New Year’s Comfort Resolutions

Make comfort a priority this year!

2024 is here… what are your new year’s comfort resolutions? 

Investing in comfort, safety, and health in all areas of your home will benefit the whole family. 

Heating & Cooling

• Change your filters: Commit to changing your system’s filter monthly. A dirty filter can cause the air to be restricted as it moves through your heating and cooling system, making it work harder and potentially leading to a breakdown.
• Schedule your annual maintenances: Schedule your seasonal HVAC tune-ups to optimize your comfort. Just like an oil change on your vehicle, maintenance can help keep your heating and cooling system running efficiently throughout the season.
• Get service when you need it: Never let a heating or cooling concern go neglected! Call our TMS pros at the first sign of trouble… a system issue that is not corrected can lead to more extensive damage and an even more costly repair.
• Correct hot and cold spots: Do you have an upstairs bedroom, a room addition, or a sunroom that struggles to keep up with the thermostat? A ductless system can help add more comfortable living space to your home. These highly efficient systems provide excellent heating and cooling solutions without installing invasive ductwork in your home. It’s worth noting we can install a new ductless system in your home for less than $3/day!
• Upgrade to a new HVAC system: Your HVAC system can account for 50% of your home’s energy usage. If your heating and cooling system(s) are 10+ years old and aren’t running efficiently, it may be time to consider upgrading to a new, high-efficiency heating and cooling system to maximize your home comfort, as well as your energy usage.

Water Heating

• Protect with maintenance: A water heater usually only lasts 8-12 years. But water heaters can have problems at any time, and that’s why it’s important to have it evaluated by one of our experienced plumbers annually. Give us a call so we can ensure that your water heater is running correctly.
• Replace when needed: You shouldn’t have to celebrate the simple fact that your clunky old water heater miraculously survived another year. It’s better to be proactive rather than simply waiting for the inevitable breakdown to come. An aging water heater will develop issues with more and more frequency, so whether it is a depleted anode rod or a leaking water tank, it could be time get a recommendation for a new unit that will work best for your home and family’s needs.

Water Treatment

• Get your water tested: Whether your water comes from a well or a municipal supply, it’s important to get it tested every year. Monitoring drinking water is necessary for our health and safety as it reduces the risk of exposure to contaminants causing acute or chronic effects.
• Invest in better drinking water: Harmful contaminants can present themselves in well water or municipal water. So no matter where your water comes from, filtration may be necessary.
  Reverse osmosis is a great method of filtration. Especially when it comes to protecting your family and household.
• Remove unwanted contaminants: Contaminants come in all different shapes and sizes. And the EPA regulates dozens of them. The presence of contaminants in your water can negatively impact your home and health. But some contaminants have no color, taste or smell. Which makes them difficult to detect without a professional water test.
• See, taste, and feel the difference with cleaner, healthier, safer water: Focus on achieving your new year’s water resolutions with a custom water treatment system for your home. It’s not enough to see the difference. And it’s not enough to taste the difference. You have to see, taste, and feel the difference that better, cleaner water makes in your life.

Plumbing

• Don’t ignore the little things: Ignoring that leaky faucet, that odd pooling around the toilet, or those weird banging sounds coming from your pipes is just asking for trouble. Understand that even little problems should be given the attention they deserve, because when little problems are ignored, they can turn into bigger, more expensive problems quicker than you’d expect.
• Keep your pipe’s cozy: Pipe insulation is a key aspect of proper plumbing system maintenance and care. Ensuring that your pipes are properly lined with high-quality insulation can be a small investment that pays off in a major way down the road.
• Respect your garbage disposal: Remember that garbage disposals are not garbage cans. Hard, difficult food waste like coffee grounds, fibrous vegetables, bones, pits, or other items that have the potential to damage the blades should never come into contact with your disposal. You should also never pour oils, grease down your disposal either. Once this waste cools, it will solidify, potentially leading to clogs and running the risk of decommissioning your garbage disposal altogether.
• Ditch your old appliances: The average person in the United States uses about 80-100 gallons of water each day. Of that amount, almost all of it comes from appliances such as washing machines, dishwashers, toilets, and faucets. Toilets alone account for approximately 27% of the water consumed in your home and many older toilets use up to seven gallons of water per flush. Installing a high-efficiency toilet that uses less than 2 gallons per flush can save up to 18,000 gallons of water a year – about $120 off your water bill annually. Washing machines, on average, account for around 20% of a household’s water use, and switching to a high-efficiency washing machine can cut that water consumption in half. These appliances may have a higher upfront cost, but when you save 30%-75% of your water bill each month, these investments quickly pay for themselves. For a more affordable option, updating fixtures such as showerheads and faucets around the house can significantly reduce the amount of water you use.
• Invest in annual professional inspection and maintenance: There’s no harm at all in having our home’s entire plumbing looked over in detail by one of our friendly, qualified TMS professional plumbers. It’s a good idea to have a technician visit your home at least once per year to give everything a thorough once-over. These annual maintenances don’t cost much and they can go a long way in ensuring that you avoid any unseen trouble popping up when you least expect it.

Indoor Air Quality

Did you know that the air inside your home is 5x, sometimes even 100x times, more polluted than outdoor air? With a considerable emphasis on health, the start of the new year is a great time to consider ways to improve the indoor air quality of your home.

• To ensure a healthy humidity level indoors (roughly 40-45%), installing a whole-home humidifier is an excellent addition to your HVAC system. Proper humidification will help alleviate dry air in the home, which may aggravate allergy and asthma triggers.
• Another air quality enhancement to look into is a UV light purifier. Using a 20-watt lightbulb, the UV light treats every room in the house by destroying bacteria and viruses that move through your HVAC ductwork and removing foul odors to improve the quality of air that you breathe. At TMS, we utilize the trusted Fresh-Aire UV APCO-X system that is proven to neutralize odors, allergens, mold, germs, viruses, and VOC’s found in the air and within the HVAC equipment surfaces.

• A polarized-media electronic air cleaner is a great replacement for your standard one-inch furnace filter. These advanced filters can be easily installed directly into the filter rack in the existing heating and cooling system and are effective at filtering indoor contaminants at a rate of 97%, removing mold’s food source, and trapping odors to keep the air clean and healthy in your home.

Electrical

• Energy-efficient lighting: Switching to energy-efficient LED lighting not only reduces your electricity bills but also contributes to maintaining a comfortable ambiance in your home. LED bulbs produce less heat compared to traditional incandescent bulbs, preventing unnecessary warmth that can interfere with your heating system’s efficiency. Additionally, these bulbs possess a longer lifespan, cutting down on the need for frequent replacements.
• Whole house surge protection: When thinking about options for an electrical wiring upgrade in your home, the issue of adequate surge suppression is an important consideration. Many expensive electrical devices, including major appliances like stoves, washers and dishwashers, as well as garage door openers, security systems, and HVAC equipment, are hard-wired directly into your home’s electrical circuits. Only a whole-house suppressor which protects all circuits from exterior-originating surges protects hard-wired devices. A whole-house surge protector installed by one of our qualified professional electricians at your main electrical panel continuously “sniffs” incoming electricity before it enters household circuits. If it detects a surge, the suppressor automatically diverts the dangerously high voltage to ground instead of letting it enter the house’s circuits, protecting your home for up to 40,000 amps.
• Make use of smart devices: Consider the addition of timers and a WI-FI-programmable thermostat to automate the usage of your home’s most frequently used systems. Having the settings programmed around your schedule, specifically for your HVAC system, will help make best use of your heating or cooling operation.
• Panel upgrade: A home can experience many issues relating to electrical wiring because of an outdated electrical service panel. Flickering lights, unusual sounds coming from a fuse box, breakers constantly tripping, smoke coming from outlets, or burning smells are just some of the reasons why you might need a service panel upgrade. 
• Whole house generator: There is nothing quite like a whole house generator to bring you comfort and peace of mind when you need it the most. A home backup generator delivers power directly to your home’s electrical system, backing up your entire home or just the most essential items. Whether it’s from routine power outages or a full-on emergency, the inside of your home will barely notice the difference when the generator starts.
• Annual electrical inspections: Most of us get an annual physical whether we feel sick or not so that health issues can be caught early. Your electrical system needs the same attention – a once-a-year checkup. You need to get your electrical system inspected and maintained frequently to prevent unexpected issues. Electricity is incredibly useful, but it’s also very powerful and dangerous. Your annual electrical inspection is important because it could save your home and maybe even your life.

Ready to act on your new year’s comfort resolutions?
You’re in luck, because our TMS team can help with everything talked about here… and more!

Rely on Total Mechanical Systems‘ team of professionals
to assist you in achieving total home comfort and health in the new year!

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