This is an easy one. Yes it is!
I know that spending money in these economic times is not fun. Especially on a piece of equipment that you use maybe 3 to 4 months a year in Minnesota. However, it is the fact that we live in Minnesota that makes it even more important to have your air conditioner serviced every year.
Your air conditioner works by cooling refrigerant that circulates between a coil that sits in ductwork above your furnace and the condenser that sits outside your home. The idea is that heat is removed through this process by the big fan in the condenser and the coils in the condenser. Blockage of the fan or the coils causes a reduced air flow which does not allow the refrigerant to cool which causes the a/c to overheat and shut down or not reduce the heat in your house.
One of the ways Minnesota has an effect on your air conditioner is a result of cottonwood trees. Cottonwood trees start shedding in May or June. You probably don’t see the trees but, see cotton like floating things which make it look like it is snowing. These tend to get sucked into the outside of the a/c condenser covering the tiny coils. Leaving the coils covered will have a huge impact on the effectiveness and life cycle of your air conditioner. Even brand new air conditioners are effected by this. The condenser will be starved for air and you can actually feel how hot the air is if you put your hand above the a/c condenser.
Another way MN has an effect is the little amount of time you use your a/c. The most demanding use of the a/c is when it turns on. In Minnesota, this happens a lot. The air conditioner will come on and cool the house and then shut off many times. Unless we are in the 90′s and humid the a/c is not required to run non stop. We are just the opposite of states located on the west coast or southern part of the country. In those states the furnace behaves like our air conditioners if they have a furnace. It is very important that you have the proper refrigerant in your a/c. Proper refrigerant levels will help protect the compressor when it is turning on and does not have any fluid moving. Sort of like engine oil in your car. Proper refrigerant levels will also prevent the coil inside the house from freezing up which prevents cooling and could cause water leaking into your furnace. (This is another subject totally as to why this happens.)
The third way MN has an effect, is the air flow that is going over the coil can cover the coil with lint, dust or anything that the filter in your furnace that runs 6 or 7 months of the year doesn’t catch. Cleaning this coil will help the efficiency of your a/c by making the metal exposed to the air flow instead of being covered in a blanket of lint and dust.
So in review, YES, is the answer to Is Cleaning and Servicing My Air Conditioner Needed Every Year in MN. It is important that you have the following done every year:
- Have the condenser that is outside your house cleaned.
- Check refrigerant levels and pressures.
- Have your A coil that is in your home and sits above your furnace check or cleaned.
You will save big money if you do this every year in the spring by hiring a contractor while they are running specials. Or an even better deal is signing up for maintenance plan like our Service Partner Plan.
At Minneapolis Saint Paul Plumbing Heating Air, we can help you decide the best solutions for your home. Give us a call or email us for more information.
Happy Cooling!!!
Everybody loves to get something for free. The internet constantly barrages you with offers of free IPads, TV’s and vacations. Most people will look at it and say to themselves, “Yeah right”.
More and more people are asking for free over the phone estimates for plumbing service or heating service work. Some examples of homeowner requests are.
- My furnace will not work. What will it cost to fix it?
- I have a plumbing leak somewhere and I don’t know where. How much to fix it?
- I need a new water heater, but I don’t know if I have code issues or size or if it is the right one. How much to replace it?
- I don’t know the type or size of my waste disposal, but I would like a quote over the phone.
There are some things that are obvious and are easier to diagnose and give pricing. However, there might be bigger issues causing the obvious issue. For that reason a home visit by a plumber or hvac service technician is needed. A price can then be given to correctly fix the problem and any other issues that may be occurring.
An over the phone free estimate can cost you more than paying for a licensed plumber or heating contractor to come to your home and assess and provide an up front price. The free phone estimate is not in writing and is not given with a commitment to honor the price. This is due to the contractor not knowing the situation and thus not being able to give an informed estimate. The number will usually go up once the contractor is on site or worse yet, started the job for you.
Providing an estimate at your home is an expense for a contractor. A better question than “Do you provide free estimates?” is “How can you afford to do free estimates?”. The cost has to paid somehow. Either by increasing the price when the contractor gets to your home or cutting corners to save money. Another option is even worse for the homeowner. Service will be provided and paid for, but the contractor is nowhere to be found for warranty issues since they have gone out of business.
You can count on Minneapolis Saint Paul Plumbing Heating Air for superior service at a value locked in price. Give us a call or schedule online for your up front price for any plumbing, heating, drain cleaning, air conditioning service or replacement project you have.
We have a technician meeting every Tuesday at our office. This meeting includes plumber, hvac technicians, and drain cleaners. Along with the training on new product and technicques is a section of the meeting where the technicians tell us what they are seeing in homes. This could be what home owners are requesting along with issues with products that they are replacing.
The meeting today brought up a problem that is costing home owners money when they try to keep their home from flooding with water due to a broken hose. It was an example of good intentions leading to unintended results.
According to our plumbers, there are toilet supply lines that are being promoted as keeping your home safe from flooding if they break. They are designed to close and not allow water to pass if they detect a flow rate that is higher than normal. This is a great idea and product when it works. However, it does cause a problem when you need to shut off the water to the toilet and then turn it back on quickly. The quick turning on of the water to the toilet results in the supply hose thinking that there is a burst and shutting off. The hose then needs to be reset before it will operate correctly or allow any water to flow.
Home owners are calling us to come investigate the lack of water in their toilet. This call results in a service fee that is uncessary if care is taken to follow the reset directions of the hose. It could also be that these hoses were put on by another plumbing company without the customer’s knowledge. Either way a service call is the result.
In order to prevent the supply hose from locking up you need to turn on the water slowly. This will simulate the normal flow that happens when you flush the toilet.
Call Minneapolis Saint Paul Plumbing Heating Air if your toilet is not filling or is having any other problems.
The question that gets asked this time of year is “Do I need a furnace or boiler tune and check?” The answer always is “Yes, Yes you do.” If your next question is “Why?”, I will tell you because “It gets cold out there”.
I could bore you with efficiency claims and statistic about extending the life of your furnace or boiler for so many years. These are both great reasons to have your furnace or boiler checked every year and cleaned every couple of years. However, I don’t think they are most important reasons.
The most important reasons are Safety and Comfort. If you think about it, they will both ultimately mean comfort. Please let me explain.
A tune and check for your furnace or boiler will look at a number of things like:
- Carbon Monoxide Test
- Flame Sensor Cleaning
- Heat Exchanger Check
- Gas Pressure
- Temp Heat Rise
All these items are designed to make sure your furnace works safely and effectively for the winter. This means that you will not be without heat due to mechanical or safety issues. In turn you will stay comfortable and secure in the knowledge that you do not need to worry about those cold nights ahead in Minnesota.
Now is the time to find out if your furnace or boiler has issues that may prevent it from keeping you and your family warm this winter. Finding out later may result in delays in getting your furnace back up and running and could result in higher costs. You could also be without heat for a couple of days if your service company can not get to you due to the large volume of service calls. Not something you want to do when it is 20 degrees below zero in January.
Minneapolis Saint Paul Plumbing Heating Air is now offering a Furnace Tune and Check for $89.00. This is a savings of $40 off the normal price. You can schedule by calling us or scheduling online by clicking Clean and Tune Appt.
Back to School is Great Time to Think Water Efficiency!
By · CommentsBack to school time is a busy and exciting time of the year. New clothes and school supplies for the kids, visits to the new classroom, mom or dad trying to get the schedule under control and cold water.
Back to school means that everybody is trying to get ready in the morning at the same time. Your water heater becomes the most needed fixture in your home. Water efficiency can play a huge part in how quickly and comfortably you get ready in the morning. It is amazing how getting a cold shower in the morning can slow you down for the entire day.
Making your water go further helps save money and can help with your comfort also. Using less water in the shower helps the hot water to go further and allows the water heater time to recover from the hot water use. More hot water to keep more people happy and ready to go.
Below are some great way to help with water efficiency.
- Low Flow Shower Head – The old style shower head uses 3 to 5 gallons per minute (GPM). These are not available anymore but are still in homes. New low flow shower heads are 1.5 and 2.0 GPM. In a typical 10 minute shower you would use 30 to 50 gallons of water with the higher use shower head. The new shower heads would be 10.5 gallons to 20 gallons. How much of this would be hot water depends on how hot you like your shower. This also does not include the 30 seconds most people let the shower run to warm up.
- New Water Heater – A water heater over time will develop scale on the bottom. This scale reduces the amount of water in the tank and increases the amount of time that it takes to heat the water since it is trying to heat through the scale at the bottom of the tank. New water heaters are more efficient and the same size water heater can provide you with more hot water through quicker recovery time.
- Tankless Water Heater – Tankless water heaters or On Demand water heaters provide you with hot water when you need it. Water is heated at the time of need and does not sit in a tank heating over and over again waiting to be needed. How water does not run out since there isn’t a set amount that is heated in a tank.
These are just a few of the many ideas on how to save water and money. These ideas will have the most impact when you are trying to get the kids off to school while you get off to work.
For more ideas you can go to http://eartheasy.com/live_water_saving.htm. You can also contact Minneapolis Saint Paul Plumbing Heating Air with any questions or if you would like to learn more about what appliances or plumbing changes you can make in your home.
It can be very confusing when you are looking for a plumber online. Quite often you are in a hurry due to a plumbing leak or just need to get the plumbing service call scheduled and move on with your day. You are on Google search and putting in “Plumbers St Paul MN” to look for a contractor to help you out. You may even know the name of the company you are looking for but you don’t know the phone number or the website. This should be so easy. Wrong!!
The internet that was supposed to make life so much easier by putting information at your fingertips is also making it harder to know who you are contacting. It is easier to hide the true identity or name of a company on a website than it is in a phone book. You can make a website look like a competitors website and you as a consumer would not be able to know until a different truck showed up at your home. Some websites are actually companies trying to get interest in their services to provide a website for them.
Here are some tips on how to make sure you are contacting the plumbing company you think you are.
- Look for identifying clues to identity like a logo you recognize.
- Look for a company name like Minneapolis Saint Paul Plumbing Heating Air along with the physical address of the company.
- Ask the person who answers the phone if they are the company that you are trying to reach.
- Do not leave a message if there isn’t a live person answering. Some of the website are just advertising for people to buy the site.
- Listen to the name of the company when the phone is answered. Is it the same? Do they say the name or just a generic greeting?
Legitimate companies like Minneapolis Saint Paul Plumbing Heating Air do not need to fool the customer into calling. We rely on our reputation to distinguish us. Just like our up front pricing, we are up front with who we are and what you can expect from us.
You can reach us at 651-789-0628 for all your plumbing, heating, air conditioning, drain cleaning needs. You can also schedule an appointment online by clicking schedule service.
The Blue Oval and Ribbon Logo Is a Service Mark of Minneapolis Saint Paul Plumbing Heating Air.
Do you find making much needed home repairs taxing or frustrating? In a large sea of “Best Value” and “Lowest Price” it may be confusing to pick a service company that is sincere and offers quality work. We are not going to talk about limited time offers and restrictions that may apply, we are just going to give you the facts, plain and simple, and let you decide if we are the company for you.
- Quality Service
Minneapolis Saint Paul Plumbing Heating Air is owned and operated by a family, just like yours. We have been in the plumbing, heating and air conditioning business since 1918. With our combined experience , our company has over 100 years of knowledge. We are experts in residential installations and will thoroughly explain the diagnosis before we make any installations or repairs. We want you, as a homeowner, to be able to make an informed decision after we present your options to you.
Our plumbers and hvac technicians come from diverse backgrounds and each one has an impressive skill set. We are proud to say that we believe in lifelong learning and we require our technicians to attend training courses each week to learn new skills. We actually pay them to learn how to serve you better. Everybody wins.
Our plumbers and technicians wear a professional uniform and follow appearance standards so that you cannot mistake them for anyone else when they show up at your door. We do background checks on all of our technicians as a safety precaution. We understand as homeowners that it may be frightening to let someone you do not know into your home. At Minneapolis Saint Paul Plumbing Heating Air we would not send anyone to your house that we would not be comfortable letting into our own homes.
2. Quality Plumbing, Heating and Air Conditioning Products
At Minneapolis Saint Paul Plumbing Heating Air we do not believe in installing poor quality equipment or practicing “planned obsolescence”. There are some companies out there who will complete the job with the absolute lowest material and labor costs so that they can enjoy the highest profit possible. We are not one of them. We will only sell you high quality, long lasting parts, and they will be installed in the most professional manner. We want your repeat business legitimately, not because a product we sold you had a short life. It is important to us that our customers give positive recommendations about our company to other potential customers. In order for that to happen, we take care to deliver to our customers the products and experience that they deserve.
3. No Hidden Fees
Another benefit of choosing Minneapolis Saint Paul Plumbing Heating Air is that we do not charge extra for overtime. We have been known to work odd and late hours to ensure that our customers’ systems are repaired in a timely manner. We do not want you to sacrifice comfort for quality. We understand how upsetting it can be to go without modern conveniences like plumbing, heating, air conditioning, especially when looking out for the well being of your family. So, we will not expect you to pay a dime more than you would during conventional office hours. We will even work around your schedule.
4. Guaranteed Fixed Pricing
After diagnosing your system, we provide a fixed, guaranteed price for the repair or installation. No tricks. No gimmicks. There will be no surprises or hidden fees. Our prices take into account all the costs of operating a business, from servicing our trucks, to building operation fees, employee salaries, benefits, and more. Our prices are carefully calculated and never arbitrary. We believe in the right prices for the right quality.
5. Community
Minneapolis Saint Paul Plumbing Heating Air is a proud member of the Nexstar Network, Service Roundtable, BBB, ACCA and actively participates in conferences, trade shows, and other educational events. The purpose of attending these events is to network with other service companies to determine best practices. We also attend to learn about cutting edge products that will benefit our customers. If there is a product out there that will improve your comfort, save you money, or make your life a little easier, we will be the first to tell you all about it.
We also firmly believe in giving back to our community. We support the Ronald McDonald Homes of the Upper Midwest and the Animal Humane Society. Through service and monetary giving, we help these great organizations that help people and animals in need. We believe the best measure of a company is not what they claim, but their actions towards their customers and their community.
Contact us if you have any questions or would like to know more about saving money with Minneapolis Saint Paul Plumbing Heating Air.
I received a call yesterday from a homeowner who had a new air conditioner installed by another HVAC contractor in his Coon Rapids, MN home. He was concerned that it was not keeping his main level cool and his basement was freezing. I asked him if a heat calculation was done one his home to make sure the air conditioner was sized correctly. He said something that I hear far too often from homeowners who have other hvac contractors perform new installs. His response was “I don’t know.”
The homeowner had a rambler with older windows and a big patio door in a room that faced south. He said he was unable to get the temperature on the main level to a comfortable level. He had a 2000 sq ft home with a 2 ton a/c. While this may have been the right size for a a 2 story house with new windows it is not satisfying his application. That is why a heat calculation on all new installations is critical.
A heat calculation that is prepared by the person performing an estimate is a best practice procedure. Some cities including St. Paul and Minneapolis require it before approving a permit for install of furnaces and air conditioners. A heat calculation is used to see how much heating or cooling your house needs based on many calculations including, size of home, windows, levels, duct runs, insulation factor.
In this instance, the house had a long run of duct work due to being a rambler. The air is not reaching the ends of the house. Another example of this would be a 4 level split. The a/c may need to be larger due to the longer duct run and the need to increase the blower to push the air. The faster the air moves the less cooling is coming out of the vent. This results in the need of a larger a/c unit and coil to make sure the air gets to the cool level that is required.
Bottom line is that a heat calculation is needed to take into account exceptions to the perfect install. Ask the salesmen who are visiting your home if they are preparing a heat calculation. If they say no ask them how they will arrive at the right size equipment for your home.
Comfort consultants from Minneapolis Saint Paul Plumbing Heating Air will always do a heat calculation on your home before they will decide what is best for your application.
Call or contact us online if you would like to have one of our consultants provide you with a free in home estimate.
A recurring question that I hear our customer service reps receive is, “Where is your office?”. I catch myself asking why does it matter? I then remember that for a number of plumbing, heating and air companies it does matter to the customer. That is because they have drive time to the customers location included in their time and material calculation. This means that when they quote the price for the first hour it means you may only get 15 minutes in house because it took him 45 minutes to get there.
At Minneapolis Saint Paul Plumbing Heating Air, we don’t believe when you need a plumber or hvac technician for an emergency service call you should worry about where the plumber is coming from. You have enough concern and you don’t need to start thinking how much the cost will be just to have him drive to your house and how much time he will have to look at your issue.
There are a number of plumbing, heating and air companies like Minneapolis Saint Paul Plumbing Heating Air that now have a flat fee for coming to your home and accessing your needs no matter where you live or where the techs last call was. This way you know what the cost will be to have your plumbing, heating or air conditioning service need addressed and options for the fix or need.
Give us a call when you have a service need for your home. We will come out for one low fee and give you options for the repair or remodeling need.
You just come home from work or you have been outside working away in the yard or playing at the park. You could have sworn that you had the air conditioner switched on, but it is hot, humid or both in your house. This is a very frustrating situation that can turn a good day into a not so good day.
The 3 big reasons for this situation are:
- Undersized Air Conditioner Condenser
- Over sized Air Conditioner Condenser
- Frozen Evaporator Coil or A Coil
If your air conditioner is running and you are getting warm air instead of cool air, you probably have a frozen evaporator coil. This coil sits in the duct work above your furnace. The coil becomes frozen when there isn’t enough freon or refrigerant in the system. A leak in the system is the most common cause of this problem. Having a licensed HVAC company check for a leak and fill your a/c system will solve this problem.
A bigger problem is when you are getting cool air and it is too hot or humid in the house. You then have two questions to answer.
- Does the air conditioner run all the time?
- Does the air conditioner run and then shut off after a short period of time?
If you answer yes to the first question, your a/c is probably undersized. This can result from remodeling and putting on additional square footage. Another reason is that too small of a central air unit was installed.
The problem you will have is that the only time it will stop running is when the outside cools down. This does not happen until much later in the day in the summer. Your utility bill will overheat just as much as you are.
If you answered yes to the second question, then your a/c is too big. You will usually feel this by the dampness that is in the air along with the cool in the air. The air conditioner is not running long enough for the humidity to be sucked out of the air. You will get cool, but it will not be a comfortable cool.
For a comfortable and cool summer, have your air conditioner checked by a licensed HVAC contractor like Minneapolis Saint Paul Plumbing Heating Air. You will have the the comfort of mind that you are ready for a hot and humid summer in Minnesota.