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What’s a BTU and How Does It Affect My Home?

HVAC

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BTU stands for British Thermal Unit, which is a measurement of how much heat it takes to raise the temperature of a pound of water by one degree (F). Without getting too technical, it’s basically a unit of measure we use for heat. How does that tie into your HVAC system? Well, your air conditioner doesn’t really have a BTU. (It’s measured in tons.) We mainly use BTUs to measure your furnace.

We do a heat load calculation on someone’s home to determine how many BTUs are necessary to heat the space. First, we take into account the number of doors and windows in the home, which are probably the biggest contributors to heat loss. We also look at insulation, the amount of wall space, and square footage of the room or home. All of these variables are used to determine how many BTUs are necessary to heat the space to a desired set point.

You might hear someone ask, “How many BTUs does this furnace have?” It’s pretty much based upon the heat load calculations of the space to ensure the furnace is big enough to keep that specific space comfortable. We know that we need to raise the temperature by a certain number of degrees based upon the design temperature and where you might be in the country (how cold of an area it is). That’s how we size the furnace for someone’s home.

Sometimes an HVAC company will just guess the BTU using general rules of thumb. This is pretty dangerous; you’re basically going to come away somewhat dissatisfied with the results. If a proper measurement isn’t taken into consideration, the sizing of the unit isn’t going to be suitable, ultimately leading to discomfort in that particular space. If the unit is undersized, it’s going to run much longer than necessary and won’t last as long. If the unit is oversized, it will start and stop too frequently, which can also be hard on it.

If a homeowner is interested in getting a quote for a new HVAC system, or if our technician was at someone’s home and they set up a visit from our comfort advisor, one of the first things that we would do is take a look at the actual space that requires heating. We’ll do heat load calculations very early in the process so that we can size and match the right equipment to the space. That then leads us to determining the cost of the new system.

If you’re in the market for a new HVAC system before the next year’s cold season arrives, maybe you’ll want to get ahead of the situation and reach out to us now. Contact us online or give us a call at 540-483-9382.

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Most of us don’t think about how our pets can affect HVAC performance. Luckily, our furry loved ones and HVAC systems can get along together in harmony. It just takes a couple of easy-to-do tips that anyone can follow.

Fur and pet dander (tiny, almost invisible skin particles) are small enough to get transported by the airflow produced by a home’s HVAC system. Whether you feel it or not, air in your home moves around and gets sucked into the return air grille, which then delivers cool or heated air to keep the space comfortable. We’ve found that a lot of times pet owners really need to pay more attention to the frequency that they change their air filters (which should be installed behind the air return grille). I’d say one of the most useful tips is simply the need to change the filter more frequently than someone without a pet. You don’t want the filter to get clogged up because it would cause the system to starve for air, leading to a potential breakdown or even premature failure.

Another tip is to make sure you never run your system without a filter, because that would pull a significant amount of pet dander and fur inside the actual HVAC unit. It would quickly cause excessive damage requiring the system to be taken apart and professionally cleaned. I’d definitely also say that pet owners need to have their HVAC systems inspected regularly. If you’ve been doing a good job with the filters, pet dander shouldn’t be getting into the unit. However, systems can still have cracks where pet dander gets sucked in. You’ll definitely want to get the system looked at twice a year. If there are any issues, the system can be cleaned and you’ll end up much happier with its performance.

If you’re a pet owner and you have additional concerns about your HVAC performance, just reach out to us today. Contact us directly online, request an appointment, or give us a call at 540-483-9382.

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Changing the air filter is such a simple task, but it has a profound impact on everything that your heating and cooling system does in your home. A forced air HVAC system uses air to do its job. Therefore, proper airflow is extremely important to the functioning of the system. The filter’s job is to clean the air as it enters. If it’s stopped up, it’s going to result in less airflow in your home.

The quickest way to assess your HVAC system’s airflow is to ask yourself whether it’s heating and cooling properly. If you find yourself feeling cold when the system is supposed to be keeping your home warm and comfortable, it could be as simple as a filter issue. (Of course, it could also be someone not understanding how to work the thermostat.) These are very simple things that homeowners generally need to be aware of and doing themselves.

Your heating and cooling system is not going to work properly if it doesn’t have a clean filter. A clogged up filter is going to cause extreme stress on your HVAC equipment, which if left uncorrected, could cause it to break down and/or fail prematurely. A little filter maintenance goes a long way and can potentially prevent you from having to replace your entire system. It would be no different than not changing the filters in your car (e.g., the oil filter or air filter) and just leaving the dirty, old, clogged filters in there. If you neglect the filters for a long time, you’re going to have car problems.

I also think we overlook the fact that the HVAC system is circulating air in our home that we breathe into our bodies. A lot of times if we don’t have effective filtering, we’re probably going to be breathing air that’s not good quality. (This could cause a whole lot of different issues.) The heating & air system could be throwing around any dust and mold present in your home. Keeping a clean filter is a very simple task, but it’s so important to keeping the air clean, keeping your system happy, and making sure you’re comfortable in your home.

If you’re a first-time homeowner, you might be unsure about how often to change the air filter. The general rule of thumb is once a month. However, there are different types of filters out there. The finer the filter is (meaning the smaller particles that it catches), the sooner you’re going to have to replace it because it gets stopped up. If you have pets in your home, that can also cause the filter to get stopped up more quickly. It very much depends on the situation. Some whole home filters last 6 months or even a year, but they’re much more expensive. Just pay attention to dust, pet dander, laundry lint, and other types of things going on in the home. I would recommend doing a visual check of the filter. If it’s got a lot of stuff on it, then it needs to be changed. Once you get a handle on how quickly it builds up, you’ll know how often it usually needs to be replaced.

If your HVAC system needs care, reach out to the team at Wisler Plumbing & Air online or give us a call at 540-483-9382.

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The most important thing for us to do as a company is make sure the right person goes to the right call. Everyone loses when that doesn’t happen. If we send a technician who doesn’t have the relevant competency out to someone’s home, they will be frustrated because they struggled to complete the task. The client is going to be very frustrated, too, because their concern was not efficiently resolved. Time is very important to everyone, so if we have to go back to do something twice, it’s absolutely no fun for anybody involved. We’re very much keyed-in to trying to get the right tech on the right job so these things don’t end up happening.

It can be very challenging to pull this off sometimes, though, because we may not fully understand the issue that we’re sending someone out for. Sometimes we’re making educated guesses about what potentially could be going on, so we have to compensate when we’re assigning the job to a technician. We also have a lot of technicians who specialize in a certain area. For instance, our plumbing technicians don’t cross over to HVAC and vice-versa. Our maintenance technicians specialize in maintenance and are not service technicians.

We always look at the skill level of the technician and the skill level required for the actual task being requested and try to match them up. That way we can divvy out jobs and tasks to the individuals who are specialized in those areas. If they do a specific kind of task day in and day out, they’re going to be much better at it than someone who might run three HVAC calls, four plumbing calls, and a couple of water treatment calls every week. If a technician was constantly doing different tasks, they’d never find a groove. We think the best strategy is to have specialties within our techs so we can field the right person for the job.

We also look at the priority of the call. For instance, no-heat calls and no-water calls are very important and generally are given a higher priority over a dripping sink faucet. We also give priority to our Diamond Club family members as one of the benefits of the program. When one of our Diamond Club family members calls in for service or maintenance, we try to give them priority over someone who isn’t a Diamond Club family member.

We have a role in our company that is entirely dedicated to dispatching technicians. Kresta is our dispatcher here, and she has a couple of people who back her up while she’s away. (She’s been with us for about 7 or 8 years now.) She’s very capable of getting a handle of any situation and knowing how to match a technician’s skillset with the task. The dispatcher’s role is ultimately to get the right call to the right tech as the calls come in.

If you have any questions, reach out to us today by giving us a call at 540-483-9382. You can also request an appointment online if you’d like to get a technician out to your home for plumbing or HVAC maintenance or repair.

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One of the most frustrating things for a homeowner is setting up an appointment for a service person to come to their home and they don’t show up, show up late, or don’t follow directions. We focus on being on time, and we give a two hour window in which we will arrive. We also try to notify people when we’re on our way. I really think meeting our client’s needs comes down to dispatching correctly. It’s important that the people fielding the customers’ requests are well-trained in asking the right questions so we best understand the issue you’re dealing with, how serious it is, and exactly what we need to do. Asking the right questions is vital to making sure someone’s needs are properly met.

Next, we need to make sure we send the right person to your home. We’re very much aware of how the technician we send could make or break the customer’s experience. (Nobody likes it when a technician seems incompetent or when it’s the first time they’ve ever seen the issue.) We assess the task that needs to be done and assign it a skill level. We also assign a skill level to every technician (because everyone is slightly different). Then we try to match up the right technician with the right task to make sure we’re sending a competent person to every home.

A lot of times people think that a company will dispatch its technicians to cover a certain radius. A technician in South Roanoke would just run all the calls in that area for the day, right? Well, not exactly. We do not focus primarily on the location of the call as much as we do the skill level necessary to do the job correctly and meet the customer’s needs. So we may have technicians passing each other by on the way to calls. This is all about making sure the customer has a satisfactory experience.

We make these choices when coordinating our technicians because our time is valuable and our homeowner’s time is valuable. We want to make sure that we’re doing our absolute best. Sometimes we do have to make multiple visits, and sometimes we don’t get everything quite right over the phone. But I’d like to think that the vast majority of the time we’re able to do it well and make sure that the customer’s problem is solved.

If you have any issues with your plumbing or HVAC systems, you can always reach out to the team at Wisler Plumbing. Just contact us today or give us a call at 540-483-9382.

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Our heating systems and furnaces start to break down more often when it’s colder outside. When that happens, the first question on your mind might be, what exactly constitutes a repair? A repair is basically anything outside of maintenance and a complete system replacement. First and foremost, maintenance isn’t a repair. (Maintenance is keeping a system in good working order.) Then there’s a complete system replacement. An HVAC system is often made up of an outside unit, an inside unit, and any other components that are part of the system. You might think that a major repair constitutes a replacement, but that’s not exactly the case because the whole system didn’t get replaced.

The next question you might have is how much it’s going to cost to get back in working order. Repairs vary in size, but I can give an average range: a heating repair is going to average between $300 and $500. (There may be some repairs that are well over that, and some that are well under.) A furnace, for instance, is fairly simple. Overall, there isn’t much complexity to how it functions, so repairs tend to be somewhat straightforward. It has a heat exchanger and uses some sort of fuel to provide heat. There might be a gas valve that needs to be changed, and cleaning would be a maintenance item. Heat pumps are somewhat more complicated, though. Maybe the whole internal coil needs to be replaced, which can be much more expensive.

The important thing to remember is that you can prevent HVAC repairs from being necessary by simply doing your maintenance. Once the age of the system gets to a certain point, you’ll start to see recurring repairs that seem to happen practically every six months. In that case, it may be time to consider a complete system replacement so that you’re not wasting money putting repairs into an old system.

If something does go wrong with your heating system this winter, we answer our phones 24 hours a day with a live person (unless the call takers are already on another line). We might make a visit to someone’s home in the middle of the night, depending on whether it’s a Diamond Club family member and/or there’s a true emergency. We do prioritize those kinds of situations because nobody really wins if it isn’t a true emergency.

It might be a good idea to keep the contact information for a qualified professional handy just in case you need it. You can reach out to Wisler Plumbing online or by giving us a call at 540-483-9382.

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