cooling Archives — Thrifty Mommas Tips

Furnace Maintenance – 5 Reasons to Have Your Furnace Checked Today #RelianceHomeComfort

Paula — Fri, 12 Aug 2016 12:02:05 +0000

Furnace maintenance is a big deal. We all know the role that our furnace plays in the winter. It keeps us warm! However, did you know that your furnace plays a major role in your summer comfort as well? Your furnace is what drives all the wonderfully cold air through your home on a hot, summer day. Furnace maintenance is important because it ensures that both your heat and AC function properly year round. Furnace Maintenance is More Than Fixing Problems This month I took a morning to let the people from Reliance Home Comfort to check my furnace, my air conditioner and the plumbing in my home too. Why would I be concerned about that in July? Well, your furnace and Air conditioner or central air unit are likely to be one of the biggest expenses in your home if anything goes wrong, so it pays to be preventative. Have both checked seasonally to ensure they are in good working order before a disaster strikes. The last thing you want is lack of climate control on a sweltering summer day or a frigid winter night! Read on for five important reasons that a furnace check is a must. [tweetthis]There are many reasons summer is the perfect time to get your furnace checked. #reliancehomecomfort[/tweetthis] Peace of Mind To begin with, having your furnace checked ensures that your furnace is always in tip-top shape, and if it isn’t, it can be repaired before a disastrous failure. I don’t know about you, but I’m all about the peace of mind of knowing that I’ll always be cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Some of you know we moved into this house about 2 1/2 years ago now. Honestly we are still getting to know some of the quirks about our home. So when the Reliance Home Comfort service technicians came in I paid close attention and they gave me some insight into a few details I did not know about our house. For instance, I know now that our furnace is builder’s grade and it’s 11 years old. There are much newer ones that are WAY more efficient. (One more thing to save for!) Cost Effectiveness Another huge perk of furnace maintenance is the cost effectiveness of it. It’s much cheaper to repair a small problem detected early by a technician than it is to remedy a huge problem. The bigger the problem, the bigger the bill, and the longer you’ll go without heating or cooling. When the Reliance Home Comfort technician went through our home he immediately found a switch that wasn’t functioning well on the furnace. He repaired it immediately and showed me what that would have meant in January or February. Essentially that would have been a broken switch and a furnace that failed in January or February. That quick catch alone was worth the time and effort. I am not interested in emergency calls about furnaces while my family freezes in the winter months. NICE catch Reliance Home Comfort! A Longer Furnace Life Proper furnace maintenance can keep your furnace in good working order for a longer period of time. Just like a car or any other mechanical device, furnaces last longer when they get regular inspections and tune ups. A More Efficient Furnace This ties in with cost effectiveness. You’d be surprised how long a furnace can work even when it’s practically dead. BUT… just because it CAN work doesn’t mean it SHOULD work. A furnace that’s on its last legs or in need of repair may move air. It may even heat it and cool it. But the amount of work it has to do to get the job done is costing you money. A Healthier Home Furnace maintenance and inspections can reveal more than mechanical problems. They can let you know if your furnace needs a good cleaning. Furnaces get dirty just like everything else. The difference is a dirty furnace (along with dirty duct work) drastically decreases the air quality in your home. Sad but true I am guilty of having to be told to switch the furnace filter! I could have sworn that I just did that, but time flies and that was another lesson learned. Write the date you switched the filter out on the side of your filter when you change it. [tweetthis]Enter now to win a furnace inspection worth $198 #LDNONT #reliancehomecomfort[/tweetthis] Furnace Maintenance Made Easy and Affordable with Reliance Reliance Home Comfort is Canada’s trusted source for air quality and HVAC solutions, and they have been for years. Their extensive knowledge, quality workmanship, and attention to detail make them the perfect choice for all your furnace maintenance and repair needs. Reliance offers both summer and winter furnace maintenance services which include: Furnace Tune-up: Preventative furnace maintenance for continued good working order. Major Component Inspection: A Reliance technician will inspect all major furnace components including gas valve, igniter, heat exchanger, and vent motor. CO Level Measurement: Technicians measure CO levels inside the home as well as in the furnace exhaust to ensure home safety. Air Conditions Tune-up: Preventive AC maintenance for continued good working order. Coil and Condenser Inspection: Technicians inspect evaporator coil as well as outdoor condenser unit to ensure proper function. Drain Inspection: Technicians inspect condensate drain for any clogs and ensure that it is free of debris and dirt or mold. Blower Motor Inspection: Technicians inspect the blower motor to ensure that it is clean and in good working order so it can keep CLEANLY circulating air throughout the home. Ask about Home Reliance’s service packages when they visit. The service package could give you peace of mind. Win Your Own Furnace Maintenance Visit from Reliance Right now, Reliance is offering a Summer Maintenance Check including a 21 point furnace and air-conditioner tune-up to one of my lucky readers in London, ONTARIO and surrounding area. It’s a $198 value, and one of you will get it for free. I received a full home inspection and other perks in exchange for this post. My opinion is all my own. Follow Reliance on Facebook for more information. The people at Reliance want you to win one of these too. Follow the instructions to win. YOU MUST BE FROM London or surrounding area for this prize to work. Entry-Form

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Nest Learning Thermostat 3.0 – Saving Money Every Day

Paula — Mon, 20 Jun 2016 07:34:37 +0000

Nest Learning Thermostat 3.0 is a different kind of thermostat. It analyzes your usage information to make a heating and cooling profile based on your habits. The Nest Learning Thermostat 3.0 is smart technology and it makes your heating and cooling work for you while saving energy and money too. My husband and I have wanted a Nest for a few years now, so when the chance came to feature one here and install it inside our home, we were both thrilled with the opportunity to test a Nest and share with my readers. Nest Learning Thermostat 3.0 – Next Generation Tech This thermostat is the smartest thermostat on the block. It collects your usage data and then automatically adjusts itself to what fits your family and your lifestyle. There’s no more figuring out what temperature works and when and then programming it into your thermosat. This thermostat does all that leg work for you and auto-adjusts the temperature up or down based on time of day and how you’ve adjusted the temperature in the house in the past. We installed our Nest 3.0 this month and the hardest part was actually psyching ourselves up for the installation. That’s pretty silly because it’s very simple to install and took under 30 minutes. My husband managed to connect it easily following the instructions. The Nest comes with everything you need to install it in your home and there’s also a flat plastic rectangular background piece you can place behind it to cover up the holes left from your old thermostat. I appreciate that because I have no desire right now to fill in holes or paint around the old thermostat. The Nest learning thermostat is in my office so I am the one who gets to look at it every day. Our Nest is slick looking and it’s helping to make our home more connected. [tweetthis]Nest Learning Thermostat 3.0 can help you save money and energy. [/tweetthis] I noticed a huge difference almost immediately. Of course I won’t see energy savings yet. But for us here the most dramatic difference is that I see a huge reduction in the amount of time the furnace fan runs. My office is so very quiet now! I have been playing around with the NEST app and I like that I was able to tell the NEST immediately that I don’t want it ever getting colder than 19 degrees Celsius in here and that it really should never be warmer than 23.5 Celsius either. So those are the backups for my AWAY settings. I love also that I can check in on the house temperature from my iPhone when I am away on a travel junket or a family trip. NEST connects easily on line with your WIFI settings and then will also display the daily temperature outside in your city so that you know how your indoor temperature compares. By installing a NEST you can save an average of 10% to 12% on your heating bill and around 15% on your cooling bill. That’s about $131 to $145 a year. I’d guess that this is a conservative estimate in our case, because I think the furnace fan has been using far too much energy and consuming too much money as well. In addition to that, this thermostat helps the environment because you’ll save power and what’s required to produce that power, as well. The same study that showed such incredible savings also showed that millions of Nest homes around the world have saved just about 4 billion kilowatt hours of energy compared to what they would have used if they’d left their thermostats on one temperature all day long. We just installed our Nest Learning Thermostat 3.0, and I can already see a difference in our energy consumption and how we use energy. The thermostat adjusts the air just about the same time I would adjust it, which I think is cool, and it programmed itself to run a little warmer during the day that it does at night, because we cannot sleep when it’s too warm. Our new Nest Learning Thermostat 3.0 did all of that in the course of a couple of days. I’ve even been able to adjust the temperature using my smart phone. So cool. Nest Learning Thermostat 3.0 is Learning Our Life And I think that’s amazing. With the Nest’s ability to recognize when we leave, what temperature we like and which times of day and night, it can even help us save even more with a monthly Energy History Report. The Nest Learning Thermostat 3.0 is the next generation in home heating and cooling, and I can already tell it’s saving our family money because our unit kicks on less than it did and only when we need it. My Nest comes with a two year warranty. Check it out and see what it can do for you. We received a Nest Learning Thermostat 3.0 for consideration here. No other compensation was received. This Nest is a smart tool for homeowners and so far I love it. My opinion is my own and it is truthful.

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