Back to basics again this month, the blower wheel is the bit of your equipment that pushes air through the ducts to heat or cool your space. There are lots of different ways of pushing air, but most manufacturers have settled on the ‘squirrel cage’ fan. This is basically just like the wheel you used to have your pet hamster run around in! In this case though a motor turns the wheel, while fins on the outside of the wheel grab the air and push it down the duct work.
No matter what kind of blower you have, it will get dirt on it and decrease the efficiency of your system. If it is not cleaned over a period of time it will eventually damage your equipment. This brings us back to last month’s blog and the importance of filters. Filters help to reduce the amount of dirt reaching the blower wheel, helping to keep your equipment in top condition.
Simple things make all the difference. Getting the basics right will save you a lot of time and money down the line.
Blower wheel
Squirrel cage wheel
Caledonia Integrated Services is an Energy Management, HVAC and Electrical company, serving Vancouver and BC area. We actively encourage feedback, comments and questions. You can leave a message here, or look us up on Facebook and Twitter. Of course, you can always e- mail us too!
This month we’re going back to basics, as some of you have pointed out that you know very little about our business and the Tip of the Month has occasionally been too technical.
So, the most basic equipment of all is the filters. All forced air heating and cooling systems must have filters installed (forced air simply means that the system uses a fan to ‘force’ the air through the space). Filters can range in price from $3 to $60, depending on the size and type of filter. Some systems need to use up to 3 filters in a row, for example in a kitchen where the exhaust air must be clean or a hospital where the filters will catch micro- organisms. Let’s focus on basic filters in common usage though. You definitely get what you pay for where filters are concerned. If you want cleaner air and need to keep out dust (in a computer server room, for example) paying a little extra for a quality filter makes a lot of sense. Where there is lots of fresh air and natural air movement (a public building with open air sections), a cheaper filter works just as well.
In most cases a middle of the road filter is a good bet. It should be checked 4 times a year, and maintenance programs can be set up to include filter changes and equipment checks at these times.
Cheep Filter
Good Filter
Here is a video of what a filter should not look like.
Caledonia Integrated Services is an Energy Management, HVAC and Electrical company, serving Vancouver and BC area. We actively encourage feedback, comments and questions. You can leave a message here, or look us up on Facebook and Twitter. Of course, you can always e- mail us too!
Air conditioning is basically the movement of heat from one place to another. Heat pumps, ice rinks, geothermal systems and even your home refrigerator all use this principle.
An air conditioning system is a sealed system with refrigerant in it, which is pumped around a loop. There are 4 basic parts in the system:
1. the compressor, which is basically a pump to push the gas (refrigerant) around the loop;
2. the metering device, which is just a valve which controls the flow of gas;
3. & 4. an inside coil and an outside coil. One gets hot and one gets cold. In the case of a heat pump, the system can change which ones are hot or cold.
There are also endless lists of parts that can be added depending on your needs, but these 4 make up the basis of all systems.
Caledonia Integrated Services is an Energy Management, HVAC and Electrical company, serving Vancouver and BC area. We actively encourage feedback, comments and questions. You can leave a message here, or look us up on Facebook and Twitter. Of course, you can always e- mail us too!
Does my Heating or A/C need oiling? I Hear Squeaking!
In a word – no! Many heating or cooling (HVAC) units use belts and pulleys to move the air around the building. There is a belt that goes between the pulleys on the electric motor and the blower wheel. When this belt is adjusted correctly the system will work for a long time with no problems. However, if this belt is loose, the pulleys and belt will wear much faster than they should. If the belt is too tight there is too much tension causing excessive wear on the bearings in the motor and blower. Both scenarios will produce a squeaking noise.
Newer equipment now uses variable speed motors which ramp up slowly and adjust speed depending on demand in the system. This is easier on the equipment and saves power.
Caledonia Integrated Services is an Energy Management, HVAC and Electrical company, serving Vancouver and BC area.
We actively encourage feedback, comments and questions. You can leave a message here, or look us up on Facebook and Twitter. Of course, you can always e- mail us too!
When do I need an Energy Management system? Not a question we ever hear, but it’s very obvious to us when people should be asking!
It’s now that time of year again….it’s cold, it’s busy, and staff are run off their feet. This is the season when there is no time to check any of your equipment; and that’s unfortunate, because this is when it is working at its fullest capacity. This is where a building control system or an energy management system really starts to pay for itself, especially if you have many locations or many units. All of them can be set or checked remotely…..easy!
With a properly set up system in place for the winter you will be maximizing your savings in several ways. You will only be using energy (heat) when the space is occupied. One member of staff (or your service provider) can quickly go on-line and check any problems, and either fix it there or call a technician to the problem if needs be. These systems can pay for themselves very quickly and, not only will you save money, you’ll also make huge savings on time.
Wishing you all a peaceful Festive Season and a prosperous New Year.
Just a gentle reminder that a lot of companies close down at Christmas/New Year or work with minimum staffing levels. You can easily pay more than double for a call out during the festive season, so make sure you schedule all required electrical or HVAC work as soon as possible….or be prepared to leave it until next year!
Caledonia Integrated Services is an Energy Management, HVAC and Electrical company serving Vancouver and the BC area. Always putting customer needs first, we constantly look for ways for you to save energy and money.
Sometimes we receive service calls where we turn up and just have to turn the breaker on to get everything working again. This is hard on the home owner or business owner, to pay a call out fee when it was so easy to fix, but there are many reasons why this happens. Maybe they couldn’t find the breaker panel, or the breaker looked switched on, or they just didn’t think about the breaker. Of course, the opposite can happen too, where we need to work on a circuit or equipment and we just can’t find the breaker to switch the power off to make it safe to work on.
There are a few ways you can save yourself money in this regard. Make sure YOU know where your breaker is so that you can check it before calling someone out, or you can direct someone to it if you do need a professional (remember, most call out jobs charge by the hour!). There is also a simple tool you can buy at any of the big DIY stores. It’s called a circuit tracer – you can plug it into a 120v socket (or jumper leads), hook it to the equipment and, with the power still on, you go to the panel box with the other half of the tool. It will bleep when you get to the appropriate breaker. Simple!
Caledonia Integrated Services is an Energy Management, HVAC and Electrical company serving Vancouver and BC area. “There is no knowledge that is not power” – giving power to our customers.
The warm weather is finally upon us so here are a couple of ideas to make sure your air conditioning is energy efficient…
Keep all doors and windows closed if you are running air conditioning. You don’t want to try to cool the entire city!
Don’t try to program your settings too low. If you put the temperature lower than around 68 °F the machine will ice up, stop working, and cost you HVAC call out fees.
Program your a/c to come on a couple of hours earlier, just for the warm spell. That way staff will be coming into cooler temperatures and are less likely to mess around with the thermostat (see above!)
Make sure your filters and coils are clean for optimum efficiency. All that cotton wood last month will play havoc with your equipment if you haven’t had it serviced.
A friend of mine gave me the shocking answer to this question the other day. There were some workmen in her apartment, completing a small 15 minute job. Although she could smell gas she assumed it was something they were doing and ignored it. After they left she could still smell it so she opened her balcony door and all the windows, and also switched on a fan. She then sat in the apartment (she works from home) for 4 hours until her husband came home and was met with a very strong smell of gas. The gas stove had been knocked slightly at some point during the morning and had been leaking gas for the rest of the day! And, here’s the thing, my friend had sat in it for so long that she could no longer smell it.
Luckily this story has a happy ending….they left the apartment as quickly as possible to air it, and took the opportunity to have a coffee date! However, things don’t always turn out so well so, if you DO smell gas take the following steps:
Leave as quickly as possible.
Do not use anything that could cause a spark ie a cell phone, light switch etc. Absolutely DO NOT SMOKE!
Once outside call the gas company.
Even if you have stopped the leak (stove burner on or similar) still get out of the building until it has had time to disperse.
