What is a hard start kit and does it help my air conditioner?

You may have heard your AC technician talk about installing a hard start kit on your HVAC unit and dismissed it as an unnecessary add on. Are hard start kits a scam?  The truth is that hard start kits actually help your heating and cooling unit, unlike some HVAC products. The problem is that most AC technicians aren't educated enough or understand how they work.

Hard start kits work to protect the heart of your heating and cooling unit, the compressor. The compressor is like the heart of your AC system, pumping out refrigerant at a high enough pressure for it to work its magic and keep us comfortable.  Every time the compressor starts, it has to move a large amount of refrigerant through the system.  The defect with all lower efficiency AC units is when they turn on the compressor has to work extra hard to start.  Imagine riding a bike up a hill, once you are moving, to keep moving isn't too hard but starting from a dead stop takes a lot more effort. That's what's happening every time our air conditioners turn on, they are starting from a dead stop and it wears down the compressors.  The hard start kit gives the compressor a friendly push from behind on every start so it doesn't have to work as much, and saves the compressor over time.  It allows the compressor to start faster and takes less energy to operate.

Replacing a compressor isn't cheap and can be the most expensive replacement short of replacing your entire system. By taking care of it during its life, you will extend the life of your heating and cooling system and lower your energy bills along the way. A hard start kit with a good run capacitor can reduce the inrush of energy usage by as much as 50%!  Keeping the heart of your heating and cooling unit protected also protects the other components as well which leads to less maintenance down the road.  The more an AC technician understands about your system the more efficiently it can potentially operate.

What can Insulation Do For Your Home?

Insulation can have a powerful impact on many aspects of your home and even though it plays a vital role in a home’s comfort it is often not placed correctly or up to expectations within a home. Things like insulation thickness and placement are often not up to Energy Star’s requirements of R-38. Making sure that insulation is up to standard increases your comfort and decreases your monthly expenses!

In Arizona especially, it’s very important to have insulation that is properly installed. Proper insulation can assure you that both your warm and conditioned air is staying inside the home and not seeping through the walls. Because having a home properly insulated means that the home is better able to hold hot or cold air inside the rooms it means that you won’t need to as much energy to maintain a comfortable and stable temperature. Decreasing your energy consumption in this way is an easy way to decrease your carbon footprint and your monthly bills! A properly insulated home also cuts down on the amounts of allergens and pollutants that would otherwise be able to come from outside of your home.

​Insulation gives you the opportunity to maximize your energy usage, payments on monthly bills, and comfort within your home. It is often a fairly simple task to correct the existing insulation that’s already there whether that means adding to the thickness, replacing it, or adding to bald spots. Make sure your insulations doing the most it can for your home.