Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween Everyone!

Plumbing Basics

Everyone has plumbing in their house, but most people ignore it until something goes wrong. However, if you   know some basic information about your plumbing, you will know some basics on how to take care of it. And if you know how to take care of your plumbing, plumbing disasters will come along a lot less frequently. Here are some basics about plumbing from Ace Pelizon:

Fundamental Plumbing

Plumbing is based entirely on the properties of gravity and water pressure. A plumbing system has two basic systems – one that brings water in and one that removes that water once you’ve used it. To bring water into your home, it is pressurized. With enough pressure, it can travel against gravity, rising in the pipes to your fixtures.

Every fixture in your home has a valve on it that allows you to shut off the flow of water when making repairs or if there is an emergency. If the emergency is big enough, you can turn the main water supply valve off outside your home as well.

Drainage Systems

While the water coming into your home is relatively simple – pressurized cold water goes directly to the fixtures and hot water comes from your hot water heater – the drainage system is slightly more complicated.

Once water has exited the faucets in your fixtures, it is no longer pressurized so gravity is needed to remove it. Each drain consists of a few basic parts – the flange, tail piece, trap, and drain extension. When you put water down a drain it goes into the trap and flows into the drain extension, eventually to the sewer line.

The trap is designed to always hold a small amount of water so that sewer gasses cannot back up into your fixtures. Vents are installed in your home as well to ensure there is always air in the plumbing system. That air ensures a vacuum doesn’t generate. If it did, water couldn’t flow out of the house. It’s the same as pouring from a small hole in a can – if you poke a hole in the opposite side, it flows much faster because air enters the can to displace the liquid.

For more information about plumbing, visit their website.

Americans and Solar Heating

Americans are becoming more and more energy conscious every year. This is leading to increased interest in alternative energy solutions for residential homes. One of these is solar heating. As almost everybody knows, solar power (and solar heating) uses the sun's rays and converts them into energy. This is very easy to implement in the case of water heaters, which are a large percentage of any home's heating cost. An article from Earth Techling explains how Americans are taking advanatage of this technology:

“Solar heating and cooling technologies” is an umbrella term used to describe solar energy technologies that capture the sun’s heat, providing energy for water and pool heating as well as space heating and cooling. These technologies save homes and businesses money by offsetting the use of electricity, natural gas and home heating fuels. Today, there are enough solar water heating systems installed in the United States to serve 1.5 million homes.

A recent study by Gotham Research Group, conducted on behalf of the Solar Energy Industry Association (SEIA), found that public support for solar water heating remains unsullied by the the bankruptcy of Solyndra (a cutting-edge photovoltaic company, after all). The poll found that three out of four respondents (74 percent) agreed that “the growth of the solar water heating industry will produce jobs and help the American economy.” Positive perceptions of solar water heating systems exceeded negative perceptions by more than 10 to one.

For the full article, click here.

Fall is here!

Happy Fall! How is the foliage where you live? Here is a great picture from Weather.com that really shows how beautiful fall can be!

Taken In Bethlehem, CT By FineArtVideo
The sun shines brilliantly through a panorama of red maples. 

Nest Thermostats

Not a lot of us worry about the thermostats in our house. Even if you have a programmable thermostat, only a few homeowners will utilize its full, energy saving potential. But there are lots of savings available if your thermostat is able to adjust your heat accurately; you will save money without having to feel uncomfortable. In order to pursue this end, the Nest Thermostat was developed. Here is some of what it is capable of:

However, Nest reckons it’s the Learning Thermostat’s intelligence that will be giving you chills, not the temperature. The system observes your normal heating/cooling routines – using movement sensors, humidity and temperature sensors, and proximity control – and can mimic them itself, as well as automatically tweaking the settings when there’s nobody home. That takes about a week, Rogers claims. It can even pull in weather forecasts over WiFi to adjust temperatures automatically based on conditions outdoors: cranking up the aircon if the sun makes an appearance, for instance.

The Nest Learning Thermostat will go on sale priced at $249 in Best Buy midway through November, and is intended to be easily installed by the home owner (rather than demanding professional help). If that seems a lot for a fancy thermometer, Nest reckons that in a year it will pay for itself: saving 20- to 30-percent of the average $1,000 energy bill for the American home.

To learn more, check out the full article here: http://www.slashgear.com/nest-learning-thermostat-makes-heating-ipod-sexy-25190536/

Happy Monday

A customer’s new, computerized furnace stops working. But each time the technician shows up, it works flawlessly.

The exasperated technician tells the customer:

“I had a car just like that. Every time I drove it past the junk yard, it ran just fine”.


HVAC tech to homeowner:

“Your furnace has a few problems. But things could be a lot worse.”

Somewhat, relieved, the homeowner replies: “Oh, that’s good news.”

HVAC tech:

“I know. It could be my furnace instead of yours.”



And I have no idea how to describe this, but it is definitely worth watching: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=02a_1307119966

Fall Maintenance

No one likes to think about maintenance, it often seems like a lot of trouble for no immediate cause. But when  your heating system breaks down in the middle of a cold night because you neglected it's fall checkup, you can quickly regret not taking the time to maintain it. Here is some great advice from Design Comfort about fall maintenance:

Most heating and cooling contractors offer service or maintenance agreements, which lock in at least one or two visits a year for furnace or air conditioner inspection. It is rare to find a contractor who will schedule a furnace inspection during the cold winter months. They know that time is usually saved for people with real emergencies. If you don’t have a service agreement with a contractor, you may want to consider signing up for one and avoid the risk of waiting in line for a furnace repair in the dead of winter.

During fall maintenance, your heating equipment will be switched on and inspected. That may sound routine but by running your heating system early, you may be spared the expense of repairing your system when it fails to operate or run smoothly during the cold months. If there is a problem, it is better to fix it ahead of time.

There is no guarantee that a furnace that is tuned up in the fall will last throughout the winter without needing service. But a little preventive maintenance ahead of time will save a lot of heartache – and dollars – when a real emergency comes up.

For the full article, visit their website.