Air Conditioning
A/C
Tired of the sticky Upstate New York summers? An A/C system can make your home pleasant during those humid days of summer.| Window Unit | Central Air | Heat Pump |
|---|---|---|
| Cools the area in which it is located | Cools the whole house | Both heats and cools depending on weather |
| Requires annual mounting/removing | Permanently installed | Permanently installed |
| Several needed for average house | One unit for whole house | One unit heats and cools, lowering energy consumption costs |
| Operating noise in living space | Quietly operates outside or in basement/closet | Quietly operates outside or in basement/closet |
Integrated with your existing furnace, a central air system uses the existing ductwork to cool your whole house. Compared to operating several window units, a central air system is more efficient and has lower operating costs.
Heat Pumps
A heat pump is an air conditioner that can operate in reverse, collecting heat from outdoors and pumping it into your house. Since heat pumps collect ambient outdoor heat during cool weather, rather than consuming fuel to create it, they use less energy than a furnace. For a nominal increase in cost, a heat pump offers considerable savings versus other kinds of heat. Learn more about heat pumps.Service
The best way to keep your system running is regular servicing. The outdoor portion of your A/C system, the condenser, is subject to an uncontrolled environment—dust, critters and insects, temperature extremes and more. Servicing involves cleaning it out and lubricating fan motors to ensure it operates well. We also check the system's refrigerant levels. Proper servicing ensures that you'll get many years out of the appliance, and keeps it at peak efficiency to hold operating costs down.Refrigerant
Per the Montreal Protocol, R-22 refrigerant use is being phased out. All new equipment we install will use alternative refrigerants, most commonly R-410A, ensuring your new system will not become obsolete as R-22 is discontinued. For the time being, R-22 is still available for servicing your existing A/C system or heat pump.Existing R-22 systems will not need to be replaced immediately, but the discontinuation of R-22 altogether in 2020 means it eventually will need to be. It won't be an entire loss: Recent advances in motor design mean today's A/C and heat pump systems can operate with much less electricity than older generations, so your operating costs will drop after upgrading your system.
