Neese-Jones Blog

How to Avoid Getting Ripped-Off      Have you ever wondered how heating & air companies determine what to charge you for repairs?  The great majority of companies use flat rate pricing.  Flat rate pricing takes an average cost of a repair and applies it to every job.  Let’s say you need a new condenser fan motor, this usually may take one hour of labor to complete.  On some jobs it may take two hours due to the motor shaft being rusted and very difficult to remove.  Flat rate simply averages the time it will take and charges accordingly.  This allows the customer to be told a price up front before any work is done and allows them to approve or decline the repair.  The old way was to charge a price for the motor and tell the customer that they would be billed a labor charge that would be determined by...

Heating & Cooling Cost (Atlanta) Does it cost more to heat your home or cool your home?  There are a lot of variables to consider, but in general you will pay more to heat your home than cool it. Here are a few examples assuming a 15 year old home with 2,500 square feet. 1)     15 year old heating and air system.  Gas heat is 80% efficient; air conditioner seer rating is 8.  This would be a typical home. Heating Cost: 1,081.00 Cooling Cost:  881.00 Total Cost:  1,962.00 As you can see in this example, it cost more to heat your home than to cool it.   2)     This example uses the same home, but uses a duel fuel system to heat and cool the home.  A duel fuel system is a heat pump and a gas furnace.  The heat pump provides your heating as long as the outside temperature is...

Carbon Monoxide:  The Silent Killer      If you use gas-fueled appliances in your home, have an attached garage, or use a fireplace, you need a C.O. detector.  Carbon Monoxide cannot be seen, tasted, or smelled, so basically you never know that it’s present without a detector.  Even at low levels of exposure it can cause serious health risk. Long term, low level exposure is just as much a health risk as sudden high level exposure.  Symptoms of C.O. poisoning are often similar to the flu.      What most people don’t know:  All C.O detectors are not the same.  Most monitor only high levels, while some let you know when levels are low.  I recently went to the local big box retailer to examine their detectors for sale.  Here is what I found concerning when the alarm will go off: At 70 (ppm)  Parts per million, the unit must alarm within 60-240...

    Power Attic Ventilators (PAV) waste money.  We often get calls from customers that want to know if we will replace the motor on their attic ventilator.  Instead of replacing the motor, the best thing you can do is turn off the power to the attic ventilator.  In the old days we were told that these ventilators would reduce our cooling bills by up to 25%.  WRONG!  The fact is, the ventilators actually suck the air from your home into your attic through leaks in the attic floor.  This causes your air conditioner to run more, not less. We have actually measured the amount of air being pulled from the home and it’s significant.  In fact, it’s now illegal to install a PAV in a home in Georgia.  Unfortunately, the picture you see here is a PAV that I installed at my home 16 years ago.  Thinking that one would be good,...