1. If unlicensed contractor causes damage to your home you have little recourse.
2. If unlicensed contractor or their helpers get hurt on your property you could get sued or Washington State labor & industries will seek reimbursement from you!
3. If they are working unlawfully, do you really want irresponsible people like that working on your greatest asset, your home?

Despite its high cost, we carry insurance and bonding to protect our company and you, the home owner. Washington State Labor and Industries has a web site that allows you to check out a contractor to make sure that he is properly licensed.

That address is https://fortress.wa.gov/lni/bbip/Search.aspx.

In order to operate your Air Conditioning system most effectively, please remember these facts:

Clean filters will help your A/C work more efficiently; dirty filters will break your A/C. When it’s 95″ outside your A/C will not keep the inside as cool as you would like - it will feel “warmer”.

Air conditioning will not work with windows and doors open. The air conditioner is not designed to cool your space down to 66′. (Minimum set point at federal buildings is 74″. Most commercial buildings should be set at 74′ to 76′.)

In commercial buildings, if you leave the air conditioner on overnight (at a very low temperature setting), it will freeze up and not cool at all.

By turning the thermostat way down, the A/C system will be over-worked and possibly will freeze up and not cool at all.

Maybe I can make my point by looking at an appliance that we use daily, the refrigerator, as an example. Ask yourself - would you open the refrigerator to help cool off the food? No, that would be crazy, right? It is just as crazy to open windows and doors to cool off an air conditioned building. lf you want the windows and doors open then turn off the A/C.

Some days, it may be preferred to have doors and windows open, over operating the A/C. lt’s your choice. Please print this and post it by the thermostat so others can refer to this.

Best wishes,
Dan

Note: lf your A/C is frozen up, please turn the system OFF. This will allow the unit to defrost {melt ice that’s formed in the system.) lt will take several hours to defrost a frozen air conditioner. After waiting several hours, turn it back on at the thermostat. lt will work after defrost is complete.

Thank you for your question. With electric heaters it always saves money to turn them down or off. Only on heat pump systems that is not true. So by turning your electric thermostat down or off when you no longer need a room heated, you can save money throughout the Winter!

Many service companies are asked why their hourly rates are so high. While we are competitively priced, we feel that you as our customer deserve to know all the things that factor into our hourly rates, so you can be assured of the value you receive.

When our service technicians knock on your door, many costs have been incurred just to get him there, ready to do the job. Here are some of them:

As you can see there are wide variety of expenses that factor into our hourly rate. However. all of these expenses are incurred to make sure that we only have the highest quality service technicians doing the highest quality of work.

The heat pump is one of the most efficient ways of heating a house ever invented. It is unlike any other way of heating and needs to be understood so you can get the most out of it.

First of all a clean filter and clean indoor and outdoor unit is the most efficient heat pump. And like a car in that it needs yearly maintenance. In other words if you take care of the heat pump it will take care of you. Big setbacks in night time temperature will actually cost you money because the backup system will need to come on to help the heat pump raise the temperature in the house.

If the heats pump (outdoor unit) is running 24/7 on very cold days that’s good. The more it runs the more money it saves you. When it is cold outside the heat pump will run most of the time. This is by design. If you like a cold house at night we suggest that you close off the registers in your bedroom and close the doors and let the rest of the house remain warm.

You get $2.00 to $3.50 of heat for every dollar you spend on electricity to run the heat pump. You get $1.00 to 1.00 for the electric backup system. (Also called emergency heat)

The air handler has a back up heater that comes on when the heat pump has trouble bringing the house up to temperature or when heating up a cold house.

When it gets below 38 degrees outside the backup heat may need to come on to help heat the house. The heat pump has a defrost cycle that reverses the flow of refrigerant so that hot gas goes through the outdoor unit and defrosts the ice buildup. If you see a steam cloud, don’t to be alarmed.

Heat pumps work great at maintaining the temperature in your house but take a long time to heat up a cold house. We suggest that you maintain the temperature at one setting day and night. It’s the most efficient way to work a heat pump. If you want a night set back we suggest not more than a 5 degree setback.

The register temperature will seem low but will heat the house at whatever reasonable temperature needed.

We all live, work and play in the comfort of air conditioning - or so we think.  I have seen firsthand in my home, office building and place of worship, back doors and windows left open, counteracting, not to mention wasting money on the air conditioning.

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