10 Checks You Can Do This Spring Before Summer

Welcome to episode 400 of the Derek Cole Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. 400 episodes in, um, that's a lot. That's a lot over the years, but we keep grinding. We keep getting it done. Uh, y'all keep listening, so thank you for your support over the years, over the episodes. The audience has grown pretty rapidly here in the last year, but I did pull up some stats. 11,000 plays, over 11,000 total plays of the podcast so far, which is to me a huge number because this is a homeowner-driven podcast. So I'm talking to you, the homeowner, and no one else about energy savings, heating and air conditioning. Nothing exciting, nothing, you know, life-changing, unless it is life-changing if you take the advice and use it. So today I wanted to cover spring. It is springtime, it is spring now. So let's cover the 10 checks you can do for your system before the warm weather hits. Now, this checklist is available, it's free, free download. It's available at simmons1hr.com/spring. I'll link it up here in the notes on the podcast and on YouTube, but simmons1hour.com/spring is where you get the, uh, checklist. But we're going to go through it. I mean, it's episode 400, so here we go. So, uh, the spring checklist is one page. It looks like this. Those of you watching on YouTube, you can see what it looks like. But excuse me, I had to get some water. It's a that good time of year, pollen, pollen season, right? Um, so top 10, or 10 checks— I want to say top 10— 10 checks you can do for your home and system before the warm weather hits. First of all, my personal favorite, I'm always on it: replace your air filters. One of the most important things you can do for your home is replace the air filters. Number 2, switch the direction of your ceiling fan blades and turn your fans on. Now, what do we mean by this? Now, back in the winter, we talked about switching it from summer to winter because now you want the warm air to rise. In the winter, you want the warm air to come down to where you are in the living space. So you want to bring the warm air from the top to where you are. Now you actually want to go the other way and bring the warm air up and to cool you off with the wind chill effect of the fan. So make sure you switch the direction of your fan. 3, clean your vents with a damp cloth or mild detergent. Clean your vents. Um, y'all have seen the return before get dusty, dirty. Uh, it might be the case as well with some vents. So go ahead and clean it off, get the dust, get the stuff out of the way. Um, at my house, I, I use my vacuum on my return. I, I use the vacuum, with the little attachment that, you know, kind of goes over it. So I do it that way because I don't like things flying around. So I just, you know, use the vacuum, suck it up, get it done. Dust items that may need a good spring cleaning. It's that time of year where spring cleaning happens. This will help your unit run efficiently. How's that possible? Well, The more you dust, the more you clean, the more you have a— the more the air is not going to have dust in it that can be carried into the air stream, which will go into the filter, which if you don't have a good filter, go through the filter and go to the actual unit, or it will get in that return grill that hasn't been cleaned and stick. So make sure you dust items that need a good spring cleaning. Now For me, in my house, for some reason it's always around the TV. That little, uh, a table the TV sits on, it's always dusty. That's like one of the most dusty places in the home seems to be that little TV area. So I don't know, you know, what the reason for that is. But anyway, dust it, dust it, and keep it clean. Next, clean pet supplies— beds, toys, clothes— to remove hair and pet dander. Now, I have a cat in my house. The cat doesn't shed too bad, but it does happen. So make sure you, you know, wash and clean those beds and, and toys. And the cat likes to sleep on our blankets and our clothes, and sometimes you get some cat hair on it. So go and clean that up. Remove that pet dander, remove that hair. Next, adjust your thermostat for the warmer weather. Now, you might not believe it, but this is a problem. When it switches, just like when it switches from summer to winter, when it switches from winter to spring to summer, you have to turn your thermostat to cool away from heat. Some of the phone calls we get will be, my unit's not cooling, and we get there and it's a setting problem with the thermostat. Thermostat is not set to cool, it's not working because it's set to heat. You're not getting cool because the thermostat is set to heat. So make sure your thermostat is programmed to work in the warmer weather, which means the cooling is working. Turn on your AC to ensure it's working correctly. This is a very small step but a very important step because you want to go and activate it, turn it on. If you hadn't had maintenance, that's going to be the next check item. Go and schedule your maintenance. Uh, we have the Summer Cool special going on right now. Again, head over to simmons1air.com Uh, you'll see it right there, summer cool spectacular. It's happening right now. Get your AC scheduled, make sure it's working. But go ahead and turn the AC on, see if it works before you actually need it. This time of year, you know, you have the warmer days, the cooler nights. It's that middle portion of the year, so go ahead and test out the AC to make sure it's going to work when you want it to work. But schedule your AC unit checkup. Make sure your unit is healthy, it's working, it's good to go before you need it, before it gets too late and you have to get in line with the others that are having emergency calls because their system is not working. Go and be proactive and get that taken care of. That's one of the checks, is actually to get that done. Uh, so the number 9, clean around the outside of your AC unit to ensure a 1 to 2 foot clearance around the entire unit. Yeah, the outdoor unit especially, uh, with AC. If you have a heat pump, same thing with heat pump. If you have a straight AC, the unit has to breathe. It needs that 1 or 2 foot clearance around the unit so it can move airflow, move air. Part of the cleaning and the summer cool is cleaning that outdoor coil. The reason you want to do that is for greater airflow, so air design channels getting through the fins when it needs to. Same thing, you don't want trees, bushes, flowers, branches, anything right there at the unit to make it harder for it to work, to move the air it needs to move. And finally, number 10, use a damp rag to spot clean dirt and debris from the outside unit. Some of these things you can very clearly see. Again, we're going to handle it on the SummerCool Spectacular. The AC checkup or the tune-up, we clean the unit, we'll take care of it. But until then, or if you already— you don't call us out, which is fine, go ahead and take a damn rag, and when you see those spots of dirt and debris, go ahead and knock that away. That's for your coil, your unit to breathe, to be more efficient, and to work better. This summer. But I definitely recommend the SummerCool Spectacular because not only do we do an 84-point check, and the 84 points includes a 28-point safety inspection, cleaning of the other unit, and includes guarantees. A 6-month breakdown-free guarantee, meaning if your system breaks down this summer in the next 6 months, we will take that $153, which is the fee, and apply it to repair. We'll put— we're putting our money where our mouth is. Our summer cool is so wonderful, it's going to have a breakdown-free summer. If you do have a breakdown, take that same fee you paid for the tune-up for the a spectacular Thermacool, take that same fee and use it towards a repair. That's how confident we are. We also have a value guarantee, meaning if you— when we come out and we go through your system and clean it and maintain it and make sure it's good to go, we go through your system and you don't feel like it's $153 worth of value, you don't pay. Don't pay us if you don't see the value in what we're doing, and us coming to your home, doing the 84-point checkup, cleaning the outdoor coil, doing these checks of the, uh, of the controls, of the thermostat. If you don't see value in anything we're doing and it doesn't have the $153 by you, do not pay us. That is a guarantee, a value guarantee. Nothing— another thing is the energy savings guarantee. We guarantee you, by getting this summer cool, will use less energy than last year. It is more efficient to get your unit checked, cleaned, maintain than if you do not do it. So again, we put our money where our mouth is. If we promise energy savings guarantee, meaning you will save $153 worth of energy this summer by getting this done, you will, you will be more efficient. You don't have a choice. I mean We're going to do a fantastic job for you. We'll do such a good job, we have these guarantees in place: a breakdown-free guarantee, a value guarantee, energy savings guarantee. Because we believe strongly in getting this done, and we believe in our team, our Albro techs are going to do a fantastic job. And you're going to love this service. You're going to see the value in the service, and you're going to see $153 worth of savings, at least on energy, if not more.