Serving Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.
Serving Maryland and Washington, D.C.
Serving Fairfax and Loudoun Counties and the
surrounding area
Monday - Friday 7:30am - 5:30pm | Saturday 8:00am - 1:00pm. CALL FOR EMERGENCIES
Serving Maryland, Virginia,
and Washington, D.C.
Serving Maryland and Washington, D.C.
Serving Fairfax and Loudoun
Counties and the surrounding area
24 Hour Emergency Services, 7 Days a Week
With the warmer seasons right around the corner, taking time to complete your spring-cleaning tasks is vital. Indeed, spring cleaning is beneficial because it can reduce stress, anxiety, depression, as well as the risk of injury and more. Moreover, it is essential to clean around your home and clean and maintain your appliances as well.
With all this spring cleaning in mind, the following is a list of the benefits of getting your air conditioner tuned up this spring.
One of the most challenging aspects of being a homeowner is deciding when to repair appliances and equipment and when they need to be replaced. Indeed, while no one wants to deal with a piece of multifunctional equipment, replacing equipment prematurely can be a waste of money. For instance, furnaces are a necessary part of any functional home. However, since they can last for decades, it can be difficult to determine when to repair them and when it’s time to replace them. With that in mind, here is a closer look at how to tell if an older furnace is worth replacing.
Finding the best ways to keep your home well-heated is essential for those who live in areas with harsh winters. Indeed, while it may be possible to survive without proper heat for a short time, doing so indefinitely can cause a health issue for everyone living in your home. Nevertheless, in order to ensure your home is adequately heated, you need to learn the signs of a problematic heating system. With that in mind, here is a list of 5 heating problems we see the most often.
No matter how new or sophisticated your heating system may be, a bad thermostat can cause significant issues within your heating system. Nevertheless, you cannot fix the problems if you are not aware of the signs of a faulty thermostat. With that in mind, here is an overview of the various ways a bad thermostat can ruin your home heating.
Ideally, heating a home would be as simple as setting the thermostat to your desired temperature and leaving it. But, unfortunately, that’s not always how things work out. Instead, there are often times that an HVAC system falls short, which can cause your home to be unevenly heated. So, before seeking heating repair in Annapolis, MD with our team, here is a list of reasons why your heating system isn’t evenly heating your home.
When you set your home’s thermostat to provide heat during the winter, you expect the furnace to turn on, light the burners, and then run for long enough to evenly spread heat through the rooms. That’s what the gas furnace is for, after all.
But you may run into a problem where the burners in the furnace just won’t stay on. Maybe they turn on for a few minutes, or only a few seconds, but they aren’t burning long enough to provide your home with heat. This problem can happen for different reasons, and we’ll look at several of them below.
Please keep in mind that for most gas furnace issues, you must have a licensed professional for repairs. It’s not only an issue of accuracy but also of safety.
This is a “PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT” from B&B Air Conditioning & Heating Service Co., Inc. to our highly valued clientele on the availability and the future outlook of HCFC-22 refrigerant or as the industry calls it, R-22 or Freon. If your current residential or commercial air conditioner or heat pump system was manufactured before 2008, then your system may utilize HCFC-22.
Section 605 of the Clean Air Act establishes the U.S. phaseout targets for Class II substances. In 1993, EPA established the phaseout framework and the “worst-first” approach, which focused first on HCFC-22, HCFC-141b, and HCFC-142b because they have the highest ozone depletion potentials of all HCFCs. The phaseout schedule has drastically diminished the availability of HCFC-22 and has exponentially driven up the overall cost of this refrigerant over the past two years.
What does this mean to you? Well, if your equipment utilizes HCFC-22 and you experience a malfunction in the refrigeration circuit, then you will have a very serious decision to consider. The cost associated in repairing older systems is extremely difficult to justify because of the pricing of HCFC-22. Currently, HCFC-22 has a price range of $250.00 to $300.00 per pound and many of our suppliers have quit handling the product due to the high cost associated with maintaining inventory. The average residential air conditioning or heat pump system uses approximately 8-12 lbs to provide the required cooling capacity, and we anticipate the cost to continue to escalate as we approach the spring/summer of 2022.
The other alternative to repairing your antiquated air conditioning or heat pump system is to have new updated equipment installed that doesn’t use HCFC-22 refrigerant. All equipment manufactured after 2008 required the implementation of an alternative refrigerant. Currently, the HVAC industry is using HFC-410A or R-410A which is a “chlorine-free” based refrigerant and is much safer on the atmosphere.
Updating homeowner’s equipment is not as easy as it sounds today. Each and every person in the United States are experiencing some sort of supply chain issue. The manufacturers of HVAC equipment are having the same dilemmas. Copper, steel & aluminum are critical materials that manufacturers use to build their products. These supply chain issues have drastically reduced the production of HVAC equipment and it is our understanding that the availability of air conditioning & heating equipment will only worsen as we enter 2022.
B&B Air Conditioning & Heating Service Co., Inc. has been in business since 1957 and has grown to be one of the largest HVAC service companies in the Washington/Baltimore Metro area. This enormous feat could not have been accomplished without keeping our clients informed with real issues that are relevant to this industry today.
If your HVAC equipment was manufactured prior to 2008, we are strongly urging our customers to consider proactively exploring the age of your HVAC equipment before a problem arises. If you don’t know when your equipment was manufactured, then please contact us and we can research your service information so we can aid in determining the age of your equipment, and if necessary provide you with a free at-home solution.
Christopher F. Ghanayem
Executive Vice President
Heat pumps are becoming an increasingly popular option for home comfort, with more people each year discovering the convenience and energy-saving potential of these systems. Heat pumps work similarly to air conditioners: they circulate refrigerant to absorb heat from one place and release it in another. An air conditioner can only remove heat indoors and release it outdoors, while a heat pump can do that plus change the direction of refrigerant circulation so that it moves heat from outdoors to indoors. It’s a great heating-and-cooling combination in a single installation.
If you read that, you may have had doubts spring up in your mind; or you might have already heard that heat pumps can struggle in winter. We understand that thinking, because the idea of a heating system that draws its heat source from outdoors during the winter doesn’t make much sense.
Yet, heat pumps are popular, so many people must find them worthwhile installations. Can a heat pump in Fairfax, VA, help your house through our local winters?
Because the thermostat is a small and unobtrusive device, its importance in an HVAC system is often overlooked. This is why people frequently change the settings on their thermostats based on comfort whims. If it’s winter and they’re feeling too cold, they crank the thermostat up high. Then when the house gets too hot, they slam the setting down.
This way of setting the thermostat is bad news: for the heating system, for indoor comfort, and for energy bills. We’re going to share some thermostat “best practices” in this post so you’ll know how to use your home’s thermostat to save money while enjoying quality heating.
You may not have turned your furnace on for the first time this winter, but you’re coming closer and closer to that moment. If you’ve already scheduled heating maintenance in Rockville, MD, your furnace will probably come on as it’s supposed to and provide warmth for your family.
But what if it doesn’t? We don’t just mean at the start of the winter, but at any point during the season. The furnace may not come on at all, or you may get room temperature air from the vents rather than the warmth you expect.
If your first thought is to call us to see if your furnace needs repairs, you’re off to a good start. You never want to attempt to repair a furnace yourself, as it can be dangerous. But before you give us a call or send us a message (and we’re here for you 24/7!), you can go through several basic troubleshooting steps to see if there is a simple reason you aren’t getting warm.