Archive for May, 2009

General SL16 Humidifier Install

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009
Generalaire SL-16 Humidifer

Generalaire SL-16 Humidifier

Fort McMurray Alberta is a very dry place, it can be at times as dry as a desert. This can be devastating on hard wood floors, furniture and peoples sinus’s.

Most homes are only equipped with a plate humidifier which is a tray of water that refills with a float valve and sits above the furnace heat exchanger. When the warm air of the furnace is blown into the home it passes over the tray of water and provides humidity into the home. Unfortunately this is not a very effective form of humidifying and usually results in not enough humidity in the home and sometimes water over flows onto the furnace heat exchanger that can causes rusting and shorten the life span of the furnace.

Some homes are equipped with a “upgraded drum humidifier” I use the term loosely.  Drum humidifier’s are slightly better at providing humidity but with water sitting constantly in a tray filled by a float valve this type of humidifier is faced with the same problems as the tray humidifier with flooding and mold build ups. (more…)

Dryer Vent Plugged

Monday, May 4th, 2009

Over the weekend I had many furnace duct cleaning jobs and during our Spring promotion we are offering a free dryer vent cleaning with the Furnace duct cleaning service. During one call I found a dryer vent that had never been cleaned and the home owner was not aware that cleaning the dryer vent at least one per year is a recommended fire hazard prevention method.

This dryer vent was barely moving any air and was about 75% plugged over, the dryer was very hot and the plastic ribbed dryer venting had signs of melting in places. I showed this to the customer before I went outside and cleaned the venting using a reverse skipper method with high pressure air.

I had the customer come outside to view the large amounts of lint that was being removed from the venting as the customer stood there in shock. “I had no idea” said the customer as I assured him that most customers do not realize how much lint is built up in the dryer venting so I decided to offer a few tips to home owners about dryer venting.

1. Lint traps only remove about 75% of the lint that builds up during the drying cycle, the remainder is dispossed of out the venting. (more…)

Furnace Duct Cleaning Kodiak Fitness Center in Fort McMurray

Monday, May 4th, 2009

Today I was faced with a furnace duct cleaning challenge, Kodiak Fitness in Fort McMurray Alberta had a septic backup and it had flooded the in floor ducting.

I had advised the customer to contact a sump pump company to first draw all the liquid out of the duct system before I start the cleaning process. Duct cleaning a system with in-floor ducting provides challenges that you do not face when cleaning a suspended ducting system, such as access is only available where ever the heat register is located. In a suspended furnace duct system you can make more access holes as required.

The good side of having a in-floor ducting system is there are fewer air leaks in the system which means stronger suction from the vacuum system. Because we have limited access holes we will use a combination of the Duct Brush system and  the Air Viper system to completely clean the duct system. (more…)