Spring is a critical time for commercial HVAC maintenance for a number of reasons. As today is the Spring Equinox, the first official day of Spring 2018, it’s important to understand what’s required of commercial HVAC systems come Spring.

In the Spring, pollens, molds, and viruses start to become a serious issue. Spring is allergy season and being exposed to these allergens can cause serious discomfort or even illness for those with allergies. Indoor air quality is vitally important in the Spring, and, fortunately, it’s entirely attainable for anyone willing to put in the effort.

Most Important Commercial HVAC Maintenance Items for Spring

Ideally, every Spring a building will request a comprehensive review of all the HVAC systems. The non-stop, daily use of your commercial heating and cooling system causes build-up over time of contaminants including dust particles, bacteria, and allergens. Out of all the possible maintenance items, duct cleaning or sealing and an indoor air quality assessment are two of the most important tasks.

An indoor air quality assessment is the first step to identifying underlying issues for indoor air quality. Commercial HVAC experts can identify any source of indoor air pollution coming from your HVAC system and propose a remedy for the situation. Without understanding what’s causing poor indoor air quality, you can’t achieve good indoor air quality.

As for duct cleaning and sealing, ducts naturally collect dust and debris, including molds and pollens. Cleaning ducts prevents these potentially dangerous allergens from polluting indoor air. Sealing ducts as needed improves energy efficiency while helping prevent further indoor air pollution.

Benefits of Good Indoor Air Quality

Studies show that good indoor air quality, along with proper temperatures and humidity, reduce illness and sick days while increasing employee productivity and happiness in the workplace. Tenants have a vested interest in good indoor air quality, which means building owners and facility managers should too.

Proper indoor air quality even helps acquire new tenants through referrals from happy tenants, who are more easily retained in the first place if their work or living environment is satisfactory.

Striving towards great indoor air quality makes good business sense. There are many different benefits of good indoor air quality, but the bottom line benefits are some of the most appealing.

Spring is the most important time for duct cleaning and sealing, as well as indoor air quality assessments. With harmful allergens and other pollutants starting to become a serious issue, now is the time to complete your Spring commercial HVAC maintenance items.

To provide your furnace with a long, efficient life span, Best Solutions HVAC suggests regular maintenance. Despite providing your heating system with lots of attention, a furnace will reach a certain age and it won’t be cost-effective to perform repairs. So, what happens if the time comes during the Carlsbad winter? Don’t panic! Our qualified technicians will be here to take care of you, and make sure your family’s home comfort is met.

What factors will help you determine if it’s time for a replacement furnace? First, think about the age of your furnace. If it’s 15 to 20 years old, it’s probably nearing the end of its life span. Many times, it doesn’t make sense to put money into repairing a furnace that’s so old.

Next, take a look at your energy bills. If they seem greater this season over previous years, your furnace may be having a hard time keeping up. Furnaces lose efficiency over time. When this happens, you’ll definitely see an impact on your utility bills.

Another sign that it may be time to replace your furnace is if you’ve had to schedule several repairs. Further repairs may not be the best way to go. It might be in your best interest to replace your furnace with a new, more energy-efficient model. Investing in a newer model will likely save you money in the long run.

Did you know there are actually tens of steps you can take to winterize your home for maximum efficiency? Not only will some of these strategies help prevent ice and snow damage, but they’ll also save you a bunch of money!

1. First of all, if you haven’t already gotten a furnace tune-up done…
Know that the best time to do it is before you turn your furnace on at all. But it’s not too late!

There are a few things our techs do that you could do yourself, such as replacing your air filter. But we also check the motor, fan, blower, and gas pipes. Those are things you want to entrust to our professionals, with a professional tune-up.

But here are some DIY tips that everyone should do to prepare for cold months:

2. Trim tree branches that come perilously close to your house, especially if they would hit your roof if they fell off.
This is a pretty good rule of thumb all year long, but of course in winter the ice and snow make branches heavier and more dangerous. So yes, in this sense, trimming trees is a form of winterizing!

3. Switch the way your ceiling fan is running.
Yes, unlike sealing air leaks or getting insulation in your attic, this is a super SIMPLE winterization tip! On your ceiling fan, there should be a switch that reverses the fan. You want it to be rotating clockwise instead of counterclockwise. Why, exactly? Because the warm air will be pushed down; you know heat rises and if you can push it back down, that’s savings off your heat bill, baby!

4. Check and detect!
It’s more important during the winter to check your smoke detector and carbon monoxide (CO) detector, more so than in any other season.

What is CO? It’s a colorless, odorless gas that is extremely toxic to breathe. It’s caused by incomplete burning of carbon-based fuel such as gas. That’s definitely something that can happen with a faulty gas furnace!

And why is it more important to check your CO detector in winter, than any other time of year? It’s because you see more fires and also more cases of CO poisoning in the winter. People have their furnaces/boilers working harder than at any other time of year, and so they’re more likely to malfunction!

5. Put together an emergency winter supplies kit, in case you’re stranded at home without power.
Yes, part of having a winter-ready home is battening down the hatches with storm door and window insulation, wrapped pipes, etc., but it’s about the items in your home, too!