#AskDerekCole Episode 46: Is My Unit Efficient

Hey, this is Derrick Cole. Welcome to Episode 46 of the Ask Derrick Cole Show, answering your home energy and heating and air questions. It's been a good week so far. It feels really good outside. Not good for business. Let's be honest about it. When it feels good outside, I'm suffering inside, just for you to know. So with that, let's get right into the questions.

My furnace will start up, and when it gets ready to start blowing the warm air, it turns off and doesn't blow at all. It makes a humming sound, so you know there is electricity to the unit. There is an off switch that I have to flip a few times, and then the blower starts. This happens several times. It has an electric pilot and runs on propane.

Yeah, so you want to get that checked out because that sounds like an issue. Um, a few things could be happening. It sounds First thing, sounds like you mentioned the pilot, so you probably have a good idea. It doesn't sound like the flame's actually lighting, so you could have the pilot could be dirty, it might need cleaning, or it could not be working at all. So you need to check that out and make sure that's happening. It does need maintenance. Now with those Today's furnaces have glow pilots, or I mean, there's not like a flame pilot anymore. It glows, gets really hot, and then when it gets ready to light, you know, ignites the gas. So you're good to go on that one. But what happens to those get cracked, those, they might need sanding, they might need a little maintenance as far as cleaning, and that sounds like it could be an issue as well. Or if it is lighting and then turning right off, you could be having a pressure, gas pressure problem. So one of the pressure switches might be turning it back off for your safety. So a few different things could be happening with that. You need to get it checked out by a professional for sure because it does sound like you're having some issues. All right. Does that make sense? That makes sense. Periscope. Okay, is your thing— is your mic on?

Yep. Okay, why did my unit tell me to wait when I manually lowered the thermostat and then took 5 minutes to turn on?

The last time I checked, I don't think there's like a wait Flashing light that happens on thermostats, I'm not really sure. No, but what happens is between the time your unit turns on and gets the call, there's usually a delay depending on the type of unit, if there's a power outage, but the compressor has a built-in delay in it. That way it don't start and then stop. It's for a safety protection. You probably waited about 5 minutes because that compressor had the signal to call to come on and then it was in its stage of coming on. So that was probably why that was. Now when the power goes off, you're going to have that 5-minute delay as well. So if your power goes off and then comes back on, you're like, "Where's the cool air at?" Well, it's making sure the power's going to stay on and then it turns it back on because it don't want to—. It doesn't want to turn on and then turn off. That's not good for the compressor. It's not good for the system. So you're going to have that built-in time delay, as they call it. See, little air quotes, time delay. It's built into your system, but it's for the components and for your protection because they don't want to damage any of the components.

How can you tell if your unit is still operating efficiently?

The power bill is a good way to tell if it's operating efficiently, but I would get it serviced twice a year because again, I think I've said it before, but if you go to epa.gov, look it up, 1/20th of an inch of dirt, it can cause up to a 21% inefficiency in your unit. So if you just bought a 13 SEER base product, it, but you don't clean it for the next 2 years, it's not a 13 SEER unit anymore. So it's not as efficient as it could be. So these units cost quite a bit of money. It's quite a bit of investment. So you want to keep protecting your investment by having it serviced and maintained and cleaned because the systems of today are not like the systems 25, 30 years ago that could withstand that kind of buildup. They had thick copper. Efficiency was not a big concern 25, 30 years ago. You can see it in the home building. I mean, the houses built 30 years ago versus the houses built today, the ones today are a lot tighter, more energy efficient. The units are the same way. So any little bit of dirt, dust, debris can affect the efficiency. But if you see your power bill start creeping up, That's kind of a good indication, as well as just walk outside and look at your unit. I mean, if you got grass clippings all on the coil and everything, it's not operating efficiently because it's having to overcome that dirt and debris to transfer the heat, and that is costing you more money.

Do you want to do the last one? Do you want to do it for— you're only at 5 minutes.

Yeah, is it in the chat?

It was just like the clip. Okay, this was my question. Oh, what does that metal—

we got a homemade question—

slash vent in my house do, and should I use it? Remember the one I found out in the ceiling? Metal thing when you turn it on, it goes—

I asked you to get the mic.

Yeah, so, what does that metal fan or vent in my house do, and should I use it?

She has bought an older home, correct? Just renting it. Oh, renting an older home. Okay, so what that is, is in the old days, black and white, no color, In the old days, you would open a window or doors and you would turn that switch on. It would bring air into the home, so it would make it more— I don't want to say windy, but what's the term?

It would make it windy in the house? No. It sucks.

It creates a draft almost. Draft. Yes, it is creating a draft in your house so you can cool down because in those days a lot of people didn't use air conditioning. And that kind of goes back to my first point about older homes versus new homes because older homes are kind of built for that, you know, innate kind of breeze or draftiness because again, they were not really concerned about being energy efficient as today's houses are less efficient. Today's houses are not going to have that. If you open a window, good luck, because the breeze is not going to go through the house. It's just not going to work the same way it did 30 years ago. So that is why you have that. They also have those little switches for electric heat in the older homes. If you want to talk about something to really jack up your light bill, turn that baby on. I would Unless you want to go back to colonial times, wear the outfits, play dress-up, you probably don't want to turn it on. Plus it's very loud. Yeah, plus this is southeastern North Carolina. I mean, do you really want humid, wet air coming through your home? No, you want the air conditioning, which is the conditioned air. Dehumidified, more comfortable. So that technology is not really used anymore. That makes sense. Yeah.

All right.

Yeah, you know, if you want to dress up and do it like a colonial day, you'd like a little pilgrim dance. Yeah, do a little colonial day. I mean, you could turn it on. And actually, back then they probably have electricity, so if you want to be like really authentic, just open the windows and turn lights off and You go for it. Did they have houses back then?

I'm pretty sure they did.

Why are you asking me? I don't know. So if you really want to go to the extreme, I mean, stones and mud, I think. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, go camping. Yeah, you know why I didn't go camping as a kid? Because my parents loved me. That's why I didn't go camping. I'm just kidding. For you guys out there, I like camping. That's fine, that's your deal. Um, but that's your deal. But they asked me one day, um, do you go camping? I'm like, does it look like I go camping? No, not on purpose. All right, so this is— this has been a weird one, but episode 46 in the books. Uh, keep asking your questions, hashtag #AskDerekCole, and we'll get them on the show.