Do you have an older home and you are getting the heating and air system replaced? Maybe you're going with a different type of heating or air conditioning? I Want to go through a few things that you need to think about before you make a decision. Some of these things we're going to go over will make a big difference in your decision making. I Could tell you from experience I Have talked to folks over the years trying to help them make decisions, trying to go with the best option for their home and we have had homeowners learn lessons the hard way and my hope and dream is if you watch this video that you can avoid some of the mistakes that they have made. I've got six tips that you should probably think about before you make your decision first.

Not all HVAC systems are created equal and what do I mean by that? A lot of folks think well, I've got a boiler right now that burns oil. or if I've got a old gas furnace or whatever you have in your older home, they think, well, I'll just go electric now. everything's getting more expensive and I can't afford oil prices anymore and I'm just gonna up and switch to Electric I'm gonna save some money and switch energy and so on. and then they find out the hard way that the heat rise might be different.

you might have had an old oil boiler. the heat. Razzle and that thing. I've seen rooms get super hot and then they go with an electric heat pump and the heat rises only 20 or 30 degrees.

And yeah, it's blowing warm, but it just doesn't have that oomph. It doesn't have the heating that the oil or gas system had. I've seen people that had an older home and they were burning wood, had an old wood stove and they were literally had a fire burning in their house. Literally.

that's what a wood stove is. and they switch to a heat pump or some other even a gas furnace and find out that they've got a big hole in their bucket. if you imagine a bucket with a hole in it and you're dumping water in the top and it's just coming out the bottom. Well, if you're heating your home, it doesn't matter if you've got all this water dumping in the top of that bucket, but the a hole in the bottom of it is bigger than the amount of water you're putting in, then you can see why it wouldn't hold water.

Same goes with heating. You're dumping all this heat in this room or this house and it just can't keep up. Keep that in mind when you're buying your next heating and air system next. This one kind of plays off of that and that is some heating systems won't keep up and I Remember years ago we had a customer that they had an old oil furnace for years upon years in this historic house and we had installed ductless units Now I had worn them, they didn't even install hyper heat or one of these low ambient heating ductless units.

They went with a cheap ductless unit and I Remember telling them at the time, at bare minimum, you're gonna have to be plugging in space heaters on really cold nights. It's a long story, but the short version is I Remember their contractor who was doing a lot of the renovating for them and such I remember he and I having a little bit of an argument him saying well, your units are just not heating enough. They did away with their oil furnace and you put these duct US units in and they're not doing enough for me And it was. It was cold.

but what? I told the guys Look, she literally has five space heaters plugged in right now in in this room in her living room and that was in addition to my Mitsubishi ductless unit that was trying to heat the room as well and it still was cold in there. That could be your test. So if you've got an old heating system of some type and you're going to go to a ductless unit, plug in a space heater or two in each room and if it warms up the home just fine, then you might be good to go. But if it doesn't, if your house without that old primary heating source is having trouble keeping up, chances are you're gonna have to make some more upgrades to your home.

or at least in that space such as better Insulation better. Windows Better Heating and air, Whatever the case is, but just simply switching from one system to another, you or might have those same issues. So that would be a recommendation. If you've got a room again, again, a space heater can't keep up then that might be telling you something.

And that leads me into my next tip. If you are going to put investment into a new heating and air system, you may want to be wise with your dollars and maybe do some upgrades to the windows. Maybe you should do double pane windows. Maybe you should do better insulation.

Maybe you should do something like encapsulating the crawl space or doing something in the Attic blow in some insulation. Whatever it is that you could do to make that space more efficient a lot of times I'll talk to homeowners and they'll just think, well, I'll just go up inside. I've got this heating and air system that isn't providing enough cooling or enough heating. So I'll just go up in size because it'll dump more air into that room whether it's warm or cold.

Not realizing. Again, getting back to my bucket scenario. they're just dumping more water in and that hole in the bottom of the bucket is just too big. Number Four Humidity Control.

So if you've got a house that you're upgrading the heating and air system In maybe you should think about upgrading or installing some sort of humidity control a humidifier for, for example. So if it's in the heating season and you've got a space that you're trying to make more comfortable, adding a little humid air into that room in addition to the heating can make it more comfortable to where you don't need quite so much heating you don't need quite so much. Again, water that's dumping in the top of that bucket. Maybe that hole doesn't need to be made smaller if you're able to control the humidity as well.

So don't just think about eating and cooling the space. Maybe think about adding humidity or removing humidity based on the season to make you more comfortable as well. Number Five I would recommend deferring to your local experts and what I mean by that is. Maybe you should get some opinions.

call a couple different heating and air Pros get some opinions I have dealt with homeowners and I've helped folks with our new HVAC guide where they've said to me oh, this is what I want I don't care what my local Pro says I don't care what they think is best for my home I have watched some YouTube videos or I've read some stuff online and this is what I want. This is is the product that I want. This is the system I want and so on and they don't take any advice. They're pretty set in stone on what they want in their house and they don't realize if they were to just take a moment, get some opinions, they might make a better decision by getting some of those opinions from their local.

Pros People that are on the front lines doing this every day seeing what works in their particular Market as well I Remember one of the guys I was helping was telling me he had just moved into this house he used to live in another state and I explained to him look, there's literally Technologies or types of heating and air systems that we don't even offer here in Virginia because they don't make sense. but if you were to go out west, they're everywhere and so to Simply Make a decision based on what your last house had or what someone said on the internet might not be the best idea. Talking to one of your local Pros can save you a lot of grief. And finally, my sixth tip and maybe my most important tip.

and that is get a proper heat load calculation done for that space if you're going to be upgrading the heating and air system switching to a different type, whatever. I Would highly recommend. Even if you have to pay for it, get a proper heat load calculation done. So that way you're not guessing, you'll know exactly what you need if there's an issue, what you need to address, and when you're getting that heat load calculation done, you might need to be aware of some of those upgrades.

For example, your heat load calculation might come out to you needing this many BTUs of heating or Cooling in the space, but if you're planning on upgrading the windows or the insulation, you might actually need to go with this particular system instead. Maybe you need to get the windows done first, so that way you don't have issues after getting that heat load calculation done. So that's it guys. If you do have an older home, I Hope these tips help.

Maybe you can avoid some of the headaches that I've seen other folks have after going down the road in an older home trying to get some of these newer Technologies or heating and air systems installed in their home. Let me know your thoughts. Do you have an older home? What are you up against? What are some of the things that are affecting your decision on your next heating and air system purchase? I'd Love to hear about that comment down below. Thanks for watching.

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