Another hot, humid Indiana summer is just around the corner. Is your wallet ready for higher cooling bills? Implementing just a few A/C operating tips can help you improve energy efficiency and control your cooling budget. You don't have to sacrifice comfort to save a few bucks; you just have to be smart about how you run your cooling system.
New Haven , IN , Fort Wayne , energy efficiency , programmable thermostat , A/C Operating Tips , preventive maintenance , whole-house dehumidifier
Maintaining good indoor air quality is important for your family's health, especially if you have a tightly sealed home. 
In many homes, the thermostat can become a miniature, wall-mounted battlefield. One person will turn the temperature up, and minutes later a spouse or sibling will turn the temperature down – causing your HVAC system to work overtime, while leaving nobody truly comfortable.
While your central air conditioner produces cool air out of sight — usually in the attic or a closet — the coils in your A/C unit are busy producing something else: Water, and lots of it. Serious water damage can result from condensation that forms naturally on the evaporator coils. A central air conditioner may produce a surprising 5 to 20 gallons of water per day — especially during a humid Indiana summer. In a properly maintained system, the condensate collects in a drip-pan beneath the air handler and drains through a hose connected to your sewer system. If the drain system fails, or the evaporator coils produce more condensate than the drain can handle, gallons of water could silently damage your house before you’re even aware of it.
HEPA filtration is a simple method to substantially improve the quality of your indoor air, which affects the health and comfort of you and your loved ones on a daily basis.
When you're planning a renovation or adding more livable space, heating and cooling it can become an issue, especially if it would be difficult or expensive to extend ducts from your current HVAC system. However, ductless mini-splits are excellent ways to condition a space without ducts, since these heat pumps vent air directly into a space. Like a regular air-source heat pump, a mini-split has two main parts: an outdoor compressor/condenser and one or more interior air handlers. A conduit connects these parts.
If your old air conditioning system is in need of repair, or simply needs topped off with R-22 refrigerant before the heat of summer, you may be in for an unpleasant surprise.
Proper air conditioner maintenance keeps you cool and saves you money. Air conditioners are large, complicated machines that potentially consume more power than any other appliance in your home. Here are five things that maintaining your air conditioner can protect you from, especially in Fort Wayne's hot and humid summers:
With the arrival of spring comes an increase in allergy symptoms for many Indiana residents. The good news is that there are quite a few ways to make allergy season more bearable, so consider these five tips to boost indoor air quality and keep allergies to a minimum:
Thermostats have always been a smart choice. They're money and energy savers – even the old manual units, if used correctly to set back temps when your family leaves the house or goes to sleep. Digital programmable units are more sophisticated, allowing Ft. Wayne-area homeowners to program a schedule and temperature for different parts of day and days of the week. Adjustments are then automatic.
For homeowners who want the best and most cost-effective heating and cooling system possible, geothermal heat pumps offer extremely high levels of efficiency and monthly savings on home comfort expenses. They can be as much as 50 percent more energy efficient than even high-efficiency furnaces, and can reduce your seasonal heating and cooling bills by as much as 70 percent. In addition, geothermal heat pumps run quietly and cleanly, they waste very little energy, and they are very environmentally friendly, producing no harmful exhaust or emissions.