#AskDerekCole Episode 39: How to fix your rooms that are too hot or cold

You ask your comfort and energy questions and they get answered. This is the Ask Derrick Cole Show. Hey, this is Derrick Cole. This is episode 39 of the Ask Derrick Cole Show, answering your home and energy questions. And today is— yes, it's Friday. It's Friday here anyway. I'm not sure when this is is actually dropping. But, uh, let's fix Meerkat here. We're live streaming, that way they can actually see me at the same time. So yeah, we're busy. We're live streaming. We got somebody here, we got somebody over there. We're killing it out.

But in studio audience—

yeah, studio audience, uh, got a big applause sign up here. You can't see it, but no, episode 39 is ready to go. So let's roll.

Okay. Are there any advantages to shading your outside unit if you provide for proper air circulation?

Good question. Up north where they have air conditioners and furnaces, they do make a product called a cool cap. You can actually put it over the outdoor unit when you're not using it. The issue getting Here is that most of them are heat pumps here, so you can't really put that on heat pumps. So you can put it on air conditioners because in the fall you're not using the AC anymore, so you can cover it up, keep the leaves out, keep the stuff out. Um, but with a heat pump you can't do that because it still needs— for the heating and the cooling needs to be on, needs to breathe. Uh, they do make a different kind of cap that can actually, when it comes on, it'll actually open up let it breathe, and then when it goes off, it closes. Pretty cool. I mean, if you— if your unit is around a lot of trees, a lot of shrubs, things that really fall into it a lot, it's not a bad idea. If not, I wouldn't worry about it. Like, my unit's sitting out in the yard. That's pretty much it. So I have no reason to cover it up because nothing gets in it. Actually, with our maintenance program, we actually clean out the unit, clean out the whole bottom of the unit. So if you do have that problem and we see you twice a year, we're going to clean out for you. But it's something to look at. I mean, if you have an AC only and you're in a kind of a forest at your house, you might need to cover that because it will affect the fan and the coils, you know, all this stuff builds up and restricts the airflow. So it can be a problem. What was the question again? I mean, I know the question, but what was the end of it? If it's covered up?

For, let's see, if you provide for proper air circulation.

Yeah, that's the key. Proper air circulation is the key. That's really going to affect what happens. So make sure the airflow is good. It is a good idea if you You live in one of those kind of areas where you have things falling down on it or you have birds sitting above it and they're using the bathroom constantly on the unit, you can cover it up. So yeah, it's not a bad idea. Just make sure you're— the key is for the airflow.

What can I do to maintain the efficiency of my heating and air conditioning unit?

You can do that through maintenance. That is a big, big, big thing you can do at your home is get on a maintenance program or get on some kind of program, doesn't have to be ours, some kind of program where a professional comes twice a year, cleans the unit, checks it. That will extend the life of your system. You can also extend the life of your system by changing your filter inside. That is a 30-day deal depending on the filter you got, 30 to 90 days depending on the brand and how efficient it is. But I would check it every 30 days just to make sure it doesn't need changing and it doesn't need to be replaced because you, you could have two problems. One is it fills up too fast or loads too quickly and you have to change it less than 30 days. And the other one is my filter looks brand new 30 days later. That means the dirt in the air is escaping, not getting into the filter, going outside the filter, and that's going to affect the unit as well. So that's how you maintain the life of your system. All the people who make units— Trane, Carrier, Goodman— all these guys recommend twice a year cooling and heating you get the unit maintenance to maintain any— to keep it efficient. Because today's units, again, the units today are not like the units 25 years ago, okay? There's not thick copper on those anymore. You got thin, very, very thin copper or even aluminum. So dirt, dust, when they build up on this copper, affects the efficiency tremendously. I think the EPA says up to 20%. Just with a 20th of an inch. Not even an inch, it's like 20— 20. If you take an inch, cut it up 20 times, that's how much dirt you need to affect the efficiency of your unit. It's very, very, very small. So very important, get the unit maintenance cleaned, checked, and you will save money and extend the life of the unit, and you'll be happier, and we'll be happier. Because we'll see you twice here. You'll get to know us, we'll know you, you know us. We're kind of flowing back and forth. Yeah, we all, we all know each other.

That's right, we're good people. You're good people.

Okay, I feel like my energy level is pretty good today.

Yeah, you're looking well rested, good to go.

You can go to bed to like 11:30.

Feeling sassy.

Yeah.

It's because I watched Teen Mom last night. I watched Teen Mom, I was like, man, my life is not that chaotic. It is on point.

Oh no, I turned on the TV and Pretty Scared was on. Holy smacks. Pretty Scared? Yeah, apparently the Scared Straight program has gone to, you know, from Scared Straight to Pretty Scared. So, where they take teen delinquents into the prisons. Oh yeah.

Hey, we got Meerkat happening. See?

Woohoo!

Go Meerkat! Something just popped up.

Okay. Oh, might have been—

all right, do you have thinking mode?

This one.

This is— I still can take a still shot of you for the—

Or the ponder?

Ponder your questions.

All right, here comes a question from Megan's friends. You snuck it right in in front of everybody else and got her friend's question here. So here we go.

Do you have any advice for someone who has a well-maintained unit but that also has large windows in their home, and in the afternoons has a hard time cooling their home even with fans running?

I do have a good tip. It's called zoning. Zoning is the answer to a lot of the problems that I've seen in the field and a lot of problems that I've heard from customers talking about this room is hotter than this room. I'll give an example. I walked into a friend's house 2 weeks ago. I said, "I haven't been here before, but let me guess. You're hot here, and when you're hot here, you're cold down the hall." She said, "Yes, how'd you know?" You know, it's what we do. It's what we do. It's because there's so much glass exposure on this side of the house, the southwest side of the house that gets the most sunlight. There's so much glass exposure, this room needs more attention than than this room that is on the north side that is a lot smaller, has one window, correct? See what I'm saying? So zoning is the answer. So what zoning is, you put a sensor in that room and you put multiple sensors throughout the house. That way whatever is calling gets to the AC it needs at that time. Because while I'm cooking in the kitchen where the windows are and it's late in the day and there's a southwest Sun coming through the window, that needs more exposure than the north side of my house where my kid's bedroom is and he's not even there. Make sense? So it's not even necessarily getting a bigger unit, it's just directing the airflow or the demand to where it needs to go, which at that point is the kitchen. It's not the bedroom on the north corner. So instead of having the system come on and cool the whole house, You don't need to do that. You need it on the kitchen, you need it on the living room, and then at nighttime, guess what? We need it in the bedrooms. We don't need it in the kitchen and the living room because we're not there anymore. So it's really great too on upstairs-downstairs situation, you know, where they basically live downstairs and they go to sleep upstairs. Well, there's no reason to cool the up and down at the same time at midnight. When you're only going upstairs. So zoning is the answer. Zoning will fix the problem. I'm 100% certain it will fix the problem because we've done over 3,000 zoning jobs throughout the years. It's something we're used to doing. We recommend if you have any kind of challenge in one room or another, that is the answer. You put a sensor in that room, basically as Or you put what they call a smart sensor, which is basically a thermostat in that space to read the temperature. So that will solve your problem. No more fans, no more AC on high because AC's blowing. Well, guess what? Sally over here in her bedroom is freezing to death because mom is hot and dad's hot in the kitchen. Eliminates that problem. You have the same size unit, same size capacity. You're just taking that air and directing it that way. Make sense?

Yes, it does. I'm sure she will be happy.

That's the answer. I mean, that's what you need to do. So what we need to do is go over there and zone it out for you. Look, this would be zone 1, zone 2, zone 3, or 4, or 5, or 6, or— I mean, you can go up to whatever, how many zones you want. The most common we do is probably a 4-zone, where basically we cut the house into 4 different quadrants: 1, 2, 3, and 4. So say 1's the kitchen, 2 is the bedrooms, and 3 is the living room, and 4 is some other rooms. So you see, you just chop it up into basically demand. You know, this side of the house is pretty normal, This side gets the same exposure, this side has the same demand, so it's one zone. So the dining room and the living room is one zone. So hopefully it makes sense. There's a great article on LinkedIn by, I think his name's Derek Cole, about— it's called The Comfort Zone. It's called The Comfort Zone. So check it out. It's a whole little— it's only 2 minutes of a read. These aren't very long, drawn-out books. These are very short snippet articles, but it's about selling.

Do you want one?

Nah, I'm good. Boom! Episode 39 closed out, so the next show will be 40. Four-zero. Four-zero. So yeah, keep your questions coming. Hashtag it #AskDerekCole, Facebook, Twitter, all the social sites, or you can email in your questions as well. And every time we give you a call, if you have a question, feel free to ask.

Bye-bye.