#AskDerekCole Episode 38: What fan should I keep on?

Hey, on this episode of Ask Derrick Cole, we're talking about which fans should I run in my house, should I keep the temperature up in that room I don't use, and what kind of maintenance should I be doing on my system? You ask your comfort and energy questions and they get answered. This is the Ask Derrick Cole Show. Hey, this is Derrick Cole. Welcome to episode 38 of the Ask Derrick Cole Show, answering your energy and home maintenance questions. And it's been quite a week. We've had so many issues with servers and networks, and it's been fun, but we're still here for you. All right, let's get— I don't know why I said that. Let's get into it.

What regular maintenance do heating and air conditioning systems need?

Good question. According to the manufacturer of the equipment, they need to be serviced twice a year. So once for the cooling, once for the heating. It needs to be coils cleaned, wheels checked, motors checked, compressor checked, filters inside checked. All this stuff needs to be done by a qualified professional. So you can make sure your unit is working high performance all year long. So the reason you need to do this is because the coils of the air conditioner or heat pump or package unit, whatever you have, it doesn't matter. You have a coil just like your refrigerator has a coil. By the way, clean under the refrigerator. That's nothing to do with this. But so, uh, As dirt, debris, grass clippings get on the coil, it acts as an insulator. And all heating and air is, is transferring heat. So in the heating season, you're bringing heat inside the house, right? Getting cold out. And in the summer, you're throwing heat from the inside outside where it doesn't matter. So in that transfer process, you need everything to be clean. Otherwise, it acts like an insulator, which will affect your energy bill, and it will make things like the motor, the compressor, all this work harder, which drives your energy bills up, as well as shorten the life of those motors, compressors, capacitors. Everything that's in line has to work harder because it's trying to transfer this heat. So you want to make it as easy as possible, and the easy way as possible for it to do it is to be clean. So you want to make sure you have this cleaned. Um, was that the whole question?

Yeah.

Okay, that was the whole question. So yeah, uh, getting the maintenance— we have a maintenance program, we have a club program. We come out twice a year and do this. Also, you probably see flyers on Facebook or newspaper about a tune-up to get your unit ready for the air conditioning or the heating season. I would take advantage of that because that will give you some signs as to what needs attention. Because most of the things we've seen the past summer has been maintenance-related. I mean, dirty filter, dirty blower wheel, capacitor went out. Those things, for the most part, would have been checked and caught on a maintenance. Beforehand. So you would have had cool air had you done the preventive side of it first. So that's why it's very important to get that done.

Is it more economical to operate the fan on my air conditioning unit continuously or just turn the ceiling fans on in each of the rooms?

In this part of the country, you should never leave your fan on. Now, in the northern climates where it's dry, they keep the fans on. But this is southeastern North Carolina, you don't do it because then you have humidity problem. Your indoor humidity should be between 30 and 50%, and the main part of air conditioning is removing moisture from the house. So you don't want to add moisture by leaving your fans on. Ceiling fans, a good thing to remember about those They're not going to cool the room off. If the room is sitting there with the fan on, you're doing no good. Fans cool people, not rooms. So just remember that. Remember that fans give you a wind chill effect. That's what cools you down. So it's kind of like a 70-degree day where the sun's shining, no wind. Or 70-degree day where it's a little shady and you got 15-mile-an-hour wind? Which one is cooler? Well, it's the one with the wind. Fans do the same thing. So I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve by asking those questions or what you're trying to accomplish, but those are good tips.

Can I allow the upstairs to heat up even more during the day and cool the downstairs less at night?

Hey, I don't know where you're going with that question, but again, I would— according to Energy Star, they want you to raise the temperature while you're away from home and then lower it back when you get home. My personal recommendation is to leave it at a constant temperature. That's what I do. That's what I find to be good because And here's why. If it's a 95-degree day and you go from 75 to 78 when you leave, and then you get home at 5:30 and you crank it down to 75, that unit's going to run at least a couple hours trying to get down to that temperature because now everything in your home is 78 degrees. So now you want everything to be 75. Well, we got two challenges. One, we're running on high speed. If you have a two-speed system, you run on high, which is not the most economical way to do it. And everything in the home has to be cooled down. It's 5:30, it's 6 o'clock, you're cooking dinner, it's coming off of the hottest part of the day at 4, so it's having a hard time getting that temperature. So I would not set anything unless You're leaving that room for an extended period of time, then I would put on 78. You know, if we don't go upstairs for 2 months, I would leave the temperature at 78. If it's something you use every single day, then I would leave it at the temperature you want. Um, at my house, I crank it down a little bit at nighttime because I like it nice and chilly. But then again, it's You know, it's 9:30, 10 o'clock at night when I'm asking it to get down in temperature. So the sun is gone, the heat is gone, so now we're just mainly dehumidifying and getting that temperature back down. So I would not, I would not recommend that. Now the nice people at Energy Star say this is completely wrong. What you should do is leave it up while you're gone, bring it down when you get home. You know what, I don't do it. I don't recommend it. It's just to me not the most economical way to do it because if I leave my house at 78 for 8 hours and I come home for another 8 hours and put it at 75, am I saving anything by not keeping it 75 all day long? I don't think I am because now we're having to crank up a high speed to get down to 75 when I get home. And when the rare occasion happens that there's cooking in my house, I get an oven and a stove and you got to overcome that kind of heat from everything up in there. So I would not, no, I would not do it. And even still, I will add on to that question a little bit. If you do have a bonus room that you don't visit a whole lot, I've seen quite a few houses where we go to and it's you know, 80, 85 degrees on a thermostat. Um, you don't want it that high. You don't want it above 78 because really in this part of the country you're trying to control humidity. And when you put 80, 85 on a thermostat, that humidity in that room is getting up to 60, 70% possibly. And then you start growing organic things that you want in that room So at 75, you're keeping to that 30 to 50% humidity, which will not let anything start growing with it in your space, in your walls, behind your walls, things you don't want to happen. So I understand you're not in that room, but at the same time, you don't want that room to be a problem. That didn't even come close to answering the question. I don't know.

But that sounds good.

It sounded good to them. All right, so that's episode 38 of the Ask Derrick Cole. Again, submit your questions, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Tumblr, whatever you want to do. Hashtag it #AskDerrickCole.