John A. Kinkaid Heating & Air Conditioning, Inc.

5 Tips to Lower Your Heating Bill

Keep cozy with blankets and socks for a lower heating bill!

Time to bundle up! Winter is fast approaching. Are you hoping for a lower heating bill this season? We all are! In this post, the experts at Kinkaid share five tips to help homeowners in Bucks County, PA save on heating costs when temperatures drop this fall.

1. Thermostat Settings

It sounds simple, but starting with a lower thermostat setting can reduce energy bills by up to 3 percent––per degree, per day. You can lower the temperature even more during the night for additional cost savings and opt for long sleeves, layered blankets and cozy slippers to stay warm. A programmable thermostat is a great way to save by allowing you to set a schedule for your system––simply program a lower temperature overnight and when you’re away from home for an extended period of time during the day. Of course, always ensure the environment remains comfortable for pets, children and the elderly.

2. Use Fans to Circulate Hot Air  

Heat rises, but a ceiling fan on a low setting can help circulate hot air back down and throughout the home.

3. Windows, Curtains, Shades and Blinds

Windows can contribute to up to 25% of heat loss in the home. It’s a good idea to open curtains, blinds or shades on south-facing windows during the day to let natural heat from sunlight in, and to close them at night to help insulate your house against the cold. Placing blankets over uncovered windows at night, or over drapes when temperatures drop (during a cold front, for example), can provide additional insulation. Lastly, installing heavy duty clear window treatments is a great way to help keep the cold out, especially on single pane windows.

4. Change Air Filters

Clean air filters promote proper air flow throughout the home and reduce strain on your system. This can extend the life of your furnace and improve indoor air quality.

5. Regular Maintenance

Scheduling a tune-up before you need your system most is a great way to save on energy bills. A certified HVAC technician can clean and evaluate your system. This helps ensure there are no loose or damaged parts, air filters are clean, and your system is operating at maximum efficiency.

Call on Kinkaid

John A. Kinkaid Heating & Air Conditioning proudly serves Montgomery, Bucks, Philadelphia and Chester Counties. We offer residential and commercial installation, maintenance and repair on all makes and models of HVAC equipment. Contact us today to set up an appointment!

HVAC in a Time of COVID-19

The global pandemic caused by COVID-19 has changed the way most of us go about our daily lives. Home and business owners are left with questions like: Can COVID spread through HVAC systems?

Though it is difficult to measure, there is no definitive evidence that COVID-19 has been transmitted through an HVAC system. That said, there are several measures that can help curb the spread of the virus. Let’s take a look:

Humidity and COVID-19

Some research suggests that adding moisture to the air can damage the outer membrane of the virus. In fact, the lower levels of humidity most indoor spaces experience in the winter months create just the kind of environment that COVID-19 thrives in. The virus may also remain viable for longer periods of time in spaces with low humidity. This is an important factor to keep in mind, even in the summer, as increased humidity makes “droplets” less likely to linger in the air. An additional benefit to adjusting humidity levels is that it helps moisturize our mucous membranes, which can aid in the body’s ability to fight the virus.

The caveat of increased humidity is that too much moisture in the air can damage furnishings and finishes. It can also cause adverse health effects in some individuals. Consult with an HVAC professional to determine and set up optimal levels of humidity in your space.

Clean and Sanitize HVAC Equipment

Though it is unlikely that COVID-19 particles remain viable in an HVAC system for much time during lockdown, having equipment cleaned and sanitized has multiple benefits. It is a wise precaution if there have been confirmed cases of the virus in a space. In any event, cleaning your system lets it use less power, operate more efficiently and it keeps your equipment in good condition.

Ventilation

Increasing ventilation in a space by adding more outside air can help dilute any particles present. For more information on HVAC operations concerning the virus, check out this guide to building operations during the pandemic from the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers.

Call a Professional

Kinkaid proudly serves Montgomery, Bucks, Philadelphia and Chester Counties. We offer residential and commercial installation, and maintenance and repair on all makes and models of HVAC equipment. We also offer a variety of service plans and financing options. Contact us today to get started!

Energy-Saving Tips for Throughout the Year

energy-saving tips

We’ve covered ways to help you save energy in the past. But there’s always other things to cover. For everything you can do to waste energy, there’s another thing you can do to save energy. So don’t break your bank by making some simple, but common mistakes. Keep costs down. Control your home’s temperature. Feel more comfortable. Check out some of the energy-saving tips that you can use throughout the year.

Energy-Saving Tips for Your Thermostat

First, let’s cover some basic tips about your thermostat. Most people know that it’s cheaper to maintain a room at a certain temperature than it is to constantly heat it up or cool it down. But what about beyond that? Consider the following:

  • Set your thermostat as high as comfortably possible during the summer. The less your A/C has to work, the more energy you’ll save.
  • It’s a myth that your home will cool faster (or heat faster) if you set the temperature lower (or higher) than you would normally. Instead, set it to the exact temperature you desire.
  • Avoid placing lamps or TVs near your thermostat. The thermostat will sense heat from these appliances, which can cause problems.
  • Also, keep your thermostat out of direct sunlight.

Use Daylight Effectively

Second, this brings us to the next energy-saving tip: using daylight effectively. Please, consider the following:

  • Install storm windows over your normal windows. This helps sunlight come in during the winter days, and helps keep sunlight out during the summer days.
  • Get effective window treatments that utilize the right shades or drapes. A quality window treatment not only helps your home look better, but also effectively saves energy.
  • In addition to a quality window treatment, close your drapes during cold nights to help seal in the heat.

Energy-Saving Tips for Appliances

Third, you can actually use your appliances to save energy! Here’s how:

  • DO NOT use your oven to heat your home. If you have a gas oven, that releases carbon monoxide into the air.
  • Install efficient lighting. Only about 10% to 15% of the electricity that incandescent lights consume results in light—the rest is turned into heat.
  • Wash only full loads of dishes and clothes. Consider air drying both dishes and clothing.
  • Take short showers instead of baths.
  • Use your ceiling fans effectively.

Use Kinkaid Heating and Air Conditioning

Finally, the best energy-saving tip we can give is to use Kinkaid Heating and Air Conditioning! For all of your HVAC needs, contact us today.

Is It Safe to Use Your Oven to Heat Your Home?

Safe to Use Your Oven to Heat Your Home

Nothing’s more frustrating than when your heater breaks and you have to wait in the winter cold to get it fixed. Sitting in your home, freezing and covered in layers of blankets can be hard to stand! Space heaters might help, but they can’t heat your entire home. And they can run up your electric costs! It seems like the easiest option would be to turn on your gas oven and leave it open for a while. Just a few minutes couldn’t hurt, right? In this week’s blog, we’ll answer the question, “Is It Safe to Use Your Oven to Heat Your Home?”

Is It Safe to Use Your Oven to Heat Your Home?

First, let’s make this short and simple: no. It is not safe to use your oven to heat your home. If you have a gas oven, leaving it open to heat your home releases harmful carbon monoxide throughout your home. Given some time, carbon monoxide can be fatal. Additionally, if you suffer from a lung condition such as asthma, emphysema, or other similar conditions, carbon monoxide can exacerbate your condition. And this might mean a hospital visit!

Now, you might wonder, “But didn’t they use ovens to heat their homes in the old days?” No, people actually used wood ovens to heat their homes. The oven would be connected to all sorts of pipes that ran throughout the home to keep it warm. But wood ovens do not use natural gas. Therefore, they do not release carbon monoxide.

Other Tips Besides Using Your Oven to Heat Your Home

Second, if you’ve chosen a subpar HVAC company who won’t be able to serve you for a while, consider these tips to help heat your home:

  • Open all your blinds, drapes, and curtains during the day. Close them at night.
  • Install storm windows on the outside of your home.
  • Close all your doors and focus on heating at least one room in your home.
  • Make sure your windows are locked and not just closed.

Go with Kinkaid Instead!

Since it isn’t safe to use your oven to heat your home, what else can you do? Call us at Kinkaid Heating and Air Conditioning! We’re the best HVAC company in the Philadelphia area. We’d love it if you reached out for a consultation. Don’t delay!

Best HVAC in King of Prussia

best hvac king of prussia

Those Geico commercials are right. Ok is just not good enough. If you want your car to work the best it can, you search for the best mechanic. If you need work done on your home, you search for the best. The same applies to your heating and air conditioning. The next best might not get the job done right. They might not get you the best deal, install it quite right, or do some of the little things to help you save money. So, without further ado, please let us show you why Kinkaid stands as the best HVAC in King of Prussia.

The Best HVAC in King of Prussia Has Experience

First, the best HVAC companies have the greatest experience. In other words, they’ve been around for a long time. At Kinkaid, we’re a family-owned company that’s been around for over 100 years. In order to be successful for that long, you need to gain customer trust and keep it. It’s one thing to do a job well the first time. But it’s quite another to consistently perform well so that our customers know they can trust us for years to come. Fortunately, we’ve been doing just that for over a century. Don’t believe us? Take a look at our history here.

Friendly and Knowledgable

Second, the best HVAC in King of Prussia will be both friendly and knowledgeable. It’s one thing for a company to have staff that know everything there is to know about their service or product. Of course you want that. Such a staff can provide unparalleled peace of mind because you can trust that they can get the job done right. However, if they’re rude or not sensitive to your needs, then what’s the good? On the other hand, if their staff shows tremendous kindness, but aren’t competent, that’s equally as useless. No, the best HVAC in King of Prussia has a staff that treats you with the utmost respect and knows the ins and outs of the business. Thankfully, Kinkaid gives you exactly that.

Kinkaid: the Best HVAC in King of Prussia

Finally, if you want to hire the best HVAC company in King of Prussia for your home or office, then hire Kinkaid Heating and Air Conditioning! With over 100 years of experience and the best staff in the business, we can provide everything you need. Contact us today!

Home Ventilation Strategies

home ventilation strategies

We all know the feeling. You walk into a room and you can just feel the still air. It’s uncomfortable, icky, and makes you want to leave. Yet, at the same time, no matter the temperature, a well-circulated room can feel so much better. But besides a fan or two, what are the best ways to ventilate your home? In this week’s post, we’ll discuss some of the best home ventilation strategies that you can use.

Home Ventilation Strategies: Ceiling Fans

First, ceiling fans serve as one of the best tools to ventilate your home. Fans you plug in can help circulate air in and out of windows, but do little to really help entire rooms. So how can you use ceiling fans to make the most of them? Well, you can use a ceiling fan in conjunction with your air conditioning. If you raise your set temperature by 4 degrees, the ceiling fan can help make up the difference. Furthermore, remember that fans cool people, not rooms. So, turning off the fan when you leave the room can help reduce costs. This is especially helpful for home ventilation strategies since circulating air doesn’t take nearly as long as actually raising or lowering the temperature.

Home Ventilation Strategies by Room

Second, let’s cover some key home ventilation strategies room-by-room so you can make the most of them.

  • Bedroom – Like we said above, turn off your fans when you’re not in the room. Additionally, if you can, install a ceiling fan in your bedroom.
  • Bathroom – When you shower or take a bath, use the fan to remove the heat and humidity from your home. Keeping the door open might also help.
  • Kitchen – Always use your vent fans when you cook and DO NOT use your appliances to heat your home.
  • Laundry room – Spot ventilation can be particularly helpful here. Your dryer, for example, can make the area stuffy. So be sure you have a proper fan installed.

Each of these home ventilation strategies will not only help individual rooms feel better, but also your home as a whole.

Learn More with Kinkaid

Finally, if you’d like to learn more about home ventilation strategies, or need a fan or unit installed, contact us at Kinkaid Heating and Air Conditioning! One of our friendly experts would love to help you.

Save Money on Air Conditioning This Summer

save money on air conditioning

Summer is here and we finally have a break from all that cold. But that doesn’t mean homeowners can let their guard down when it comes to their HVAC systems. Many homeowners crank up the air conditioning when the weather gets hot, but this can get expensive. Here are a few important tips for saving money on air conditioning this summer.

Ensure Your House is Properly Insulated

That’s right! Just because it’s summer doesn’t mean insulation isn’t important. In winter, we insulate to keep the heat in. In the summer, that same insulation is vital to keep the heat out.

It is just as important to check all of your doors and windows for gaps that allow drafts through. We spend a lot of money on cooling our homes in the summer, so you don’t want that money steadily draining out through a crack under your door or window.

Seal Off Unused Rooms

Air conditioning is expensive. Depending on your system, you may be able to avoid using the A/C in rooms that you don’t use (or rarely use). If you have an A/C system that can be used to cool individual rooms, close off the rooms that are not frequently used, just like when you are trying to conserve heat in the winter. If there are cracks under the doors, seal them off with rags or towels.

Put Your Air Conditioning on a Timer

There is no need to leave the air conditioner on full blast when you are at work all day. Turning the air conditioning off, or at least significantly lowering the settings, while no one is home will save you a lot of money. If you have a pet that needs air conditioning while you are away, consider confining them to one room to reduce the need for air conditioning throughout the house.

Make Sure Your HVAC is in Working Order

Your don’t want to be in the middle of a heat wave and suddenly lose air conditioning just because you didn’t get the HVAC system inspected properly. Contact John A. Kinkaid Heating and Air Conditioning today to set up an appointment. Make sure your HVAC system is in the best condition, and provide your family peace of mind this summer.

7 Ways to Save Money and Stay Warm This Winter

stay warm this winter

Temperatures are dropping and winter is closing in fast. Here are some quick tips from the experts at John A. Kinkaid Heating & Air Conditioning on how to stay warm while saving money this winter.

1. Break out the storm windows

Storm windows are especially important for older homes that may not have properly insulated windows. A lot of heat can seep out through the cracks around old windows. A set of quality storm windows will help you cut down on that heating bill while staying toasty warm.

2. Turn on the ceiling fan

Most people know to turn on the fan during the summer. But did you know that the fan can also help during the winter? Hot air will rise, collecting at the top of the room. Reversing the fan pushes that hot air down, providing better circulation and keeping you and your family much warmer.

3. Before you turn up the heat, consider putting on some extra layers

Too many times we get in the habit of just cranking up the heat when we get cold. But before you start turning up the heat this winter, consider putting on a sweater and a pair of wool socks. You’d be surprised how much a little extra warm clothing can shave off your heating bill this winter.

4. Close off unused areas

Not using the guest bedroom? What about that attic? Or the basement? Close it off. There is no point in paying to heat parts of the house that aren’t even being used. Close the doors and stuff some old rags in the cracks under the doors to prevent the heat from the rest of the house from leaching out through unused rooms.

5. Take advantage of the sunlight

You don’t have to have solar panels or fancy equipment to take advantage of solar energy. You can use passive solar energy to help heat your house by opening all of your curtains and drapes during the day, then closing them at night to preserve the heat that was collected. It is a simple, but efficient way to shave a little bit more off that energy bill.

6. Cook up some heat

Do you love to cook? Turn down the heat in the kitchen when you’re cooking. The stove and oven will often give off enough heat to make up the difference. Every little bit you can save helps.

7. Don’t leave the heat on when you’re gone

Why would you pay to heat an empty house? Turn the heat down while you’re at work. If you have a pet who might get cold, only keep the heat turned up in one room.