For most of us, winter is the time when we expect higher gas bills and summer is the time when we expect higher electric bills, especially if we cool our homes or buildings with forced air. But if you suddenly find yourself paying two or three times more for electric than you did in previous summers, it might not have to do with the outside temperature or your air conditioning unit; it could have to do with faulty ductwork. Unlike other Trenton air conditioning elements, ductwork doesn’t have mechanized parts and is therefore rarely thought of by home or building owners to be the source of their higher summer electric bills. But ductwork can indeed suffer from some problems that make it harder to cool your house or building and therefore drive up your electric bill.
In order for ductwork to function properly, it has to remain tightly sealed so that the full air pressure that’s created by your air handler unit reaches your out flowing air vents. When Trenton ductwork doesn’t remain properly sealed, air pressure can get lost in ceilings, walls and floors as it travels toward out flowing air vents, resulting in a milder cooling effect that leaves spaces feeling tepid instead of cool. In such cases, home and building owners usually crank up their AC to a higher level to receive the optimal cooling effect, and that’s when the enormous electric bills start arriving, the greatest portion of which result from the fact that an air conditioner is constantly working to cool a home or a building to a temperature that is never achieved according to the thermostat setting.
If you find your self setting your thermostat at 60 degrees to achieve a coolness of 70 degrees or thereabouts, the best idea is to call an air conditioning maintenance service and have them conduct a free inspection of the problem before your electric bills get out of control. Unlike replacing an air handler or buying a new central air conditioning unit, mending and sealing ductwork is generally an inexpensive fix to a major problem. In addition to receiving the cooling capabilities that you need, it’s also important to have a technician perform air conditioning duct repair to prevent your air conditioner from working harder than it should, which could cause it to wear out before it fulfills its projected lifespan.
If you can’t immediately afford the repair expense for your ductwork, most air conditioning maintenance providers that offer air conditioning duct repair can provide you with low interest financing options. But before you choose a company, always do a little checking to make sure that your getting a company that completes its work on time and lives up to its advertising. To research a company’s history of customer satisfaction, contacting the Better Business Bureau is a smart choice. In addition, you should only hire a company that is licensed, bonded and insured to both insure the quality of the work to be performed and insure that the company can pay damages if something goes wrong.
