Littleton Heating and Air Conditioning (303)798-3880

Littleton Furnace or Air Conditioner Replacement

Below is a critical list of how and why certain things should be done during a furnace or air conditioner replacement.

Insist on quality installation of your cooling and heating equipment. Studies show that half of all central air conditioners and furnaces in U.S. homes never perform to their advertised capacity because they're installed incorrectly.

Littleton air conditioner replacement

Why we use digital gauges

Improperly charging of air conditioning units will reduce their efficiency performance. “A 20% undercharge resulted in a 21% reduction in SEER while a 20% overcharge produced an 11% reduction in SEER.” SOURCE: Texas A and M University, An Evaluation of Improper Refrigerant Charge on the Performance of a Split System Air Conditioner with Capillary Tube Expansion

Purge Welding

Oxygen in the air combines with copper to form surface copper oxide. We see this on copper tube as a light to dark brown discoloration. To prevent this oxide formation inside the copper pipe and fittings dry nitrogen is purged through them during the brazing process. If purge welding is not done or not done correctly it will drastically shorten the life of all the system components. This will insure a very clean system that will provide years of trouble free service.

Pressure Testing

Pressure testing all brazed joints is very important to make sure there are no leaks in your new system that can cause unnecessary service calls in the future. We pressure test all of our systems at 300 psi with dry nitrogen for a minimum of 30 min to make sure all of our brazed joints are leak free. This will insure a leak free system that will provide years of trouble free service.

Deep Evacuation

A proper evacuation is required to remove all moisture from the inside of all the installed components. Moisture in a system is very harmful, it reduces the capacity of the system, causes freezing of metering devices and when mixed with refrigerant creates acid which drastically reduces the life of all system components. We monitor or evacuations with a micron gauge to make sure the vacuum is deep enough and left long enough to remove all the moisture. Our technicians verify this by allowing the system to maintain a vacuum of 500 microns or less for at least 20 minutes once isolated from the vacuum pump. This will insure a very dry system that will provide years of trouble free service.

Liquid Line Filter Dryer

A liquid line filter dryer is installed to absorb any moisture and catch any contaminants that may be introduced into the system during future service.

"Manual J Load calculations"

"Winter Heat Loss and Summer Heat Gain"

Heat gain means during the summer the heat comes into your home thus it's called a gain. During the winter the heat inside your home transfers to the outside thus it's referred to as heat loss. Think about it. Heat always transfers to a colder area, Heat gain for the summer and heat loss for the winter.

Every home should have a calculation done and in accordance with Manual "J" and in accordance with ACCA'S (Air Conditioning Contractor's Association) standards. To be eligible for utility and goverment rebates, and incentives will require this to be done.

Furnace or air conditioner size, (BTU requirement), is based on the type of construction of your home. The insulation it has or will have in the walls or attic, whether the attic is ventilated, The windows single-double-triple pane plus their type, The infiltration of air through your doors, windows, receptacles, ductwork, in general is the home getting above average of infiltration, and how hot or cold it gets in your area. All these things add up to the size of heating and air conditioning unit you must have to maintain your comfort.

Every area has an outside temperature and inside temperature, taken by the hour and season from the weather 10 year average. This is called the Design Temperature. Using a 10 year weather average of 95 degrees outside and a 75 degree inside your dwelling, that would be a 20 degree difference. The air conditioning requirement, (BTU's), would be calculated on it's "Design Temperature" and the grains of moisture.

Sometimes the outside temperature may exceed say the 95 but that is not the normal and your unit is not sized with that in mind. If you sized for the maximum occurrences of less than 1% of the year then you would be oversized at lesser temperatures and could cause a moisture problem.

That's one of the reason's that a larger air conditioner will not remove as much moisture as an undersized unit. A certain amount of running time is very important. When air is discharged from you grille it is very close to 100% humidity level. Think about it, when it rains, (the air is cooled then the moisture (rain) is removed you get 100% moisture level.

Heating does the same thing but in reverse. Too dry of air can cause a dryness condition not only for your tongue and groove walls but for you as well may be chapped lips. That's where a humidifier comes into play. Heating also has a design temperature for it's calculation.

Littleton furnace replacemnt

Centrotherm Gasketed Poly Propylene Venting Systems

Poly Propylene venting systems were specifically designed for high efficiency furnaces, boilers and water heaters. All the joints are connected together with a gasket to prevent any leaks of combusted flue gases or condensate and can by easily taken apart for future service.

The fitting are also specifically designed for this by building the proper grade for drainage into them and they are all rated for temperatures appropriate for this application. In contrast to PVC which was designed for drain and waste it has a lower temperature threshold, none of the fittings were designed for proper grade so undue stress will be created at joints and primer and glue are required to bond the joints.

This glue and primer will produce VOC’s that reduce the indoor air quality of your home and future service will require pipe and fittings to be cut and re-glued. These are the reasons we strongly believe it is worth the investment in a proper venting system that is designed for this use and will provide years of trouble free use and allow for future ease of service.

New Gas Shut Off

When we install a new furnace or water heater we always install a new ¼ turn ball type gas safety shut off valve that does not require any tools for you to be able to rapidly and easily shut the gas off during an emergency situation.

New Gas Flex Connector

When we install a new furnace or water heater we always install a new flexible gas line connector. This helps with the transmission of noise and provides some movement of the equipment due to frost heave without putting unnecessary strain on the gas line.

Combustion Analysis

When installing any kind of fuel burning appliance but especially high efficiency appliances it is of utmost importance that proper combustion be achieved to ensure the appliance is operating correctly, at maximum efficiency and safely. The only way to do this properly is with a high quality combustion analyzer. We use Bacharach combustion analyzers to check for proper combustion by making sure that the readings of O2, CO2, CO, exhaust stack temperature and efficiency are all within the manufacturers specifications.

High Capacity Media Filter

The EZ Flex system provides whole home air filtration using a high efficiency filter. Designed to keep air flowing cleanly and efficiently through your home, this cabinet air filtration product is a convenient and affordable way to improve indoor air quality and system performance. Even replacing the filter is a breeze.

Littleton Co furnace or air conditioner replacement.