Tag: Heating

What to Do When Your Furnace Is Not Working

Posted on | by Acosta Heating, Cooling & Electrical

Technician troubleshooting HVAC system with multimeter and wiring, emphasizing furnace maintenance and repair services in Charlotte, NC.

If your furnace is giving you trouble and you’re unable to keep warm, it’s essential to have someone you can trust to resolve the problem promptly — someone like the team at Acosta Heating, Cooling & Electrical. Of course, getting help with your furnace or other HVAC or electrical equipment means understanding that there’s a problem in the first place, so you know it’s time to make a call.

Today, we’ll look at the symptoms of a troubled furnace and what it might mean for your system.

If you’re looking for help in the Charlotte, NC, area, don’t hesitate to contact Acosta online by calling 704.665.5998 now! We’ll be glad to figure everything out for you.

Signs That Your Furnace Isn’t Working

While some furnace issues are rather obvious—if no air is blowing at all or that air is ice cold—others can be more subtle. Be sure you don’t leave any of these issues to linger until it becomes a bigger problem—or leaves you cold on a freezing night.

  • The system no longer keeps you at the temperature on your thermostat
  • Strange noises or smells from your system or ducts
  • Constantly needing to relight a pilot light or flip an electrical breaker
  • Short-cycling, where the system turns on and off and on and off without hitting temperatures
  • Changes in humidity or indoor air quality

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Troubleshooting Your Furnace

Check if your thermostat is turned off or try resetting your digital thermostat.

Often if your furnace starts acting poorly or not acting at all, the issue can be tied back to your thermostat rather than the furnace itself. Make sure your thermostat settings are correct, and if you have a digital thermostat, try a full reset according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Check your electrical and gas lines by testing other appliances that use them.

Problems with your furnace can also track back to the energy it uses—electricity and possibly gas. If a breaker is flipped or other electrical appliances on the circuit aren’t working, you have your culprit. Similarly, if you have a gas furnace and other gas appliances aren’t working right, you know what’s wrong.

Change the filter.

If you haven’t changed the filter in a while, it’s straightforward for it to be blocked entirely up to the point that air can’t flow through your system. Of course, even without that blockage, if it’s been that long, go ahead and change your filter—it’s good for your system and indoor air quality!

Check the exhaust and intake vents to make sure they’re not blocked.

Physical obstruction of the airflow of your furnace isn’t just a matter of filters. Intakes and vents can be blocked by duct and debris—or maybe someone just moved something in front of the intake and stopped the whole system.

Dirty furnace filter being cleaned with a vacuum, highlighting the importance of regular maintenance for HVAC systems and indoor air quality.

Choose Acosta for Emergency Repair

If your problem extends beyond simple thermostat resets and clogged filters, reach out to the experts at Acosta and get help as soon as possible. Quick action can save you a lot of discomfort and money in the future by getting ahead of breakdowns and severe damage resulting from a system in disrepair continuing in that state.

Contact us online or call us at 704.665.5998 to request help in Charlotte, South Charlotte, Waxhaw, and the surrounding areas!

Does My Home Need a Humidifier in the Winter?

Posted on | by Acosta Heating, Cooling & Electrical

Now that old man winter is here, have you experienced any of the following? Itchy eyes or skin? Dry irritated throat, nose, or sinuses? Nasal congestion or nosebleeds? If so, the answer to the title’s question should be yes. These discomforts are all caused by excessively dry air in the home. Low humidity can also exacerbate breathing difficulties for those living with serious conditions like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma, as well as causing sinusitis and waking up allergies. These are but the tip of the iceberg of the bounty of benefits you can reap when you add a humidifier to your HVAC system.

Health Benefits

Humidifiers help curtail the spread of airborne viruses. Maintaining indoor humidity levels at 43% has been found to render 85% of airborne viruses ineffective. This is because the moisture humidifiers add to the air impedes the movement of germs, making the airborne particles too heavy to float. When this happens they drop and lose their mojo.

Cost-Savings

Humidifiers can lower your heating bill. No doubt you’ve experienced how high humidity makes temperatures feel warmer in the summer. A humidifier can have the same effect on the wintertime air in your house. This is because the added moisture in the air makes sweat evaporate more slowly so you feel warmer and don’t have to set the thermostat quite so high.

Comfort Enhancements

Humidifiers fight static in winter more static electricity builds up in our heated homes because dry air serves as an insulator, making it hard for electrons to pass through. As a result, they collect in one place so that when we pass through we feel shocks when we touch metal objects, our pets, or even each other. This same static charge makes our hair frizzy, dry laundry clingy, and it can even damage electronics if the charge reaches high enough. Adding moisture to the air dampens the insulating effect and frees up the electrons so they can pass through. No more shocks!

Wood Preservation

Humidifiers can make our furniture last longer. When a tree falls in the forest, the lack of moisture causes its wood to split and crack. Likewise, wooden furniture and floors can suffer damage after years of winters in dry heated homes. Shrinking fibers are what causes hardwood floors to creak in the winter. This same shrinkage can loosen furniture joints and threaten their integrity. By restoring moisture to the air, a humidifier quenches wood’s thirst and allows it to resume its optimum moisture level

Winter Dehumidifiers in Charlotte, NC

These are but a few of the benefits your winter home will reap when you add a humidifier to your air comfort solution. To find out more, contact our HVAC experts at Acosta Heating and Cooling. We’ve been serving North Carolinians in the greater Charlotte area for over 50 years, selling, installing, and servicing furnaces, air condition systems, thermostats, heat pumps, ductless mini split systems, and humidifiers.

How Often Should My Furnace be Replaced?

Posted on | by Acosta Heating, Cooling & Electrical

Technician repairing a Lennox furnace, showcasing internal components and tools at Acosta Heating, Cooling & Electrical.As the days start to cool and night temperatures plummet, the furnace does its job and goes unnoticed. But, if your furnace goes out during the time you need it most, you realize quickly how much it provides comfort and safety for you in your home. Replacing any large appliance or part in the home is best faced with some planning. Saving ahead when you know your furnace is on its last leg can really help you feel prepared for the replacement. So, how do you know when to replace a furnace?

The Furnace Is Getting Old

Nothing lasts forever and this holds true for furnaces. Most furnaces realistically last you 10-15 years. If you take great care of your furnace with filter changes and regularly scheduled maintenance, you might be able to make it last as long as 20 years. While you should care for your furnace to help extend its life, you may find that a newer model will save you enough money to be worth replacing early.

The Furnace Costs Too Much to Fix

When your furnace starts to get old, it gets less and less worth making repairs. On a newer furnace, you might spend up to 50% of a replacement cost on repairs before you would consider just putting in a new furnace. But on an older model, you wouldn’t want to spend $200 on something that is costing you money to run and only has a few years left at best.

The Furnace Costs Too Much to Run

Lennox HVAC unit with access panel, showing inspection by Acosta Heating, Cooling & Electrical professional.The older models of furnaces are far less efficient than your newer options. You can figure out how much your cost savings will be by checking what efficiency rating your current furnace has. Older models can easily waste upwards of 40% of the gas they pull – leaving you with higher bills and wasting resources. Newer models can be 90-95% efficient and will require less gas each month. If you were changing from a 50% AFUE efficiency furnace to a 95% furnace, you would be saving nearly half your heating bill each month.

Furnace Replacement in Charlotte, NC

Are you looking for regular maintenance for your furnace, need a repair or want to start planning for a new one and live in the Charlotte area? We can help you at Acosta Heating, Cooling & Electrical, so contact us today!

Radiant Heating Systems Can Benefit Allergy Sufferers

Posted on | by Acosta Heating, Cooling & Electrical

A radiant heating system supplies heat directly to the floor or to panels in a ceiling or wall. The system depends largely on the transfer of radiant heat – the delivery of heat directly from a hot surface to a space through infrared radiation. You can liken it to the effect of feeling the warmth of a stovetop from the other side of the room.

Radiant heating is usually more efficient than forced-air heating and more effective than baseboard heating because there are no duct losses. It is often the preferred choice for people with allergies because, unlike a forced-air system, it doesn’t distribute allergens.

Liquid-based (hydronic) heating systems need very little electricity – a major benefit in areas where the price of electricity is high and for homes off the power grid. Liquid-based systems can use a wide range of energy sources to heat the liquid, including solar water heaters, wood-fired burners, oil-fired boilers, standard gas, or a combination of these.

Radiant floor heating relies heavily on the natural circulation of heat as air warmed by the floor rises (convection). These systems are very different to the panels used in ceilings and walls. There are 3 types of radiant floor heat:

  1. Radiant air floors, where air acts as the heat-carrying medium
  2. Hydronic radiant floors
  3. Electric radiant floors

These types can be further categorized by the installation. Wet installations refer to those that use lightweight concrete over a wooden subfloor or the large thermal mass of a concrete slab floor. Dry installations are those where the heating installer attaches the tubing under a finished floor or sandwiches it between 2 layers of plywood.

Heating Services in Charlotte, NC

From furnace repair to heating system replacement, Acosta Heating, Cooling & Electrical is here to help.
For heating in Charlotte NC, contact us at Acosta Heating, Cooling & Electrical. Since 1972, we’ve provided quality products & services at affordable rates. Give us a call today!