Winter is approaching, and you may find yourself in a situation where your home needs to have a new heating system installed. You’ve already come to the right place: we’re experts at providing heating services in Houston, TX, and we can ensure you have the right type of heating system to meet your needs.
Now here’s a hypothetical question we want to ask you: “What size heater do you want?” Just answer something off the top of your head—you don’t have to know anything about how the heater size is measured or what that even means.
Did you say something like, “As long as it’s large enough to heat my home”? That’s a logical answer, but it’s only partially right. You do need a heater that has enough power to heat your house to a comfortable temperature. But you don’t want a heater that’s any larger than that. Finding the right heater size is a balancing act, and it’s important to get the size correct or your new heater won’t do what you need from it.
The Undersized Heater
You’ve already figured out that you don’t want a heater that’s too small. If the heating system cannot produce the volume of warm air necessary to both raise the temperature to a comfortable level on the coldest day and provide that level of comfort to the whole house, it’s not much good. When an undersized heater is installed into a home, it will have to run constantly as it attempts to reach the setting on the thermostat. Not only will the house not get warm enough, but the heater will also drain large amounts of power and run down rapidly.
The Oversized Heater
Why is having a heater that’s too large a serious problem? Isn’t it better to err on the side of a system that’s too large? True, it may cost a bit more to install, but you’ll always have extra heat when you need it and you can just turn the thermostat lower when you don’t.
This, however, isn’t what happens with an oversized heater. If a central heater is too powerful for the space it’s meant to heat, it will raise the indoor temperature so fast that the thermostat will incorrectly sense the heater has already finished its job and shut it off early. The heater will then turn back on a short time later and then shut down prematurely again. This fast “on-off” process is called short-cycling, and it’s a serious problem for any HVAC system. It means massive energy waste because a heater consumes the most power when it turns on. It puts extreme strain on the heater’s components, leading to an early system failure. And it creates uneven heating because the heater won’t run for long enough to evenly distribute comfort throughout the house.
We Will Properly Size Your New Heater
Don’t have to worry about having to pick the correct size of heater: we’ll do that for you. Our technicians will conduct a heat load calculation for your house that will tell us the exact size of the heater necessary to work for your comfort needs and without wasting power.
Contact All Star A/C & Heating Services: Our integrity is our best, most used tool in our bag.