It takes plenty of energy to power a heating system through winters in the Twin Cities. But don’t underestimate what it costs to run air conditioning in Minneapolis, MN during our summers, which are often hot and have the extra burden of humidity from all our lakes.
How much does it cost to run an air conditioning system? You might have some idea based on changes in your electric bills when summer starts up, but today we want to look into the facts about how your AC uses electricity.
In the (relatively) short time that ACs have been parts of homes, several myths and misconceptions have risen about them. Some are relatively harmless trivia, but others can have a major impact on comfort and energy use in a home. We want you to know the real deal when it comes to air conditioning in Eden Prairie, MN, and throughout the Twin Cities, so we’ll break down several of the biggest myths about AC systems.
If you listen to your air conditioning system when it’s running, you’ll occasionally hear the sound of water dripping. That’s not because your air conditioner uses water to run. The way it cools the air is with refrigerant, which draws heat from inside the house and then transports it outside. The water is a byproduct of this process—and sometimes it may leak from the AC.
If you see water pooling around the indoor air conditioner, please don’t just mop it up and ignore it. That leaking water is a sign of a problem with the AC that can quickly get worse and lead to the system shutting down, so it’s best to call for us for AC repair in Minneapolis, MN.
Below, we’ll take a look at why water leaks can occur and what they mean.
If you’ve heard of heat pumps, then you probably already know the big advantage they have as HVAC systems: they can operate as both heating and cooling systems. Essentially, heat pumps are air conditioners that can switch the direction they move heat, so they can both remove heat from a space and bring heat into it.
Heat pumps are becoming more popular each year, but here in Minnesota, most people still rely on an HVAC setup that pairs an air conditioner with a furnace (gas or electric). It’s familiar, it works for most homes. So why consider heat pumps in Eden Prairie, MN for home comfort? Do they live up to their promise as a year-round all-in-one comfort solution?
Answering this question requires looking a bit closer at heat pumps and how they operate in Minnesota weather.
The most basic way you can help your cooling system run more efficiently and effectively this summer is to arrange with our team for professional air conditioning maintenance in Minneapolis, MN. If you’ve already done that, then you’re off to a good start for summer cooling.
In this post, we’ll explore some of the “next steps” to improve your AC’s performance, efficiency, and reliability through another warm and humid summer. Once we go beyond maintenance, there are many ways to help your air conditioning system work its best.
Spoilers for this post: You probably don’t need more refrigerant! If you do, it’s a repair situation.
We thought we’d get the crucial information out of the way first, because people often have mistaken assumptions about how air conditioners use refrigerant. They might hear from a source that it’s a good idea to get the refrigerant “topped off” before summer rolls around, or that you’ll need to have routine refrigerant refills to ensure the AC doesn’t run out of it.
To which we’ll ask: “When was the last time you needed to have the refrigerant in your refrigerator refilled?” We’ll bet the answer is never—unless the refrigerator was broken.
Well, the refrigerant in an air conditioning system is the same. Unless the AC is leaking refrigerant (in which case call us for air conditioning repair in Eden Prairie, MN), you won’t need to have any additional refrigerant put into it during the system’s service life.
This is a good question to ask, because answering it gives us a chance as HVAC professionals to explain more about what an air conditioner does and doesn’t do. Any air conditioner has limits, and when you understand what those limits are and why they exist, you’ll have an easier time finding the ideal comfort settings during the summer.
We’ll use our expertise at air conditioning in Minneapolis, MN to answer your questions about your AC’s power.
Minnesota is the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes. Actually, the number is 11,842, depending on what you include as a “lake.” That can certainly make for beautiful scenery, but it has an unpleasant side effect during the summer: humidity. Also mosquitos, but we’re not talking about mosquitos in this post.
When the summer weather arrives, and it will be here soon, humidity can turn a warm day into an unbearable one. The reason is that humidity acts like a blanket around you: it traps heat in your body by slowing down how much heat you can release by perspiration. Humidity doesn’t make the temperature hotter, but it will make it feel hotter—sometimes by 10°.
Would you like to get control of the humidity in your house this year? We can help with some tips as well as with our services.
Summer will arrive fast and the air conditioning systems in your home will switch on to perform their valuable service.
It’s a service that costs money, however. The compressor in an air conditioner consumes more electricity than almost any other residential appliance with the exception of an electric water heater. The reason you see your electric bills rise in summer is mostly due to running the AC.
We want to help you save money with your summer cooling, so we’ve put together some basic ways to cut down on what you pay to run your AC. If you need AC repair in Minneapolis, MN, reach out to our team.
An essential part of getting a new air conditioner is finding the right-size unit. We don’t mean the physical size of the air conditioner, but the size of its cooling power and its capacity. You want to ensure you have an air conditioner that’s big enough to cool your house, but which isn’t too big.
“Wait a minute,” you might think. “Why is it a problem if the AC’s too big? Isn’t it better to err on the side of too big rather than too small?”
You’re not the only one who has thought this when getting a new air conditioner. We’ll explain why bigger isn’t necessarily better with an air conditioner. In fact, it can often be a disaster!
