Clean Energy Comfort

Salem's leading provider of heating and cooling systems

Salem:

503-304-1320

Portland:

503-982-6082

CCB #193064

Common Sense Contracting

By

At Clean Energy Comfort, we apply a common sense approach to contracting. As a heating and air conditioning contractor, we hear all too often from our customers that they had a bad experience with a previous contractor, HVAC or otherwise. We try to provide the best experience for our customers using 4 basic principles:

Responsiveness

As consumers, when we have a question or concern, we want it answered. At CEC, we try to make ourselves available to answer these questions and/or concerns in a timely fashion.

Provide Quality Products and Service

Things are changing rapidly in the world, and the heating and air conditioning field is no exception. We go through constant product training to make sure we stay up on current innovations in home comfort, and are able to offer you the best products and service on the market.

Provide Value

Every house is different, as is every homeowner. We meet with our customers up front to determine the heating and cooling demands of the home by performing a load calculation, and then we propose a few different system options that will meet those demands, as well as satisfying the customer’s comfort needs/wants.

Cleanliness

We understand that you are asking us into your home to provide you with a comfortable experience. We will respect your home, and leave it cleaner than we found it. We also take pride in making our installations functional and form fitting.

Clean Energy Comfort is not just a name, it’s a statement. We will keep your home CLEAN, we will help you save ENERGY, and we will give you COMFORT.

Springtime in Oregon, and Nature’s Reminders

By

A beautiful mid-March day in Oregon is the perfect reminder of what a great place we live.  The darkness and rain give way, for a brief moment, to allow us to roll down the windows, and take in the fresh air; and it gives us that glimpse we need into the great days that lie ahead.  Having grown up in Oregon, I have always loved the balance of weather that we have here.  By the end of winter, I am ready for sun and summer, and by the end of summer, I am actually ready for the cool relief of a rainy, foggy fall.  We are very fortunate to live in such a beautiful place, and I am very thankful for it.  I wanted to share this sentiment with you, and I will also take this opportunity to say that this season change is the perfect time to have us perform maintenance on your heating and cooling system.  We will change your filter to get you ready for allergy season, and perform a complete and thorough cleaning on your air conditioning system to make sure it’s ready for summer.  We have three maintenance packages available, so contact us to find out more.  Oh, and enjoy this weather!

Are Ductless Heat Pumps Really That Efficient?

By

The short answer is yes, they are.  For a more detailed demonstration on the efficiency of ductless heat pump systems, I point you to a case study we started over a year ago.  Muddy Creek Charter School is a small elementary school on the outskirts of Corvallis, Oregon.  They were suffering through winters at the school with their heating system, which was an oil boiler with air handlers that served the classrooms, library, office, and gym areas.  Not only was this heating system very inefficient, but it also provided little to no ventilation for the school, and they had no air conditioning when the warmer weather would set in.  We installed Mitsubishi ductless heat pump systems for each of the 7 classrooms and the library.  For the gym, we installed a Rheem roof top package heat pump system to heat and cool, and provide fresh air ventilation.  For the classrooms we also installed an Energy Recovery Ventilator (ERV) to provide very efficient fresh air, making the classrooms a much healthier environment.

Recently I met with Mr. Hayes, the Principal at Muddy Creek, and he shared with me his utility cost savings over the previous year.  Comparing 2011 to 2012, the electric bill for the school actually went down a nominal amount.  The kicker here is the savings they are realizing by not having to purchase heating oil.  The school was budgeting a whopping $12,000 to $16,000 per year for heating oil, and now that burden is lifted.  As you can imagine this will do great things for the school in terms of their budgeting for the future; and they now have a healthier, more comfortable environment for the children to learn in.

As a disclosure, the roof top heat pump system for the gym was not running during the comparison period, and we have not yet installed the ductless units to feed the office area.  I can assure you though, that these variables will not make that much of a dent in their savings.  The school plans on hopefully finishing up the project around the end of the school year.

This is an example of what ductless heat pump systems can do on a larger scale.  Ductless heat pumps, also known as mini splits, are great heating and cooling systems for residential applications as well.  There are also some great incentives from utilities and tax credits that are available for residential applications.  If you would like to learn more about how a ductless heat pump system could save you money on your heating and cooling costs, then please give Clean Energy Comfort a call, and let us show you.  Additionally, Mr. Hayes gave his blessing on this article, and added that he would be happy to speak with anyone who would like to hear more about their story.

Cool Products For Your Heating and Cooling System

By

Most people aren’t aware of just how many different accessory products are available for a heating and cooling system, whether it be related to safety and health, comfort, energy savings, or just ease of operation. Let’s touch on a few of these products.

Health & Safety Products

Carbon monoxide detectors are becoming more and more popular. On April 1 of 2011 in Oregon, ORS 476.725 went into effect stating that carbon monoxide detectors must be installed in any home that contains a Carbon Monoxide (CO) producing appliance, or that has an attached garage where CO may enter the home from a car running in the garage. What appliances produce CO? Pretty much any gas or oil burning appliance, a furnace, water heater, gas range, or even a wood burning fireplace. The law states that single family residences are required to have a working CO detector in, or within 15′ of any bedroom at the time of sale or rental. Unintentional CO exposure accounts for an estimated 15,000 ER visits, and approximately 500 deaths each year in the US. – Center for Disease Control. This is a very important product to help keep your family safe from this silent killer.

Duct mounted smoke detectors can be easily installed on your ductwork, and include a tube that enters the duct, and will sense smoke being pulled through the ductwork. Once smoke is sensed by the detector, it will turn your furnace off to avoid circulating the smoke throughout the entire home. You can incorporate an alarm into this setup, but the biggest benefit of this product is the avoided smoke damage that even the smallest of kitchen fires could cause if allowed to be circulated through the ductwork with the force of the furnace fan.

Ultra violet light can be installed on your heating and cooling system, and is very effective at maintaining healthy air in the home. There are many good air filtration systems available, but the downfall with most of them is their inability to kill the particles they trap, and therefore those particles may be disbursed into the duct system again. The UV light will kill mold spores and bacteria, and stop them from reproducing. Ductwork is a breeding ground for these organisms, and the UV light will keep your lungs from taking the abuse.

Energy Savings and Comfort

Now that we’re through all the boring safety stuff, we can focus on the cool gadgets that are available. The most exciting control system available right now is the Prestige HD thermostat from Honeywell. Honeywell has developed a thermostat that will open eyes, and broaden your abilities to control your heating and cooling system. This thermostat has a full color display, and when equipped with the optional wireless outdoor temperature sensor, will also display outdoor temperature and humidity. The stat incorporates an interview based programming method, and will ask you questions about your schedule for each day of the week, to determine optimum programming settings for increased comfort and energy savings. Filter change and maintenance reminders can also be easily set up, so that you don’t let that all too easy to forget, and yet so important, furnace be neglected. That is the basic operation of the stat, but the really cool part is the options available.

There is an optional Portable Comfort Control, which is a remote that you can take with you anywhere in the house, and you can not only control the system from there, but if you want, you can even have the temperature sensed from there. For example, if you are spending the day in a TV room watching movies, and you want that room to maintain 70 degrees, you simply take the remote with you, push the button to sense from the remote, and your heating and cooling system will work to achieve 70 degrees in that room.

If being able to control your system from any room in your home isn’t enough, what about being able to control it from anywhere in the world? The Internet Gateway from Honeywell plugs into your wireless router, and can wirelessly communicate between your laptop, desktop, phone, or iPad. You can control the temperature manually, set up a new program, and also monitor the system. Honeywell monitors the system as well, with no monthly fees. Sensors get installed in the ductwork that read temperature on the supply and return side of your heating and cooling system. If the difference between the two sensors increases or decreases indicating a problem with the heating and cooling system, then emails will get sent to up to 5 emails of your choice. If you have your email in the system along with the email of your heating contractor, then if there is a problem, your heating contractor can be arranging a service call, and contacting you, whereas before you would have to come home to a cold house, and probably pay after hours rates to have it fixed. The Internet Gateway can be especially useful in a vacation home. How nice would it be to bump up the heat when you or a renter are on your way to the home, and oh, if you got half way back home and it clicked with you that you forgot to turn down the thermostat, no problem. Just hop online.

These are just a few of the many products available that can be added to any heating and cooling system at anytime. If you have any questions on these or any other products of interest, please contact us, and we’ll be happy to help.

Will a ductless heat pump work in my home?

By

Mitsubishi-MSZ-FE12

Mitsubishi Wall Mounted Unit

If you’re wondering whether or not a ductless heat pump will work in your home, the answer is more than likely yes. With the wide variety of indoor options available, ductless heat pumps have become adaptable to almost any situation. While the most common type of indoor unit remains the wall mounted style, the use of alternative units such as concealed, ducted units, and low floor mount units are on the rise. The fact of the matter is that all homes are different, as are the people who live in them, and they all have different needs. The use of these alternative indoor units in conjunction with the standard wall mounted ductless units, allow for much more flexibility in the design process. For example, if you live in a 1,600 square foot home with a fairly wide open main living space, but the bedrooms are isolated from the rest of the house, you could potentially feed the main area with a wall mounted unit or two, and then install a concealed ducted unit, such as the one pictured below, in the attic or crawl space that could feed some short duct runs into the bedrooms.

2011-08-10_09-50-45_604

Mitsubishi ducted indoor unit

One area where ductless heat pumps can really have a huge impact on livability of a space is in the upstairs of older homes that never had ductwork ran to them, or were converted from attics. A lot of times in these houses, the ceiling follows the pitch of the roof, and the attic knee walls of the upstairs are very short. In this scenario, a floor standing unit works great. The wall mounted units work best when you can get them up at a higher level in the room, but when you don’t have the luxury of installing the unit up high, the floor standing unit is the answer. The floor standing unit, as pictured below can be used in multi-zone applications only.

Mitsubishi Floor Standing Indoor Unit

Mitsubishi Floor Standing Indoor Unit

Ductless heat pumps have had a tremendous impact on the heating and air conditioning industry in the last five years, and with the continued developments in the product line, they are definitely here to stay. So, no matter if you currently have baseboard heat in your home, and want a more efficient heating system along with air conditioning, or if you have a bonus room you would like to heat and cool without affecting the rest of your home, or if your upstairs is unusable because it gets too hot, chances are that a ductless heat pump system could be just what you’re looking for.