoples vacuums. Soon after the initial rush of portable vacuum the calls begin for central vacuum service request. Seems the vacuum system has  “lost it’s pep”. Often after we remove a few pounds of needles from the system it is performing good as new.

I would say “don’t vacuum tree needles”, but I know my warning would only be ignored. In the rush to get the holidays over and done with your not about to get the broom and dustpan when you can just run the vacuum over it so much quicker. The satisfaction from the sound of all those needles being flushed away from your living room is magnetizing and nearly impossible to resist. Your vacuum was not made for such a task, but what the heck – you only live once.

As certainly there will be a rush of needle stuffed vacuums for repair the first week of January, there is always some poor soul that brings her vacuum to the repair shop in July. She tells us that  she got the new vacuum for Christmas, but it never worked right and she thinks she ‘got a clunker’.  A few minutes at the repair bench and you guessed it, Christmas in July.