Can an Electric Furnace Keep My House Warm Enough?

January 24th, 2022
heating-element

If you’re asking this question, it’s likely because you’re accustomed to receiving warmth from a natural gas furnace, or you know that natural gas furnaces have high heating capacity and work fast at delivering warmth to homes. This makes it sound like an electric furnace is the weaker option, one that can’t meet a home’s demands when the outdoor temperature is intensely cold—which describes plenty of our winter days and nights!

Although we recommend natural gas furnaces to homes that have a connection to a municipal gas line, there is no reason why installing an electric furnace in Campbell River, BC can’t provide you and your family with the warmth you need. For an all-electric house, an electric furnace is a perfectly viable choice. In fact, electric furnaces do have several benefits to consider.

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Reasons to Be Glad You Have a Boiler

January 10th, 2022
boiler-with-venting-pipes

Tired of the cold? Or maybe you love the cold—as long as you have a snug place to escape to after a romp in the snow.

Either way, you’re probably glad you have a boiler in Parksville, BC for your home. Boilers provide radiant heating rather than forced-air heating, and there are several terrific things about radiant heating. Below are five reasons to be glad you have a boiler!

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Is It Time to Replace Your Old Fireplace?

December 27th, 2021
fireplace

A fireplace is a sturdy centerpiece in many homes. If your house enjoys the warmth and beauty of a gas fireplace, you can expect to get many years of use from it (provided it receives proper maintenance such as regular cleaning, which is a service we offer).

Fireplaces at times need to have repairs, and these fixes are especially important if you have a gas log fireplace or a gas insert. You never want to take risks with any gas-powered appliance in your home, and prompt repairs help immensely at keeping a gas fireplace working safely for many winters.

Eventually, you’ll need to have a new fireplace put in, replacing the gas logs, the insert, the gas lines, etc. We’ll look at how you can tell if the time has come to consult with us about replacing your fireplace.

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Cracked Heat Exchanger: How a Furnace Can Become Hazardous

December 13th, 2021
furnace-testing

Gas furnaces are a powerful and energy-efficient way to heat a home. We’re familiar with the the usefulness of a gas furnace in Tofino, BC for a household, and we never want to discourage people from looking into installing a natural gas furnace.

But any gas-burning appliance comes with some level of safety risk. Not a large risk, because otherwise these appliances would never receive approval for home use. It’s important, however, for consumers to know about ways any gas appliance could become hazardous, how best to avoid them, and what to do if problems develop. 

In that vein, today we’ll examine one of the ways a natural gas furnace can become hazardous: a cracked heat exchanger.

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Is It Time for a Boiler Replacement?

November 15th, 2021
furnace-with-pipes

Boilers are sturdy heating systems, and they often outlast natural gas heaters by five years or more. But no boiler is sturdy enough to last forever. If you live in your home long enough, you’ll eventually come to a point when the next boiler service in Parksville, BC you need to schedule is a boiler replacement.

You don’t want to replace your boiler before you have to. This begs the question: how can you know when your current boiler has reached its limits and it needs to be replaced? You could just wait for your boiler to completely fail, but that’s a bad idea for many reasons—it leaves you abruptly trapped without heat, the boiler will waste immense amounts of energy in the last year or so, and the boiler could even become hazardous. We want to help you recognize the signs of a boiler ready for replacement before you face serious problems!

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Your Gas Fireplace Needs Regular Maintenance as Well

November 1st, 2021
Fireplace

Fall is the time of the year that we recommend our customers schedule maintenance for their central heating systems. Taking care of your furnace, boiler, or heat pump before winter arrives is the best way to ensure you enjoy vital comfort throughout the season without troubles from repairs or high bills due to wear and tear.

Your central heating system isn’t the only heater in your house that requires attention from professionals. If you enjoy a gas or propane fireplace in Campbell River, BC, we advise you to schedule maintenance service for it as well. You may not depend on the fireplace to warm the whole house, but it’s a great addition and brings a special cozy ambiance to the winter days and nights that you just can’t get from a central furnace. Regular maintenance lets you enjoy your fireplace to the fullest, without worries about safety or operating problems.

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How Tankless Water Heaters Work

October 18th, 2021
tankless-water-heater

The standard water heater, also called a storage tank water heater, has a simple operation to understand. A larger tank stores a supply of water, which gas jets heat until it reaches the desired temperature for use. When a water tap turns on in the house, a pump moves the hot water from the tank to the tap. The water heater must run regularly to keep its water supply heated, both because of the depletion of water as its used and because of standby heat loss (i.e. heat escaping through the tank walls).

This conventional method of water heating has worked for households for decades, but it’s no longer the only method of supplying hot water for residential needs. The tankless water heater is now a popular alternate choice. This type of water heater boasts several advantages for the right household. But how exactly does a water heater with no tank even work? We’ll get into that below.

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October Is the Time to Have Your Furnace Professionally Inspected and Tuned-Up

October 4th, 2021
fall-checklist

You and your family probably have several special October traditions to enliven an already festive month of the year. We’d like you to add a tradition onto your calendar for October—schedule professional maintenance for your furnace!

No, this isn’t as joyful an event as pumpkin-carving or costume-making. But it’s incredibly important for your family’s comfort and safety during the upcoming winter, and you don’t even have to do that much. You only need to call our technicians and enroll in our residential maintenance program. We’ll come to your house and give your gas or electric furnace in Parksville, BC the full tune-up and inspection it needs for when it starts working in winter. With this job out of the way, you can go back to enjoying your October and not have to worry about the winter.

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Signs Your Tankless Water Heater System Needs Repairs

September 20th, 2021
repair-tankless-water-heater

A tankless water heater is an excellent addition to many homes. Unlike storage tank water heaters—the kind found in the majority of homes—tankless systems don’t need to run regularly to keep a supply of water heated. This helps them save energy, increase their service lives, and take up less space. Because tankless water heaters heat water as needed, they won’t run out of hot water as long as they were accurately sized and installed. 

Tankless water heaters are precision devices, so they can fall prey to a number of malfunctions, some of which are specific to them. Fast action to have water heater repair in Parksville, BC will keep your tankless system running the way you want it to. 

To help you identify when you have a tankless water heater in trouble, we’ve listed several warning signs to watch for:

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A Short-Cycling AC May Be a Short-Lived AC!

September 6th, 2021
ac-grill

A central air conditioning system runs in cycles: the thermostat sends a request for cooling to the air conditioner’s control board, the board turns on the compressor to place refrigerant under pressure, and the refrigerant circulates to remove heat from indoors. The cycle concludes after the thermostat registers the AC has met the target temperature, causing the compressor to cycle down (although the blower fan may continue to run).

A standard cooling cycle lasts for 15 minutes or more. This is the minimum time necessary for all parts of the AC to put in the work to make a noticeable difference in the indoor temperature. On hotter days, the cycle will last longer. 

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