Oasis Heating, A/C & Refrigeration Blog : Archive for October, 2017

Why Radiant Heating Is a Great Choice for New Homes

Tuesday, October 31st, 2017

Radiant heat: it’s the warmth you feel coming off of a hot surface, like pavement baking in the sun or a glowing lightbulb. Even though it’s the most natural form of heat—it’s the type of heat the sun gives off—many homes don’t make use of it for seasonal heating. The most common kind of heating systems found in houses use forced-air to provide comfort, i.e. distributing heat through air blown out of vents connected to ducts.

Continue Reading

How Heating Can Impact Air Quality

Sunday, October 29th, 2017

When the snows fall and the weather turns cold, a good heating system can be your best friend. But furnaces and other forms of heating can impact more than the temperature: they can make a difference as far as indoor air quality goes too. Understanding how heating in Arlington, VA can impact air quality can help you avoid any problems in that arena.

The popular notion holds that heating systems dry out the air in your home, which is partially true. Air tends to be dry in the winter as a matter of course, and a heating system can only make it worse. Ideally, you want the relative humidity in the air to be somewhere between 35% and 50%. If it drops below that, you’ll feel it in your nose and sinuses: exacerbating respiratory problems and even resulting in nosebleeds in the worst cases. A humidifier can help the situation.

A more severe problem can take place if your heater isn’t regularly maintained. As dust and dirt build up in the internal components, the heater can affect indoor air quality. The contaminants will blow through your system as the furnace circulates the hot air. The particles can contain allergens and other unhealthy pollutants, which can make existing allergies worse and create irritation in the nose and throat when breathing. You can combat this by changing your air filter regularly, and by scheduling a regular maintenance session to clean the internal components in your heating system.

Because heating often involves the circulation of air, it pays to remember how it can affect air quality as well as temperature. Judicious maintenance from a qualified professional can help. In Arlington VA, heating questions can be solved by the professionals at Oasis Heating, Air Conditioning & Refrigeration Inc. Give us a call today!

Continue Reading

Why You Need to Schedule Maintenance for Your Furnace

Thursday, October 26th, 2017

When it comes to keeping homes warm during the winter, the furnace has been the most popular choice for many years. Even with other advances in heating technology over the last few decades, gas-powered furnaces remain the most common type of residential heaters. If you home has a gas line, then it’s almost a certainty that you have a gas-powered furnace to take care of your winter warmth.

Continue Reading

How a Humidifier Improve Comfort and Health in a Home during Winter

Tuesday, October 24th, 2017

Our Virginia summers often get humid, which makes the heat much less pleasant. But during the winter the opposite problem frequently occurs: as the temperature drops, the moisture level in the air declines. This can lead to problems in a home with comfort and even health.

The best way to solve problems from low humidity if they happen in your home is to have a whole-house humidifier integrated into the HVAC system. A professionally installed humidifier will properly balance humidity levels so it’s neither too dry or too humid.

Continue Reading

Fairfax, VA Heating Tip: Why Certain Rooms Are Cold

Sunday, October 22nd, 2017

In a home with central heating, you expect the heater will warm up the whole house. You don’t want it to act like a space heater, a tiny unit that heats up one spot and nothing else. If you walk through your home and it feels like you’re using multiple space heaters—some not even working—to get your house warm instead of a powerful central system, then you may have a problem. The heater might be faulty, or the trouble could stem from defects in your house’s insulation. The uneven heating might be a simple mistake you can remedy in minutes.

We’ll walk you through some culprits that can create cold rooms in your home even with a powerful heating system at work. Call the Fairfax, VA heating experts today at OASIS Heating, Air Conditioning & Refrigeration, Inc. if you need additional help with cold spots.

  • Blocked or closed vents: If you have centralized air providing heat, make sure that the vents in the chilly rooms are open. Vents near the floor might have accidentally become blocked by a rug or a shifted piece of furniture.
  • Thermostats issues: Zone heating in homes is a great way to conserve money, but it isn’t hard to set one of the multiple thermostats incorrectly. Make sure all the thermostats are programmed to the temperature you want. If one of the thermostats malfunctions, then you’ll need professional assistance.
  • Heat leaks: The cold rooms may have spots where valuable heat escapes outside. Check the seals around windows or any door to the outside. The trouble might be deteriorating insulation, which will need replacement.
  • Heater is too small: If you picked out your heater on your own without help, or relied on an amateur or inexperienced installer to pick it, you may have a heater too small to do the job of warming your whole home. Contact a reliable and respected HVAC company to inspect your house and determine its heat requirements. You may need to have the heater replaced.

Cold spots don’t have to mean an emergency—but they can warn you that something isn’t right. Don’t decide to “just live with it” and stay clear of the chilly rooms until spring. You deserve the best heating in Fairfax, VA you can get. Hunt down the problem, and if you can’t figure it out on your own, bring in OASIS Heating, Air Conditioning & Refrigeration, Inc. to do the detective work—and any repair work afterwards.

Continue Reading

Why You Should Consider a Hybrid Heating System in Arlington

Saturday, October 21st, 2017

Do you want to install a heat pump in your home, but are concerned that it might not perform as needed during the winters? If so, consider a hybrid heating system in Arlington. A hybrid heating system offers you the best of both worlds: a heat pump that comes with the back-up of a natural gas furnace. Proper installation is the key for any new heating system, so if you are ready for a new system, call the people you can count on: OASIS Heating, A/C & Refrigeration, Inc.

What Is a Hybrid Heating System?

As we mentioned above, a hybrid heating system consists of a heat pump and a back-up gas furnace. The main component of the system is the heat pump. Heat pumps work by using refrigerant to facilitate the transfer of heat from one location to another. During the summer, the heat pump removes the heat from your indoors and transfers it outdoors; during the winter, the heat pump absorbs the heat surrounding it, concentrates it, then sends it into your home. However, when the temperature falls below 32 degrees, it is harder to extract heat from the air, forcing the heat pump to work harder and less efficiently. However, with a hybrid system, this isn’t an issue.

With a hybrid system, the outdoor unit, where the heat pump technology is house, is equipped with a sensor that works in conjunction with a dual-fuel thermostat inside your home. The sensor reads the outside temperature and is programmed with a set-point temperature, determined by you, that tells the system when to switch to the gas heat. When the temperature goes above the set-point, your system will switch back to using the heat pump for heat. The switching in the system is automatic, and ensures that you’ll never have to worry about being cold on an extra-chilly day.

A hybrid heating system in Arlington can be the perfect solution for those homeowners looking to gain the benefits of a heat pump but without worry during the colder months of the year.

If you are interested in seeing what a hybrid heating system can do for your home, call OASIS Heating, A/C & Refrigeration, Inc., today.

Continue Reading

Are Sump Pumps Good For Basements?

Thursday, October 19th, 2017

It is part of the popular conception of sump pumps that the main purpose they serve is to pump water that floods down into the basement. So if you live in a home that doesn’t contain a basement (and more and more modern homes don’t) you may think that it’s unnecessary to have a sump pump installed.

Continue Reading

Your Heat Pump Won’t Switch to Heating Mode: Here’s Why

Tuesday, October 17th, 2017

If you have a heat pump to handle the comfort needs of your home, you’ll soon switch over to heating mode for the first time in many months. You can expect the heat pump to make the transition smoothly, since all it has to do is change the direction the refrigerant flows and siphon out an amount of the refrigerant.

Continue Reading

Fairfax, VA Heating Repair FAQ: Why Does My System Shut Down When I’m Still Cold?

Sunday, October 15th, 2017

“Why does my system shut down when I’m still cold?” That’s not an uncommon question from homeowners who may be frustrated by problems with their heating system. Here in Fairfax, VA, heating repair is an essential service; our winters may not be a cold as they are in New England, but we still get our share of chilly days and nights. So when your system shuts down prematurely or just never seems to make your home comfortable, it’s a cause for some concern. Before calling in a professional technician, you can educate yourself a bit on why a heater fails to do its job, and why your system shuts down when you’re still cold.

In a lot of cases, such a situation indicates a failure with the thermostat.  If you’ve placed your thermostat in a part of the house that gets a lot of sunshine, or it it’s near a warm draft, it may read the temperature as being warmer than it is. Your service technician can move it to a more “temperature neutral” part of the house to correct the issue. Alternately, the thermostat’s thermometer may be malfunctioning, in which case it’s reading the temperature as higher than it is.

Other issues may have little to do with the overall temperature, but rather with overloaded or overheating components within the system itself. Fan motors and the like often contain automatic shut-off switches, designed to turn the entire heater off when the motor itself starts to overload. This happens in order to protect the system from further damage. In any case, it may come along suddenly, cutting off your heating power before it warms your home sufficiently.

Regardless of the causes, if you’re asking “Why does my system shut down when I’m still cold?” then your heater is experiencing problems. The trained experts at OASIS Heating, Air Conditioning & Refrigeration, Inc. can help. We handle Fairfax, VA heating repair issues of all varieties, and have served Northern Virginia for over fifteen years. Call us today to set up an appointment.

Continue Reading

Some Ideas for New Heating Installations

Thursday, October 12th, 2017

Are you planning to replace an old heater in your home and put in a new one this fall? Or are you in a new house and it needs to have a heating system installed in time for winter? We have some good news and some bad news for you.

Continue Reading