This is a podcast episode titled "340. New Home, Which A/C?" (hosted by Derek Cole) offering practical guidance for HVAC and indoor-air choices when building a new home. Speakers discuss system options (geothermal, multi-zone mini-splits, traditional heat pumps, dual-fuel), and emphasize that the right choice depends on homeowner budget and comfort targets. Key recommendations include geothermal as the most efficient option when feasible, the trade-off of "pay now (efficient) vs. pay later (cheaper upfront)" for energy costs, and building-envelope and indoor-air strategies—radiant barrier, sealed crawlspace with dehumidifier, ERV (energy recovery ventilator), and supplemental air cleaning—for tight new homes. The episode includes calls-to-action for the Healthy Home Challenge and SimmonsOneHour.com and encourages listeners to share and engage with the host.
Questions this episode answers
90%
Chapters
Foreign.
I'm Derek Cole, host of the Derek Cole Podcast. And we believe in taking the time to explain how things work for your air at home or your business. And we also believe you deserve clean air in that home. And that is why we founded the Healthy Home Challenge. It's a five day online video series with daily emails, worksheets and even quick action steps you can take to protect you, your family and your co workers. If you haven't joined us yet, you can sign up. It's free to free five day access. You can go to Simmons One Hour Comm. You'll see a link to learn more about indoor air. You've probably known for a while that you need better indoor air at home or at work. After all, we spend 90% of our time indoors these days. Your breakthrough awaits at Simmons One Hour Comm. Now let's get into today's episode. Please listen closely and maybe even take some notes so you can remember these insights of home comfort and energy savings. And share this episode with three of your friends. Because we all need to share better ways to be more comfortable at home. Be sure to tag me or DM me on Instagram Derek Mcole so I can say hi. Thanks again for listening. And let's begin.
The most efficient way to go would be, in my opinion, geothermal. If you're building a new house and you have, you know, you don't have grass yet, it's obviously easier to do the wells and to do the loops and not cause any problems. And you can, with all of these, you can fold them into your house payment and becomes a lot better for you. So geothermal is really what I would recommend to start with. But it kind of, I mean, you can go geothermal, you can go multi zone mini split, you can go traditional heat pump, you can go dual fuel. I mean there's, there's so many options. And really, Steve, my father has really said it the best. You know, if you, if you give me a target, I can hit it versus having this shotgun approach, right? I mean, what's in your budget? First of all, if it's in your budget to go high end and to go really efficient, let's do it. If it's in your budget to go standard, basic, let's just get done, bare bones, minimum, then we can do that. But then again, you know, when you give us your budget, then we can see what you want, see what the budget is and then fit something into that mold. It's kind of obviously harder to go with the shotgun approach, which Was, you know, give you the most efficient. All right, we're going to give you the most division. I know my budget's right here. Okay, well let's come down to right here. But if we started with that, that would have been a little easier because then we wouldn't waste your time, wouldn't waste our time. We could just talk a number. So I was talking to somebody recently and they said, you know, this number is like 10% of my home budget. I said, well, you're dealing with an appliance that's half of your energy use every single month. So I've said it before, heating and air, either pay for it now or.
Pay for it later, but eventually going.
To pay for it. And some people say, what do you mean by that? Well, if you pay up front and you get a super efficient unit or an efficient install, then you'll save money. If you go with the cheaper unit or the low end equipment or the value based brand, then you'll pay for it every month in energy bill. So that's what I mean by hitting error is one of those. You don't pay for it now or pay for it later. You'll pay for upfront, in this case up front and put it in your house payment and save money every month on lower energy bills or pay for it later by going low end, start with and then having higher energy bills every month. So I guess to answer the question, I haven't answered the question. It depends on your budget and what you're looking for. Now we have some homeowners who like to keep the house at 75, 78 degrees. And then we have some homeowners that want to keep it at 65, 70 degrees. Obviously in that situation geothermal would be better than traditional heat pump. But it depends on your home, your choice, what you want to see, what kind of energy bills you like to see. I mean, you can go with radiant barrier in the attic, save some money. That way you can seal the crawl space, you can have a dehumidifier in the crawl space, seal it up, you can go that way. That will be efficient. The radiant barrier will be efficient. But then again, it goes back to your budget. What can you look at? What are you looking at? What are you looking to purchase and afford? Some people have built a really tight home. In that case you need, well, in all cases really. But in that case particularly, you need an ERV energy recovery ventilator. Because you have such a tight home. You have new carpet, you have new countertops, you have new Cabinets, you have new paint, all this stuff off, gases, chemicals. So when you have a really tight home, there is nowhere for that to.
Go except for your lungs. So ERV actually exchanges outdoor air conditioned. It will condition it and takes out the bad air, brings in the good air. And also you need to look at air cleaning products on top of that because with a newer home, homes today are not built the way they're built in the 60s and 70s where it was a breathable home, where they weren't too worried about the insulation or the paneling or energy was cheap. It's not that way today. So now you need to yes, you can build a tight home, but you need to make it efficient and healthy as well. So in that case you need an ERV and need some air cleaning to go along with it. So that was a long way to say it depends on your budget and you made it all.
You see what I'm saying? People just build these really tight homes which is great for energy, but it's not so great for health because now you're breathing all the stuff in, there's nowhere for it to go.
Okay, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Derek Cole Podcast. Tell some people about this episode. It's on each of us really to spread the better ways to to be healthier and more comfortable in our homes and workspaces. I'm asking you to be the dealer of positive and life changing messages in your circle of of influence. Take a screenshot right now and share the screenshot and the link to this episode with three of your friends today. Share on social media Use the hashtag Healthy home. That's Healthy home. We are always giving away shout outs prizes to our community. If you would like to help me personally then please rate and review on Apple podcast. Give it some stars. Leave a review because that stuff actually does help and I read all the comments. So my last thought for today, please remember you deserve better air at home and greater comfort at home. Don't settle for being uncomfortable for your heating air every single month. We are so thankful for having you here in our community and be sure to go deeper with us at simmons1hour.com.
