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Have you decided it’s time to get a new HVAC system installed for your business? Are you feeling nervous about the upcoming installation for it?

It’s okay, it’s natural to feel nervous. However, at the end of the day, a properly installed new commercial HVAC system will effectively serve your company for years. The key to feeling less nervous about the process is to get properly prepared for it. That way, you can help your hired HVAC technicians as fast and efficiently as possible and get your system, whether it’s your commercial air conditioner for an apartment building or a new refrigerator for your business, going.

If you need help getting ready, this is a good place to start. Here are a few ways to familiarize yourself with the commercial HVAC installation process and how to make sure your building has the best possible environment for the new system.

1. Double-check Everything Beforehand

New HVAC systems need to work within your company building’s existing space as well as the ductwork (depending on what kind of system you’re getting). In addition, the size of each unit, big or small, must be adequate enough that it will fulfill your company’s needs.

These are a few technical details that you absolutely need to double-check on before contacting an HVAC company. If the ducts aren’t leak-free, these will need to be addressed and fixed before any installations can take place. Otherwise, your new system will have to work harder to cool down or heat up the rest of the building. Size is also an important factor of all HVAC systems, so double-check with your technician team in order to ensure the choice you made is the best and most correct size and capacity for the job.

2. Schedule a Convenient Date and Time

It’s important to note that while you are getting new commercial HVAC installed, your building will be going without central cooling or heating while the installation is taking place. So, the best time to schedule your new HVAC with your trusted team depends on the temperature outside as well as the day when disruption to tenants, customers, or employees is low in terms of noise and technicians being around.

If it’s hot outside, it’s best to schedule the installation on a weekend if at all possible if your building is an office or similar commercial building. If the job is being done for an apartment building, it may be best to schedule it during the week when most tenants are less likely to be present at home. Doing so can prevent tenants or staff to feel uncomfortably warm or cold inside until the new HVAC system is installed and running perfectly.

3. Notify Everyone About What’s Happening

Whether there are employees or tenants in your building, you need to let them know ahead of time about the upcoming installation. Doing so will lower the chance of mishaps, unnecessary delays with installing the commercial HVAC, and even injuries.

Put up signs near any areas where employees or tenants should avoid in order to allow your HVAC team to go back and forth as required. If your employees need to be around during installation, they can bring in a desk fan or wear warmer clothing to stay cool or warm since the building will be without A/C or heating that day. Informing apartment tenants can give them a chance to make other arrangements as needed. They can make plans during the installation process if it’s hot or cold out so they don’t have to stay uncomfortable.

4. Make Some Room for Your Technician Team

Once you’ve discussed and scheduled a good date and time with your HVAC team, you then need to ensure nothing gets in the way of their work. Otherwise, your team may not be able to do what’s needed to get the job done.

Remove all valuable assets out of the room if the installation is taking place inside. Clear the space around where the team will be working. Get any yardwork done beforehand if the new installation is a condenser and needs to be placed outside near trees and bushes. Make sure these plants are not too close to where the new condenser will be placed; there should be three to four feet of clearance all around. If you were informed to have your ducts replaced before the new system is installed, make sure that prep work is done before this job.

Doing all of this beforehand will ensure you have given your HVAC team a clear path, which reduces the risk of accidents and ensures that the job will be done fast and efficiently.

You may be wondering why we didn’t add tips like “Hire the right contractor” to our article. That’s because you can trust us to get the job done, and done well! So once you’ve scheduled a date with us, you can sit back, relax, and feel at ease knowing you have hired licensed and experienced HVAC technicians! Give us a call when it’s time to get your commercial HVAC replaced and installed. At Rep-Air Heating And Cooling we provide our customers with many options that will best suit your needs from heating and cooling to refrigeration. Contact us today for your complimentary quote: 1-778-728-1476 orcontact@repairheatingandcooling.com and don’t forget to take a look at our website: https://repairheatingandcooling.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for free giveaways!

Did you know that you have the option to upgrade your hot water heater and improve your home’s water supply? Yes, it’s true. While having a tank water heater is a classic means of dispersing hot water throughout your entire home, it is by no means your only option if and when the heater gets too old to maintain any longer. Tankless water heaters are becoming more and more popular as the years go on.

Is there a reason to upgrade to tankless right away? It turns out that yes, there is! Here are five key benefits to owning a tankless hot water heater as opposed to sticking with the classic tank one.

Hot Water on Demand

This is the main perk of any tankless water heater. Not only does it allow you to have hot water whenever you need it, but also a tankless heater doesn’t need to store tons of gallons of water in order to function. This means you use less water and save more of that resource and energy in the process (depending on how much your household uses it per month).

The supply of water from a tankless is also continuous, as opposed to limited. This is what makes these heaters so ideal if you own a hot tub. Simply put, a tankless will never run out of the water you need.

Less Energy Usage

Water loses its heat as soon as it sits for a while, every time. This is why it takes so much more energy usage for traditional tank hot water heaters to work, because it will continually turn on and off in order to provide hot water at the ready.

A tankless hot water heater, as we mentioned, heats the water faster and only when you really need it, which is a much more energy efficient way to use it. A properly sized unit can deliver a constant supply of water at preset temperatures—up to 5-7 gallons per minute. This can actually reduce your heating costs of hot water and save money over time.

Flexibility

Tankless water heaters can actually be fixed anywhere in the house, as opposed to the one specific place such as the basement (a classic choice for most water heaters). Their compact sizes, which take less space than conventional tanks, adds to their sense of versatility and flexibility. The materials they’re made of further contributes to their low operating costs compared to those of traditional tank heaters.

A Long Lifespan

If you own a tank water heater, you’re looking at about a decade of usage before it needs replacing. With tankless, however, they can last twice as long (provided they are well cared for and maintained, of course).

It helps that tankless heaters need less gas or electricity to run compared to tanks. Plus, they’re more repairable with replaceable parts by your HVAC technician, unlike the traditional tanks which often needs to be replaced completely.

Safety

Another good reason more and more homeowners are opting in to have tankless heaters installed is because of the latest developments in HVAC technology. The newest heaters on the market come with several innovative features, which further boost their safety benefit.

For example, some recent models come with monitoring systems that provide details about your heater’s water pressure and flow—something you have to second guess at with traditional tanks. And in case there is a system failure, the machine would instantly turn the heater off. Plus, because the latest models have more replaceable parts than traditional tanks, it means less impact in the long-term on the environment.

The tankless’s ability to function only when hot water is needed also adds to its safety perk. This is really unlike the other storage type units, because the latter are almost permanently on…even when it may not be best if they are.

So, now you know more about tankless hot water heaters! If you’re convinced it’s time to update your old heater to a tankless one, you’re going to need professional help. This is by no means a DIY project, and we offer water heater service as well as several others. Give us a call! At Rep-Air Heating And Cooling we provide our customers with many options that will best suit your needs from heating and cooling to refrigeration. Contact us today for your complimentary quote: 1-778-728-1476 or contact@repairheatingandcooling.com and don’t forget to take a look at our website: https://repairheatingandcooling.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for free giveaways!

It’s almost time for teens to go back to school. Some of them are probably trying to figure out where they’ll go or what they’ll do after graduating. Others may already have a plan in mind, but no idea where to start.

Could HVAC be a part of their future plan? Whether you’re a teen who wants to learn more about this trade already, or you’re a concerned parent or teacher or guardian figure looking to help teens out, maybe we can help you out too. Here are some ways to get teens interested in learning about HVAC.

1: Apply real-life situations

Every teen at some point in their lives will want to move out of their parents’ home. It doesn’t matter if they want to rent or buy their home in the future; whatever they decide, they will have to take on extra responsibilities, and this includes—you guessed it—maintaining the HVAC inside and out.

It matters that teens learn about it because a lot of the worst-case scenarios we’ve outlined in our blog affects everyone. A lot of the time we’ve seen people wait until there is an emergency shutdown of your HVAC system to finally try to learn about HVAC, how it works, and how you need to go about maintaining it. This is a bad practice for a lot of reasons! It shows a clear disinterest in learning about something that you will actually have to live with and take care for quite a long time—all the way through adulthood.

Teens who move out into their own apartment may get too used to having their landlord (if they’re renting) look after their HVAC needs, which can also be a problem if an emergency happens and they don’t know what to do. That being said, there are some who are actually very invested in learning about technology and machinery as well as understanding how it works. Even more are interested about homeownership and how to take care of themselves at an early enough age. Teens are also a lot smarter than we give them credit for; they do want to know about how best to take care of themselves, and that can and does include learning about HVAC.

A lot of options to understand how HVAC functions and what it needs to run properly exist not only for teenage to young adult homeowners but also renters. A few examples include portable or window A/C, ventilation, and even fridge maintenance while they’re at work.

These are just a few real-life situations that teens will eventually have to come face to face with that you, as their parent or teacher or guardian or employer, can potentially build them up to. Share with them some articles and videos you find online (yes, online—that’s where the majority of teens go nowadays) about the latest models on the market or tips. Try to encourage them to stand by and watch how you maintain the HVAC when it’s time. You can also ask your technician next time they come in for scheduled maintenance if the teen can spot them as they work, to see how it’s done in real time.

2: Get them to interview an actual technician

Naturally learning about things like HVAC comes with its own slew of questions that you may not have the answer to. The Internet helps, but only to a certain degree—it’s one thing to read about HVAC online. It’s quite another to practice things like maintenance and understanding the signs of a problem in real life.

With all that in mind, it may help teens to interview actual technicians. We’re always happy to talk HVAC! While we may be busy during the high seasons of maintenance (i.e. summer and winter), usually as the season is winding down into fall or spring is a good time for teens to ask us any questions they may have. Informational interviews are also great practice for teens who may be job hunting or simply testing the waters to see what kinds of career options might be available to them in the future.

3: Examine trade schools

If your teen was really thrilled to learn more about HVAC after the interview, or maybe they love being able to fix and repair machines in general, then you could always suggest they apply to a trade school after graduation. Several programs for learning more about HVAC beyond high school are available to graduating teens throughout Canada, and some of them are less costly than others depending on where the school is located. Even if they apply and don’t get in yet, you can suggest to them that they volunteer or become an apprentice while they wait.

4: Encourage their newfound interest

It’s important that if you know a teenager who does show newfound interest in HVAC that you encourage those interests! Nothing can dissuade teens like an adult telling them that their passions are a waste of time, or that they’ll never build a career out of it. Be positive and encouraging to those teens who show interest. It may not always turn out that they go to school to learn more. However, there are plenty of opportunities where they can learn more about HVAC if they want to. This blog would be a good start!

If you know any teens who want to learn more about what we do and why we do it, we’re always happy to talk! Give us a call if you’d like—maybe you need some actual maintenance done in the meantime? At Rep-Air Heating And Cooling we provide our customers with many options that will best suit your needs from heating and cooling to refrigeration. Contact us today for your complimentary quote: 1-778-728-1476 or contact@repairheatingandcooling.com and don’t forget to take a look at our website: https://repairheatingandcooling.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for free giveaways!

It goes without saying that if you run a business that sells food or meals, you need a commercial fridge or fridges to keep your business up and running. Fridges are used daily in these businesses; naturally though the constant usage can take a toll on the system’s health and make it more prone to mechanical snags and frequent shutdowns. This means that when a commercial fridge is maintained properly and regularly, it can lead to several benefits along the way. Maybe there are a few you didn’t even consider until you started reading this post!

It’s true, though. Imagine having the fridge at your grocery store stop working when it’s the holiday season! That can really make a difference to your business! With this kind of scenario in mind, there are lots of advantages to maintaining your commercial fridge on a regular basis.

1. Emergencies are prevented

The worst time for a sudden breakdown of your commercial fridge is literally any time. Going back to the holiday example, not only will that drive away customers at the busiest time of the year, but also the stress levels would rise beyond belief for everyone! Not to mention that any emergency breakdown can cost you big time. Not only does it cost more money to repair the damages done, but also there’s the loss of income you could have been making had you prevented the breakdown in the first place.

By maintaining the commercial fridge regularly, including checking on the electric components so there are no short circuits, you’ll spare your business and your customers from the trials and tribulations one can expect from a sudden breakdown. Regular maintenance will also ensure that no valuable income that your business makes is lost in the event of an emergency either.

2. Safe temperatures

Food and drinks must always be kept at their proper temperatures daily. That is how you prevent diseases and other nasty conditions such as food poisoning from harming others in addition to your business’s reputation.

Maintaining a commercial fridge will not only keep the temperatures at their proper levels, but also prevent fluctuations from harming your valuable inventory in the event of a breakdown. Regulating the temperature also goes hand in hand with the following benefit:

3. A clean bill of health, according to your inspector

Nothing sends panic up the spine quite like hearing the words ‘health inspector’—that is, if you know you’re not running things the way your business should be! But if you already run your business smoothly including its upkeep, then there’s nothing for you to worry about.

By keeping up your commercial fridge’s maintenance on a regular schedule, you’ll be given a clean bill of health each time and this too can add a boon to your business’s reputation. After all, no one wants to find out they’ve been eating and drinking food in an unclean environment from an unclean refrigeration system.

4. Fresh food—always

Every business owner knows that the fresher and high-quality the food you serve is, the more likely your customers will be pleased enough to want to return to your business time and again. Maintaining your commercial fridge will not only keep the food and drinks inventory at safe temperatures, it will also ensure that it stays fresh and/or frozen until you need it at all times of the day. So long as you follow basic safety tips and even apply some cooling solutions to your business’s kitchen (you can find a few ideas here), the food you serve will not spoil or get mouldy.

5. Clean ice and no mould

Speaking of mould, here’s another benefit to maintaining commercial fridges regularly. An unclean fridge can also be the cause of illnesses brought upon your customers, such as E.coli, salmonella, and listeria to name just a few. This can and will result in your business down sliding to the point of bankruptcy. So, for your business’s sake as well as the sake of your customers, keep mould at bay with that regular and proper maintenance!

Mould can also cause ice in commercial refrigeration to become easily contaminated. It’ll look blurry and spotty in the event a fridge has gone too long uncleaned. With proper cleaning and care of your refrigerator, it’s guaranteed that your ice keeps coming out fresh and appetizing. After all, as we mentioned in a previous blog post, no one wants to be served dirty ice.

6. More energy saved = more money for your business

The more energy you spend on cooling down certain things, the costlier it becomes. That is a fact of HVAC.  However, you can minimize energy costs of any kind by ensuring the systems being used aren’t relying too heavily on themselves in order to function properly.

What causes energy loss? Simple: dirty and dusty components that trick the system into thinking it needs to work harder to cool the room down, or that the room’s already cooled off and so there’s no need. Therefore, by maintaining your commercial fridge, you not only save energy and spare the system from overworking or underworking itself, but also the cost it would take for your business to cool the food down.

As you can see, you never go wrong with taking care of your commercial refrigeration! If this is a service you need today or you’d like to sign up for a regular maintenance schedule, give our technicians a call. At Rep-Air Heating And Cooling we provide our customers with many options that will best suit your needs from heating and cooling to refrigeration. Contact us today for your complimentary quote: 1-778-728-1476 or contact@repairheatingandcooling.com and don’t forget to take a look at our website: https://repairheatingandcooling.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for free giveaways!

Summer is a high season for a lot of people and businesses. It’s great for tourism, restaurants, travel agencies, and so on. It’s also a high season for us technicians…which can be a problem for commercial businesses who need help with their cooling.

Did you know there are a few ways you can cut down on cooling costs at your company? Depending on what kind of business you run, cooling solutions are a necessary part of keeping your business running, but you do have to strategize how these solutions are applied in order to keep costs low despite the high season. If you need to cut down on cooling costs, here are some tips on how to do so for your commercial business.

Tip 1: Get an energy audit conducted

While this tip may not sound like a good idea at all, it actually really is when it comes to figuring out your business’s energy costs and usage. An audit can properly measure how much money and energy you are using currently, and they are usually offered for free to business owners from most utility companies. They can help you find out how to better increase your energy efficiency, where your money is going every month, and how and where you can make adjustments to lower those energy bills.

Tip 2: Ask yourself some hard questions

While you’re waiting for your energy audit to be fully completed, you need to really take a look at how you’re currently using your cooling efforts for your business. Asking yourself these tough questions can perhaps illuminate just how badly you need to make changes around the company:

• Is the air conditioning switched on all day, every day during the summer?
• Are you or have you been doing anything already to minimize or eliminate the need for an A/C unit?
• What type of atmosphere are your employees most comfortable in?
• Are there any cooling alternatives you can provide your staff when moving forward?
• Do your current cooling solutions feel like they’re enough, or not?

All of these questions and more are essential ones you should be asking when looking to change the way you cool down your building and the way you spend energy to get that result. If you weren’t aware of these questions to start with, then you really need to re-examine exactly how you’ve lost track of keeping track. Not only could you be adding unnecessary costs to your budget to cooling, but also you could be unwittingly causing a serious negative impact on the environment in and out of your business’s building.

Once you’ve analyzed these questions and examined your audit, you can determine how best to approach cooling solutions for your business.

Tip 3: Keep your commercial HVAC tuned up and clean

This tip is an obvious one, but since we’ve seen some ugly mistakes made with it in the past (there are a few examples we mean here), it bears repeating. You really will save money, time, and energy by performing regular maintenance and cleaning your commercial HVAC, whether it’s a fridge or an air conditioner.

Change the filters as often as recommended, and keep all furniture and obstacles such as paper away from the vents. Hiring a technician and coming up with a regular schedule for HVAC tasks helps too; they can perform more in-depth maintenance that neither you nor your staff have time to tend to as often as recommended.

Tip 4: Keep the heat out

Perhaps your commercial HVAC is working fine, but you’re still losing money. Have you checked the windows? You may not think the sunlight coming into your conference room window is a big deal, but really that’s money and energy flying out of your building right there, because it’s adding to your air conditioner’s efforts to cool a room down.

Another thing to be wary of in terms of windows are drafts. Yes, these are more noticeable when it’s cold out and the heat is escaping, but those same weaknesses in the windows are also letting cold air escape when you need it!

These are very easy fixes that you can’t ignore. All you have to do is add or replace awnings, solar screen window shades, and high-reflectivity window films to reduce the amount of heat. For those pesky drafts, replace or add to your windows caulk, weather-stripping, or foam. We’re sure you’ll start to feel a difference in temperature once you apply these fixes!

Tip 5: Consider smart programming

Smart thermostats and similar programming aren’t just useful for homeowners and their HVAC. This tech can benefit anyone at the office or in the commercial building where cooling solutions are needed. With a smart thermostat, you will have the power to adjust the temperature of the workplace when no one is around (for example holidays, weekends, and most nights).

You can set it to turn the A/C on before people arrive and off before they leave for the day. Just turning your A/C up by 1 degree in the summer can actually reduce the power you use (remember, the higher the temperature your cooling needs to be, the harder the system will work to achieve it).

Tip 6: Trees can be your friends

If there’s enough property outside to help with this, then trees can be a real benefit to your business. Plant some outside the office and provide your building with some shaded landscaping. The trees and their leaves will filter some of the harshness of the sun’s rays and less cooling via HVAC will be needed. If your building already has proper energy efficient systems and insulation, though, the effect of the trees will be a lot smaller.

These are only a few suggestions as to how to keep your commercial business’s cooling costs to a minimum in the warmer weather months. If your company needs assistance applying these solutions at any time, or your commercial air conditioner needs replacing or repairing, give us a call. At Rep-Air Heating And Cooling we provide our customers with many options that will best suit your needs from heating and cooling to refrigeration. Contact us today for your complimentary quote: 1-778-728-1476 or contact@repairheatingandcooling.com and don’t forget to take a look at our website: https://repairheatingandcooling.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for free giveaways!

Inside the air conditioning market there are a lot of cool new models and systems to keep everyone at a comfortable level of temperature. While this season is the busiest time for all of us, that shouldn’t stop you from investigating the market (in fact, you may find a system you want to receive when the low season arrives—it happens!). One trend you may notice among the newest models is the label ‘smart’. What exactly does that mean? Simple: it means the system relies on newer technology as opposed to outdated components.

While we all wait for the temperature and cost of air conditioning to go down, we thought it would be worth examining smart air conditioning. Here are four benefits of investing in this cooling solution for your home.

1. Extra convenience

The biggest difference between a smart A/C and a regular air conditioner is that rather than having to be present to manually adjust the thermostat, you can control the temperature with your smartphone or a mobile device. If you’re away from home or the office, you can adjust the temperature to the correct level it needs to be in while you’re gone, and then when you do get home you can readjust accordingly. What this does is it decreases the wear and tear on your air conditioning unit and extends its lifespan a little more, because it won’t be on at full blast when no one is home.

2. Improved energy efficiency

One of the biggest drawbacks of having non-smart HVAC is you absolutely have to be present in order to change the thermostat to a temperature that won’t make your expenses skyrocket. If you’ve left your home only to realize you forgot to change the thermostat beforehand, you’ll end up late to other pressing matters such as work or travel. Unless you can get a neighbour, a family member, or in business cases a staff member to change the thermostat for you, expect to find a very high, very unpleasant energy bill in your mailbox.

This is one of smart A/C’s biggest benefits since it enables you to control the system’s temperature remotely as opposed to manually. You can also program the air conditioner to best accommodate your current schedule and lifestyle too. Anytime there’s a change to your schedule or lifestyle and the settings need to be changed, you can simply adjust them on the thermostat or remotely when you’re not present at home or work. What this all boils down to is you are able to cool off your home or the office with utmost efficiency, and you save energy in the process.

3. Auto-restarting

Most smart air conditioners in the market come complete with an auto-restart function. What this feature does is it allows you to restore the settings of the A/C simply by pushing a button. This function is especially handy if, say, the power goes out during a thunderstorm. Being able to auto-restart after this type of fluctuation not only enhances your office or home’s comfort level, but also it protects the unit from being affected too greatly from power surges.

4. Compatibility

Lots of homes nowadays own voice-activated systems such as Google Home, Alexa, and Siri. If you own and run a smart air conditioner, it can communicate and be compatible to communicate with other smart devices such as these. That’s because unlike manual air conditioners, smart ones are connected via Wi-Fi, enabling you to access all of the aforementioned benefits covered such as remote control of the thermostat and pre-programming. You can opt in to receive e-mails from the system so you are notified of any alerts in the event your temperature is failing or rising outside of the normal range. You can be notified of power outages and disconnection from the network, too.

The 1 Downside: Expense

While smart A/C certainly has its benefits, the one downside to these systems is they are still fairly new on the market, so you’ll be paying quite the price for these listed features. For example, a smart 8,000 BTU air conditioner can cost up to $330 or more, whereas a non-smart, 10,000 BTU model may cost $30 less than that.

If you want to remotely control the air conditioner you already own, there are a few smart home devices that can help you keep around your home or office. Some of these come with built-in thermostats and can send commands to your A/C through infrared signals. Most of these smart home devices can cost around $100, and they’re good options if you’re looking for remote control or if you’re buying a smaller air conditioner.

So, now you know more about smart air conditioning. If this option sounds like the perfect match to your lifestyle and schedule, call our professional team of technicians to get one properly installed. Or, if you want to learn more, you can just ask us! At Rep-Air Heating And Cooling we provide our customers with many options that will best suit your needs from heating and cooling to refrigeration. Contact us today for your complimentary quote: 1-778-728-1476 or contact@repairheatingandcooling.com and don’t forget to take a look at our website: https://repairheatingandcooling.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for free giveaways!