JC Mechanical Inc. Blog : Archive for January, 2015

What Air Purifier Is Right for Your Home?

Friday, January 30th, 2015

The air in the average home is teeming with thousands and thousands of microscopic contaminants. These contaminants range in intensity, from minor lung irritants like dust and pollen to more serious infectious agents like viruses and bacteria. All of these contaminants contribute to lowering the air quality in your home, as well as making you sick. Several varieties of air purifiers have been invented to clear the air of these contaminants. Each air purifier has its own strengths and weaknesses. Let’s take a look at the different air purifiers available to you, and which one would be right for your home.

Air Filters

Air filters have the simplest construction of all air purifiers, and are also some of the most common. An air filter consists of a woven fiber mesh, stretched over a frame and installed either in a portable device or the home’s ductwork. As air travels through this mesh, the particulates in the air are trapped in the filter. Every once in a while, the filter is removed, cleaned, and replaced. This prevents contaminants from freely circulating throughout your house.

Ionization Purifiers

Ionization air purifiers are devices that create an electromagnetic field around themselves. As particles in the air pass through this field, they are given a negative charge that causes them to seek out a positively charged surface to stick to. Inside the ionization purifier are one or two metal plates, which provide a convenient surface for the particulates to stick to. Then, the plates can simply be removed and cleaned to get rid of the contaminants.

Ionization filters are a great choice because they can cover a wide area, and actively draw contaminants to themselves. However, they also produce ozone, which is considered a toxic gas by the EPA. Many ionization filters include extra safety measures to capture any ozone that might be produced. Make sure that if you get an ionization filter, you get one that includes these safety features.

UV Germicidal Lights

Many of the biological contaminants in your air are extremely vulnerable to exposure to ultraviolet radiation. The radiation destroys certain parts of their cellular structure, preventing them from multiplying or killing them outright. An UV germicidal light takes advantage of this by bathing the area around itself in ultraviolet light, cleansing the air of these biological contaminants.

If you’d like to know more, call JC Mechanical Inc. We provide professional air purifier installation in the Garden Grove area.

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The Advantages of a Gas Furnace for Home Heating

Friday, January 23rd, 2015

Furnaces have been around for a couple of thousand years, making them one of the original home heating systems. Today’s furnaces are certainly different than the ones from earlier times, but their longevity is a mark of why they are one of the most commonly-used heating systems around. Furnaces can use oil, propane or natural gas to generate heat, but natural gas is by far the most popular fuel choice. So how does your gas furnace heat your home, and why can it be a good choice? Let’s take a look.

Generating Heat

The heating process your furnace starts when your home’s thermostat cues your furnace’s ignition process to start. The pilot light is lit (with a standing pilot, the pilot will already be lit), and once the pilot light is determined to be viable by either the thermocouple or flame sensor, the gas valve is opened to allow the gas to flow into the burner. The burner is lit by the pilot and heats a component known as the heat exchanger. Once the air around the outside of the heat exchanger reaches the right temperature, a sensor on your furnace’s fan known as a limit switch turns on the blower. At the same time, toxic combustion byproducts inside the heat exchanger are vented out the flue. The blower pushes the warm air generated by the burner and heat exchanger into your ductwork where it disperses to your living spaces.

Benefits of a Gas Heater

  • Clean-burning fuel – natural gas is the cleanest-burning of all the fossil fuels; this makes it more environmentally friendly and reduces the amount of ash and soot in your furnace’s cabinet.
  • Gets hot quickly – natural gas heats up quickly and gets quite hot – about 130 degrees. This helps your home to heat quickly.
  • Convenient – your gas furnace is connected directly to the main gas line from your street, so you have a continuous fuel flow; you can also connect other gas appliances like dryers and water heaters.
  • Energy efficient – gas furnaces can be very energy efficient, with a number of models rating at 90% AFUE or higher.

Gas furnaces should always be professionally installed by trained experts, so if you’re looking for a new gas furnace in Anaheim, call the people you can count on at JC Mechanical, Inc. to schedule an appointment today.

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Why Insulation Is Important All Year Round

Wednesday, January 14th, 2015

When you hear people talking about insulation, you may often associate it with protecting your home from the chill of winter. But in Southern California, the wintertime doesn’t last nearly as long as the warmer weather does. It may seem as though insulation is unnecessary for our climate, since you may not need a heater throughout much of the year. As it turns out, however, insulation is just as important for the summer months as it is in the winter.

To understand how insulation helps to keep you comfortable throughout the year, you must first understand a few things about the terms “hot” and “cold.” Scientifically, heat is a form of energy that can be measured, while “cold” is not. There is no cold energy out there—only a lack of heat. Heat moves naturally from a warmer to a cooler area, which is why it moves into your home in the summer and out of your home in the winter, causing the air to feel cold.

Insulation can be made of one of many materials, including natural fibers like wool and cotton, polystyrene, polyurethane, fiberglass, mineral wool, and cellulose. When enough insulation is installed in a home, it resists conductive and convective heat transfer to some degree. Therefore, it’s more difficult for heat to move into a home in the summertime and for heat to exit your home in the winter.

Insulation helps to keep you feeling more comfortable as the level of heat in your home is retained. And you may even be able to shut off your air conditioner or heating system entirely. It is also important for the efficiency and performance of your HVAC system. The less you use your air conditioner or heater, the less you’ll have to pay in energy costs, and you lower the risk of a sudden heating or AC breakdown.

It’s best to have a trained technicians help you to select your new insulation and find the insulating material with the best R-value, a measure of the insulation material’s effectiveness, for the space that requires it. Call JC Mechanical Inc. to speak with professionals about insulation in La Habra today.

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Choosing the Right Air Conditioner

Monday, January 5th, 2015

Everyone knows that California can be quite hot during the summer season, sometimes brutally so. In order to make it through the season comfortably, as we believe that you deserve to, you must have a great air conditioning system installed in your home. Of course, even the best air conditioner ever made will fail to impress if it is simply not the right fit for your home, your usage habits, or your personal preferences. That is why it is so important that you work with a skilled, trained professional when choosing your new air conditioning system in La Habra, CA. Give the experts at JC Mechanical Inc. a call today to ensure that your new AC is perfect for your unique situation.

With all of the air conditioning systems available today, it really is necessary that you get to know your options before deciding upon which you will use to cool your home. Traditional split central air conditioners are still the most popular option in the residential sector. An outdoor unit connects to an air handler inside, and conditioned air is distributed throughout the home via ductwork.

Heat pumps work in the much the same manner, but offer a few benefits that traditional AC systems do not. To start with, heat pumps feature a reversing valve. This valve actually allows the heat pump to reverse its function. Traditional central air conditioners and heat pumps cool your home by removing heat from the air inside and redistributing that heat throughout the house. By reversing its operation, though, a heat pump is actually able to draw heat from the air outside in order to use it in warming your home. This is a great option for year round comfort in areas such as ours, where winter temperatures are mild.

Finally, consider the installation of a ductless air conditioning system. Like air-source heat pumps, these devices can also use heat in the air outside in order to warm your home. They do not require any ductwork in order to distribute this heat, though. Instead, individual, wall mounted blowers are used. Contact JC Mechanical Inc. today to learn more about your options for quality air conditioning in La Habra, CA.

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