Air conditioning, heating and ventilation for houses and businesses along the Broward coast — where the equipment outdoors has a shorter life than the brochure assumes, and pretending otherwise costs people money.
Air conditioning, heat pumps, ventilation and the ductwork between them — for houses and for businesses, in roughly equal measure.
Single-family houses, townhouses and condominium units from Hillsboro Beach down to Fort Lauderdale. Breakdowns, replacements, ducts, and the humidity problems that a badly sized system creates in this climate.
Shops, restaurants and bars, professional suites, clinics, small hotels and light industrial. Planned maintenance with a written record, rooftop and split systems, make-up air, extract, and the outdoor plant that takes the worst of the weather.
Because airborne salt attacks the aluminium and copper in an outdoor coil, and how much of it reaches you depends mostly on how far back from the water you are.
Salt spray from breaking surf becomes an aerosol, gets carried inland on the prevailing easterly, and settles on whatever is outside. On an air conditioner that means the condenser coil: thin aluminium fins mechanically bonded to copper tubing, with a temperature difference across them and a fan pulling air through them all day.
The two metals in contact with salt water make a small battery, and the aluminium is the part that loses. Fins go chalky, then powdery, then they come away from the tube. Cabinet fasteners corrode. Electrical terminals corrode. None of it is dramatic on any one day and all of it is cumulative.
This is not a reason to panic or to buy anything in particular. It is a reason to know where you sit, to rinse the coil with fresh water on a schedule, and to read the coastal wording that sits in a good many equipment warranties before you rely on one.
Almost always the same five things, and four of them are cheap to deal with if somebody looks early enough.
Usually not, and in this climate it often makes things worse.
An oversized system cools the air to the thermostat setting quickly and then stops. It does not run long enough to pull moisture out, so the house hits its temperature and still feels clammy — and people respond by setting it colder, which costs more and does not help.
Before we quote a replacement we calculate the load for your building, measure what the ducts can actually carry, and find out where the air is being lost. That sometimes produces a smaller number than the system coming out. We would rather have that conversation before the install than after it.
How long your equipment will last, what percentage you will save, or how fast we will get there.
Coastal corrosion depends on your distance from the water, the direction you face, what stands between you and the surf, how the unit is mounted, whether it is ever rinsed, and what it was built from. Anybody who gives you a number of years without seeing your unit has invented it.
The same goes for savings. A clean coil and sealed ducts genuinely reduce running cost. What that is worth in dollars depends on your tariff, your building and your habits, so we put a figure on it after we have measured your system, not before.
And we will tell you honestly where you are in the queue rather than print a response time we would break on the first hot Saturday in July. That is a promise we can actually keep.
A great deal at the beach and much less a few miles inland. Salt aerosol corrodes the aluminium fins on the outdoor coil, and how much reaches you depends mostly on distance from the surf. The salt air page has a slider that puts your distance into an exposure band and says what to do about it.
Near the water, yes, and it is the cheapest useful thing you can do. Power it off at the disconnect first, use a garden hose rather than a pressure washer, and work from the inside of the coil outwards where you can reach. It slows corrosion; it does not reverse it.
Usually because the system is bigger than the house needs. It hits the thermostat setting before it has run long enough to pull moisture out of the air. Setting the thermostat lower makes it cold and damp instead. It is worth measuring before replacing anything.
Because an indoor coil in this climate produces a lot of water, and a warm wet pipe grows things. It is the commonest cause of ceiling damage we see. The overflow switch is what stops it becoming expensive, and it is the first thing we check.
Yes — extract, make-up air, and the balance between them, which is where most kitchen and dining-room comfort problems actually come from. Hood cleaning and fire suppression are separate trades and we do not claim them.
Pompano Beach, Lighthouse Point, Deerfield Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Oakland Park, Coral Springs and Coconut Creek.
517 E Sample Rd, Pompano Beach, FL 33064 — a mile or two back from the beach, which is roughly where a great deal of our work is. We cover Pompano Beach, Lighthouse Point, Deerfield Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Oakland Park, Coral Springs and Coconut Creek.
Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm.