An air conditioner doesn’t add coolness to the inside of your house; it removes heat. What’s left behind when you take out the heat energy is a cool, comfortable home.

The components that make heat transfer happen are the evaporator and condenser coils. Since these coils are continuously exposed to both indoor and outdoor fan-driven airflow, they easily accumulate layers of dirt and dust that degrade optimal heat transfer. In addition, passages inside the indoor evaporator coil are constantly damp with condensation. Airborne mold spores can find a perfect breeding ground in those wet coil passages. Mold growth inside an evaporator coil can eventually obstruct airflow through the coil.

While the outdoor condenser coil can be washed down with a garden hose to remove external dust accumulation, do-it-yourself methods seldom reach the interior coil passages where dust and dirt inhibit heat transfer. The indoor evaporator coil is even more problematic. Installed inside the air handler, the coil is often a sealed component that’s not user accessible. The expertise of an HVAC technician is required to access the evaporator coil for inspection and cleaning.

Here are some of the methods a professional will use to clean dirty A/C coils:

• Low pressure air blown through the coil and use of a soft brush can remove minor accumulations. More stubborn deposits require application of special solvents designed for coil cleaning.
• Small low-pressure steam cleaners are also utilized in some cases.
• Pump sprayers can be used to infuse foaming coil cleaner into the interior of the coil. The coil is then flushed clean with fresh water.
• Pressure washers combined with a pre-application of coil cleaning solvents are increasingly the choice of professionals. These are followed by pressure rinsing with clean water.

Jon Wayne Heating & Cooling has been San Antonio’s premier source of HVAC sales and service since 2001. Ask us about professional services to clean your dirty A/C coils just in time for another long cooling season.

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An air conditioner tune-up only takes an hour or so. But, it pays off every day of the coming cooling season with lower operating costs and increased performance and reliability.

Here’s a typical procedure performed by an experienced field technician:

• Change the air filter. You can and should do this yourself monthly for the rest of the summer. Just ask the tech to show you how.
• Inspect the evaporator coil for buildup of dirt or mold. Clean if necessary.
• Lubricate the blower fan and check the fan belt for wear and proper tension.
• Tighten all electrical connections.
• At the outdoor unit, check the level of system refrigerant. If it’s low, perform a leak detection procedure.
• Clean outdoor condenser coil of dust and debris like leaves and grass clippings.
• Check operation of the compressor start-and-run capacitors.
• Measure the amperage draw of the compressor.
• Cut back weeds or other growth encroaching on the condenser vents to clear a 2-foot space on all sides.
• Restart the system and make sure all supply and return vents in the home are open and unobstructed.
• Measure the temperature rise between the supply vents and the return vents and compare to manufacturer’s recommendations.
• Compare the thermostat reading to actual room temperature and calibrate the thermostat if necessary.

Jon Wayne Heating & Air Conditioning is San Antonio’s largest resource for quality HVAC sales and service. Call today and schedule an air conditioner tune-up to ensure savings and cool comfort all summer.

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Heat pumps cool and heat your home by transferring heat energy from indoors to outdoors and vice versa. Both indoor and outdoor components of a heat pump must operate in harmony to get the performance and efficiency promised by the manufacturer’s specs.

While the average homeowner can perform certain small tasks himself, the sophisticated technology involved usually requires that heat pump maintenance and troubleshooting procedures be performed by a trained HVAC technician. Here’s what’s involved in a professional maintenance call:

• Change the air filter. This is one of the items you can handle yourself. Take the opportunity to ask the technician to show you how it’s done and then change it yourself on a monthly basis, as needed.
• Check the indoor coil and clean it if required. There are usually additional charges to remove, clean and re-install an indoor coil.
• Lubricate the blower motor if it has non-sealed bearings and check the tightness and wear of the blower fan belt if applicable. Most current blowers are direct drive and do not have fan belts.
• Inspect all wiring for signs of overheating and make sure all electrical connections are intact.
• Test the operation of controls that shift the heat pump from heating to cooling modes and vice versa.
• Verify the level of refrigerant charge in the system. If it’s low, that usually indicates a leak. The technician can use leak-detection equipment to pinpoint it.
• Outdoors, cut back encroaching weeds or other vegetation around the vent grilles of the outside coil cabinet. This is one that you can perform.
• Clean dust, leaves and any other debris from the outdoor coil.
• Lubricate the coil fan and check the condition and tension of the fan belt.
• Measure refrigerant pressure and temperature differences on both sides of the compressor.
• Check the operation of the indoor thermostat. Compare the room temperature reading on the thermostat to a mercury thermometer and calibrate the thermostat if required.

In San Antonio, homeowners rely on Jon Wayne Heating & Air Conditioning for dependable HVAC sales and service year-round. Call us to schedule a heat pump maintenance tune-up now, before the summer cooling season really arrives.

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It’s important to vet a contractor’s skill level and training before inviting one into your home to work on your costly, valued heating and cooling equipment. Affiliations and certifications do just that: They show you the value that a contractor places on various aspects of the business that increase quality and superior craftsmanship.

Check these affiliations and certifications when it comes time to hire an HVAC contractor:

• Air Conditioning Contractors of America (ACCA), a nonprofit organization that supports consumers and contractors alike. The ACCA offers a variety of resources to make HVAC contractors, and their customers, successful through legal, technical and energy-efficiency assistance. They also support consumers by offering financial information, quality checklists and more.
• North American Technician Excellence (NATE), the leading HVAC certification program nationwide, sets technicians apart with its certification program. Instead of testing on product-specific knowledge, like many other certification programs, NATE tests on the wide array of knowledge technicians encounter on a daily basis, and testing is rigorous: Technicians must pass core and specialty tests, and recertify every five years.
• Excellence awards offered by manufacturers. For instance, Bryant, a leading manufacturer of heating, cooling and indoor air quality equipment, extends its Medal of Excellence only to contractors who show evidence of the highest customer satisfaction, based on third-party tests. This medal is bestowed upon contractors who have paved the way for innovation and consistent, superior workmanship, and as a result, have become the leading HVAC contractor around.

Need to hire an HVAC Contractor? Jon Wayne Heating & Air Conditioning holds these and many more affiliations and certifications. And we’re proud of our multiple Medal of Excellence awards as a Factory Authorized Bryant Dealer. We’re happy to discuss the affiliations and certifications we’ve picked up along the road to becoming the area’s largest, full-service heating and cooling provider in San Antonio and the surrounding communities, including New Braunfels, Seguin, Bulverde and Boerne.

Our goal is to help educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).  For more information about other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.

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Preventive maintenance plans, generally offered by many HVAC contractors to their customers, offer homeowners significant benefits, at no additional cost. Jon Wayne Heating & Air Conditioning, the largest, full-service residential heating and cooling contractor in the greater San Antonio area, offers homeowners unparalleled benefits, just for committing annually to a service that your heating and cooling equipment needs anyway.

Here’s what our preventive maintenance plan, Rescue Club, includes:

• A precision tune-up for your heating system in the fall, with a comprehensive inspection and cleaning, with special care taken to ensure the safe operation of your gas furnace
• A precision tune-up for your cooling system in the spring, with a comprehensive inspection and cleaning
• Priority service. When you call Jon Wayne for service or repairs, we bump you to the head of the line, before we service non-Rescue Club members.
• Loyalty credits. For each year that you are an active Rescue Club member, you’ll receive $50 in credit. Your accumulated loyalty credits may be applied to the purchase price of your next HVAC system.
• A promise to never charge you overtime for work performed should your system require repairs
• System replacement discounts. We guarantee that you’ll receive the best discount we offer when you need to replace your furnace, air conditioner or heat pump, combined with loyalty credits that you’ve accumulated.

It just doesn’t make sense to ignore the value that preventive maintenance plans offer. While you get real-time savings in terms of dollars, along with quality service, you’ll also benefit by:

• Longer equipment service life – Regular maintenance helps your equipment last longer, because it can operate unhindered by dirt, which increases wear and tear and system failure.
• Lower energy costs – A clean, fully inspected system operates at its peak, ensuring that your energy bills stay low.

Need more information about our valuable preventive maintenance plan? Just give the experts at Jon Wayne Heating & Air Conditioning a call today. We offer quality HVAC services to the San Antonio area and surrounding communities including Seguin, New Braunfels, Bulverde and Boerne.

Our goal is to help educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).  For more information about other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.

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Here’s what your technician should be doing during a heating system tune-up:

• Checking the ductwork system for leaks, and sealing them as necessary
• Testing the airflow through the heating system and the ducts
• Calibrating the thermostat
• Cleaning the burners
• Checking the heat exchanger
• Verifying the safety of the venting system
• Checking the gas pressure (for gas-powered furnaces)
• Testing the unit for correct refrigerant charge, and looking for leaks (for heat pumps)
• Lubricating moving parts
• Checking system controls, ensuring that the cooling function is locked out during heating mode
• Inspecting the motor’s belts and bearings
• Checking the electrical terminals

With a comprehensive inspection and thorough cleaning of your heating system, you can rest assured that it’s ready to go once cooler weather hits, and that it can perform consistently over the winter season. One final perk? An extension of its life span. Without regular maintenance, the heating system’s components will wear out sooner, ultimately leading to a breakdown or system failure, a factor you can largely avoid with regular tune-ups.

Safety – Peace of Mind –  is the most important benefit to having your system checked by a certified technician. One of the biggest differences between air conditioners and furnaces is what happens when they break. Your air conditioner stops cooling…but a gas furnace can keep on heating even if the heat exchanger is cracked or the flue system is allowing deadly carbon monoxide to enter your home.

Essential tasks for homeowners

You can’t rest on your laurels, however, knowing that you’ve had a heating system tune-up performed. You must also engage in these maintenance steps, which will help to keep your furnace or heat pump in peak condition over the season:

• Change the air filter when it appears dingy or dirty.
• Keep debris away from a heat pump’s outdoor unit, ensuring adequate airflow.
• Check that the supply vents and return grilles are unobstructed.

Give your heating system the best fighting chance possible to operate efficiently and last longer. With a heating system tune-up, you’ll also get the benefit of superior home comfort throughout the cold winter. For more information, or to schedule a tune-up, contact Jon Wayne Heating & Air Conditioning today. We have been helping homeowners in the greater San Antonio area with quality HVAC services since the 1970s.

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When A/C coils freeze, there could be a simple solution to the problem; however, more complicated scenarios may have caused the freezing. Before you call a pro, it pays to investigate the source of the problem.

The evaporator coil is prone to freezing, primarily because it transfers heat, or evaporates it, from the indoor to the outdoor air. In the process, it also drains a lot of condensation. When problems occur, this condensation can form a block of ice around the coil, causing it to freeze. At this point, the air conditioner won’t work anymore.

Four primary factors lead to the A/C coils freezing up:

• A dirty filter
• A dirty coil
• Too little airflow
• Low refrigerant

Regardless of the cause, frozen coils prohibit heat from dissipating as it moves over the coil, the coil becomes overcooled, and condensation and ice can form. Follow these steps to troubleshoot coil freeze:

• Shut down the A/C by setting the thermostat to “off.”
• Check the filter. If it’s dirty, it’s likely restricting airflow. Install a new filter, and turn the A/C back on. If the filter was the problem, the coils should begin to thaw, and the air conditioner should begin running soon.

If the problem does not resolve itself, other factors to consider include:

• A wet filter may indicate that the coils are frozen, as the large amount of condensate is averting the drain pan.
• The coil itself is likely dirty, which can inhibit heat transfer as well as airflow.
• Refrigerant levels may be too low.

In the case of a wet filter, dirty coil or low refrigerant, it’s best to let a professional diagnose the problem.

If you need help with A/C coils freezing up, contact Jon Wayne Heating & Air Conditioning. For almost 40 years, our experts have served homeowners in the greater San Antonio area with quality HVAC services, installation and repairs. Give us a call today.

Our goal is to help educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).  For more information about air conditioners and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.

Jon Wayne Heating and Air Conditioning services  San Antonio and the surrounding communities of Seguin, New Braunfels, Bulverde, Boerne, and Comal County.  Visit our website to see our special offers to get started today!

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Manufacturers assign a specific life span to equipment like furnaces, air conditioners and heat pumps, according to tests and efficiency-verification processes designed to outline a product’s useful service life. Homeowners can often extend, or at least adhere to, these estimations simply by scheduling annual preventive maintenance.

According to a report conducted by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, based on reports by manufacturers and industry experts, homeowners can expect the following life spans:

• Central air conditioner: 15 years
• Furnace: 18 years
• Air-source heat pump: 15 years

Here’s how to create an environment that’s conducive to extending HVAC system life span with regular tune-ups:

• A tune-up allows the technician to remove dirt buildup from within the HVAC system. Whether you are using a heat pump, furnace or central air conditioner (the most common types of home systems in the greater San Antonio area), dirt that builds up inside of the equipment can lead to serious problems. Dirt on the coil slows down heat transfer, reducing the capacity of the system to heat, cool and dehumidify the home, as well as increasing energy consumption. When dirt rests on the air handler’s fan blades, it can create an imbalance, leading to increased energy use and poor air delivery.
• A tune-up gives the technician the opportunity to replace worn parts before wear and tear cause a complete system breakdown. Worn belts and low lubrication lead to wear and tear within the motor, causing friction between parts, which not only increases energy consumption and the costs to operate the HVAC equipment, but also leads to quicker deterioration within the system. Replacing worn components early on wards off system failure, as well as ensuring efficient system operation.
• Keep your air filters clean. They not only help provide cleaner air for you to breathe within your home, they also protect the equipment from airborne dirt. Cleaning the indoor coil of your AC system is not part of normal maintenance and can be expensive.

Now that you know the simple secret to extending HVAC system life span, contact Jon Wayne Heating & Air Conditioning today to schedule a preventive maintenance appointment. We’re always happy to help our greater San Antonio-area neighbors improve system efficiency and home comfort.

Our goal is to help educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).  For more information about other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.

Jon Wayne Heating and Air Conditioning services  San Antonio and the surrounding communities of Seguin, New Braunfels, Bulverde, Boerne, and Comal County.  Visit our website to see our special offers to get started today!

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The industry standard for calculating the load is the Air Conditioning Contractors of America’s (ACCA) Manual J method. By not having new equipment sized, homeowners may decrease their return on investment. Oversizing or undersizing a furnace or air conditioner can lead to a host of problems, such as increased energy consumption, poor dehumidification and decreased system life span.

Avoid working with a contractor who sizes the new equipment simply by selecting the same size as the existing system – or even up or down sizing based solely on the existing equipment…without making any scientific calculations (square footage is only a small part of the equation).

A number of factors come into play here: The original equipment may not have been correctly sized in the first place; and upgrades to the home, such as improved insulation, may change the size of equipment needed, because insulation upgrades lower the heating/cooling load of the home. U.S. Department of Energy studies reveal that more than half of all HVAC contractors do not size equipment correctly.

To achieve a good return on investment when installing new equipment, the contractor should utilize the Manual J method, which takes into account:

• The total area of ceilings, walls, floors and windows
• The effectiveness of existing insulation
• The amount of air leakage in the building’s structure
• The efficiency of the ductwork system
• The orientation of the building
• The color of the roof’s surface
• Occupant comfort preferences and patterns of home usage
• Equipment that generates heat within the home

With the load calculation completed, the technician will know the precise amount of heating and cooling required for the home. He or she can then match that load to the capacity of the furnace, air conditioner or heat pump, ensuring efficient operations, lower energy bills and a more comfortable home. Homeowners may also choose to make upgrades to improve the heating and/or cooling load of the home prior to installation.

Don’t leave the sizing method of your newly installed equipment to chance, or an inexperienced or non-caring contractor. Contact Jon Wayne Heating & Air Conditioning today, and one of our experts will be happy to conduct the proper load calculation for your home. We are proud to help the community of greater San Antonio, and we’ve been doing so since the mid 1970s.

Our goal is to help educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).  For more information about other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.

Jon Wayne Heating and Air Conditioning services  San Antonio and the surrounding communities of Seguin, New Braunfels, Bulverde, Boerne, and Comal County.  Visit our website to see our special offers to get started today!

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Our commitment to training grew from our strong belief that a well-trained HVAC technician can meet the demands of today’s homeowners for superior installation, expert repairs and effective preventive maintenance.

Learn more about the rigorous training process, which ultimately makes choosing an HVAC contractor easy:

• Instructors – The training sessions are taught by the area’s leading HVAC professionals, who in turn pass down critical system information, technology upgrades and more to the technicians. Combined, our top instructors hold decades of experience with air conditioning technology, installation, repairs and maintenance.
• Course work – The rigorous course work at the Academy includes training in air conditioning 101, air conditioning electrical components, air conditioning mechanical and installation practices. Over the course of weeks or days, technicians-in-training learn the ins and outs of how air conditioning systems work, including heat pumps, comprised of detailed knowledge of electric circuitry and application, refrigeration technology, thermodynamics, soldering and brazing, and best installation practices, as well as heating systems.
• Real-time training – Our 1,370-square-foot lab offers technicians unparalleled access to hands-on learning, which translates to highly advanced and trained technicians — right out of the gate — because the technicians experience the technical scenarios they’ll meet in the field, under the careful tutelage of our instructors.

Originally, Jon Wayne built the academy out of the need to train our own technicians and to promote excellence in every facet of our business. While the academy is open to other technicians, we continue to use its resources on a daily basis to update our own technicians on advancements in technologies, changes in refrigerant laws and more, as one of the many ways we are able to offer homeowners the best services in heating, cooling and air distribution.

Jon Wayne Heating & Air Conditioning makes the process of choosing an HVAC contractor in San Antonio easy. Contact us today for more information about our technical excellence.

Our goal is to help educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).  For more information about other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.

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