In the past 15 years the building industry saw a boom in new construction homes and in turn saw a boom in trades of all sorts and sizes bidding to do the work, getting the work and moving on as fast as they could. With this boom came a lot of sloppy work, new faster cheaper materials to use, and a whole lot of people that worked in that trade for a year and thought they knew enough to go out on their own and make a killing. They made a killing all right but it was only temporary and the poor customers that didnt know any better are still paying the price to this day.

     If we were to list all of the mistakes, illegal, unethical, or just flat wrong ways to install systems in this website we would fill to many pages for this web builder to publish and bore everyone to death (including ourselves). So we thought we would touch base on the main ones we are seeing and fixing on a regular basis that can be easily detected by the average customer or at least get you thinking about them.

     Duct board; a fiberglass based insulation formed into large sheets at the factory and cut and taped together to form ducting to route your heated/air conditioned air around your house to the suppy runs in each room. This is a good product that when built with mechanical fasteners (duct board staples and tape) and hung correctly can last years and years. It is however fiberglass insulation and the air you breath has this material floating in it every time your furnace turns on. When used on the return air side of the system the air flows from your house to your furnace to be reconditioned which if installed properly will have a filter in it and catch all the floating particles. Duct board used on the supply side however never has a filter and that air goes directly to your lungs. Bad cuts in the building process, loose ducting, and bad joints all make for particles to be released everytime the furnace turns on. One of the biggest things we are seeing is no mechanical fastners whatsoever to hold the duct together, just tape, poor hanging supports etc and the ducting is just ripping out and falling on the ground of your crawl space or attic allowing conditioned air to escape and costing you money and comfort. Another good one is steam humidifiers installed in duct board, not in any way shape or form acceptable. The steam turns the glue holding the insulation together into a sugar/jello compound and you get torn ducting, mold, bacteria and a huge mess.

     Panning; is a way to use joist space, wall cavities, and framing bays as a source for return air routing back to your furnace. Although it is an accepted and often used practice it can be done to much, poorly, and just flat wrong. One of the cheapest and fastest products to enter our trade is cardboard panning, yes cardboard. This product is stapled to the bottom on the joists to make a path for the air to flow back to the furnace. If it is not stapled properly it sags leaving gaps for your crawl/attic air to come directly into your furnace and enter your house. It is also extremely prone to humidity (water) and as all cardboard becomes wet like a sponge and just falls out of place leaving you no ducting whatsoever. Almost every crawl or attic space in Montana has enough humidity to rot this panning in a matter of a few weeks.  We have seen this countless times over the last five years. In the past steel panning was used and if we have to use panning at Whitefish Heat, its going to be steel.

     The flex bomb; oldy but a goodie. This is the practice of placing a furnace in the home and screwing a couple of boxes either sheetmetal or ductboard to both ends of it and running cheap insulated flex all over the house, through walls, up walls, around corners and just about every which way you can imagine with hopes that the air will find its way to the opening in the rooms. Cheap and sometimes effective, and we do mean sometimes effective. It can work in a small 2 bedroom one bath home but anything larger than that should have a dedicated and designed ducting system with supply air and return air trunk lines and branch lines. Which brings up another common problem, lack of return air back to the furnace. What ever air the furnace is capable of conditioning and is blown into each living space is the amount of air you need to get back to the furnace to be reconditioned and all to often we find one little return air grille in the wall with 15 supply air heat runs going to the house. This ruins the efficiency of the system and makes the equipment work that much harder shortening its life span. And probably makes your house very loud when the system is running.

     Top it off; where do we start. How many times have you heard an "Air conditioning Technician" say "I may have to come back once or twice a year to top off your refrigerant, its a small fee." This person not only needs to leave your house but should be reported to the EPA for releasing refrigerant into the atmosphere. Air conditioning lines are copper and need to be brazed (welded) by a qualified technician with inert Nitrogen gas running through it while welding to minimize particle build up and moisture in the sytem, then properly pressure tested with Nitrogen for enough time as to insure there are no leaks in the system, period.  The short cut here is to not use Nitrogen while welding or even pressure test the system for an amount of time to determine for a fact that the system is sealed.  The system is then vacummed out with a proper air conditioning vacuum pump to remove any further moisture, air, etc in the system for whatever time it takes to get the system down to the required micron readings. Short cut is to vacuum for a couple of minutes and call it good. Um, no.  The system is started up and a final charge can be made. In most cases, like 95%, this should be all there is to it and no further charge to the system or your wallet are needed. Montana weather is usually the only reason to have to come back another day, not because "some leaks out". Asking a Technician if he/she uses Nitrogen while brazing the lines and pressure testing is a great way to check that your getting a real quality job and please dont be afraid to ask for Refrigerant cards as all legal EPA certified technicians must have them, not necessarily on their person, but we do have to have them to work with, buy or handle most refrigerants used in todays systems.

     Get the check; yep, its still here. Put in a bunch of equipment and make it look as though everything is working and get the check. When in reality the humidifier, electronic air cleaner, or whatever is not even wired up properly and in solid working condition. Just get the check and lets get out of here.  We cant tell you how many times we run into this or systems that have never been wired up at all. But hey the contractor said it was working so it must be so give him the check.

     Gas piping; I think we would like to keep this one short, basically there is a lot of bad, illegal, dangerous gas piping out there and if your are suspicious in any way shape or form give us a call and we can come out and take a look at it. If its leaking or your suspect a leak get out of the house and call your gas provider immediately. Then give us a call to come look at it. Whitefish Heat is insured for all Natural gas and Propane gas piping but a word of caution, many do not have Propane insurance added to their policies as it is extremely expensive or they do not even realize they are not covered for LP (propane). It is totally acceptable to ask for insurance certifications from any reputable contractor in any trade and we welcome it.