Let Routine Furnace Maintenance Save You Money

skagit_anacortes_mount_vernon_burlington_wa_hvac_heating_air_conditionMaintaining a heating and cooling system in a proactive way rather than repairing a system when it breaks will ultimately improve efficiency, prevent delays in future repairs and save you money. Most importantly, proactive routine maintenance on an HVAC system will keep your family safe year round. Just as it is important to keep a car’s engine properly maintained to avoid having an engine seize, an HVAC system requires the same care and consideration.

Avoid The Busy Winter Months

Considering the fact that winter is one of the busiest times of the year for professional heating and cooling experts, it is always recommended to have this type of maintenance performed in the summer or at times when contractors in the professional heating and cooling business have more time to address your concerns. Simply avoiding the busy winter months to have your heating system or furnace inspected makes smart sense. Best of all, planning your heating system annual maintenance at the right time can ensure a quick appointment and more timely service.

Peak Performance and Optimal Operation

While a heating system may seem dull and uninteresting on the surface, there is typically a lot going on internally in one of today’s modern HVAC units. These systems are carefully engineered and require numerous adjustments to ensure peak performance and optimal operation at all times. Most notably is the fact that when a system is properly adjusted it will operate more efficiently and save money on utility expenses. Everything from filters to safety equipment and feedback systems must be thoroughly inspected, checked and adjusted as necessary to ensure that everything is operating within specifications as outlined by the manufacturer.

Save Money By Having Routine Maintenance Performed

All said, a properly serviced furnace or HVAC system will ensure years of trouble-free operation for the entire lifetime of the equipment. As an added benefit, routine maintenance will simply extend the useful life of a furnace or HVAC unit. This is another way that you save money by having routine maintenance performed in order to stay proactive. Experts in the industry recommend annual inspections of a furnace by a licensed HVAC service professional as a way to avoid problems and costly repairs. Contact Alpine Heating & Cooling for the best in HVAC system repair and maintenance in Bellingham and the surrounding communities.

Tips On Caring For a Household Furnace

american standard ac in a trane furnace

Today more than ever before it is important to take the necessary steps to make sure that your household furnace is always operating at peak levels. Here are a few useful tips on keeping your home furnace working perfectly year-round. For example, it is important to make safety a top priority when working on a furnace. Turn off the power to the unit at the main electrical panel before beginning any type of inspection if you plan to do this kind of maintenance on your own.

Furnace Fan Motor Working Harder Than Necessary

In addition, it is a good idea to get into the habit of replacing the batteries in carbon monoxide detectors and smoke detectors at regular intervals. Also make certain that clean air filters are routinely installed in the system. In fact, changing filters twice annually or even more often for those who live in environments that are dusty is a good policy. A dirty air filter will typically result in a furnace fan motor working harder than is necessary.

Duct Cleaning Company

Another way to keep a furnace working at its best at all times is to plan to have a professional ventilation cleaning company service ductwork at least every two years. Homes that have been recently remodeled are particularly susceptible to dust and debris accumulating in ductwork. A duct cleaning company should be called upon anytime renovation or remodeling work has been performed. Ventilation cleaning also helps to reduce the chances of mold growth in ducting. Preventing mold growth is especially important in homes where there are elderly or those who have allergy related problems. Another great way to keep an HVAC system operating at its best is to frequently check all vents and registers for any possible obstructions.

Normal Airflow And System Operation

Anytime a register or vent is blocked, air movement is hindered thereby causing a disruption in normal airflow and system operation. Finally, keeping a furnace running in a healthy way requires an occasional deep cleaning. This can be done by taking off the furnace access panels and using a vacuum to remove debris and dust that may have accumulated or settled over time inside the unit. Contact Alpine Heating and Cooling today to learn more about Burlington Washington HVAC services that are designed to keep your system running perfectly year after year.

Anacortes Boiler Replacement

Anacortes Boiler Replacement, Iron Fireman To Navien

This Anacortes Boiler Replacement project involved this monster of a boiler, this boiler was burning massive amounts of fuel oil to keep my customers home heated, costing them dearly. They felt it was time for a change to something way more efficient and reliable.

A Test Of Time

When ever I remove a old unit like this I try to imagine what the installers where like, where they young or old? And or perhaps how much effort went into installing such a beast back then. At that time this was cutting edge equipment and they where probably extremely proud of the installation.

 

The Navien Combi/tankless Unit

As you can see the new Navien CH-240 Combi/tankless unit takes up very little room compared to the older monster of a boiler ... and not only does it heat the home, it heats the hot water as well. I have installed a few of these now with very little issues. They work exactly how they are advertised. The only draw back with this Anacortes Boiler Replacement is that it takes a little longer to get hot water compared to the standard Navien NR-210a tankless.

 

Conclusion

This Anacortes Boiler Replacement turned out great for our customer, the Navien heats both the home and the hot water(endless) and is super efficient. This is one of my favorite installations and I highly recommend doing this for anyone in the same situation.

 

Anacortes Boiler Replacement
Navien Anacortes Boiler Replacement

Munchkin Boiler Replacement

Munchkin Boiler

Costly Munchkin Boiler.

Almost every Munchkin boiler we come across has a history of problems. This particular Munchkin just started to have issues ... my customer elected not to go down the costly repair route that these boilers are famous for.

The Flash Boiler

The idea behind this Munchkin Boiler is to flash heat the water, by doing so you have a very small compact unit. BUT in my opinion its this compact design that can led to serious issues, like clogging of the burn chamber and or the heat exchanger itself. This type of clogging can lead to serious costly failures.

Munchkin To Burnham

The new Burnham ECS boiler is a cast iron boiler with an optional outdoor reset, perfect for this application. The Burnham boiler efficiency is a little less than the Munchkin Boiler but I feel it is a more reliable, and will last a lot longer with fewer repair bills.

Conclusion

Flash boilers have very small ports on both the inside and the outside of the exchanger, without proper maintenance they will clog and cause costly repairs. 

 

Existing Munchkin Boiler
New Burnham Boiler

Bow Wa Boiler Replacement

A Clean, New Installation in an Existing Home

Bow Wa Boiler Replacement.

When it comes to boilers we really don't have a favorite brand or model, we actually look at the situation and then pick a boiler that will actually work the best. That being said, we do have a list of favorite boilers we like to use. In this Bow Wa Boiler replacement the Burnham ESC boiler fit the bill.

Maintenance was the key

Our customer actually had a fairly new high efficient boiler already installed, the problem was it kept breaking down. So much so that he decided to have it replaced with a much simpler boiler. As it turned out we had found that the top of the heat ex-changer was almost totally plugged and the gas pressure going into the boiler was not properly set. All of this was overlooked for years by the company doing his maintenance, and that company was the original installation company.

The Burnham ESC

In this situation we had picked the Burnahm ESC boiler, reason being they are very basic, durable, easy to install and you can add modules to them. The boiler is great in low temperature applications, like for in-floor systems or it can easily handle high heat base boards applications as well.

Conclusion

Make sure when your having maintenance done on your boiler system (especially high efficient systems) that its done properly. A good installation company is not always a good service company.

 

New Burnham ESC Bow Wa Boiler Replacement

Weil Mclain Ultra Boiler Issue

If you own a Weil Mclain Ultra Boiler, this article is for you.

We have a customer in Anacortes WA with a WEIL McLAIN Ultra Boiler 105. Their boiler is propane (LP), uses a side wall termination kit provided by WEIL MCLAIN and is on the coast pulling in salt air for combustion. This particular boiler has given us trouble for many years. Usually boiling down to a bad air fuel mixture, but on occasion we had to replace parts. All done with tech support on the phone.

WEIL McLAIN Ultra Boiler Venturi

This last service call shed some light on some of the issues, the venturi was compromised, literally falling apart. When we contacted tech support about the venturi they stated that the venturi only has a life expectancy of 5 years! Not only where we shocked to hear the 5 years, we where even more shocked that the existing venturi was replaced by Alpine Heating And Cooling only 2 years ago.

 

High Maintenance

If you own the WEIL McLAIN Ultra-105 boiler or considering purchasing one, keep in mind they require a yearly maintenance. The yearly maintenance has to be done with a kit that they supply, that kit is expensive and the labor to perform this maintenance is extensive. Also keep in mind that every 5 years you maybe buying the ULTRA-105 gas valve replacement kit #383-501-030, also very expensive. On a final note we share service information with another service contractor in our area, they as well are having issues with another  WEIL McLAIN Ultra boiler ... but model Ultra 80. So we don't know if this problem is just for the model 80 and 105 or spreads to all sizes.

 

Conclusion

The WEIL McLAIN Ultra boiler is not a boiler Alpine Heating and Cooling recommends, especially if you're LP and or living on or near salt water. Keep in mind the boiler is a high maintenance and is very expensive to repair.

 

Weil Mclain Ultra Boiler Venturi
New Weil Mclain Ultra Boiler Venturi Assembly

Roth 1050 controller

Roth 1050 Controller to Honeywell AQ25244B

Boiler Controllers

Boiler controllers can be very intimidating, especially if you do not deal with the same controller all the time. To make matters worse we had a burnt out Roth 1050 controller (Tekmar) that provided zero information on the installers custom settings. The Roth #1050 was manufactured by Tekmar, Tekmar was a leading manufacture and provider of boiler controllers. That was until the industry they provided controllers to caught up to their technology and started to produce their own controllers at a much more reasonable cost.

Roth 1050 Controller

Burnt Controller

After removing the circuit board from the housing you can see under the blue capacitor a burnt spot, now in some cases you can have these boards repaired, unfortunately this board was beyond repair. And the very sad part is these boards are becoming scarce and very expensive. Our solution was to move to a Honeywell AQ25244B controller with a AQ25744B expansion panel. Honeywell is less expensive and readily available.

Burnt Roth 1050 Controller

Honeywell AQ25244B controller

Not only would the Honeywell controller replace the the boilers Roth 1050 controller it would also replace the 2 Taco zone controllers that where on the system as well.

We installed the Honeywell AQ25244B controller in a more accessible area for the home owner as well as for the service technician. Because the new controller did the task of 3 components all the wiring had to come back to this location.

Honeywell AQ25244B Boiler Controller

Boiler System Back Up And Running

Once the new Honeywell controller is installed we still have a few hours left configuring the system and to make sure the system is working correctly.

 

Overall Boiler System

Monster to Weil McLAIN boiler

Old Boiler

The Weil McLAIN Boiler

 

This Monster had to go

I do not know any other way to describe it, the older American Standard boiler was originally an oil fired boiler that had been converted to natural gas. Just to let you know one of the worst efficient systems out there are oil systems that have been converted over to gas...bad bad bad. This particular boiler I am guessing at 40% efficiency at best... and I'm being nice.  The boiler weighed well over 800lbs and took 2 vans, 3 men and a block and tackle to get it out of the basement and into a van.

 

Weil McLAIN Boiler have come along way

As you can see the new Weil McLAIN Boiler  #CGA is not only half its size, its 83% Efficient, more BTU's, quieter and 2 men can carry it. How is that for technology!

Old Boiler
New Weil McLAIN boiler