Latest / Cool Talk with Hartzell's | Your HVAC Questions, Answered! / AC Run Time Is What Doubles Your Summer Electric Bill

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AC Run Time Is What Doubles Your Summer Electric Bill · Cool Talk with Hartzell's | Your HVAC Questions, Answered!

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know the feeling.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: You open your July electric bill, take one look at the number, and just gasp out loud.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: It has literally doubled since May.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: So naturally you go investigating around the house.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: Right, trying to find the culprit.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: You check the air vents, the air blowing out is freezing cold, you check the thermostat, the house is sitting perfectly at 74 degrees.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: Sounds pretty comfortable, honestly.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing is broken, no alarms are going off, and you know, you haven't bought any new major appliances, so what on earth is going on?
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: It is the ultimate summer mystery, really, and it's one that leaves people feeling completely baffled.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: Often really frustrated, and honestly, sometimes even a little suspicious of their utility company.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like they are being tricked.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like the meter must be broken.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Well, today on our deep dive, we are exploring the hidden mechanics behind those skyrocketing summer electric bills.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: The great topic.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: We are using some incredible notes and insights from Dave Hartzel.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: He is a master HVAC technician based in Kingfisher, Oklahoma, and he has 47 years of experience in the trade.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: 47 years is a long time to see how these systems behave in the real world.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: It really is.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: So our mission today is to separate the unavoidable costs of summer weather from the completely fixable energy waste happening right inside your home.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: We really want to help you understand where your money is actually going.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and we are going to look at not just what happens to your bill, but why it happens.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Mechanics of it all.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: We will be looking closely at the physics of cooling loads, the psychology of our thermostat behaviors, and how mechanical efficiency degrades over time.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's unpack this.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: To get us started, um, think about driving a car.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I like car analogies.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Expecting your electric bill to stay the exact same in July as it was in May is well, it's like expecting your car to get the exact same gas mileage driving up a steep, winding mountain road as it does cruising on a perfectly flat highway.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Just because your speedometer says you are going the exact same speed.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: The speed is the same, sure, but the engine is doing vastly different ounce of work.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: That makes perfect sense.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: To figure out why the bill doubles, we have to start by looking at what the utility company is actually measuring when they send you that statement.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: The perimeter on the side of the house.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: The basic reality of your power meter.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: In the deep heat of an Oklahoma summer, or really any hot climate, the air conditioner is usually the single biggest item on your electric bill.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's huge.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: It regularly accounts for well over half of your total power usage.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell, which makes sense when you think about the baseload of your house.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like your refrigerator, your indoor lights, your television.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: They just hum along.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, those things stay remarkably constant year-round.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you don't watch twice as much television just because it's July.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: Unless it is too hot to go outside, maybe.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: But mechanically speaking, the air conditioner is the one major appliance in your home whose workload is directly tied to the outdoor temperature.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: So it's basically the only variable.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: It is.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: So when your bill jumps dramatically from May to July, the air conditioner is almost always the sole culprit.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: And this is true even when it is running perfectly.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And here's where it gets really interesting.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: You do not pay for the temperature you set on the wall.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: No, you don't.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: You pay for how many hours the system runs to hold that temperature.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: And what is fascinating here is the sheer difference in those run hours.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's a massive difference.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: Massive.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: In May, your system might run for just uh a few hours a day total.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: It cycles on, cools the house down to 74, and shuts off for a really long stretch.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's nice outside.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: But in July, when it is fighting a 100-degree afternoon, the heat pouring through your roof and walls and windows, well, that equals the maximum amount of heat the system can pull out.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is a constant battle.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: A total stalemate.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: So it runs nearly nonstop.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: But what if you go out and buy one of those top-tier ultra high efficiency units?
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Does this runtime rule still apply?
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, absolutely.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Or does the new technology somehow like bypass the physics of the heat?
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell, I wish it did, but no.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: While high efficiency absolutely helps reduce the amount of electricity drawn during each of those hours, the runtime itself will always scale with the heat.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell It has to run to do the work.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: A brand new system still has to run continuously to fight a 100-degree day.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: It might sip electricity a bit more slowly than an old system while it runs, but it cannot bend the laws of thermodynamics.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: The heat load on the house remains the same, so the unit has to stay on to move that heat out.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: So if the system is running all day long, why don't we notice it working so much harder?
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell Because we are sitting inside in the cool air.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, honestly, comfort is financially deceiving.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Sit on the couch, we feel the cool air, and we just assume everything is totally fine.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell But the hotter it gets outside, the harder every single hour of runtime becomes for your machine.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell It's not just the amount of hours.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell No, it is not just about logging more hours.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: It is about the intensity of the mechanical work during those hours.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: The larger the gap between the blazing outside temperature and the cool inside target you have set, the harder the compressor works every single minute.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Because it is literally trying to push heat uphill.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: That is a great way to picture it.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell It has to compress the refrigerant against higher and higher pressures to, you know, reject the heat from your house into the outside air.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that is a crucial thermodynamic concept.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: An air conditioner does not magically create cold air.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Right.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Cold isn't a thing it makes.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: No, it moves heat.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: It absorbs heat from inside your house and dumps it outside.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: To dump heat into outside air that is already 108 degrees, the compressor has to squeeze the refrigerant gas until it is even hotter than 108 degrees.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: So it has to be hotter than the already crazy hot air.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: And compressing that gas to such an extreme pressure pulls massive amounts of electrical current.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: So a 95-degree day and a 108-degree day, they are vastly different workloads.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: Entirely different.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: Moving heat from a 74-degree house into 108-degree air requires significantly more power and mechanical force than moving it into 95-degree air.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Just because of that temperature gap.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: The motor pulls more amps, the system runs hotter, and the meter spins much faster.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Which brings us back to that illusion of comfort.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: A perfectly comfortable house can still be a highly expensive house.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: Very expensive.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: We tend to think that if we feel fine, the system must be coasting along, just taking it easy.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: But comfort just means the system is keeping up.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: It tells you absolutely nothing about the effort required.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: Your air conditioner can be running 99% of the day, pulling huge amounts of amperage, putting immense strain on its components, just to barely hold the house at 74 degrees.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: It makes me think of a duck gliding smoothly across a pond.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I like that.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you just look at the surface, the duck is the picture of tranquility.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: That perfectly chilled house is the calm duck.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: But underneath the water, its legs are paddling furiously just to maintain that smooth forward motion.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: Flailing around just to stay put.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: The air conditioner pulling serious amperage, running nonstop to fight off the heat, that is the frantic legs underwater.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Feeling comfortable and being cheap to run are two totally different things in July.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: They really are.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: And if we connect this to the bigger picture, it highlights how disconnected we are from the physical reality of our built environment.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: We just expect it to work.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: We expect a constant 74 degrees regardless of whether there is a blizzard or a heat wave outside.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: And we just forget the sheer mechanical violence required to maintain that artificial bubble against the extremes of nature.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so the system is already paddling furiously just to keep us comfortable.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: How do we accidentally make it worse with our own behaviors?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, we do this a lot.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: I have to admit to a common mistake here.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: I used to do this all the time.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Let's hear it.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: You come home to a sweltering house and you just crank the thermostat down to 65 degrees, thinking it will somehow cool the house faster.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: It is so common, people constantly treat the thermostat like a gas pedal in a car.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like if I press it harder, we will go faster.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: But an air conditioner has a fixed capacity.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: It removes heat at one steady rate, no matter what number is on the wall.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: So it only has one speed.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: A three-ton unit moves exactly three tons of heat per hour, whether you set the dial to 75 or 65.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: So it is a switch, not a throttle.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: It is just on or off.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: Setting it to 65 just means the system runs even longer, trying to hit an impossible target.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: It never reaches it.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: It does not blow colder air, it does not blow faster air.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: You are essentially commanding the system to never shut off.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Just run forever.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: And every extra hour it runs is just adding to that doubled bill without making the room cool down any quicker.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so if cranking it down is bad, what about turning it up when we leave?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Does turning the air conditioner off, or maybe way up, while we are at work actually save money?
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: A modest setback genuinely saves money.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so a few degrees.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: When the house is allowed to be slightly warmer, the temperature difference between inside and outside is smaller, so less heat leaks in through the walls and windows, and the system runs fewer hours while you are gone.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: But there is a catch in extreme heat, isn't there?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: A massive catch, particularly for places like Oklahoma.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: Where it gets so intense.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Letting the house bake to 85 degrees while you are at the office is a terrible idea.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: When you do that, it is not just the air inside that gets hot.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: The physical structure of the house gets hot.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: The walls and everything.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: The drywall, the hardwood floors, the heavy fabric couches, the internal framing, all of those dense materials soak up the heat.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I see.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's the thermal mass of the house.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's like leaving a cast iron pan on the stove.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: It absorbs the heat and holds onto it for a very long time.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: That is a perfect analogy.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: So when you get home and turn the thermostat back down to 74, the air conditioner does not just have to cool the air.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: It has to cool the pan, so to speak.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: It has to claw all of that stored heat back out of the furniture and the walls.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: The house is actively radiating heat back into the rooms while the AC is trying to cool them.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds exhausting for the machine.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: It is.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: That recovery phase can take four or five hours of nonstop high-intensity running.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: All that running eats right into the savings you generated during the day.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: So let me play devil's advocate here.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Would it just be easier to leave the thermostat at one single temperature all summer long and never touch it?
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Just avoid the recovery phase entirely.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: This raises an important question about the balance of efficiency.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: Leaving it at one temperature absolutely ensures you never have a brutal recovery period where the system is straining for five hours straight.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And the house is always perfectly ready for you.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: It is always comfortable.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: But you are also paying to cool an empty house during the absolute hottest part of the day.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: When you aren't even there to enjoy it.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: Fighting peak afternoon heat for no one.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: A smart setback is usually the mathematical sweet spot.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: So what does that look like?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: Letting it drift up to maybe 78 while you were gone and dropping it back to 74 an hour before you arrive.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: It minimizes the heat gain during the day without overwhelming the system during recovery.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: That makes sense.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we've covered the weather, which we can't change.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: We've covered human error, like the 65 degree myth and the thermal mass issue, which we can change.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: Things we have control over, yeah.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: But what about the physical blockers?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you operate your thermostat perfectly, the machine can still be sabotaged from the inside, right?
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, definitely.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: And this is where Dave Hartzell's decades of experience really shine.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: He highlights that a dirty system silently taxes every single hour it runs.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Silently taxing it.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: Let's look at the thermodynamics of a dirty condenser coil.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: That is the big unit sitting outside your house.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right, the one with the fan on top.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: If that coil gets packed with cottonwood fluff, lawn clippings, and dust, it basically acts as an insulator.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: The coil literally cannot shed the heat it is pulling from your house into the outside air.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because the airflow is blocked and the metal can't radiate the heat.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: It is like wearing a thick winter parka in July.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: That is exactly what it is doing to the machine.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: The system is forced to run longer and pull more electricity to achieve the exact same amount of cooling.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just burning through power.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: The compressor runs hotter because the heat has nowhere to go.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: And the same goes for the inside of the house.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: The air filter.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: A clogged, filthy air filter chokes the return airflow.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: The blower motor has to work incredibly hard just to pull air through the dirt, unless cold air actually makes it into your rooms.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: So you're paying to push air through a brick wall of dust, basically.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: Pretty much.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: Neither of these things will outright break the system immediately, but they destroy its efficiency.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: Dirt does not announce itself with a loud noise.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: It just quietly shows up on your bank statement.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: That is a great way to phrase it.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: What about the refrigerant?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like people just get a top-off every summer and think that is just normal maintenance.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: A system low on refrigerant, which is typically from a slow leak, is a major thermodynamic failure.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's not supposed to leak at all, right?
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: It is a sealed system.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: When the refrigerant is low, the system simply cannot move as much heat per cycle.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: It runs significantly longer to deliver less cooling.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Which means more runtime.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: A lot more.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: People will limp these systems along all summer because they sort of work.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: The house might be 76 instead of 74, and they think they are saving money by avoiding a repair bill.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: They think they are being really frugal.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: But the logic is entirely backwards.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: By limping it along, you are paying inflated utility bills every single day because the machine is running nonstop to compensate for the missing refrigerant.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: And far worse, you are actively destroying the compressor.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: The most expensive part.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: The compressor relies on the cool return gas of the refrigerant to keep its own internal motor from overheating.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: A low charge starves the compressor of that cooling.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: So it's burning itself up.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, you are trading a fixable leak for a catastrophic, extremely expensive failure.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: And Dave's advice here is really refreshing.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: You might expect an HVAC company owner to look at your high bill and immediately pivot to a huge sales pitch for a brand new$10,000 system.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, just replace the whole thing.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: But his main advice is to run what you have well.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: He is a dealer for major brands and he designs incredible high-efficiency systems.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: He even does geothermal heating and cooling setups in Oklahoma for those who truly do need a full replacement.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Geothermal is super cool.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: It is amazing technology.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: But his core philosophy is that you should not just buy a new unit solely to shave down a summer utility bill.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: You have to take care of what you have first, like wash the coils, change the filters, fix the leaks.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: The economics of preventative maintenance are undeniable.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: Dave outlines that the cost of professional annual maintenance is completely eclipsed by the amount of money you bleed to the utility company over a single summer of running a choked, uncharged system.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: What are his typical rates for that?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: His service call is a flat$210, which includes the dispatch and a diagnostic fee, and his annual maintenance plans start at just$199 a year.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Which is nothing compared to an extra hundred bucks a month on your electric bill.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: It is vastly cheaper to pay an expert to clean and tune the machine than to pay the power company for the electricity wasted by a dirty coil.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you are paying for real expertise to find these hidden issues.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Dave is NATE certified and IGSHPA accredited.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: Which is vital context for the listener.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, explain those acronyms.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: NATE stands for North American Technician Excellence.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: It means a technician has passed rigorous knowledge-based testing in real-world HVAC mechanics, not just a weekend training course.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: So he really knows his stuff.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: He does.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: And IGSHPA is the International Ground Source Heat Pump Association, which means he is accredited at the highest levels for those complex geothermal systems we just mentioned.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: Got it.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: This is a master technician telling you that the absolute cheapest hour your air conditioner runs is the hour where it is clean and charged correctly.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, trying to cool your house with a dirty condenser coil is like trying to run a summer marathon while breathing through a thick wool blanket.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that captures the mechanical reality perfectly.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: You might finish the race, you know.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Your house might eventually hit 74 degrees.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: But the effort required, the physical strain on your body, or in this case, the electrical draw and the strain on the compressor is going to be agonizing.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: Totally agonizing.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: The wool blanket does not stop you from running, but it makes every single step exponentially harder and burns way more energy.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: And that wasted energy is exactly what is spinning the meter and doubling your bill.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: So what does this all mean?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Let's bring this all together.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: When you open that envelope and your summer electric bill has doubled, but your vents are blowing cold and your house is perfectly comfortable, well, nothing is broken.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: You are simply paying for runtime.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: And runtime absolutely explodes in the extreme heat of July because of the sheer physics of moving heat.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot control the weather, and you cannot bypass the laws of thermodynamics.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: No, we definitely can't do that.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: But you can control your efficiency.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: You control it by keeping the physical components clean so they can properly transfer heat, wash the outdoor coils, replace your indoor filters regularly, have a professional verify the system is fully charged with refrigerant, and just stop sabotaging your own system with bad thermostat habits.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: No more cranking it down to 65.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: Do not treat the thermostat like a throttle, and do not let the thermal mass of your home bake all day long just to save a few pennies, only to spend dollars forcing the system to recover that heat later.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: It really just comes down to respecting the mechanics of the machine.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: It does.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to leave you with one final thought, just something to ponder the next time you adjust that dial on the wall.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: Think about how much of our modern comfort relies on the complete illusion of effortless technology.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, the duck on the pond we talked about earlier.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: Precisely.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: If our appliances visually showed us how hard they were physically laboring, much like a person sweating, panting, and struggling for breath under a heavy load, would we drastically change our daily habits and our expectations of indoor climate control?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that is brilliant.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: If my air conditioner was sitting out in the yard, audibly gasping for air and just dripping with sweat while fighting a 100 degree afternoon, I would probably be much more inclined to raise the thermostat a few degrees and give the poor thing a break.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: Most people would.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, we just expect a constant, effortless 74 degrees while the machine quietly suffers, and then we act shocked when the massive bill arrives.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: It is definitely something to think about the next time you hear that system kick on in the middle of a heat wave.