Our offices are moving this weekend. Please forgive any phone outages and preoccupation on our part. If you need immediate assistance, email angie [at] aaaheatingac.com. My Blackberry will let me know when you have a challenge we can solve and I will call you right back. Enjoy your weekend!
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See all of that cardboard? Just yesterday that was at one of our customers’ houses. Our technician Ron told me that he had a customer who had a lot of cardboard in their garage but they didn’t know what to do with it. As a courtesy, he offered to take it and recycle it for them. Twenty minutes later his van was full and he was on his way back to our Service Center to drop it off.
Stories like that are what make me proud to work for AAA Heating & Air Conditioning. Our employees strive to provide customer service that is above and beyond our customers’ expectations. I have heard of technicians changing light bulbs, moving furniture, and even mowing the lawn! And it doesn’t stop there… the lovely people you talk to when you call in to our office have even been known to look up information for callers about other companies!
At AAA Heating & Air Conditioning, we strive to exceed your expectations in every way. We promise that you won’t be disappointed!
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I just found a cool site still in Beta testing that lets you see what energy usage your home has. Microsoft’s new Hohm program allows you to see what you’re using, what people in your area are using, and what you can do to improve the amount of energy you use. They give some great tips on everything from weather stripping your home to reducing your heating and cooling bills to how much energy your hair dryer uses. I bet you’ve never actually stopped to think about that, have you? I know I haven’t.
Hohm is actually a pretty cool site. I went on and compared the houses of a couple of my friends and it was interesting to be able to report back to them who “won” the challenge. If nothing else, it’s fun to spy on your neighbors, right? It’s ok, we all do it. Check out Hohm at http://www.microsoft-hohm.com/
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Even though our weather is abysmal and dreary right now, we are about to head into the most glorious of seasons in Western Washington– the summer. Soon we will have some hot weather coming our way and you will want to be prepared. And I mean more than just rolling out the lemonade. I’m talking about air conditioning. We’ll discuss it more as the warm weather starts to arrive, but for the moment I wanted to pass on a fact I found interesting. So many people in our area have the perception that air conditioning is rare in homes, but the U.S. Energy Administration reports that in reality, the percentage of homes with central air-conditioning has more than doubled since 1980, with nearly 60% of homes having a central system. Some food for thought as you are pondering “To A.C. or not to A.C.” (I know, sometimes I make really lame jokes. Wait, you didn’t think it was funny? It was, I promise).
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Ever have your oven go out on you when you are having 15 people over for dinner? Has your clothes washer quit when you have that big job interview the next morning? What about the freezer that turned your strawberry ice cream into just strawberry cream? Well, we have the solution for you!
At the beginning of the year, The Appliance Repairman ventured out on their own from AAA Heating & Air Conditioning and became a separate company. You could say we are now sisters. Who love each other very much, as all siblings should.
The Appliance Repairman is your one-stop-shop for all of your broken appliances. That’s right, they can fix your dishwasher with one hand and check your microwave out with the other, and maybe find that necklace you didn’t know you accidentally cleaned with your dishes. All at the same time. Well, maybe their techs aren’t quite that dexterous, but still, they do an excellent job of finding the source of your problem quickly and then fixing it so that you would swear it was brand spanking new. Which is pretty darn new.
Call them today at 253-277-1026 and schedule an appointment for them to come out to your home and fix all of your appliance woes. Your appliances will thank you.
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Glen J., AAA Heating & Air Conditioning Senior Technician
I am going to be remodeling our house soon and thinking about adding a filtration system of some sort to the furnace. I have heard that there are things that I can do to cut down on allergies but am not entirely certain what those are. Do you have any ideas? -Frank B., Kent
Well, the answer is twofold here– the short term solutions for cutting down on allergens while you are remodeling and the long term solution for your Indoor Air Quality to keep allergies at bay once the remodeling is finished. Let’s start with the long term.
There are a lot of different types of products on the market that claim to cut down on allergens but in reality are more hype than substance. An example would be the single room air cleaners that claim to purify the air. Unfortunately, their effectiveness has proven to be minimal at best (just read the evaluation in Consumer Reports of the Ionic Breeze and you will see what I mean) and they really aren’t worth the money you will spend on them. The most effective way of reducing the amount of allergens in your home is to install an Electronic Air Cleaner on your furnace. A licensed heating and cooling contractor will be able to take a look at your existing system, tell you how the Electronic Air Cleaner (EAC) would fit into it and then give you a price for the EAC, including installation. They really do work well to relieve the suffering that people with allergies have to go through. In fact, one of the women who works in our office just had an EAC installed for her parents. Her mom has chronic asthma and terrible allergies but has experienced a huge increase in the quality of life she has been able to have because of the number of allergens her Electronic Air Cleaner has taken out of the air in their home.
Now on to the short term. Most people don’t think about their allergies as they are remodeling, but there are many things you can do to prevent them from flaring up while you are working on your house. The Allergy Consumer Review (www.allergyconsumerreview.com) gives some of the following suggestions:
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At our Kent Heating Contractor office, we have never been accused of being stick-in-the-muds. In fact, we laugh a lot. All the time. People love coming to visit us because we’re so funny. At least that’s what we like to tell ourselves. Knowing that one of the owners was going to be on vacation for a week, we decided to give him a great welcome home surprise. Several hours, 2 rolls of scotch tape, and half a Costco sized roll of foil later, we had created our masterpiece. Yes friends, we foiled his desk. No picture frame or pen or bottle of water was left uncovered. Our owner loved it, as we knew he would. I think he even has some things still foiled even though its been several weeks since his return.
If you’re reading this undecided about our company, take this as our promise that no detail is too small or too large for us. We put our heart into our work, and we do a darn good job of it too. Oh, and when you call to talk to us, feel free to ask us how long this REALLY took.
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KOMOnews.com is reporting that Puget Sound Energy has been granted a rate increase by state regulators. KOMO’s website reports:
The Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission announced the approval of the increases on Friday. The decision will allow PSE to raise electric rates by 2.8 percent and natural gas rates by 0.8 percent. The new rates will kick in on Wednesday. PSE’s basic charge for electric service will also go up a quarter to $7.25 a month. The basic charge for natural gas service will remain the same, at $10 a month.
If you’re concerned about how the rate increase might affect your heating or cooling bills, you might want to consider a heat pump. Much more efficient than an electric or gas furnace, a heat pump will lower your energy bills and bring you year round comfort. If you are interested in finding out how much energy you can save with a heat pump, call our Kent Heating and Air Conditioning office at 253-630-9224 to get a free analysis for your home.
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