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Getting quality air flow and temperatures out of your heating and air conditioning unit is something every homeowner desires. But when you call for heating and air conditioning service you may generally think of them the same as repairs and that’s not always the case. Looking forward you may want to know a few tips to ensure when you call you get the right response from your heating and air conditioning service call.
Questions Instead Of Outages
Generally one of the top reasons for getting heating and air conditioning service is because you don’t know what is happening and you just want to check to see if your unit is acting within it’s normal parameters. These service calls are generally easy and quick as they will inspect your current system and give you a couple of pointers or recommend other things that need to be done. If this is your first season in your current Cleveland, TN home you may want to call your local heating and air conditioning service experts and have them get information on your system if the previous homeowners didn’t do any favors by leaving information. These specialists will help you with getting the ideal usage for your home along with making sure the equipment is in good working order and give you recommendations and measurements for filters your house may use. These appointments will likely be at a lower cost and a shorter time commitment. They may not even require any downtime of your heating and air conditioning system.
By contrast if you call for repair your heating and air conditioning system is likely already broken down and you know it needs repairs. Repairs will come from things like air not flowing, your electrical box tripping when the thermostat tries to kick the furnace, or weird smells and sounds that you notice during operation. These larger issues will likely be more costly repairs and possible downtime for your heating and air conditioning units.
Basic Fixes with Guidance Instead of Complex Jobs
Along those lines, those basic fixes are things that more fit with heating and air conditioning service. Some more examples of basic fixes could be the following:
- Figuring out why your usage varied so much this year. You may notice that over time you set into a near linear usage in your months year over year. If you suddenly notice a huge spike in usage for the same month in a year even though you didn’t have a huge change in your usage schedule you will want to call. This could be an issue a service call would fix.
- Ensuring your unit isn’t leaking. Now if you have boiler heat in your house this seems pretty self explanatory but if you have a forced air heating and air conditioning system you may want to check with your heating and air conditioning service to see if your duct work is still properly sealed. Having large leaks on your heat return ducts will mean your furnace and air conditioner’s need to work harder and longer to get enough air to cycle through the house. The similar happens if your other ductwork is leaking. The already heated or cooled air will lead to your heating and air conditioning units to work longer because you’ll be losing treated air in your walls, basement, or crawlspace instead of it going into your house.
Contrarily if you call for heating and air conditioning service and end up needing repair some of the things that may happen could be:
- The purchase of a new furnace, air conditioner or boiler unit. This is likely the worst case scenario as the items will likely be a costly endeavor and you won’t be able to correct it any other way.
- The replacement or resetting of duct work. If your duct work is damaged or inefficient you may get a suggestion from a repair call to reset your house ductwork. While this is great to increase the efficiency of your unit, it can be quite costly up front.
Lower Costs
Now we won’t be listing actual costs of certain aspects of the air conditioning service and repair business as they will vary based on who you call and overtime costs change. But in general you will be looking at the difference of costs and labor for the two categories as listed. The first for services would likely be a shorter visit, that may just have a minimum time charge to cover the time the service personnel are at your home and also their travel time to ensure they don’t lose money on a call. They will generally also quote you piece by piece as needed for those service calls. You shouldn’t expect a huge laundry list of parts that are being replaced at first because they will likely disclose what one item is getting looked at. Meanwhile for actual heating and air conditioning repairs you will likely be looking at a “labor minimum” or “flat” labor charge to cover the time that a long process can be expected to take. The materials list for a large repair job should also be quoted up front with a list and cost to you the homeowner for all parts expected to be used along with a contingency to cover other smaller parts that may not be included or expected to be replaced.
When you’re ready to call for heating and air conditioning service or repair consider contacting Metro Plumbing, Heating, Air and Septic out of Chattanooga to cover your home in Cleveland, TN. They offer services for all of your heating and air conditioning service issues and offer a twenty four hour a day emergency service so you don’t have to wait to get someone to your door the next day, meaning less down time for you. Visit them today to get a jump start on that service call and see what they can do for you.