There’s no doubt that spring can bring along with it some nasty storms. From heavy rainfall to strong wind gusts, there’s always the possibility of an electrical power surge on your local grid. One of the best investments you can make to protect your HVAC system is a whole-home surge protector.
What Are Power Surges?
Power surges can happen when too much energy gets sent through your power line. This can overload the electronics in your HVAC system and can cause overheating, an electrical fire, and even permanent damage. There’s no doubt that power surges can be quite costly to deal with if you don’t have adequate protection. No one wants to imagine their new HVAC system being permanently damaged because of an unexpected power surge.
What Is a Surge Protector?
A surge protection device is specifically designed to absorb excess energy from your home’s power supply to prevent it from damaging your electrical system, appliances, and components in your home. It works to reroute that excess energy to your home’s grounding system, typically a grounding rod, that disperses the excess energy into the ground.
What Is a Whole-Home Surge Protector?
Most people are familiar with a power strip surge protector for things like protecting televisions, gaming systems, computers, and other sensitive electronics. However, these aren’t as effective as whole-home systems. A whole-home surge protector gets installed directly at your panel box so that it can catch any power surge coming in from your main power line.
This type of device works to protect your electrical system, electronics, appliances, and everything you have plugged into your home’s electrical outlets. Investing in a whole-home surge protection device can help to drastically minimize the possibility of your HVAC system experiencing damage from a power surge.
Ensure Peak Conditions for Your Condenser Unit
One of the most essential components of a home air conditioning system as well as a heat pump is the outdoor condenser unit. Because this unit sits outside, it’s susceptible to storm damage. From impact damage to flooding, there are many different aspects of storm damage that you want to prevent your condenser unit from experiencing.
One of the best things you can do is create an ideal environment for your unit to sit in. You want to make sure that it’s off the ground, on blocks, so that it won’t be susceptible to flooding damage. Make sure that it sits level on the blocks for optimal performance. It’s important to trim back any low-hanging branches or shrubbery that are within close distance to your outdoor condenser unit. The idea is to minimize the surrounding environment that can cause falling or impact damage to your unit.
You may even want to invest in some sort of barrier system around your outdoor condenser unit to help stop flying debris. This can be exceedingly helpful for keeping excess debris, like leaves and twigs, away from the outside of your condenser unit. Just be sure to set the fence or other barrier back at least three feet from each side of your unit to allow optimal airflow so that your system can function at its peak efficiency level.
There are special barrier systems that are comprised of metal netting that can be installed around your unit to help protect it from any flying debris while still allowing adequate airflow. It’s important to choose one that is appropriately sized for your specific condenser unit to ensure that it promotes enough open space for essential system operations.
Don’t Forget Annual Maintenance
Apart from just protecting your air conditioning system from potential storm damage, spring is also the perfect time of year to get it ready for the upcoming summer season. One of the most important things you need to do is schedule professional AC maintenance services. This service is where one of our technicians will come out and inspect, clean, and test all of the components of your system to ensure that they’re working at their peak efficiency level.
This service is great for detecting potential problems with your system so that they can be repaired before the summer season starts. Additionally, annual maintenance service is typically a requirement to maintain the warranty coverage on your air conditioning system. It’s also great for extending the overall longevity of your system and ensuring that it’s working at its peak efficiency level. Furthermore, you won’t be wasting money on higher-than-normal energy bills throughout the summer months.
Program Your Thermostat
Another great tip for the spring season is to go ahead and program your thermostat for optimal temperature settings. Ideally, you’ll want to set the temperature higher at times when you’re not going to be home, such as when you’re at work. This will help to ensure that your air conditioning system runs less often during these hours to help save money on your energy bills.
Upgrading to a smart thermostat can come along with some other added conveniences that you can take advantage of. Many smart thermostats have learning technology where they will pay attention to your energy usage and setting changes and optimize them to better fit your needs. These thermostats connect wirelessly to your smartphone so that you can alter your thermostat settings regardless of where you’re physically at.
Put in a New Air Filter
Spring is also the perfect time of year to go ahead and replace the filter inside your HVAC system. This filter is very important for helping to catch airborne particles before they make it to the internal components of your system. It’s also ideal for enhancing the quality of air inside your home. If you or another member of your household suffers from asthma, a respiratory condition, or even allergies, you may want to consider investing in a filter with a high MERV rating.
While this filter will be more expensive to purchase, it works to filter out more airborne contaminants than typical air filters. This will go a long way in reducing the amount of allergens inside your home so you can experience fewer flare-ups.
Check Air Vents and Consider Duct Cleaning
Another great way to help prepare your air conditioning system for the warmer weather is to check all the air vents in your home. You want to ensure that every vent is open and that there’s no grime or dust buildup on the vent grates. You’ll also want to verify that nothing is blocking the vent as it needs around 3 feet of open space to operate optimally.
If you notice that the inside of your ductwork seems to be gathering a lot of dust and other debris, you may want to consider investing in duct cleaning services. This is where one of our professionals will come out and thoroughly clean the inside of your ducting to remove that debris buildup. We can even perform duct sealing services to help seal up any leaks in your ducting that can allow your conditioned air to escape.
Expert Surge Protection Service
From Southside to the Fan, Church Hill, and beyond, Davis & Green offers expert electrical services to the Richmond, VA community. We can also help with all your plumbing, HVAC, generator, and handyman needs. Simply call us today to book your next service consultation.
