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The Importance of Cleaning Your AC Unit

Lack of Maintenance

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We all know we’re supposed to change our air filters every month, especially when we see some dust on the vents or inside of the house. But what about the unit sitting outside? Do we also have to worry about that?

The short answer: Absolutely.

Even though it’s not inside and it’s largely out of sight and mind, the outdoor unit is a massive piece of the system. It contributes 60 to 70 percent of the overall efficiency in many cases.

So it’s essential we take care of it. With that said, we’ll give you a few things to look out for as you start thinking about the condition of your outdoor unit. And we’ll also tell you how you should clean it.

Clogged Gutter Systems

Often, the outdoor unit will be positioned near the side of a home, under some sort of gutter system, which can become clogged with enough neglect. That clogged system may lead to additional rainfall coming down around the unit— Causing water to splash dirt and debris, such as pollen, onto the unit.

That causes a big problem over time. These units and their components—fans, coils, fins— need airflow.

Unfortunately, debris may prevent the necessary airflow from reaching the components. That will lead to a system that breaks down and becomes hugely inefficient quickly. It also causes your system to run much longer, so your utility bill goes way up. Eventually, you’ll be paying nearly 50 percent more for your utility bill.

So what should you do? Clean your unit and gutter system.

How to Start Cleaning Your Unit

You may be wondering how you should clean your unit. Should you go outside with a garden hose and spray it down? Or should you call in an expert like Wisler Plumbing and Air?

Well, the truth is that, in most cases, it won’t hurt your system to spray it down with a hose. However, when a professional does it, they can completely clean inside and outside of the unit with quality solutions and processes— Something your hose can’t do. So for best results, give a professional a call.

But we suggest doing a little bit of DIY cleaning to keep everything running smoothly in between your yearly cleans.

If you want the best help around, give Wisler Plumbing and Air a call at (540) 483-9382.

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There are 3 types of services available in HVAC, plumbing, and even water treatment: maintenance, repair, and replacement. Maintenance describes a proactive effort to prevent downtime and maximize the usefulness of a system. Repair is when something in a system has broken and you’re having to react to the situation. It could be when you don’t have any heating or cooling, or when your drain gets stopped up. (This is what we would call a demand situation.) Last is replacement, which sometimes becomes necessary during repair or maintenance. This is when one or more existing components of a system must be changed out for a new component.

Repairs are generally urgent in manner. If you lose the heating in your house when it’s cold outside, you’ll want the situation resolved as soon as possible. We have to do a good job with managing these kinds of urgent demands and get to the client’s house. There can be a lot of pressure and anxiety that comes with a repair, so we try to do our best to prioritize it over something less urgent. Any repair (which involves reacting to a situation) will have a service charge associated with it. We have a $79 service charge for non-Diamond Club family and a $49 service charge for our Diamond Club family.

What that service charge covers is our ability to bring a well-stocked truck to the home with a qualified technician. The technician diagnoses the situation, figures out what’s going on, and then presents the homeowner with a list of options. Before we do any work that would cost more than that initial service charge, we make sure the homeowner is given options in writing about what’s available for them to move forward and repair their system. If it cannot be repaired, the options would include a potential strategy to replace whatever component is affected.

In general, an HVAC repair is potentially going to range between $300 and $600. Of course, there are repairs that are higher or lower than that range, but that’s a good average amount to get an understanding. It really depends on the system’s age and the type of parts it uses. A high-efficiency system has parts that can be very expensive if they’re not under warranty, so it really depends on the specific situation.

If you’re having cooling or heating issues in your home that need immediate attention, Wisler Plumbing & Air prioritizes those kinds of situations so they can be resolved as soon as possible. Diamond Club family gets a reduced service charge, too. To learn more, contact us online or give us a call at 540-483-9382.

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It’s very annoying when you get in the shower and you have to deal with low pressure. There’s a wide range of causes, and it largely depends on whether you use city/municipal water or you have your own well system.

If you have a well system and the pump hasn’t been replaced in a long time, it might not be able to produce the water pressure that you want. It could also be because you’re simply asking for more water than the well can produce. If the water simply isn’t there, you’re going to have low pressure.

Poor water quality in the well can cause problems, too. If there’s a lot of iron in the water, it can build up inside the pipes and reduce their diameter. That will result in a reduced amount of water. If you have any type of filter on a well system or municipal system, it needs to be changed on a regular basis. If not, there might be a buildup of sediment or debris that restricts water flow.

For municipal water supplies, the municipality may simply not be delivering that much pressure. In our area they’re only required to deliver 20 psi. That’s fairly low pressure — if you’ve moved into the area from another location that had much higher water pressure, you’ll see a large difference in your experience. To solve the issue, you can add some sort of booster system to increase the pressure.

Another common thing we see for both types of systems is inadequate piping size inside the house due to improper installation. Plumbing code states a minimum size, but we’ve found that this doesn’t really provide enough water for a large request of water. The minimum size just can’t deliver enough water to meet larger needs.

If you have a home that was built in the 1930s through 1960s, there’s a good chance that you have galvanized piping. Galvanized piping rusts on the inside, and that rust builds up over the years. It’s very similar to a clogged artery, so it will restrict water flow and reduce pressure.

If you have any of these issues resulting in low pressure in your home, solutions include booster pump systems, replacement of pipes, replacing an old pump, and dealing with water quality. In some cases you can treat the water before it gets into your house. In other cases, you’ll have to deal with it after it gets into your house.

To find out which solution is best for your home, just contact us online, check us out on Facebook, or give us a call at (540) 483-9382. We’ll determine what’s causing the low pressure get it resolved in no time.

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We get an influx of certain types of calls once springtime comes around. These are some of the different types of issues that we hear people running into most often.

  • Hose Faucets

First is hose faucets on the outside of the house. Most people have frost free hose faucets. If the hoses aren’t disconnected, if they’re installed improperly, or if the water was not shut off, they’ll tend to freeze. You won’t know something’s wrong until one day in the spring when you try to use the hose to pressure wash your car. Next thing you now, the hose faucet will start to spray. The reason why you don’t realize the burst happened is because it’s after the shutoff point. People often forget to take the hoses off, so they freeze and burst over the winter.

  • Outdoor Plumbing

A lot of times around the lake area, outdoor plumbing can have a burst water line if it wasn’t winterized properly. It’s usually an outdoor kitchen, plumbing on the docks, or showers around the basement area. When you try to turn the water back on, it will spray and need to be repaired.

Outdoor_showers

These problems happen most often with a second home. There are lots of things that tend to be forgotten. If any steps from the checklist are missed, you’ll have problems once you return to the lake house and get it ready for the summer season. That’s when people find issues and give us an influx of calls.

  • Bigger Items

We have a lot of main water lines and sewer lines that tend to fail in the spring. The water lines fail simply because when the ground has frozen and then starts to unthaw, it causes settling and movement to occur.

Because the trees are starting to get their leaves back, they’ll be looking for nutrients. Root growth happens most during this time, so that’s when they might make their way into the main line pipes. (We talked about this in our last blog post about drain clogs.)

If you get an annual checkup from us, these problems can be avoided. We winterize homes and outdoor plumbing systems. If you want to do an annual checkup in the spring instead, we can get everything checked out before the season starts.

No matter if it’s springtime or another time of year contact us online, check us out on Facebook, or give us a call at (540) 483-9382. We’ll get your home on the right track so you won’t have these common problems at the worst time.

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There are five main reasons why plumbing fails. By being proactive, you can make sure your home’s plumbing will run smoothly and reliably.

1. Age

Put simply, most people think that their toilet is going to last forever. However, it’s just like your refrigerator, microwave, coffeemaker, or other appliances in your home. These fixtures have components that do wear out over time. If you’ve got a plumbing fixture in your home that is very old, you can be sure that it will fail at some point. Being proactive will definitely save you from having water getting into your home and damaging its structure.

2. Excessive Water Pressure

Another reason that we find plumbing systems fail is simply because the water pressure coming into the home is too high. Water pressure should not exceed 80 psi. If the pressure is any higher than 80 psi, it will cause excessive wear and tear damage to your faucets, eventually causing them to start dripping. It will also cause more damage to your water heater, due to the increased expansion and contraction. If you notice that your garden hose swells up with bubbles during the summer, this can be another indicator that you have very high pressure. Making sure that you don’t have water pressure that exceeds 80 psi is an often overlooked way to be proactive with your plumbing. It can end up preventing a major problem from occurring in the future. Next time you have a professional in your home, ask them to check your water pressure. It’s something that we do during our diagnosis, because it definitely affects the plumbing.

3. Poor Water Quality

Another issue that needs to be addressed is water quality. There is calcium, acidity, iron, and other particulates in water that can be very harmful to your components (such as faucets, toilets, the water heater, or anything in your home that comes in contact with water). The quality of a home’s water supply is extremely important. If we’re in your home, doing a water analysis is an important step during diagnosis. Again, this can prevent you from experiencing future breakdowns.

4. Lack of Proactive Maintenance

Proper plumbing maintenance is something that also needs to be addressed. If you proactively maintain the plumbing system, you will definitely extend the life of all the fixtures in your home. Maintenance is a lot less expensive than waiting until a major problem occurs and then having to replace or repair components. It can end up being very costly to neglect proper maintenance.

5. Not Fixing Breakdowns in a Timely Fashion

The entire home’s plumbing system is interconnected, and small issues can be a signal that something larger needs to be addressed. For instance, if you have a drippy faucet, it affects your sewage, among other areas. When something is going on with a toilet, it can be causing problems in another area of the plumbing system. If you have a water heater that fails and bursts, or if you have a water main that breaks, it will end up causing your water bill to go up. If you have a septic system, a toilet that is running constantly when not in use can cause major damage. Not fixing it in a timely manner can cause larger problems to arise. If you have a well

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