If your older storage tank water heater is getting close to retirement age, you may be wondering if it’s worth going tankless. To help you decide, it’s good to learn the pros and cons of this type of water heater. The first pro of switching to a tankless water heater is the range of options it gives you. You can choose between gas-fired and electric models, and select a size ranging from a small unit to serve a single bathroom, or a large, whole-house model that’s capable of supplying three showers simultaneously.

Additional Benefits of Tankless Water Heaters

Making the switch to tankless water heating offers a number of other benefits:

• Energy savings. Because there’s no tank of water that needs to be kept hot and ready for use, you can expect to see a drop in your household energy consumption and utility bills.
• Long-term reliability. Storage tank water heaters typically wear out after 10 –13 years. As they age, the risk of a catastrophic tank failure and significant water damage increases. In contrast, tankless units have an expected service life of roughly 20 years, and there’s no tank that can suddenly fail.
• Greater convenience. In the busy mornings and any other times when hot water is in greater demand, it’s easy to run out when you have a storage tank water heater. When you have on-demand units installed that match your peak household usage, you’ll assured of a continuous supply whenever hot water is needed.
• Placement choices. Tankless units take up little room and are often wall mounted. The only restrictions on where you can place one are access to your gas line and the need for outdoor venting.

Potential Cons of Going Tankless

Tankless water heaters can cost two to three times as much as storage tank units, and the installation can cost more if your gas service needs upgrading. However, the reliability, convenience and energy savings you’ll gain can make the extra expense worthwhile.

For personalized advice about whether a tankless water heater is the ideal choice for your Portland-area home, contact us at Roth Home & Cooling.

When something is wrong with your air conditioner, it will let you know in a number of different ways. Maybe you have a gut feeling your energy bills are too high, and you certainly know when your home is uncomfortable. Another sign your air conditioner is failing is condensation collecting on and/or around it. Switch the thermostat and your panic buttons off, and keep reading before you make your next call.

What Harm is a Little Water?

Water condensation on your air conditioner’s evaporator coil is normal. However, as you’ve realized, water leaking from your air conditioner onto your floor is not acceptable. Depending on where your indoor A/C unit is located, condensate leaks may cause damage to your ceiling, walls, flooring and/or other building materials and property.

What to Do?

In order to know what to do about a leaky A/C, it’s helpful to know how condensation forms and the most common reasons why it’s leaking. Condensation forms as a result of water vapor in warm airflow being pulled across the cold evaporator coil. Under normal conditions, the condensate drips into a pan, flows down the drain and through a tube away from your home. End of story — unless your A/C unit is experiencing these problems:

• A blockage in the drain tube is causing an overflow. Your HVAC technician uses either a powerful blower or heavy-duty vacuum to push or pull the blockage through. Then, the line is chemically treated.
• The float switch has malfunctioned. Some air conditioners have a float switch that turns off the unit when water fills the drip pan too high. If your A/C is equipped with such a device, but it’s not working, it needs to be repaired or replaced.
• The drip pan has rusted through or it has broken. Your technician can simply replace the drip pan.

Ask your HVAC technician or plumber if your A/C has a float switch. If not, you’d be wise to have one installed in the drain trap. For assistance repairing air conditioner condensation problems in your Portland home, please contact the professionals at Roth Home & Cooling today.

Your furnace helps ensure that your Portland home stays warm and toasty in winter, but what happens if it’s only blowing cold air? When you have a furnace cold air problem, it’s important to determine what might be causing it, so you can get heated air flowing again. These are a few possible causes of this heating system issue.

Thermostat Problems

A simple problem with your thermostat could be causing cold air to blow out of your vents when your furnace is on. Check the setting on your thermostat to see if it is set to the “auto” position instead of the “on” position. The “on” position causes the fan to run constantly, but this won’t produce heated air.

Pilot Light

Gas furnaces have a small flame that burns all the time and helps them ignite. If you have a gas furnace, check the pilot light to see if it is lit. When the pilot light goes out, your furnace isn’t able to blow heated air. Instead, you’ll just feel cold air coming out of your vents. If the pilot light went out, carefully relight it so you’ll be able to heat your home again.

Dirty Air Filter

The air filter in your furnace helps trap dust and other particles, which allows it to heat your home efficiently. When this filter becomes covered in debris, it makes it harder for air to flow through to your furnace. This can end up putting your furnace in danger of overheating, which can result in the burners automatically shutting off for safety reasons. Check your air filter, and replace it with a new one if it’s coated with dust and debris.

If none of these are causing your furnace cold air problem, it’s time to call in professional HVAC technicians to check it. These HVAC experts can determine the cause of this problem and take steps to fix it.

If you have a furnace cold air problem this winter or if your heating system needs other repairs, please contact Roth Home & Cooling. We offer dependable heating and cooling services in the Portland area.

Pipe bursts can really ruin your day. Protecting your pipes when the Portland weather freezes can prevent devastating damage to your home and belongings as well as save you a considerable amount of money in cleanup costs. Here’s how to keep your pipes cozy to prevent them from freezing in the winter.

Insulate Your Pipes

Preventing pipe bursts starts with adequate insulation. Use inexpensive, pre-fabricated foam pipe insulation sleeves to insulate both hot and cold water pipes that run exposed through the basement, crawlspace, or other cold area. This is a good time to add an insulating jacket to your water heater to save on your energy bill.

Attach a Heat Cable to Your Pipes

When pipe bursts seem imminent due to freezing weather in the forecast, a heat cable can save the day. This flexible electric heating cable wraps around a plastic or metal pipe in an unconditioned area to prevent it from freezing. A built-in thermostat heats up the cable when the temperature dips below 38 degrees and turns it off when it reaches 45 degrees.

Open the Cabinets and Turn the Water On

To reduce the chances of kitchen or bathroom pipes on an exterior wall freezing, open the doors to the cabinets that house the pipes. On the coldest of days, leave warm water running very slowly to help combat freezing.

Don’t Forget the Outdoor Spigot

Once the gardening season ends and you no longer need the outdoor spigot, locate the shutoff valve and turn it off. Open the smaller valve on the side to drain the remaining water from the pipe.

If Your Pipes Burst

If your pipes burst while there’s still ice in them, turn off the water to the pipe and call a plumber. Knowing ahead of time where the main shutoff valve is can save you a few minutes of panic and enable you to contain the damage quickly if a burst pipe thaws and sends water rushing into your home.

For more expert advice about preventing pipe bursts, please contact us at Roth Home & Cooling, proudly serving our Portland-area neighbors.

Heat exchangers are found in all types of equipment, from refrigerators and air conditioners, to smoke stacks to diesel engines. But when we talk about the heat exchanger in your furnace, we mean a specific type of technology. Following is a brief explanation of what the heat exchanger in your furnace does.

Your Furnace’s Heat Exchanger

All heat exchangers perform the same function — that of moving heat from one fluid (a liquid or a gas) to another, but depending on the technology, they work in different ways.

The furnace heat exchanger uses fuel — propane, natural gas or oil — to create heat. The blower motor or fan then projects air over the heat exchanger and into your home’s ductwork, which distributes it throughout the home. Pretty simple, right?

To explain a little more in depth, the burners ignite and produce combustion gases. The gases are sent into the exchanger, where heat from the gases is transferred onto the walls of the heat exchanger.

As the gases cool, the draft inducer blower directs them into venting pipes and they are exhausted from the home. This takes place at the same time the hot air from the combustion gases is picking up heat from the heat exchanger walls, prior to being distributed through the ductwork.

What Can Go Wrong With the Heat Exchanger

Over time, a heat exchanger can develop cracks from the repeated heating and cooling of the metal. When this occurs, carbon monoxide may start leaking out. That said, modern heat exchangers are built with many improved safety features over old models, so malfunctions that can endanger your household are rare.

Annual maintenance on a furnace should include inspection of the heat exchanger for cracks. You should also install carbon monoxide detectors throughout the home to ensure that accumulations from any malfunctioning combustion appliances do not mount to dangerous levels.

If you would like to know more about heat exchangers in particular or any of your other HVAC system parts, we can answer your questions. Contact Roth Home. We have served Portland and the surrounding area since 1976.

So, it’s time to buy a new toilet for your home, huh? You shouldn’t take this endeavor lightly. It calls for research and the proper selection of a unit that is right for you and your home. To help you out, we’ve compiled some great tips that will narrow your selection:

Start with Consumer Reports

The first thing you should do is check out a variety of reviews and information. A great place to start is the Consumer Reports website, where you can find out what experts think of different models, their flush rates, etc.

Lower Your Water Usage

Certain toilets are better for keeping your water usage down. We’re talking, of course, about high-efficiency and low-flow types. They may be slightly higher in price, but the water and money savings are more than worth it.

Pick Up a Pressure-Assist Model

Pressure-assist toilets work by holding water in a special tank, which is then released with great velocity to get rid of waste instead of relying on gravity. These models are perfect for homeowners who want to save water. Just be aware that pressure-assist types are very loud.

Make Clean-Up a Breeze

Cleaning a toilet is not only disgusting at times, but it’s annoying due to the way they’re designed with a series of nooks and crannies. If you invest in a wall-hung model, you won’t have this problem. These models are much easier to clean, even if they do look a little strange since their design is out of the norm.

Try a Taller Model

Toilets in the handicapped stalls in public restrooms must comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act in order to provide proper comfort. What many people don’t realize is that they can also be great for elderly persons in your household, along with those who are a bit on the tall side.

For more expert advice on finding a new toilet for your home, or if you have any other questions related to home comfort, please don’t hesitate to contact the friendly professionals at Roth Home & Cooling. We’ve been serving the Portland area since 1976.

You may have a state-of-the-art HVAC system coupled with an airtight, well-insulated home, but if your home’s ducts are leaking or blocked, you’ll still pay higher than necessary energy bills. In some homes, as much as 30 percent of conditioned air is lost before it ever reaches vents and registers in rooms. Much of it leaks into areas that aren’t conditioned or used. You might as well be paying to heat and cool the outside.

How Do You Know Ducts Are Leaking?

The only surefire answer is to have a professional HVAC technician inspect and test ductwork for leaks, blockages, and other problems. Short of that, you can inspect visible ductwork yourself. If duct sections are obviously not well connected, or are tangled or kinked, you’ll need duct sealing and repairs at those spots, and probably elsewhere in the duct system, too. Uneven heating and cooling from one room to another is another signal that your ductwork may be leaking, as are unusually high energy bills.

What Problems Are Caused By Leaky Ducts?

• Reduced comfort. If all the conditioned air that’s intended for a certain room isn’t arriving at its destination, that room likely will be too warm or cool, or may stay stuffy most of the time.
• Higher bills and stressed equipment. When your heating and cooling equipment has to work harder to compensate for air lost through ductwork leaks, that wastes energy and puts added strain on HVAC components. More frequent breakdowns may result.
• Degraded indoor air quality. Often, as a result of pressure differentials in unconditioned areas that ducts run through, dirty air can get sucked into ducts, via poor connections and other leaks. That dirty air eventually will circulate into your home.

Working hand-in-hand with effective duct sealing is ductwork insulation. An insulation wrap around ducts, especially in areas where ducts are routed that aren’t heated or cooled, will keep the conditioned air cool or warm for its final destination in your home’s rooms.

To discuss duct sealing, repairs or replacement in your Portland-area home, please contact us at Roth Home & Cooling.

The p-trap is that 180-degree bend in the drain pipe just underneath most sinks. Its curvy configuration performs a couple of very vital plumbing functions. If anything goes wrong down there, you’ll know about it pretty soon.

In normal conditions the trap always retains a small amount of water from the last time you used the sink. That water acts as a seal to prevent the reflux of sewer odors. Without a functioning p-trap, every sink would be releasing the pungent, unmistakable smell of sewer gas into your home.

The p-trap’s other purpose is to catch debris washed down the drain that might otherwise flow even deeper into the drain system and form a clog that’s hard to get to. The u-shaped bend in the trap slows the flow of drain water to retain debris where it can be easily cleared out. If a drain clog forms in your p-trap — or you drop a valuable like a ring down the drain — you can get to it by cleaning the trap. Most traps today are made of PVC with large slip nuts and are easy to loosen and remove by hand. Here’s how it’s done:

1. Put a bucket under the trap to catch water and drain debris.
2. Loosen the two large slip nuts in the drain pipe. One is right above the p-trap in the vertical section of the drain pipe, the other is just beyond the trap where the drain pipe becomes horizontal.
3. Pull straight down on the trap and separate it from the drain pipe segments.
4. Clean the clog or other contents out of the trap. If the trap is severely clogged, take it outside and flush it clean with a garden hose.
5. Fit the trap back into the drain pipe and hand-tighten the slip nuts.
6. Turn on water in the sink and check for leaks.

For qualified professional service to handle clogs in the p-trap or elsewhere in your plumbing system, contact Roth Home & Cooling.

Furnace motor replacement presents an opportunity for improvement. Both your heating costs as well as the comfort level inside your home can benefit by upgrading from an outmoded PSC unit to an ECM furnace blower motor.

It’s a good bet that the motor inside your existing furnace blower is a PSC (permanent split capacitor) type. Though it was the standard for decades, PSC motors had two major drawbacks:

• Excessive electrical consumption. Your furnace may be gas-fired, but an outmoded PSC blower motor may consume 500 watts of electricity or more while the system’s running. This represents a substantial contribution to your electric bill.
• On/off operation. A PSC blower delivers 100% output when it turns on and zero percent output when the system cycles off. On/off operation means hot air surges into rooms under full output when the furnace cycles on and temperatures spike uncomfortably, often several degrees above the thermostat setting. When the system cycles off again, output drops to zero and rooms rapidly cool and become chilly again. These yo-yo temperature swings degrade indoor comfort and make living spaces usually too warm or too cold.

Here’s why furnace motor replacement with a new ECM unit is better:

• Short for electronically commutated motor, ECM technology sips electricity instead of guzzling it. Upgrading to an ECM blower will cut furnace electrical consumption from 500 watts down to about 80 watts, substantially reducing the load on your monthly utility bill.
• Indoor temperatures are more consistent. An ECM unit is programmed to run almost continuously across a variable range of speeds keyed to heating requirements. As the furnace cycles on, the blower gently circulates a low volume of air to avoid the “blast furnace” effect in rooms, gradually ramping up to higher output to meet the thermostat setting. ECM circulation then declines to lower volume sufficient to continuously maintain the temperature at a very consistent, accurate level. Temperature spikes and sags associated with on/off PSC motors are eliminated, indoor comfort is enhanced and electric costs drop.

For professional advice about upgrading to an ECM furnace motor replacement, contact Roth Home & Cooling.