Geothermal to Natural Gas Furnace Conversion
Leave a reply
Category Archives: Cooling Systems
Electricity Prices in Ontario Are Going Up Again
It’s no surprise that electricity prices in Ontario are going up again. Electricity prices have been consistently increasing by an average of 10% over the past 12 years… Before that an average of 8% per year in prices increases. The Ontario Government announced last fall that over the next 3 years, electricity prices in Ontario will be going up 30%… 30% over three years is 10% per year… So what else is new?
You know what that means don’t you? It’s going cost even more to run your household this year! Yeah… It’s going to cost more to do the laundry… more to use the oven… it’s going to cost more every time you turn on the TV… or when one of the kids leaves the light on in their bedroom after they leave for school.
And… it’s going to really hurt when it get’s hot out and you want to turn on your air conditioner.
Heating and cooling your house… and heating you hot water account for over 50% of the cost of electricity in a typical house. That’s a big deal as electricity prices in Ontario soar. So what can you do about it?
The reality is that I don’t see electricity prices in Ontario going down anytime soon… do you?
An inefficient air conditioner, such as a ten year old 10 SEER model will draw twice as much electricity as a more efficient 20 SEER model. TWICE AS MUCH! This could mean the ability to cool your house on those really hot spells in July and August… or sweating in your living room because it simply costs way too much to run that old air conditioner.
A couple years ago, I put some numbers down on paper. Given that electricity prices in Ontario have consistently gone up an average of 10% a year for over a decade… and that we’ve been guaranteed that those same electricity prices will increase 30% over the next three years, I simply created a spreadsheet using those same metrics. Because there are differing rates of electricity for different regions within Ontario… and given that some of us have flat rates, where others are on time-of-use rates, I had to come up with an average cost… for comparison sake.
Just like you, I also pay delivery fees, debt retirement fees, taxes, etc… etc… on top of my already high electricity rate. So, to make things easy, I simply take my total bill (the entire amount that I have to pay and that Hydro wants from me) and I divide it by the total KwH’s that I use. I consistently come up with $0.18/KwH as my average cost for electricity.
Now… when I use $0.18/KwH as my current rate of electricity, then add 10% a year (I’m not inflating things here) I come up with a rate of $0.41/KwH… 10 Years from now… and an electricity rate of $0.82/KwH… 20 Years from now.
At a 10% annual increase in electricity rates (just as rates have increased 10% a year for the past 12 years) we will be paying over 4 times what we pay now in 20 Years.
So if you’re running your old builder grade air conditioner that was installed with the past five to ten years, then you’re likely still going using it in the next ten years… and it’s going to start costing you a lot of money to run.
If you’re looking at a new air conditioner this summer, or in the next few years, then do yourself a favor and spend that extra dollar and get something super high efficient. Yes… it may be considerably more now, but will save you a pile of money down the road when electricity prices in Ontario are ridiculous!
What is R12 Insulation?
That may be one of the most common questions when it comes to energy efficiency. Through one source or another, most people have heard of R12… or R20… maybe R50. But what does it all mean? What is the right amount of insulation to have?
What is R12 Insulation? Simply put R12 is a type of insulation… or rather a level of insulation.
To fully understand R-values, you must first accept one fact: Heat Does Not Rise…
Heat does not rise… hot air rises. There is a difference. Hot air is moving air whereby heat is… simply put… heat. Here’s a way to separate the two that may help to understand. If you have a forced air furnace in your house, when the furnace comes on, it starts to blow hot air throughout the house. That hot air will rise. When the furnace eventually stops, that hot air will stop moving and the only thing that will now be happening is that heat will be moving to cold.
Heat Moves To Cold
So as heat moves to cold in the winter time (or our heating season) we lose heat and our house 
gets cold. We have to put insulation into our walls to keep the heat in… or in other words, we have to put resistance between hot and cold so that we slow the progress of the heat. The more resistance we put between hot and cold, the slower the heat will move to the colder area.
“R” stands for “Resistance” The higher the R Value, the slower heat will move to cold.
R12 is good, R20 is better, and R50 is fantastic!
Have fun… and remember one thing: It is always cheaper to insulate than it is to heat!
For more information like this, or to get an email every time a new article is posted, sign up on the right.
John Chapin
Skilled Labor is not Cheap & Cheap Labor is not Skilled
Today’s post is a bit of a rant…
I take pride in what I do and I am a professional… just as much as any physician, executive, CEO, or any other person we hold in high regards. I do two to three site visits every day. I look at scenarios and problems… and propose solutions.
The other day, I was at a sales call. My contact at the site visit was a nice enough guy…. but he kept asking me to make the price cheap… I hadn’t even come up with a plan yet… I only had an idea, but had not chosen any equipment, any particular size, and didn’t quite know how I was going to be installing it yet… but he kept saying… “Make the price cheap… please. make it cheap”.
Well this started to bug me (as you may be able to tell from my demeanor as I write this!) You see people like that don’t value what I bring to the table. They don’t value good work, a pristine finished product, and they would rather save $10 than to have a completed installation that they can be proud of.
Between you and I, every time I heard “Make the price cheap”…. the price went up! There’s one thing that I have come to realize after all these years of selling… the people that value me as a professional, value my time, and will re-arrange their schedules to meet me during business hours are the people that are always the happiest when we’re all said and done. These are the homeowners that take pride in their homes, and think long-term. They’re also the same people that refer us to their friends, family and neighbors.
The cheapskates… those “Make it cheap” people… these are the ones that are never happy. Been there done that… and I will never do it again. These are also the same people that will not take time out of their day to meet during normal business hours. I had one of these clients just the other day…
This client called the office about three weeks ago… and talked to someone at the office who booked the client into my shcedule at the end of the day… to start an appointment at 6pm. (I had instructed this person to not book anything past a 3:30pm start time… but with a weak mind, and no backbone, she caved). You may guess… I’m not a fan of this person.
Now some of you may be thinking… “That jerk. Why won’t he do evening appointments?” Because I am professional, and I choose not to. I start my day at 7am every day… so come 5pm, I’ve put in a 10 hour day…. and after that, is my time… my family’s time… and to tell you the truth, I’m still often working at paperwork until 9 or 10pm.
So this guy insisted that I come and visit him at 6pm… and since our office person had already committed me to that time, I was stuck. So I rearranged my schedule, missed my Jijitsu class that night so that I could go and do his quote at 6pm… in my 12th hour of the day. I spent some time with this fellow, came up with a solution and went through the scope with the client. At the time he asked me for a ballpark quote of what the installation would cost. I hate it when I’m put on the spot…. and in the past I’ve simply told people that I would reserve the pricing until after I’ve been able to go through the entire scope… so that I could do things right… but against my better judgment, I indicated that this particular installation would range between $2,000 and $2,300 before taxes.
The next day I emailed him the proposal. Later that day I received an email back form him… he was telling me that the price was too high… asking me to discount the price because it was much higher than I had indicated at my site visit… FYI… the price that I quoted him was $2,320… now look at those numbers above… you may see that when all was said and done, after I had calculated all the gas piping, line voltage, equipment cost, controls, etc. that I was a mere $20 more than my “ballpark” pricing after being put on the spot… and he wanted a discount!
He was unwilling to compromise on his appointment time and he wants to argue about $20. There’s one more thing that I’ve come to realize… and that is that there will always be someone out there with a cheaper price than me.We can’t do the kind of work that we want to by being the cheapest price on the market. To be the cheaper price means that we would have to cut corners and be very fast at what we do… and hack through the work. If things don;t go as planned (which happens from time to time), then we would have to hack through the work, and leave a crappy looking finished product.
So if you take pride in your home, and you value good workmanship and doing the job right, the first time around, then give us a call… It keeps holding true… Skilled labor is not cheap… Cheap labor is not skilled. I’ve seen it first hand!
Find us on the web at http://reliablehome.ca/
John Chapin
It is No Secret… Energy Prices Are Rising… But we can pay less if we want to
It’s one of those facts in life… death… taxes… and Energy Prices are Rising… every day, every month, every year we’re told about how our electricity rates, our gas rates, and our even our water bills are going up again… and we’re stuck paying those high rates whether we want to or not. That’s our reality.
So we’re stuck paying high rates for energy. But we do have a choice in how much we are going to pay… What exactly do I mean?
Well as many of you regular readers are aware, I am in the business of delivery cooling comfort, among other things…. air conditioners, heat pumps, cooling equipment. It’s May in Ottawa and every day now I am out doing quotes for people for new air conditioners. This happens all the time, so I thought I would share my thoughts on why it is important to install as high efficient an air conditioner as possible.
Air conditioners use electricity to run, and electricity among other energies has one of the fastest increasing price of all the energies. Here in Ontario Canada, electricity rates have been consistently rising over the past 13 years by an average of 10% per year. Prior to 2002, electricity rates increased at an average rate of 8% per year. What this means, is that with an average increase of 10% per year, electricity rates will effectively double every 10 years.
In Ontario in 2015, we have Time-Of-Use electricity rates. And so not to get into the nitty-gritty of it all… we have an average rate of 18 cents/KwH. (That is what we pay out of pocket, including taxes, delivery, debt retirement, etc). Given the fact that Ontario electricity rates have been increasing at an average of 10% per year for the past 13 years… and given the fact that the Ontario Government has told us that electricity rates will be going up 30% over the next 3 years (again 10%/year)… and because Hydro One (the Ontario Electricity Company) has been so poorly managed for so long and clearly is not getting any better, one can only assume that we will continue to trend at an average of a 10% increase in electricity rates every year from now on… and then some… but for argument sake let’s just assume 10%.
Air conditioners efficiency is rated by a SEER rating. The SEER rating, coupled to the size (example: 3 Ton, 36,000 btuh) will give us hoe much power the given piece of equipment actually draws.
Here in Ontario Canada, electricity rates have been consistently rising over the past 13 years by an average of 10% per year.
A 3 ton 13 SEER air conditioner draws 2.77 KwH. What this means is that at an average electricity rate of $0.18/KwH, you will spend $0.50/hour to run this air conditioner. That doesn’t seem like much does it…. but do the math… $0.50/hour… running on warm days an average of 12 hours/day (super hot days will be more)… okay so that’s only $6/day… but wait that’s $180/month…. or $720 for the cooling season.
A 3 ton 26 SEER air conditioner draws 1.38 KwH. What this means is that at an average electricity rate of $0.18/KwH, you will spend $0.25/hour to run this air conditioner… or $360/cooling season.
So what about when electricity rates double in 10 years. And don’t fool yourself. The air conditioner that you install today will still be running in 10 years, 15 years, and almost certainly 20 years from now.
So… 10 years from now… Take that same 3 Ton air conditioner… When electricity rates are $0.42/KwH… that 13 SEER will cost you $1675 over the cooling season… and the 26 SEER will cost just $837/year.
How about 20 years from now when electricity rates are $0.85/KwH… That 3 Ton system will run you… yes… $3390/year to run… or simply add $847 to your monthly electricity bill.
You get the point. We all have choices. Don’t just think about the bottom line now but think about the future and all the money you could be throwing away, or the money you could be putting back into your pocket… sending your kids through University, or taking an extra vacation. Over the course of 20 years the cheap air conditioner we install now may wind up costing us twice what the more expensive one costs to install.
Do yourself a favor and don’t go with the cheapest price, for the cheapest air conditioner.
What does a new air conditioner cost
These days it’s getting hot. It’s the middle of May on Ottawa, and we all know what’s coming in a few short weeks…. summer. And with summer comes hot and humid weather. Being in the heating and cooling business, our phone is ringing off the hook these days and almost everyone is asking:
What does a new air conditioner cost?
What sparked this article is a phone call that I received this past week. A fellow called me up to ask me a about a certain brand of air conditioner that I had never heard of before. I”m not saying that I know everything about everything, but I do tend to know what brands are in the marketplace.
Anyway, this guy told me what the system was, and he told what the price was that he saw online. I’m going to call this air conditioner BrandX… mostly because I con’t remember the actual brand name he quoted me… and this particular sized system that he quoted me was $614. He asked me if I could match it, and If I could then he would give me the business.
Well… first of all… $614 is not going to get you a full air conditioner up and running… not even close! It seems that with Google we are able to research everything. We can find a 13 SEER air conditioner on Ebay right? Maybe Kijiji has one too that is priced too good to be true! And how much is it going to cost you to ship it? Pay the duty?
2 stage air conditioner
What this guy was quoting me was an air conditioner condenser, the outdoor unit of the air conditioner…. the part we all know of as “the air conditioner”. The reality is that when installing a new A/C system, there is a heck of a lot more than just the outdoor unit.
On top of the outdoor unit, an air conditioner has and indoor unit, called an evaporator coil. Connecting the coil to the condenser is a lineset made up of insulated, copper refrigeration lines and an electrical circuit. There is also the refrigeration to consider and the electrical connection at the panel…. and everyone of these things has a cost to it. There are the incidentals too… the other things such as an electrical disconnect box, low voltage wiring… how about a new patio slab and crushed stone to place your new condenser at the side of your house…. maybe a new set of wall brackets?
Skilled Labor is not Cheap! Cheap Labor is not Skilled!
Then there’s the installation of your new system. Getting a good qualified technician to come and install a system that they did not have the opportunity to provide to you is tough. What I mean by the this is that the person you will likely find to install your “cheap system” is not someone reliable who does good work… because that highly skilled and qualified tech is working for a good firm and couldn’t be bothered to do a side job on a Saturday.
So what does a new air conditioner cost then? It is going to depend on the size of the house as naturally there are different sized air conditioners?
What does a new air conditioner cost? It will depend on the installation of the whole system. How long is and how will the lineset be run? Where is the condenser going to be located? What is the electrical situation?
What does a new air conditioner cost? There are many different efficiency air conditioners… ranging from 13 SEER to 26 SEER. A 26 SEER air conditioner is going to cost you more now, but will no doubt save you a pile of money later?
What does a new air conditioner cost? Do you want a single stage air conditioner, a two-stage, or a modulating system? What type of furnace do you have (single stage, 2-stage, or modulating) as this will dictate what type of air conditioner can be installed?
So… What does a new air conditioner cost? Call me and find out. Let me show you why we are so good at what we do. On my visit to your house, we will look at your furnace capabilities. We will discuss the options available to you, efficiency and what it really means, and I will do a load calculation. to determine the right sized system for your house. Just because a 2.5 ton system was installed in your house 15 years ago, for example, does not mean that a 2.5 ton is the right size now. We change our house, upgrade insulation and windows and alter our cooling loads.
Call me for a quote and site visit at 613-301-2112
John Chapin
By the way… want to find out how to keep your second floor of your house just as cool as the main floor… and then keep the basement from feeling like the inside of a deep freezer? Click on this link and see how you can cool the upstairs of your house.
Getting Your Air Conditioner Ready For Summer
5 Things you need to keep in mind when getting your air conditioner ready for summer:
So the snow is FINALLY gone! The weather is getting warmer… heck you can even go outside without a coat on for the first time in months! You’ve almost stopped using the furnace altogether and you’re opening the windows at every opportunity you can. Wow… I love this time of year.
Soon enough though we’ll be getting that super hot, sticky, uncomfortable heat of June and July and we’ll be closing our windows and opting for that good old trusty air conditioner.
Now that air conditioner’s been sitting outside in the cold, snow, ice, and misery all winter long… and chances are that you did little to your air conditioner the last time you turned it off in the fall… let alone stick a cover over top of it!
So what is involved in getting your air conditioner ready for summer?
1. Well the first thing is… remember to go outside and take the cover off. You’d be surprised how many people forget to do that…. an wind up damaging the air conditioner condenser.
2. Make sure your furnace filter is clean… Better yet replace you filter. You see, your furnace
blower fan is responsible for blowing air over an evaporator coil. That evaporator coil then removes the heat from the warm, humid air. If the filter is blocked… usually caked on with dust, dirt, and all the crap that ran through your duct work over the course of the winter, then you will restrict air flow and ultimately have little to no cooling at all. You may even start to build up ice over the coil. (The coil is located inside the ducting that is just above the furnace cabinet).
3. Be sure to check that there are no leaves, debris, among other things that are stuck to the air conditioner. Over the winter leaves, dirt, etc. will blow and often get stuck to the grilles, coils on the air conditioner.
4. Make sure that the breaker is turned on to your air conditioner. Every fall I go downstairs to 
my basement and flip the breaker (fuse) for my air conditioner just to be sure that it does not come on for any reason over the winter.
5. Over the course of the summer, grass grows, shrubs grow, trees and bushes grow and often those branches, leaves and foliage migrate toward the air conditioner. Be sure to trim any hedges, branches, etc. away from the air conditioner so that it can “breathe”. The air conditioner needs space around the perimeter (rule of thumb, leave at least 18″ around the air conditioner) so that it can actively remove heat.
An air conditioner is in fact a “heat pump” that removes heat from your house. If the air conditioner has leaves and foliage around the outside of it, it in essence creates a blanket and stops the air conditioner from working properly… and sometimes altogether.
Ever wondered why you can’t cool your second floor in the summer, but the basement is absolutely freezing? Click Here to find out why.
Or… Did you know that a 2 Stage air conditioner is not only more efficient but can remove humidity on moderately warm days far more effectively than a traditional single stage air conditioner? Click Here to find out how a 2 stage air conditioner works.
What is a 2 Stage Air Conditioner
If you’re shopping for a new air conditioner this year… and you’ve been fortunate enough to find a good salesperson, who is passionate about their products, you will inevitably be asking “What is a 2 stage air conditioner?”
2 stage air conditioner
First of all, 2 stage air conditioners are not exactly new technology. The reality is that they’ve been around for years, though many people simply did not know they existed… or that they’ve been missing out all these years.
You see… a 2 stage air conditioner is in fact the “middle of the road” system these days. When people tell me they don’t want the lowest end, nor are they interested in the premium air conditioners… then I point them to the 2 stage air conditioner.
There are 3 types of air conditioners available (this goes for furnaces too but that’s another topic altogether): The single stage air conditioner, the 2 stage air conditioner, and the modulating (or multi-stage) air conditioner.
As you may have guessed, the single stage is the most basic of the three types. It is the type of air conditioner that most of us have had in our homes, if we’ve gad an air conditioner. I don’t want to take anything away from a single stage air conditioner, because they are very good in their own right… it’s just that they are limited in their ability to provide chilled, dehumidified air for all the days in our hot and sticky summer. The reason for this is that a single stage air conditioner only has one stage of operation… in other words, it can only run at one speed – Full Speed. So when it turns on, it runs at full speed, pulling heat out of the air at the fastest rate it can. this is great on +33C days with 95% humidity…. not so great on days when it’s +27C… not overly hot, but usually very humid, sticky, and darn right uncomfortable.
Dehumidifying happens as a byproduct of cooling. Warmer air can hold more vapor than colder air. So as the air cools, the vapor falls out of the air and the air is more dry.
On those +27C days, that single stage air conditioner is working at full speed when it only needs to work at 50% speed… What it does then, is that it removes heat at such a fast rate that… well here’s what happens: It’s hot and sticky in the house, so you decide to turn on the air conditioner. After about an hour the air conditioner turns off. It has cooled the house to the +23C on the thermostat. But it doesn’t feel like it’s +23C. It feels sticky and humid still… so you turn on the AC again by setting the inside temperature down to +21C. The air conditioner cycles on for another 45 minutes or so and then turns off. It has reached the +21C in the house. The issue is that +21C in the summer is god awful cold! Miserable!
So how do you fix that? With a 2 stage air conditioner of course.
A 2 stage air conditioner has a half speed that it can run… surprise, surprise! When the inside temperature is +27C, the air conditioner will run at half speed. It will cycle a lot of warm humid air through the system. It will remove the humidity from the air, but will not remove the heat at a fast rate. The end result is that you have cooled the air, dehumidified the air, but not made the inside of the house like the inside of a deep freezer! That 2 stage air conditioner still has full speed for the hot +33C days and can handle everything you throw at it (when sized correctly).
I hope you have learned a little about 2 stage air conditioners and that the next time you are shopping for a new system, you’ll consider the benefits of a 2 stage air conditioner.
By the way… Ever wondered why the top floor of your house is warm and uncomfortable while your air conditioner is running? And why you simply can’t keep the basement from freezing?
I have the answer. Click Here and Listen to my Radio Interview where I explain.
Cool The Upstairs of Your House With Duct Tape and Cardboard
Is your upstairs hot and sticky when you’re running your air conditioner?
Ever wondered why the second floor, or simply the top floor of your house is always much hotter and stickier than the other floors? Why is your basement like the inside of a deep freezer?
You’ve blocked off vents… you run fans to push air around… but you still have to sleep in the basement on those hot July nights!
Well check out an interview I did on the radio last summer when I explained how you can change the way your air conditioner… moreover to cool the upstairs of your house by doing a few simple DIY homeowner things, in 15 minutes or less!
Enjoy… All these years you’ve been putting up lousy cooling… Had you only known this little trick. Now you will know how to cool the upstairs of your house!
Click Play now and fix your problem in the next 20 minutes
If you like this post please share it and “Like” us on Facebook by tapping the buttons at the bottom of this page. And please share this with as many people as you can. Everyone deserves a good night’s sleep!
To book a date and time with John Chapin for a consultation at your home, please call us today at 613-838-9989 or email info@climateworks.ca…
p.s. Mention this post and get a 5% discount on any new Lennox heating and cooling appliances, indoor air quality, duct cleaning, and annual maintenance and service plans.
Talk to you soon!
How a Gas Furnace Works
There are two big parts to how a gas furnace works. First of all, there is the heat exchanger and secondly there is a blower fan motor.
What happens when the thermostat calls for heat and the furnace turns on?
Well the furnace will in fact fire itself on and begin to heat up the heat exchanger. It then draws in (vacuums) air in through the return air inlets, or commonly called the cold air returns.
The cold, unconditioned air is then vacuumed into the furnace and is passed through an air filter. The blower fan motor, which is at the bottom of the furnace then pushes the air up through a heat exchanger. Most furnaces are what is called an updraft furnace such as what I am referring to here.
For lack of a better term, the heat exchanger is a great big metal chamber, or series of chambers, that holds the fire, the combustion. Whether you’re dealing with a natural gas furnace and oil furnace, a propane furnace, as that air passes by the heat exchanger the air warms up. In the case of an electric furnace the heat exchanger is actually a series of electric tubes. These tubes heat up and glow red when activated… much like your toaster does at home.
So what actually happens is that cool air passes by that hot steel (or glowing red tubes), it warms up the air and then hot air is distributed throughout the house.
What does the blower fan motor do?
The blower fan motor is located down near the bottom of the furnace, regardless of what energy the furnace actually uses. The blower fan motor is what drives all the air in the house… or is responsible for the entire convection of air. All the air that is supplied and all the air that is returned or vacuumed in. If you think about all the air that’s coming out of the supply registers in your kitchen or your recreation room, and all the air that’s being drawn into the return air inlets in your family room and bedrooms… All of that air is being driven by the blower fan motor.
Now… Not only does the blower fan motor play an important role when heating your house, but it is equally important when cooling your house. If you have a central air conditioner in your house, then the blower fan motor is responsible for vacuuming in warm air, running it past the past the evaporator coil, and in turn removing the heat from the air.
When that heat is removed from the air, naturally the temperature of the air drops. When the temperature falls, then the humidity (or vapor) that was in the air simply falls out of the air. The air temperature has reached it’s dew point , and has been de-humidified. The end result is that nice cool, dry air is distributed throughout the house.
And if the blower fan motor is a good, powerful motor (such as a DC motor), then it will deliver the proper temperatures to our house. Whether we’re heating or whether we’re cooling, a blower fan motor is definitely an important part of a furnace. That is a how a gas furnace works.
Please leave me a comment and let me know if this video was helpful. I strive to educate people so that they can make informed decisions. I enjoy writing this stuff, and enjoy the feedback even more!
For more information, please visit us at www.climateworks.ca or give me a call at 613-838-9989.
Cheers!