**Rentmeister Total Home Service No Longer Services Boilers Or Radiant Heating Systems, We Apologize If This Is An Inconvenience**

Boilers were the first whole-home heating systems. They are reliable and durable, and offer comfortable, energy efficient heating. These days, not only do you have a choice when it comes to fuel type for a boiler (oil, gas, propane, solid fuels), you also have a choice between condensing and non-condensing boilers. We’ll explain the difference between the two types of boilers below, but remember that for any heating repair in Salt Lake City, call the people you can count on: Rentmeister Total Home Service.

Condensing vs. Non-Condensing

Boilers work by generating heat in a combustion chamber that warms a heat exchanger; this heat exchanger warms the water in your system while also venting the gases from the combustion products. This brings us to the first difference between the systems: a non-condensing boiler has one heat exchanger while a condensing boiler has two. With a condensing boiler, instead of venting the combustion byproducts to the outside via your flue, these gases go through a secondary heat exchanger. As the hot gases cool, they turn into vapor from which the latent heat is extracted and circulated back to the primary heat exchanger. The non-usable vapor cools into water (aka, condensate), which is safely removed from your boiler by a condensate drain pipe. This water is slightly acidic, but poses no danger. At the end of the process, the exhaust of your boiler, which contains usable, latent heat energy, condenses this latent energy and capture it for use.

Why Consider a Condensing Boiler?

The main reason to consider a condensing boiler is the level of energy efficiency you can achieve. The average AFUE of a condensing boiler is over 90%, meaning that less than 10% of the fuel used to generate heat is wasted; this can be a significant savings for many homeowners. Additionally, many condensing boilers are smaller in size, which can save space.

Boilers are reliable, durable heating systems that can work with different outlets, including radiators, baseboard heaters and hydronic radiant heating. If you are interested in seeing what a condensing boiler can do for you, contact Rentmeister Total Home Service today!

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One of the easiest ways to tell that something has started to go amiss with your home’s forced-air heating system (furnace, heat pump) is a drop in the airflow coming from the vents. This will correspond with a reduction in the warmth in your home, and will cause cold spots to appear in rooms. This requires that call a professional repair service to come to your home to diagnose and remedy the problem.

There are a number of different reasons for airflow reduction, which is why this job requires trained technicians to investigate it. We’ll go over some of the more common reasons that your heater might lose its regular airflow. Call up Rentmeister Total Home Service for the help you need restoring your heating in Salt Lake City, UT: we’re ready to assist you 24/7.

Why your heating system may have low airflow

• Ductwork leaks: The ductwork that transports the air from the heat pump or furnace air handler must maintain a seal along its length so the air pressure doesn’t drop. If breaks occur at connectors or if corrosion creates holes in the ductwork sealing, the pressure will drop and the airflow coming from your vents will drop as well. This requires duct sealers to fix (duct tape won’t work!) before your ducts develop serious contamination through the leaks.
• Thickly clogged air filter: The air filter in a furnace or heat pump is set on the return air vent and prevent the air circulating through your home from transporting dust, dirt, hair, dander, and other contaminants into the heater’s cabinet. This filter needs to be changed once a month during the height of heating season or else it will become so clogged with trapped debris it will choke off the airflow. You will probably need to have a technician do a check on your heater as well to make sure dust hasn’t infiltrated and damaged the heater’s components.
• Malfunctioning air handler: The air handler is the component of any forced-air system (and this includes air conditioners as well) that contains the blower and blower motor (as well as dampers and, in the case of heat pumps, refrigerant coils) that distribute the conditioned air into the ductwork. If the air handler starts to wear down and its motor malfunctions, it will cause airflow to decrease. Usually an air handler can be fixed, although sometimes the unit need replacement—which can often be done without having to replace the furnace or heat pump as well.

Call for professionals

Make sure you have a skilled and experienced Salt Lake City, UT heating contractor handling repairs for your heating system when airflow drops. Rentmeister Total Home Service has served people’s home (as well as many businesses) since 1953, so make us your first call for repairs.

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**Rentmeister Total Home Service No Longer Services Boilers Or Radiant Heating Systems, We Apologize If This Is An Inconvenience**

Radiant heating is an innovative system of warming your home. It entails running electric coils or tubes full of liquid through your floorboards, then heating objects (and people) in the room by warming them directly through contact. It costs more to install than traditional heating systems, but is usually much more efficient. Here in Salt Lake City, heating through radiant systems makes a lot of sense, but it can be difficult to sell homeowners on a concept they may not be familiar with (and whose installation usually involves a fair amount of upheaval). Here a 3 things you should know about radiant heat.

• It’s efficient. Have you ever walked into a spot of sunlight shining in from a window and immediately felt warmer? Or felt the heat of a light bulb when you place it near your hand? That’s radiant heating: the energy transferred directly into the surrounding environment by the source itself. That means it doesn’t waste much energy getting where it needs to go, unlike forced air heating, which has to blow its heat through the air and loses a lot in transit.
• It’s safe. The notion of warming your body through the floor sounds actively painful. Like hopping across hot sand at the beach. But because radiant heating spreads its energy across the whole floor, it doesn’t need high temperatures to warm the room. You can walk barefoot across a radiant heating system and still feel quite comfortable: warm rather than hot.
• It’s cheap. While the initial cost of setting it up is usually higher than that of a furnace, and can involve some work, the benefits in terms of your bottom line are quite strong. It simply costs less to run than traditional heating systems and the comparative lack of moving parts means that repairs tend to be less frequent as well. All of that can save a great deal of money. Over the long haul.

For other things you should know about radiant heat, as well as scheduling an appointment to see if a system is right for you, contact the Salt Lake City heating specialists at Rentmeister Total Home Service. We know the ins and outs of Salt Lake City heating, so give us a call today!

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