Celco Heating and Air Conditioning Blog : Archive for September, 2014

The Importance of Scheduling Fireplace Maintenance in New Haven

Monday, September 29th, 2014

You may think that a fireplace doesn’t really need regular maintenance. After all, there are many fireplaces across the world that are over a century old and still work fine. Unfortunately, even the sturdiest fireplace can still develop issues that can shorten its life and efficiency. If you use your fireplace often, you should keep an eye out for these maintenance issues.

Creosote

There are more byproducts created by burning wood than simple wood smoke. Creosote is a tarry substance that can accumulate in flues and chimneys over time. It is produced by burning wood incompletely. If enough creosote builds up in the chimney, it can actually start a fire. Large amounts of creosote can also prevent the chimney from venting properly, causing smoke and other dangerous fumes to be forced back down into your home.

Blockages

This is more common in older chimneys or ones that have been out of use for a while. Twigs and leaves can fall into the chimney. Broken bricks from the chimney itself can fall and build up a blockage. Even bird nests can be built inside it. All sorts of things can potentially prevent your chimney from venting, so it is important to have a professional inspect it once a year to identify and clear any problems.

Leaks and Cracks

Chimney mortar is pretty strong, lasting about a century with proper maintenance. Even so, extreme stress or incorrectly installed mortar can cause cracks in the chimney. This can cause all sorts of problems, from improper venting to water leaking into the fireplace. If the mortar is damaged badly enough, part of the chimney may even collapse. This will obviously cost a lot to repair, so make sure that you are having your fireplace and chimney regularly inspected for warning signs.

If you haven’t scheduled your annual fireplace maintenance yet, call Celco Heating and Air Conditioning.

Our technicians are experts in New Haven fireplace maintenance. We’ll check all potential problem areas, and make sure that your fireplace is set to last another hundred years.

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Scheduling Regular Heating Maintenance Can Save You Money

Monday, September 22nd, 2014

Would you drive your car knowing you hadn’t changed the oil in a year or two? Probably not. This is the same idea behind scheduling maintenance for your heating system: you want your heating system to run well while you use it, just as you want your car to work well when you drive it. While a maintenance appointment for your heating system entails more than an oil change does for your car, this example demonstrates a very important point: keeping your heating system well-maintained is crucial to its effective operation. But many people don’t schedule regular maintenance for their heating systems, and as a result, run into problems that may have been avoided. Let the NATE-certified technicians at Celco Heating and Air Conditioning help you with your fall heating maintenance in Hamden – call us today.

Ways Maintenance Can Save You Money

There are a few ways that performing maintenance on your heating system can save you money:

Prevent Repairs

During a maintenance appointment, your technician thoroughly inspects your system for problems, including little things like dirty components and worn belts. This inspection also allows the technician to detect any other problems, including ones that could turn into major repairs. Repairing small problems before they can blossom into bigger ones can save you money.

Energy Efficiency

A heating system that hasn’t been maintained can lose up to 5% of its total efficiency each year. This is because a dirty, worn system can’t operate at optimal levels, and will need extra energy to warm your home – energy that you’ll pay for in monthly bills.

Longevity

One of the keys to extending the life of your system is to have it operating optimally. Why? A system that operates well is one that isn’t forced to achieve your set temperature. Conversely, when a system operates under duress for a long time, due to wear and tear and dirt and dust accumulation, the system can prematurely age, and may force you to replace your heating system earlier.

Properly maintaining your heating system can help you improve your energy efficiency, which can help you save money.

If it’s been more than 12 months since your last heating maintenance appointment in Hamden, call Celco Heating and Air Conditioning today.

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When Is the Best Time to Schedule Commercial HVAC Maintenance?

Monday, September 15th, 2014

The HVAC system that provides a comfortable environment for your business space needs to have regular maintenance from commercial specialists. Without regular inspections and tune-ups, a commercial system will start to work inefficiently (losing, on average, 5%–10% of its energy efficiency each year), experience an increase in malfunctions that will require repair work, and have a shorter lifespan leading to early replacement. Maintenance is key to protecting the comfort for your business as well as avoiding unnecessary expenses.

Celco Heating and Air Conditioning has provided commercial HVAC maintenance in Stamford, CT for many years. We are familiar with the specific demands of commercial systems, and will give your business’ heating and cooling system the rigorous inspection work necessary to keep it running to the best of its ability.

When you should schedule commercial HVAC maintenance

The recommended scheduling for maintenance check-ups is twice annually, during the “pre-season.” You should have the first maintenance visit during the spring to prepare the HVAC system for air conditioning in the summer. The second maintenance visit should come in the fall, to get the system ready for heating through the winter. Aside from giving the HVAC system plenty of time before the extreme weather hits and giving yourself a buffer for arranging any repair work that may be necessary, these times are ideal because the work calendars for technicians are less crowded. You will have an easier time arranging for the maintenance session during the spring and fall when HVAC professionals are not busy on emergency calls.

However, it is never too late to have an inspection and tune-up for your commercial HVAC system if you have missed the pre-season slot. It is far worse to skip a year than to schedule late-season maintenance. Technicians can always locate any potential issues and help you arrange for the necessary repairs, as well as find ways to reduce the stress on the system. If you are behind on your maintenance visits, call professionals right away to get started again.

When you arrange for commercial HVAC maintenance in Stamford, CT from Celco Heating and Air Conditioning, you’ll receive top-quality service. We offer monthly, quarterly, and annual billing cycles to help you budget your system maintenance.

If you enroll in our commercial HVAC maintenance program, you will also receive a 15% discount on all repairs, 24/7 emergency service, and no overtime charges. Call us today!

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Repairs Your Generator May Need

Monday, September 8th, 2014

With the colder weather season approaching, you will probably start thinking more about your whole-house generator and if it is ready for the possibilities of power outages during stormy weather or other emergencies. A generator that needs repairs and is in danger of failing the moment it’s first needed is no better than no generator at all, so make sure that you have all necessary repairs for the system done before winter arrives.

The best way to discover if your generator needs repair work is to arrange for regular maintenance. You should always have an inspection and tune-up for the system during the fall so a technician can find out if there are any repairs the generator needs done.

To schedule maintenance for your generator, call Celco Heating and Air Conditioning. We specialize in maintenance, repair, and generator installation for Norwalk, CT.

What sort of repairs might a generator require before the winter? Here are few of the more common ones:

Sealing leaks

If your generator uses stored heating fuel (propane, oil, gasoline), it might develop leaks if left without attention for too long or if it sustains damage due to the weather. Technicians will locate any places where leaking is occurring during a maintenance check and handle the repairs to seal them up.

Repairing natural gas fuel line

If a connection to a municipal natural gas line is available, most homes rely on gas-powered generators because of their convenience and dependability. However, it’s possible for low-flow in the gas line to impair performance, or for the line to become blocked. Technicians can safely resolve this problem. (It is very important that you do not try to tamper with a natural gas line on your own.)

Replacing corroded spark plugs

Spark plugs can suffer from corrosion, causing them to fail. Usually, repair technician will simply replace the corroded plugs for new ones.

Lubricating motors

The motors inside the generator need to have occasional lubrication to keep them from suffering from mechanical stress and possibly burning out.

Fixing electrical components

Like spark plugs, the wiring in a generator can start to corrode over time, and this will affect the proper flow of voltage. Wiring can also fray, severing connections. Technicians will replace and tighten wiring where necessary.

Keep in mind that if your generator received poor, amateur installation in the first place, it will either encounter problems with overloading your home’s circuit breaker panel or fail to provide you with adequate power when you need it. There is usually little that can be done to repair a generator that is the wrong size for a home, and often the best route is to have professionals replace it with a new unit. If you think the only way to solve the repair problems is with new generator installation in Norwalk, CT, contact Celco Heating and Air Conditioning. We offer full service for generators and have 24-emergency service so your back-up generator is ready whenever you need it.

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The Fashion of Wearing White and Labor Day

Monday, September 1st, 2014

You may have heard about the fashion faux pas of wearing white after Labor Day. In the present, this tradition is usually treated as old fashioned and a joke. Few people will criticize you for wearing white articles of clothing after the first Monday in September, or even take notice of it except to wonder why it was ever a major concern at all.

Where did this tradition of white clothing going out of fashion after Labor Day come from, and why did it fade away like colorful fabric washed in a hot load in the washing machine?

In general, white makes sense for the heat of summer. Light-colored clothing reflects away the radiant heat of the sun, instead of absorbing it the way dark colors do, so for thousands of years of human history people have preferred to wear white clothing during the hotter months.

However, the idea of white as strictly fashionable during the summer season only emerged in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—the time when the very concept of “fashion” began to spread across the Western Hemisphere.

It was only the highest level of post-Civil War society in the U.S. that strict and often bizarre rules for fashion controlled whether someone was in with the “in” crowd. Compared to our ideas of what’s fashionable today, the Czars of Style in the 1880s were true despots. Things as trivial as sleeve length could determine whether a woman in high society—no matter her level of wealth—was fashionable or a pariah.

Wearing white during the only summer, when it was common for weddings and outdoor parties, was only of these restrictive society rules. When the U.S. government made Labor Day a federal holiday in 1894, the Fashion Czars gained a definite cut-off point for when wearing white was no longer “acceptable” in the upper echelons of wealthy society.

For many decades, this rule only applied to a small number of millionaire socialites in a few big cities, but in the 1950s it reached general fashion magazines that were read around the country and started to affect more people.

But time eventually broke apart this odd rule, and during the 1970s fashion became more individual. Some fashion legends, like Coco Chanel, also purposely rejected the restriction and wore white throughout the year. Today, the “no white after Labor Day rule” is little more than an amusing gag to tease friends, and almost nobody takes it seriously.

Whatever you choose to wear after Labor Day (and if it’s white, we won’t tease!), everyone here at Celco Heating and Air Conditioning hopes you have a happy end of the summer and great plans for the fall!

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