A lot of people these days use a fireplace to help save on heating bills during the cold months. As a rule, this is a good move just as long as they don't forget about safety. But it's not uncommon for people to realize that they're not getting the heat they expected from their fireplace.
Indeed, rooms often become colder than usual if a fire is burning, and it seems that the only way to stay warm is to stay right by the fire. Many people end up wondering how other homeowners use their fireplaces to produce a warm and cozy atmosphere.
There's an easy solution, even though it's also somewhat complex. If you feel unusually cold in other areas of the house when your fireplace is running, you probably need a fireplace heat exchanger. This is the easy part; the more difficult component is figuring out just why you need it.
The point of the matter is that the fire in an open wood burning fireplace will consume a good chunk of the air in your home that was already heated to a comfortable room temperature. The fireplace uses up this air but it also replaces it; however, the substitute is cold air from outdoors. That's the explanation for why a burning fire in one room causes the rest of your home to become colder.
The good news is that all your really need is a fireplace heat exchanger to solve the problem. It's possible to chase away the cold in the other areas of your home by simply putting in a heat exchanger and some glass doors.
A fireplace heat exchanger is a must with any open wood burning fireplace and yet so many people go without them because they just don't know any better. Ultimately, they either continue to shiver or expend even more money and time trying to keep the house warm when it's being bombarded with outside cold air. It's impossible to win the war against cold air without this particular fireplace accessory.
You'll likely spend around five hundred dollars to buy a fireplace heat exchanger. Plus, if you don't install glass fireplace doors, you'll just end up wasting the money you spent on the heat exchanger.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
A Fireplace Heat Exchanger Can Help With Heating Costs
Friday, October 10, 2008
In Floor Radiant Heating: Why it Rocks
Radiant floor heating offers many advantages over other forms of heat for business or home.
Radiant floor heating is a series of pipes coiled in a room under the subflooring. Heated water is forced through the pipes, and heat naturally rises through the room from these pipes. With radiant floor heating, there are no cold tile or hardwood floors. Say goodbye to your cold, garage floor like ground. People with poor circulation in their feet, such as the elderly and diabetics, will appreciate always getting out of bed to a warm floor beneath their cold feet. Parents too like a warm floor when babies are learning to crawl or toddling around in their bare feet.
While in floor radiant heat works on the same principal as steam or forced water radiators, radiant floor heating offers several advantages over a wall-mounted radiator. Wall-mounted radiators can cause hot and cool spots in a room, depending on your distance from the radiator. As an alternative, an in floor radiant heat system heats the whole floor under a room, giving even heat. Radiators are hot to the touch, which can cause burns. Because the radiant floor system is under the flooring, though, there are no hot pipes to touch, and the floor underfoot is never more than pleasantly warm.
Radiators also take up precious wall space, as furniture cannot be pushed up against them, and because they create hot spots, furniture has to be arranged so that no one sleeps or sits too close to the radiator. However, as the radiant floor system is buried under the flooring, it takes up no space and does not cause hot spots.
What is the cost of radiant floor heat?
Radiant floor heating systems are usually cheaper to operate than wall-mounted radiators as well. An on wall radiator needs very hot water to caused convection to heat the entire room. Because the radiant floor heating system distributes its heat evenly over the entire room, convection is not necessary. This means that the radiant floor system does not have to have such hot water in order to work effectively, lessening energy costs.
The primary advantage of the radiant floor heating system over a forced air system is air quality. Furnaces and heat pumps cause the air in a building to dry out rapidly. For people with sinus problems or lung issues, this can be problematic. Also, coming in from cold and damp to hot and dry can be hard on people with poor health. People with allergies suffer under forced air systems as well because such systems stir up allergens and the dryness causes them to linger in the air longer than usual. Duct work can also harbor allergens, such as mold, compounding the problem.
In most cases, radiant floor heating, when properly installed and insulated, is cheaper to operate than any other system on the market today, and is considered by most to be the most comfortable home heating system as well.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
What You Should Know About Air Filters
Many diseases are air borne or air related. There are so many illnesses that can be prevented with the selection of the right air filter. Air filters have been known to decrease the intensity level of illness such as asthma and the likes. Next time you are wondering whether to get an air filter or not, remember that your health can be protected with a good air filter.
if you have a place on your home that is getting a lot of dust particles, then a ruffled air filter will be your best bet as it is constructed to take on dust particles. You must be able to determine which air filter is best for the kind of air impurity that you may be facing in your home or office. Air impurities can be sucked out neatly with the right kind of air filter.
Air conditioner filters are of different types with each serving a particular function. The conventional fiberglass disposable filters are the most popular type of air conditioner filters and help to trap dust particles. The conventional fiberglass air condioniter filters should be maintain regularly as they are disposable in nature.
Car experts often suggest that the best time to replace your car air filter is annually. Don't wait for your car air filter to wear out before you replace it as that will simply diminish the function of you car. You can use a vacuum to suck out the dust and other debris from the air filter of your car.
Breathing clean air that lacks impurities is as simple as buying an air filter. Air filters help to make the air you breathe less threatening by removing all those impurities air normally has. Sometimes, finding the right filter for your air purifier can take a lot of searching and questioning; so you should be patient in your search.
Taking care of your home can reduce the rate of pollutants in the air around. You can accelerate the function of an air filter by simply cleaning your home regularly. Air filters or purifiers pick up and get rid of dust, smoke and pet danders.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), breathing in ozone from an ozone air purifier is bad for your health because it is an irritant. If you are suffering from asthma or other respiratory related diseases, you may be made even sicker by using an ozone air filter because it releases some amount of ozone into the air. Ozone air purifiers are discouraged because they precipitate the activity of free radicals in the body which cause diseases.
Taking the work that air filters do with more care would be a prudent decision on your part. Air filters can help you eliminate the risk of diseases and give you unbelievable sense of well being.
Jon Ferriss offer reveling resources about air filters on his site.