If you have ever been short of breath you probably know that you can't do much until you regain normal breathing. Imagine trying to run a marathon when someone's hands are around your throat, you are breathing through a straw or you have major mucus congestion. Chances are you are not going to win the race, let alone finish it. Air flow is important to maintain life, the same holds true for your air conditioner. If its air passages (duct work) is not designed properly, cleaned regularly, or in proportion with the unit, it is not going to win the race, rather it will probably crap out and be lying on the side of the track.
· Proper Design: If your home is older than 50 or even 30 years old, which most homes are, your duct work is probably out dated. Just as the case in every industry each year we get smarter, so our products get smarter, and standards get higher. On top of that, if you have had any ac repairs or additions to your duct work, now your materials are not matching up. So not only do you not have the latest, most efficient materials you now have some patchwork going on which is a major red flag for leaks.
· Cleaned Regularly: Having your duct work cleaned regularly is like taking your vitamins and washing your hands. If you're not taking care of yourself you're going to get sick, congested, and run down. If you're not taking care of your duct work it's going to get congested itself, with bacterial growth that in turn... yep, you guessed it, is going to make you and your family sick. Even if you just have your duct work sanitized you are at least killing that top layer of growth that the air passes over on its way out to you.
· Proportionate to the unit: There is a reason to why our lungs grow with us when we grow. If we had the same size lungs that we were born with, we'd be lucky if we could get off the couch without gasping for air. When you upgrade your AC unit, you MUST take a look at the duct work to ensure it can handle the amount of air this new unit is pushing through.
Now I know this seems like a lot to remember or ensure happens but that's where your AC Service provider come in. Good quality AC Technicians should be able to test your air flow, review your duct work design, clean or sanitize (or both) your duct work, as well as make sure that both pieces are proportionate to each other. You just need to know these key points to make sure that they take care of it all. By arming yourself with this information you are in the driver's seat and keeping yourself from being taken advantage of.
I want to give you another tip, if you live in the state of Florida, FPL does duct testing. An FPL representative will come to your house and inspect your duct system, if repairs are needed you could qualify for a helpful rebate. You might ask yourself why they do this, in the summer months if every home in the state is running air conditioning FPL has quite a bit of pressure on their power grid. By alleviating even a little bit of pain but making homes that much more efficient they are saving themselves from what could be a disaster!
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