Hey All,
First off, can I just say that spring of 2026 was a wild ride here in NOVA! I know spring is usually hit or miss, but I can’t remember the last time April and May were so all over the map with hot and cold spurts. If the Farmers Almanac is to be believed, then we are in for a hotter than normal summer. To quote Miss Taylor Swift- Are you ready for it?
A hotter summer, what does that mean in terms of your HVAC system? For starters, your air conditioner will have to run longer to maintain the temperature of your home. With longer run times there is a bigger strain on the components that make your air conditioners work. Another big thing to worry about is the fact that your unit will produce more water. Just like we chatted about in Q1 of this year, it is time to keep up with the bleaching of your condensate lines. I will spare you most of the details this go around, but please pour ½ a cup of either bleach or vinegar in the white PVC pipe at your indoor unit. This helps prevent muck building up and causing a clog. Nobody wants to deal with a water leak OR their AC going out on the hottest days of the year.
With that being said, I think we can all agree that the other biggest hindrance of summer (outside of the mosquitoes and sunburn) comes in the form of humidity. Now we Virginians aren’t unfamiliar with the muggy, damp air that comes with the territory of a 90 + degree day. Sometimes as these older systems run, they meet the set temperature on the thermostat and then they shut off for a while. This is normal behavior for an HVAC system. Meanwhile, for some reason you still feel a little on the hotter side in your house. Naturally, you may think there is an issue with your unit- even if the system is reaching the set point on your thermostat. If you are absolutely sure that the air coming out of your vents is in fact cold, then what you maybe experiencing is humidity inside your home.
There is a scientific term called relative humidity that affects the HVAC world significantly. Relative humidity is essentially the measurement of the water vapor in the air versus how much water vapor the air can hold at a specific temperature. Think of warm air as a HUGE sponge, it can hold a lot of water and still feel dry to the touch due to how big it is. As the air cools in our sponge analogy, imagine the sponge shrinking. This smaller sponge feels wet to the touch even though the water content is the same. This is directly based on the temperature. In cooler temperatures such as 50 to 60 degrees, we may see higher humidity percentages around 60 to 70 percent in the spring and fall. In the heat of summer, those same percentages feel stifling because the sponge is bigger and carrying more water.
How does this relate to what you’re feeling in your home you might be asking? Well, if you are at home and you feel hot the first thing you think of is your AC. You check the thermostat, all seems well, so the next step for most of us would be turning the AC down a few degrees to help with the muggy, hotter than it should be inside type of feeling right? Maybe cooling the house a few more degrees will just take it out of the air and you can go back to living your best comfortable summer life? Wrong. If you try and cool the air more without removing the moisture already there, then the relative humidity actually rises. This means you are running your air conditioner harder without actually changing how the air feels in the home. We know this because warm air is a HUGE sponge that can feel mostly dry even with a lot of water in it! But that cold air? That cold air my friends, as we know, is a tiny sponge and with the same amount of water in it just feels saturated.
So, what can us as homeowners do to help with this issue? There are three potential options:
A whole home dehumidifier installed directly onto your HVAC system. There are a lot of factors that come with this first solution. The main one being sizing. These things are massive dehumidifiers that are installed directly onto your ductwork to cycle the dehumidified air throughout your home. We would tap into your condensate line for the drainage once installed. Whole home dehumidifiers require some light maintenance, such as keeping on top of the filters (and if we are honest with ourselves only SOME of us are good at). There are not a lot of homes’ that simply do not have the space to install one of these guys, and they are fairly pricey. If you want to learn more about them, let Becca know and she can send you some links to review!
A stand alone dehumidifier is a fraction of the cost and a great option. These guys plug directly into the wall, and all you have to worry about is emptying the bucket on the front occasionally. They also turn off when the bucket is full, so there is no potential issue for water leaks. Cost effective comfort- we love to see it!
The last option, which is the priciest out there, would be to look into replacing your system with a new high efficient system. With modern technology nowadays, Lennox Elite series and Signature series systems offer dehumidification down to a certain degree when operating. They also run the new R454b refrigerant, so overtime with the efficiency ratings they can achieve you will also reap the benefits of savings on your electric bill. If you have an older system, and your home feels sticky, it might be time to start building a goose egg to possibly upgrade your system.
Do you as a customer notice anything different in the summer as opposed to the winter with your homes’ comfort level or even the quality of the air? Let’s discuss it!
We are slowly working our way through getting people scheduled for their routine checkups! If Becca has not called you yet and you are ready to get on the books please feel free to give us a shout or shoot her an email! Rest assured though, she will call you when it’s right around the time to schedule your checkup 😊 We have about ¼ left to schedule.
We have had some staffing changes since our last check in. We were sad to see some people go to pursue other avenues of life, but it did open the door to other opportunities. If you happen to open your door to a tech that looks familiar, but you can’t quite place them, allow us to reintroduce you to David Morton! He took a hiatus to see what the commercial HVAC world was about, but has since returned to his roots here at Woody’s. We have also brought on a new apprentice named Brian. Brian recently completed a course on HVAC to include not only book studies, but also hands-on workshops. We look forward to helping him grow in the field as well as break him out of his shell a bit as time goes on.
As we get deeper into the season, and as always, we appreciate y’all being flexible when things have to shift on our side or we get backed up. The continued loyalty does not land lightly on our side of things. We are lucky to have such a great group of customers that are considerate to their fellow human beings when the weather reaches record highs!
Bring on the summer, as it turns out, we are ready for it Miss Taylor Swift!
P.S. Check your filters 😆
