As temperatures continue to drop into the negatives, HVAC technicians have a few tips and tricks to ensure your house is warm and safe during the Alaska winter.
ANCHORAGE , Alaska - As temperatures continue to drop into the negatives, HVAC technicians have a few tips and tricks to ensure your house is warm and safe during the Alaska winter. “One of the best things you can do is with your thermostat,” said Rob Merchant, owner and install manager for Moore Heating , which has been servicing the Anchorage community for almost 50 years.
“There’s a lot of thermostats have a night setback setting on them where they set it back at night to be a little cooler for sleeping. We recommend that they do not set the temperature back and try to keep it more of 1 temperature because it takes too much energy to try to catch back up in the morning when the heat comes back on.”“Humidifiers do help when the humidity, we lose humidity, which is about in October all the way through February,” he said. “If you have a heat recovery ventilator or energy recovery ventilator, shut those off when the temperatures get into the negatives because they do bring in outside air.”“As long as it is vented, you’re fine, but if you are with a non-vented unit, it’s not recommended to do,” he said. “Our houses in Alaska are so tight that they will trap any moisture coming from these units and could cause mold, so it’s just being cautious on that and we’re trying to keep down the carbon monoxide.”“Pipes usually freeze, most of the time, if they have a window cracked open, we see it a lot of times, they’ll crack the window open at night in the bedroom so they can sleep a little cooler,” he said. “That cold air, if you’re on a boiler system, will drop right down to the baseboard and could freeze it up and usually break it.”“If you want to try to unfreeze it yourself, it is probably the best way to do it would be with like with a hair dryer,” he said. “You do take a chance of that pipe breaking and causing a mess with water all over the place, and so you have to be cautious there.”“We recommend if you do have a boiler system that there is no furniture, no furniture, no beds, toys, clothes, anything in front of the baseboards themselves,” he said. “Make sure that those are not covering the baseboards because those baseboards themselves to heat, they need airflow and they cannot get good air.” In rarer instances, power outages can stop a house’s heating system from working, as seen during the windstorms in the Mat-Su borough. “If they do not have a heat source and there is with no power, it is making sure that everything is sealed up tight in the home. It is trying to have a generator is by far the best option that you can have in those situations.” UPDATE: Troopers identify remains of Wasilla cardiologist found dead in home fire the day after being bailed out of jailJBER bans service members from going to Anchorage barBeat with a sledgehammer, body stuffed in tote: Jury convicts Anchorage man of murder
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