Heating Problems and Repair Solutions For Heat Pumps and Furnaces For Tempe Homes

Heating Repair Problems For North Tempe Homes

Homes in the 85281 zip code are historic Tempe homes, built in the 1950’s and 1960’s.  Tempe homes in the nearby 85282 zip code were built in the 1960’s to 1980’s.  These Tempe homes are mostly ranch style homes with long roof lines and a heat pump package unit on the roof with a metal elbow. Some Tempe homes have or used to have dedicated closets for furnace heaters or air handlers with the return grille under the door. The main ductwork is a metal trunk that runs down the middle of the hallway with 7 foot ceilings and registers located above the bedroom doors.  In these Tempe homes, the heating systems go bad not because the units are old, but because the components around the heating system are bad.  The components that deliver the air, the ductwork, is very important to how the heating system works. Think of driving a Prius with a hole in the gas tank… that’s what is happening to homes all over Tempe when heating and cooling systems are installed on a home with leaky ductwork, low insulation and ductwork sized for a smaller unit. ​

​Heating Problems and Repair Solutions For Heat Pumps and Furnaces For South Tempe Homes

Homes in the 85283 and 85284 zip code were built anywhere from 1980 to the early 2000’s.  The variety of homes in south Tempe varies from the standard spec home where homeowners had 4-5 models to choose from and the builder’s mission was not to build quality homes but to make a profit and use the cheapest materials and fastest methods to slap homes together. 

From the insulation, to the number of returns in the home, these things all cause Tempe homeowners to have high energy bills and uncomfortable rooms.  About half of the homes south of the US60 Highway were insulated with fiberglass batts. (Learn why we think fiberglass batts in Arizona should be outlawed here.) In these Tempe homes your heating and air conditioner is likely working twice as hard as it should be just because the insulation was installed incorrectly.  

​A more common HVAC contractor mistake that more than 90% of the homes in south Tempe suffer from is what we call the "flex duct flaw". Do you have one room that just doesn’t stay the same temperature as the rest of the house, or gets hot in the summer and cold in the winter? Does that room happen to be the room that’s furthest away from the air handler in the attic? When HVAC companies started switching from all sheet metal ductwork to using flex duct in the 1980’s and 1990’s, it meant that heating and air conditioning installers needed much less still to install, so labor became cheaper and jobs were completed much faster than before, which was good for the HVAC contractors.

​The flip side of installing flex ductwork in homes is that it is so easy to install, almost anyone can do it, so the best practices for airflow and air balancing became non-existent.  If you go up in your attic you are likely to find at least 4-5 wye branches where the flex duct reduces in size and splits.  Every wye branch adds an equivalent length of 15 extra feet of ductwork your heating and air conditioner needs to deal with.  If your unit is already stressed from low insulation and leaky ductwork, having another 60 feet of ductwork in the attic can spell a recipe for a shortened heating and air conditioner life and high energy bills.  

Tempe Heating Repair Contractors Won’t Talk About These Permanent Solutions

If heating and cooling contractors would only take a whole home approach to installing heating and air conditioning systems, their units would operate 10 times better.  How do we know? We have measured and seen the effects of addressing the whole home on a heating and air conditioning system… the electrical usages (amps) decreases, the airflow (CFM50) increases, and the utility bills go down.  Addressing home performance issues should be done by every heating and air conditioning company during heating repairs, service and installation.  No heating company in Tempe should be talking about HVAC without addressing a complete home performance picture.
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Do you know it’s rare for a heating contractor in Tempe to go into the attic at all during a maintenance inspection, heater tune up, or a heating service call?  Heating contractors need to focus more on the whole-home and less on the bells and whistles of heating systems like UV lights and washable filters (the scams of the HVAC industry).  If the ductwork was sealed like it should be, homes wouldn’t be half as dusty and the need for a UV light would completely go away!  ​

Symptoms of a Broken Heater in Tempe

Have you experienced these common symptoms this winter?

1. Your heater is blowing cold air
2. Your heater or fan never shuts off and runs constantly
3. The heater never turns on
4. The heater runs for 5 seconds then shuts off
5. The thermostat doesn’t turn on

​All these heating problems are likely caused not from the age of the system or its components, but something outside of the unit itself.

What Causes Heater Problems Around Tempe Homes?

Common heater problems in Tempe are listed below:

1. Ductwork leaks.  A return duct leaking 15% of its air in the middle of the summer will cause a 5 ton heating and cooling system to operate as a 2.5 ton system.  The #1 reason why air conditioning components fail is because the system is overworked during the hot Arizona summers, not because the heating and cooling systems are undersized. For Tempe homes, there was no code for ductwork sealing when the homes were built, and after 20 hot summers, any tape that was used around the ducts has lost its effectiveness. Leaky ductwork wastes our hard earned money because every time the heater or air conditioner turns on, 15% of that is lost into the attic through ductwork leaks.  If you could gain an extra 15% of airflow into your home, it would be very noticeable, and it all starts by sealing up the ductwork.  SRP estimates homeowners can save $200 a year by sealing leaky ductwork. 
2. Undersized ductwork.  Have you ever seen a child try to breathe through one straw?  They get starved for air pretty quickly and that’s exactly what’s happening to your heating and air conditioning system when the ductwork is undersized.  In Tempe homes were built with round rigid ductwork has was too small for the existing HVAC system.  Next time your heater turns on, listen to see if your return sounds very loud, it’s likely from an undersized return.
3. Low insulation.  Insulation on a heating and air conditioning repair post?  Yes, your home’s insulation is very important in keeping the warm air in the winter time and cool conditioned air in during the hot Arizona summers.  If your attic has too little, your heating and cooling system will be constantly running and short cycling on and off, overworking your system. In Arizona, the DOE Energy Star recommends R38 level of insulation in the attic. Most homes have been under insulated unless you were a part of the City of Tempe noise reduction program.  To add insult to injury, most Tempe homes in 85281 and 85282 zip codes are grossly under insulated (insulation code was less than 6” in 1960).
4. Capacitors that go bad, overworked fan motors and bad mechanical components. All of these home performance defects cause the heating and cooling system to constantly overwork itself, putting stress on the mechanical components.  The first components to go out are the capacitors and fan motors and then overtime, the compressor.  Gain a few more years on your heating and air conditioning system by fixing the home performance defects and you’ll have a comfortable, energy efficient and long lasting heating and cooling system for many years.

​Check our list of common problems for heaters here if you notice the heater is not working.

What causes the most heating problems in Tempe homes? 

The answer is not the heating units themselves, it’s the other components of the home that cause the heating system to work much harder than it should.  Fix those, and you’ll have a system that operates much more efficiently, quietly and less troublesome during the heating season.

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​If you are looking for air conditioning repair contractors in the Tempe area chances are you need fast service to get your air conditioner working again.  For fast, reliable service call Green ID 24/7 at 602-926-1650.  Our technicians are trained to never over-sell repairs, in most cases a quick repair is all that’s required to get it back in working condition.