Air Cleaners and Air Purifying Systems

How Effective are Air Cleaners and Air Purifiers?

Though air cleaners and air purifiers can reduce some particles that are suspended in the air, such as dust or tobacco smoke particles, these machines cannot remove larger particles such as mold or animal dander that have already settled upon a surface in the home. The air cleaner or air purifier will only remove larger, settled particles if they are disturbed and sent into the air once more.
Many companies that manufacture air cleaning or air purifying machines may claim that their products can eliminate all pollutants, but they have no scientific proof to back up their statements as of yet. To learn more about these claims, visit the Environmental Protection Agency at www.epa.gov. Even though air cleaners and air purifiers cannot remove all pollutants in a room, they can effectively reduce the amount of pollutants in the air, which is good for everyone's health.

Types of Air Cleaners and Air Purifiers

There are many different types and brands of air cleaners and air purifiers available on the market today. Some machines are portable, while others are incorporated into central heating and air conditioning systems. Here are the most common set-ups:

• Electronic Air Cleaners - These systems use electrical fields to trap charged particles.
• Mechanical Filters - Just like a furnace, these systems use filters to trap particles.
• Ion Systems - These systems charge particles, which are then attracted to a charged collector or to other surfaces such as walls, floors, draperies and furniture.
• Hybrids - Some systems use two or more of the methods described above to reduce particles in the air.

TIP:  Just like outdoor pollution, indoor pollution can have an effect on the air that we breathe. Used indoors, air cleaners and air purifiers can help reduce the pollutants in the air.

If you have any questions regarding your systems please feel free to contact our office to speak to one of our experienced and knowledgeable sales reps by calling 231-943-1000 or email us at info@geofurnace.com! Thanks Again and Have A Great Day!!!

Reduce Your Home Heating Bill

Home Heating - Tips for Reducing Your Home Heating Bill

Heating costs are steadily on the rise. This article offers tips on reducing your home heating bill.

With energy costs on the rise, people everywhere are looking for ways they can reduce heating costs. Though you can't do anything about the price of natural gas, fuel or electricity, there are other options. If you want to reduce your home heating bill, here are some tips that may help:

• If you want to reduce your heat bill, keep the thermostat turned down! If you get cold, throw on an extra layer of clothes or snuggle up under a blanket before you turn up the heat.
• Perform regular maintenance on your furnace. Change or clean the filters, and if necessary, call in a service professional to test the efficiency of your heating system.
• Have your utility company perform an energy audit. Audits will provide you with an evaluation of your home's energy efficiency. Many companies offer this service at no charge. If you want to lower your heat bill and learn how you can save energy, this is a great start.
• If you have an old boiler or furnace, you may want to install a more energy efficient heating system.
• Don't waste hot water. On average, heating water accounts for 25% of the heat bill. Take quick showers and use cold or warm water to wash your clothes whenever possible.
• Check your windows. Old leaky windows allow the cold air to come in and the warm air to escape. Over time, new windows could save you quite a bit of money in heating costs. If you don't have money to replace the windows, consider covering them in plastic. This is a cost-efficient way to cut down on drafts.
• Check your doors. If necessary, replace weather stripping to prevent cold drafts.
• Add insulation to your walls, crawlspace or attic space. Insulation helps to keep cold out and warmth in. If you have an older home, you may not have much insulation.
• Close your fireplace damper when it is not in use. This will prevent heat from rising up your chimney and out of your house.

Call Geofurnace anytime at 231-943-1000 where we are always happy to help and on stand by 24/7!

Saving Money With Efficiency

Saving Money with Efficiency
GeoFurnace is about saving energy, which in turn saves our customers money. We are dedicated to staying abreast of changing technologies in the residential heating and cooling industry because we believe it is the right thing to do for our country and our planet.
Think of the energy it takes to heat and cool your home just like gas mileage and your car. Just like a car, every day a heating system operates, it can get good mileage or poor mileage. It all depends on the efficiency of the system. Over the life of a typical system (15 years), a lot of your money can be saved or wasted. This website will attempt to illustrate some of the ways you can save money on a daily basis.
It all starts with the design and installation of the system itself…

All Systems Are Not Equal
The graph at the right illustrates the universal basic difference in residential heating and cooling systems. Most people assume that all HVAC (heating, ventilation, and cooling) systems are basically the same, and therefore can be chosen on price alone. Nothing could be further from the truth. Before we even discuss our energy-saving products, this graph clearly illustrates how much a poorly designed and installed system really costs in terms of wasted energy. Four things: proper sizing, proper air flow, refrigerant charge, and air duct sealing can dramatically affect energy consumption. Each factor by itself does not represent huge savings. But when all are added together, the savings can be more than 1/3 of the total amount of energy needed to keep a home comfortable! Just imagine how much energy would be saved by the correct design and installation of home heating and air conditioning systems in the United States alone.
At GeoFurnace, we understand that energy efficiency starts with proper design and sizing. That's why we always calculate the amount of a home's heat loss based on window area, R-factor of the walls, construction quality, and many other factors before we quote a system. We have always been (and always will be) dedicated to energy-efficiency. We believe it is more important today than ever before. A well-designed and engineered high-efficiency indoor comfort system can pay for itself by saving you money every day it operates.
Give us an opportunity show you just how much.

Source: Consortium for Energy Efficiency, Inc., National
Energy Savings Potential From Addressing Residential
HVAC Installation Problems, (1999).

Indoor Air Quality

Mold Spores

Cat Dander

Pollen

Household dust

I've never heard anything about indoor air quality before. You're not alone. The majority of people are not aware of the poor quality of some indoor air. Americans spend approximately 90% of their time indoors, either at home or at their workplace, where they can be exposed to very high levels of airborne particles. In fact, the EPA ranks indoor air pollution among the top five environmental risks to public health. Furthermore, according to the EPA, levels of many airborne pollutants may be 25-100 times higher than outdoors. Most of the airborne particles cannot even be seen. What Causes poor Indoor Air Quality? Today's homes are built "tighter" to help conserve resources and save expenses. As a result, there's less fresh air circulation. Certain airborne particles can thrive in this "airtight" environment and promote poor air quality. It is important to ventilate your home. Keep the windows open as often as possible to allow air to circulate. Or, when the temperature, pollution index or pollen count is high, use an air conditioner to allow the windows and doors to stay closed while air circulates. Do I Really Have To Clean The Air to Improve my Indoor Air Quality? With more energy-efficient building construction and less ventilation with outside air, indoor air quality can suffer. Removing airborne particles may reduce allergic reactions of people suffering from asthma, hay fever, sinusitis and other respiratory problems. Air cleaners may be one part of the solution, but we offer many other products to alleviate respiratory problems. Call us to learn more about creating a "safe zone" in your home. Did you Know... * Common causes of indoor air problems include inadequate ventilation, due to not allowing outdoor air to dilute indoor air emissions and the lack of indoor air leaving the home. Also, high temperature and high humidity levels can heighten the concentrations of some indoor air pollutants.* * Common indoor air pollutant sources include oil, gas, kerosene, coal, wood and tobacco products. Pollutant sources can also be found in asbestos-containing insulation, some products used for household cleaning and outdoor sources such as pesticides and outdoor air pollution. * Additionally, household cleaning agents and personal care products may trigger allergic reactions. * Studies also show that 75 percent of U.S. homes use at least one pesticide a year indoors to control insects, termites, rodents, and fungus and other microbes. Also, 80 to 90 percent of most people's exposure to pesticides occurs indoors.** * Exposure to dust mites, cat saliva, animal dander and mold is estimated to cause at least 200,000 emergency room visits by asthma patients each year.** * According to the American College of Allergists, 50 percent of all illnesses are either caused by, or aggravated by, polluted indoor air.** * Individuals who are most susceptible to indoor air pollution are the ones who are home the most: children, pregnant women, the elderly and those with chronic illnesses.† * The health care costs and productivity decreases from allergies and asthma are about $13 billion per year.** * According to Mothers of Asthmatics, an estimated 40 to 50 million Americans - about one in five - suffer from allergies including allergic asthma.‡ * Also according to Mothers of Asthmatics, allergies are responsible for 3.4 million lost U.S. workdays each year, plus an estimated 2 million lost school days.‡ *United States Environmental Protection Agency and the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission Office of Radiation and Indoor Air. "The Inside Story: A Guide to Indoor Air Quality." **EHS Services, Inc. "Indoor Air Quality: Issues, Action, Solutions, and Management, 1st Edition." †The National Safety Council's Environmental Health Center. Air Quality Program brochure: "Indoor Air Quality in the Home." ‡Allergy and Asthma Network, Mothers of Asthmatics, In. Note: While air cleaners are known to reduce allergans and particles from the air there is no guarantee that some or all of the above conditions described above will be alleviated or cured by air cleaners.

Radiant Floors

Radiant Floor Heating
Here's how it works. Wirsbo Radiant Floors circulate warm water through PEX tubing embedded in the floor of your home. The heat radiates up through the floor, warming the people, furnishings and air in the room. The warmth stays down where the people are, not up at the ceiling or lost to the outdoors every time a door or window is opened. It's a comfortable, even heat where cold spots and drafts are eliminated.

The Benefits ... Ya Gotta Feel 'Em to Believe 'Em.

Cutaway Illustration

Boiler Systems

What is hydronic heating?It is a method of heating that uses hot water or steam instead of air. With hydronic heat, you get two types of heat delivery: radiant heat and convected heat. Radiant heat warms you directly, just like the sun's rays. Convected heat is carried by warm air circulating in a room.
Hydronic heat lets you choose from several different devices that use these two heating processes. Hot water from a Burnham boiler can be piped to radiant tubing hidden in the floor, to slim baseboard radiators, or to stand-alone radiators. Hot water can also be circulated through a coil in your central air-conditioning unit to heat other living spaces with warm air. Plus, hydronic heating produces more hot water for cooking, washing, hot tubs, swimming pools, and even radiant sidewalks and driveways to melt ice and snow.

Upgrading Old Equipment Many homes still rely on boilers and furnaces to provide heat. In addition to the reliability issues inherent with older equipment, these systems are significantly less energy efficient than the ones available today. For example, many old boilers are rated at only 50-55% AFUE, Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency, a standard government efficiency rating. In these homes, 45-50 cents of every heating dollar is wasted by system inefficiencies. Compare this to new boiler efficiencies of 84-87%. A new boiler can cut energy costs by 1/3, paying for itself in fuel savings in the first two to three years. And in homes converting from electric to hot water heat, fuel costs can be cut by over 50%.

Burnham provides a combination of residential and commerical quality products. All Burnham boiler castings are produced in its own domestic foundry to ensure quality and availability - a claim no other boiler manufacturer can make.	Utica Boilers products are designed, tested, and assembled to ensure that you get the very best in home heating and cooling comfort, and value. Each one meets or exceeds all recognized safety, performance efficiency standards

Furnaces and Air Conditioning

 The Heart of the System

In Northern Michigan, furnaces are the heart of any heating and cooling system. But most people don’t realize that there have been tremendous changes in the efficiency of furnaces and air conditioners today. In fact, most people are unaware that an air conditioner can be used to heat your home. That’s right. An air-source heat pump looks just like an ordinary air conditioner, but in the winter it can heat your home when the outside temperature is above 20 degrees F! Here at Geofurnace, we only sell what we believe is the finest equipment on the market today.


Gas Furnaces

Like heat pumps, furnaces keep your home warm in the winter and serve as an important part of your air conditioning system in the summer. In a furnace, gas or oil is combusted in a burner and then heat produced from that reaction passes through a heat exchanger where it is transferred to the air distribution system. The ductwork throughout a home carries and disperses the conditioned air and the flue or vent pipe releases the byproducts (such as carbon dioxide and water vapor), outside the home. 


Central Air Conditioning

Central air conditioning helps keep your home cool and reduces humidity levels. By transferring heat from air located inside your home to the outside, conditioned and cooled air is left to be re-circulated. Using electricity as its power source, the compressor inside an air conditioning unit pumps coolant, or refrigerant, back and forth to gather heat and moisture from indoors. Warm air from inside is blown over the cooling coil, which is connected to the compressor, and then pumped back into your home.

Winter Heating

Summer Air Conditioning

Air-Source Heat Pumps

Fueled by electricity, heat pumps are used for either the heating or cooling of your home by transferring heat between two reservoirs. In the warmer months the heat pump acts like an air conditioner, moving heat from inside your home to the outside. During winter months, heat from outdoors is transferred to the interior of your home. Even a 20º-Fahrenheit day still produces enough heat to warm a home via a heat pump.

Geothermal Systems

Geothermal is our specialty! GeoFurnace is one of the leading geothermal contractors in the nation, with hundreds of systems installed and serviced over the past decade. As fuel prices continue to escalate, geothermal systems are becoming the only option for affordable fuel bills. We encourage you to talk with someone who has a geothermal system and to ask them what their monthly energy costs are.

A major source of energy is right under your feet.

Your own backyard has the potential to be your source of heating and cooling comfort. Now you can get safe, reliable, energy efficient heating and cooling from one piece of equipment. Geothermal energy represents the leading edge of heating and cooling technology. It moves heat energy to and from the earth to heat and cool your indoor environment. And compared to ordinary systems, geothermal technology can save you 30% to 60% on your monthly energy bills. Geothermal is the safest, cleanest, most reliable space conditioning system you can buy.

Geothermal energy is an unlimited resource. The lot surrounding a home contains a vast reservoir of low temperature thermal energy, typically 10 times that required over an entire heating season. This resource is constantly resupplied by the sun, the surrounding earth, and heat rejected while cooling during the summer. The universal definition of geothermal is "...pertaining to the heat of the earth." By using the earth to provide up to 50% of a building's total heating and cooling needs, these systems are truly geothermal energy made practical.
Four basic types of geothermal energy resources:

Horizontal loops are often considered when adequate land surface is available. Pipes are placed in trenches, in lengths that range from 100 to 400 feet.

Pond (lake) loops are very economical to install when a body of water is available. Excavation costs are virtually eliminated. Coils of pipe are simply placed on the bottom of the pond or lake.

Vertical loops are the ideal choice when available land surface is limited. Drilling equipment is used to bore small-diameter holes from 75 to 300 feet deep.

Open loop systems are the fourth type and utilize ground water as a direct energy source. In ideal conditions, an open loop application can be the most economical type of geothermal system

Four times the efficiency:

A geothermal system uses the Earth's thermal properties in conjunction with electricity to provide unprecedented efficiency. For every unit of electricity the system uses, it provides four units of heating energy, giving a geothermal system a 400% efficiency rating on average. These numbers translate into real savings on your utility bills year-round.