July 6, 2025 • 28 mins
Dean dives into the world of heating and air-conditioning in 2025. He breaks down HVIC systems, heat pumps, and clears up the confusion around California’s heat pump mandates. Dean also explores uneven cooling in homes, how system controllers can balance room temperatures, and why frequent A/C cycling impacts power consumption. Plus, tips on finding a great HVIC installer and why changing your filter every 90 days really matters.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp The
House Whisper on demand on the iHeartRadio app. Here we
are again live our live broadcast every Sunday morning from
nine to noon, and if it's not Sunday morning nine
to noon, then you're listening to The House Whisper podcast
(00:21):
because every single one of our shows is converted into
podcast form and there for you eternally forever until the
end of time. That's what I've been told at least,
so every mistake that I've ever made doing radio lives
on forever. Isn't that a great notion? A great comfort
(00:42):
to me to know that I can go back at
any time and listen to all of my imperfections as
a human being. Nevertheless, the information that I'm giving you,
the help that we're giving you, all of our calls,
all of our topics, we're basically in podcast form, building
you an an on demand home improvement reference library, including
(01:05):
today's show. So if you've missed any part of today's show,
right after we're done with the live broadcast, you'll be
able to find it in podcast form, of course, on
the free iHeartRadio app, but also wherever your podcast is
found Apple Podcasts Spotify. You just search for Home with
Dean Sharp or the House Whisper or Dean Sharp. You'll
(01:25):
get there, I'll come up, you'll see it, and then
you can just dive in all the shows listed by topics.
It's a great resource for you. Today on the show,
we're talking air conditioning because you know weather and it's
warming up and it's time to have that conversation, so
let's dive back in. We've covered a lot of ground
(01:46):
so far, everything from the history of air conditioner to
how refrigeration works in general, to free on or refrigerant itself,
and how free on has not been a thing for
a long long time, and now even what the ratings
on air conditioning systems are is in terms of CER
see R the efficiency rating for the unit. I want
(02:09):
to give some attention to heat pumps heat pumps. If
you are not anywhere near replacing your air conditioning unit,
maybe something you have never heard of before, but if
you have been talking HVAC recently, then heat pumps are
undoubtedly a part of the conversation. What is a heat pump? Well,
(02:32):
first of all, let's just understand traditionally, you've got your
air conditioning system connected to a furnace, and these are
separate systems essentially, because the furnace, a gas powered furnace
is just that it is gas tubing, natural gas tubing,
(02:52):
or propane, whatever the case may be, running into the
house into the furnace area. That gas runs into those tubes,
those tubes get ignited, it produces a burner, just like
a gas burner on a gas cook top. That flame
creates heat, eats up the coils above it, and then
(03:14):
that heat is blown by a fan into the house. Okay,
so heat is added to the house because the hot
air is created in the furnace. Now sitting on top
of the furnace is part of your air conditioning system,
which is the evaporator coil, but that doesn't operate when
you are heating your house. That's just sitting there because
(03:35):
it's a completely closed and different system than the furnace.
A heat pump is an air conditioning system, to put
it in simplest terms, that replaces the need for the
gas furnace, So a gas furnace is not needed when
you have an AC system that is also a heat
(03:58):
pump system. And if you harken back to the beginning
of the program today, when I was trying, without losing
you in all the technical mumbo jumbo, trying to just
simply explain how ref refrigeration systems work. That refrigerant, this
magical chemical compound inside those copper tubes that run in
(04:21):
and out of the house to in between the AC units.
Refrigerant expands into a gas and then it condenses into
a liquid, and the process it a process of it
expanding and condensing, ends up allowing it to suck heat
out of your home and distribute it outside. And therefore
(04:41):
the air that gets pumped back into the house is
cooler air, colder air. That's how an air conditioning system works.
And I could go on and on and on and
tell you about heat pumps. I'm it's going to make
it very very simple. If you understand that's how your
air conditioning works, then a heat pump air conditioning system
(05:02):
is essentially an air conditioner that can run in reverse.
And so instead of the evaporation and condensing cycle working
to pull heat out of the house and throw it
off outside, a heat pump system can be put in
reverse so that it is collecting heat from outside, sucking
(05:24):
heat from the outside and throwing it into the house.
In other words, it is your air conditioning and your heating,
and because of that, a furnace, a gas natural gas
powered furnace no longer required. Now is that a good thing?
It could be a great thing. It's undoubtedly a large
(05:44):
in fact, probably the largest portion of future air conditioning
in general. Now, there are old timers out there who are, like,
I know about those heat pumps. They don't uh, they
don't produce well when the temperature gets cold outside. That
used to be the case absolutely when heat pumps were
first developed, because there needs to be a temperature differential
(06:05):
of sorts in order to draw heat. But that I'm
happy to tell you is long gone. When it comes
to heat pumps. A standard heat pump can run at
total capacity and do an excellent job heating the inside
of your home right up until the outdoor temperature gets
to about five degrees fahrenheit. Okay, that's pretty dang cold outside.
(06:31):
That's the standard heat pump. Okay, it can handle that.
New cold climate heat pumps can run effectively here me now,
all the way until the temperature outside is negative twenty
two degrees fahrenheit. And so if you live in southern California,
and I assume most of you who are listening right
(06:52):
now do well, honestly, just about anywhere you live now.
Unless negative twenty two is a regular occurrence for you,
then yeah, you can lose the gas furnace and go
with just a heat pump system or your home. That
is what a heat pump is. It doesn't mean you
have to. It is a myth right now that heat
(07:14):
pumps are mandated in the state of California for new systems,
although I will tell you probably won't be long until
that's the case. You can still go with a new
high efficiency gas furnace instead of an electric heat pump
system if you want to. But you got to know
that these are the options on the table. All right,
(07:38):
Who did we get over that hump? I know this
is a very very technical show, and I'm just trying
to make it break down so it makes sense to you.
There is more great stuff on the way.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
We're talking air conditioning and heating because you know, July
time to get ahead of it and make sure yours
is up to snuff. And working or if it's time
to replace it, giving you the insight so that you
know what it is that you're dealing with. That's just
one of the thousands of ways that we approach taking
(08:15):
your ordinary house and making it an extraordinary home. So
in terms of where I want to go next, I
want to talk about the variable speed system. I said
earlier in the program that I was going to share
with you what the future looks like. And it's the
future for most of you. The reason I say it
(08:36):
is because most of you are running off of an
older unit and it may not be anywhere time for
your unit to get replaced. So I'm not telling you
you've got to drop everything and go out and get
one of these. I say the future, but it's now.
I mean it's happening now. These units are available now.
We've actually been doing it for several years now. But
(08:59):
I want you to and this doesn't apply to every home. Okay,
the smaller the home, the less this actually applies what
I'm about to say. But here is the thing. The
future of residential HVAC is zoning and variable speed air
conditioning units. Okay, variable speed and zoning. Now, what does
(09:23):
that amount to I'm just going to take the classic
example of the problem that people have. If you have
a two story house, and it's not just two story,
you may have one. You may be in a single
story house and have one room that's important to you
that gets blasted by sun and other rooms that don't
get that kind of direct sunlight. And so the classic
(09:44):
situation where part of the house is always hotter than
another part of the house, and what do you do
with that, Well, there's not a whole lot you can
do with it. If you have a traditional unit, which
is an air conditioning system, where it turns on, it
goes full blast, turns off, that's the end. Some people
try to mitigate this by adjusting the fins on the
(10:06):
vents that are coming into each room, cutting them down
in some areas, opening them up in others. That can
be okay, as long as you don't shut off vents completely.
That's always a mistake always. But here is what the
new system looks like. It is a unit that is
variable speed. And by variable speed, we're not talking about
(10:27):
overcoming your cooling issues by a unit that runs even
more powerfully than the unit you have now. It's actually
just the opposite. It's a unit that can run smaller
and slower than the unit that you have right now
when it needs to. Now, how does that work? Imagine
this come into your home. We're going to completely replace
(10:49):
the air conditioning system. Okay. We've got ducts running to
every room. Some of those rooms are upstairs or in
that hot end of the house. Some of those rooms
are downstairs or in the cool side of the house.
On each of these duct trees, the branches that reach
out to those spaces, we create zones. One zone, this
(11:09):
cool area over here, another zone, this super warm area
over here, maybe a third zone that's sort of in between. Okay.
We create zones, and on those zones, we cut the
duct and we insert of an electronically controlled damper okay
that can close or open the airflow through those ducts
(11:32):
back where it's important to do, near the heart of
the system, not out at the vents. Okay. So we
put these controlled dampers on, and then we put a
temperature sensor, not a thermostad. Okay, you can still have
one thermostat in the whole house, but it's a smart
thermostat that's getting input from temperature sensors in each of
(11:54):
these zones or you know, in the kind of ultra
custom homes that we often design, sometimes there's a temperature
sensor in each individual room. But the idea is there's
a temperature sensor that's giving proper feedback for each zone.
That means that hot upstairs there's a temperature sensor up there,
the cold downstairs, there's one there, and it's feeding info
(12:17):
to the thermostat. And what the thermostat now can do
is it can decide, well, downstairs is cold enough, downstairs
is exactly where it's at, So it shuts off the
ducks to downstairs and lets downstairs ride for a while
at that cooler temperature, and it gives all of its
attention now to upstairs and no longer cooling the downstairs
(12:41):
by controlling those dampers. Now, how can you not do
this with the existing system you have? But can I
just add dampers to it? Well, no, because your system
was sized to run through all of those ducks all
at once, and if we're going to shut some of
them down, then we're putting strain on on the actual system,
(13:01):
back pressure strain on the system. This is where the
variable speed air conditioner comes into play because It gets
that information from the thermostat saying, okay, we're only going
to be cooling the upstairs for a while. I need
you to only run the upstairs. And so it sizes
(13:22):
itself down to an air conditioner that can just run
a couple of rooms, and it keeps topping off all
these spaces all around the house. Does that make sense?
All right? We will go further into it when we return.
There's so much more to come your Home with Dean Sharp,
the house Whisperer.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Hey, if your home needs some personal house Whisper attention,
you can always book an in home design consult with
me and t Yeah. Actually us just coming over hanging
out for a bit, giving you some vision casting, helping
you solve the problem that you haven't been able to
solve so far. Just go to house Whisperer dot design
(14:08):
for more info house Whisper dot Design. Yes, Tina and
I design custom homes. That's what we do. I don't
just play one on the radio. We actually do this
for a living, which is why I think you can
appreciate the authenticity and the accuracy and the helpfulness of
(14:29):
the show. It's just part of our secret sauce as
we go along. Here we're talking air conditioning, very technical,
very technical topic today. I'm trying to both educate you
a bit and keep us from getting into the weeds
too far. And right before the break, I was describing
to you what the current and future home for air
(14:52):
conditioning is in your home, and that is a variable
speed system using dampening control rolls on all of the ducks.
So how does it all play out? It just imagined.
This doesn't matter how hot the upstairs of your house
is or how cold the downstairs is. Just imagine this.
Imagine living in your home. Every room or group of
(15:16):
rooms that are essentially the same temperature have a temperature
controller in there. And when the system realizes, oh, you
know what the primary bedroom upstairs it got to It
went up a couple of degrees. We need to top
that off and bring it back down to temperature. Everything
else in the house doesn't get anything. The system closes
(15:37):
all the dampers everywhere else and just ramps itself down
to function like a single room air conditioner to basically
just cool that space until it brings it back up
to temperature, and then it moves on to other spaces. Oh, oh,
the second bedroom needs a little topping off, and there
it goes. Oh downstairs, it needs a little cooling downstairs,
(15:58):
And so it controls the airflow into all of these spaces.
And the magic of the unit outside is that it
can actually ramp itself down and pretend to be a
much smaller air conditioner. What does that mean. It means
that during the summer, the air conditioner is running almost
all the time, which sounds like it could be a
(16:20):
huge energy expense, but it's just the opposite. It's the
starting up surge of AC units starting and going full
blast that to take up so much energy and run
and run and run, and then they shut themselves off.
It's what we call cycling, hard cycling. That kind of
(16:41):
stuff is what just eats it up as far as
power consumption. Imagine, if you're teaching you your kids how
to get the best gas mileage out of the car,
you never tell them at the as they're sitting at
the intersection waiting for the light to turn that as
soon as the light turns green, just floor the accelerator
and is possible up to speed. No, that is not
(17:03):
how you save gas in a car, And it turns
out it's not how we save energy on an air
conditioning system. So if we get the house everywhere it
needs to be temperature wise, and then the AC can
just spend the rest of the day topping off this
room and a little here, a little there, a little here,
a little there, super quiet, super small moves. You have
(17:29):
the best interior environment imaginable, and the power bill goes
way way down. This is what's available. It is the
future for most of you, because most of you don't
have this kind of system, but it is the present.
In other words, if you're thinking about changing out your AC,
these units are available, This technology is available, it's all
(17:50):
happening right now. May not be the best for your situation.
There is a cost, of course, installing that kind of
system versus just an old stupid system. I don't mean
that as an insult. I just mean it's not a
smart AC system, therefore it's a dumb one. But it's
something you got to look at. And I cannot emphasize
this to you enough as I do all the time.
(18:13):
Be educated with all of your options, make a decision
from a position of being fully informed, and then your
decision will very very likely be the correct one for you.
In all the decades that we have been designing homes
and working with clients and building custom homes, I've never
(18:33):
had a client come back to me and say, Dean,
why didn't we ever discuss this option. I discuss options
with our client's ad nauseum. Okay, they're rolling their eyes
at some point, and I'm like, no, hang with me,
because I need you to make an informed decision here.
I want you to make an informed decision. So that's
(18:54):
what I want for you as well. That is your
best option when it comes to this kind of stuff.
Stay informed, you know what's available. This is a multi
zoned variable speed system. May not be the best for
your budget at this time in your life, may not
even be the most efficient way to deal with your
particular home, but you need to know it exists and
you need to have that conversation with your air conditioning contractor.
(19:16):
And I want to put in a little word for
many split systems. This is also a technology that's grown
and grown and grown in popularity. A mini split system
is a system that just has no ducts. It has
a canister or a cartridge that mounts either high on
a wall or in a ceiling, and it is exactly
like a full scale system, except it's miniature and room size.
(19:39):
This is another option for taking care of that wild, rampant,
extra hot room in the house without changing everything else
about your air conditioning system. So you should look into
many splits as well as a choice. The last thing
that I want to talk to you about today is
why your choice of h VAC installer is so dang important. Okay,
(20:04):
in other words, vetting out getting comparable bids, but really,
really really feeling confident about the quality of the air
conditioning company that is doing your servicing and doing your
new system is so dang important. If you don't know
why right off the top of your head, you need
(20:24):
to hang on because I'll address it right on the
other side of this break.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Why is your choice of HVA installer HVAC installer so
dang important? Well, it comes down to this, my friend,
heating and air conditioning. It's not a plug and play appliance.
The units are very important. Selecting the right units important
for your home, of course, but it's not like a
regular appliance in your home that's plug and play. It's
(20:59):
not like a well, you just buy an oven, you
bring it home, you plug it in, it functions. That
oven does exactly the same job in your home and
a thousand other homes. Because it's all internally built within itself.
An HVAC system has to be custom fit to your home,
how the ducks run, where the vents are in each room.
The same equipment can be installed in two different homes
(21:22):
in two different ways, by two different companies and yield
two very very different results. One home can get it
done efficiently and the equipment lasts for years and years.
The other can be nothing but problems and the system
ages prematurely. So in the end, hear me, it all
comes down to the installer, and that is why you've
(21:45):
got to pick the right HVAC contractor. I'm not trying
to freak you out. I'm just trying to say, you
want one who's vetted, who's certified with the equipment that
you've decided to buy, and who's got a fantastic reputation,
and who is willing to take the time and make
it happen in your home the right way. Why because
design matters.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Most.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Last thing that I'm going to tell you today your responsibility.
We talked earlier in the show about cleaning units. That's
all well and good. You got one job. Change your filter.
Change the filter on your system every ninety days, every
three months. You're kidding me, I haven't changed the filter
in two years. Get it done. Get it done. You
(22:29):
can set a reminder. You know we live in the
twenty first century. Put a reminder on your calendar or
your cell phone to remind you every ninety days time
to change out the filter or better yet. Okay, and
I would love to get one of these companies as
a sponsor of the show. But I'm just telling you
right now there are a slew of filter subscription companies
(22:50):
out there online. I'll give you one as an example,
filter by filter by buy filter by dot com. You
go on, you get you figuigu're out the size and
the type of filter that you want and need for
your system, and you set up a subscription and you
set the frequency in every ninety days, the new filter
(23:10):
shows up on your doorstep, and guess what when it
shows up, change it out. That's it. The number one
cause of premature system failure in most HVAC systems, poor
circulation because of dirty filters. It is your one job.
That's it, the most important thing you can do to
your system. All right, that's going to be a wrap
(23:33):
for me today. If you're new to the show, I often,
not always, but often spend a few minutes right at
the end of the broadcast on Sundays telling you a
little personal thing about me and just how life is
seen through these eyes. So here is I'll leave it
(23:54):
with this thought today. Yeah, we're just back from spending
a few days backpacking in the East in Sierra. It's
a place that I just can't seem to get enough of,
though I've been enjoying it my entire life. Going into
the mountains is always a moving experience for me. I've
realized it happens much the same way every time. Maybe
(24:15):
you can relate it's not just a single emotion, but
a step by step progression of deepening emotional layers. First
there's the anticipation, the planning, the gear checks, the growing excitement.
Then the day finally arrives and it's the long drive
with its roadside leg stretches and bathroom breaks at unfamiliar
(24:37):
places in the middle of nowhere. It's kind of a
ritual that helps to leave home at home and embrace
the adventure that we're now on. And then, after a
few hours to finally leave the highway, wind your way
up an ever narrowing mountain road until you arrive at
the trailhead, step out of the car, you take in
(24:59):
that first full breadth of alpine air. Wilderness parking lots
just might be the happiest places on Earth. Everyone there
is either newly excited about beginning an adventure or they're
tired and they're satisfied as they return from one, and
as you begin to unload your car, you think, ugh,
this is beautiful. It does not get better than this, ah,
(25:22):
but it does, because the deeper I hike into the
Eastern Sierra, the deeper my emotions grow. Beautiful gets replaced
with pristine. Pristine becomes stunning. And then when we're at
the end of a long hike, I finally find myself
standing alongside a crystal clear alpine lake at the feet
(25:43):
of towering granite peaks, Stunning becomes majestic. So we pitch
our camp and we settle in, humbled that my tiny
life found its way into this land of ancient wonder.
But the show is not over yet. There remains one
final act. Soon the sunsets, and above this ancient temple,
(26:09):
one by one, the stars begin to appear. Not the
faded handful that we're used to seeing at home, that
are always fighting to make their presence known through the
glare of our city lights, but thousands upon thousands of
stars blaze into view until they've filled every corner of
the sky, with the white clouds of the Milky Way
(26:32):
glowing the light of countless million moors behind them. And
that is when it hits The true nature of these massive,
towering peaks, and of me along with them, is revealed.
We are but tiny aspects of the speck of sand
that we call Earth that is floating through the limitless
vastness of the universe. And for that emotion there are
(26:54):
no words, only perhaps resolutions, resolutions in me. To feel
that small is not an easy feeling. It's not comfortable
to be stripped of all your self importance and reminded
that that you're fragile and that your life is brief.
But also in that moment, life becomes very simple. Who
(27:17):
am I, I'm me? Where am I I'm here? How
long will I be here? Not long? What can I
do about that? Not much, nothing, but perhaps when I
come down from the mountain, to be grateful that I'm
here at all, to embrace those other, warm, tiny lives
(27:37):
around me even more, to make the most of every moment,
and of course, to get busy building myself a beautiful life. Well,
those are my thoughts for the day. I hope you
have a fantastic first week of July ahead of you,
and we will see you right back here next weekend.
(27:58):
This has been whole with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper.
Tune into the live broadcast on k PHI A M.
Six forty every Saturday morning from six to eight Pacific
time and every Sunday morning from nine to noon Pacific time,
or any time on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp The
House Whisper on demand on the iHeartRadio app. Here we
are again live our live broadcast every Sunday morning from
nine to noon, and if it's not Sunday morning nine
to noon, then you're listening to The House Whisper podcast
(00:21):
because every single one of our shows is converted into
podcast form and there for you eternally forever until the
end of time. That's what I've been told at least,
so every mistake that I've ever made doing radio lives
on forever. Isn't that a great notion? A great comfort
(00:42):
to me to know that I can go back at
any time and listen to all of my imperfections as
a human being. Nevertheless, the information that I'm giving you,
the help that we're giving you, all of our calls,
all of our topics, we're basically in podcast form, building
you an an on demand home improvement reference library, including
(01:05):
today's show. So if you've missed any part of today's show,
right after we're done with the live broadcast, you'll be
able to find it in podcast form, of course, on
the free iHeartRadio app, but also wherever your podcast is
found Apple Podcasts Spotify. You just search for Home with
Dean Sharp or the House Whisper or Dean Sharp. You'll
(01:25):
get there, I'll come up, you'll see it, and then
you can just dive in all the shows listed by topics.
It's a great resource for you. Today on the show,
we're talking air conditioning because you know weather and it's
warming up and it's time to have that conversation, so
let's dive back in. We've covered a lot of ground
(01:46):
so far, everything from the history of air conditioner to
how refrigeration works in general, to free on or refrigerant itself,
and how free on has not been a thing for
a long long time, and now even what the ratings
on air conditioning systems are is in terms of CER
see R the efficiency rating for the unit. I want
(02:09):
to give some attention to heat pumps heat pumps. If
you are not anywhere near replacing your air conditioning unit,
maybe something you have never heard of before, but if
you have been talking HVAC recently, then heat pumps are
undoubtedly a part of the conversation. What is a heat pump? Well,
(02:32):
first of all, let's just understand traditionally, you've got your
air conditioning system connected to a furnace, and these are
separate systems essentially, because the furnace, a gas powered furnace
is just that it is gas tubing, natural gas tubing,
(02:52):
or propane, whatever the case may be, running into the
house into the furnace area. That gas runs into those tubes,
those tubes get ignited, it produces a burner, just like
a gas burner on a gas cook top. That flame
creates heat, eats up the coils above it, and then
(03:14):
that heat is blown by a fan into the house. Okay,
so heat is added to the house because the hot
air is created in the furnace. Now sitting on top
of the furnace is part of your air conditioning system,
which is the evaporator coil, but that doesn't operate when
you are heating your house. That's just sitting there because
(03:35):
it's a completely closed and different system than the furnace.
A heat pump is an air conditioning system, to put
it in simplest terms, that replaces the need for the
gas furnace, So a gas furnace is not needed when
you have an AC system that is also a heat
(03:58):
pump system. And if you harken back to the beginning
of the program today, when I was trying, without losing
you in all the technical mumbo jumbo, trying to just
simply explain how ref refrigeration systems work. That refrigerant, this
magical chemical compound inside those copper tubes that run in
(04:21):
and out of the house to in between the AC units.
Refrigerant expands into a gas and then it condenses into
a liquid, and the process it a process of it
expanding and condensing, ends up allowing it to suck heat
out of your home and distribute it outside. And therefore
(04:41):
the air that gets pumped back into the house is
cooler air, colder air. That's how an air conditioning system works.
And I could go on and on and on and
tell you about heat pumps. I'm it's going to make
it very very simple. If you understand that's how your
air conditioning works, then a heat pump air conditioning system
(05:02):
is essentially an air conditioner that can run in reverse.
And so instead of the evaporation and condensing cycle working
to pull heat out of the house and throw it
off outside, a heat pump system can be put in
reverse so that it is collecting heat from outside, sucking
(05:24):
heat from the outside and throwing it into the house.
In other words, it is your air conditioning and your heating,
and because of that, a furnace, a gas natural gas
powered furnace no longer required. Now is that a good thing?
It could be a great thing. It's undoubtedly a large
(05:44):
in fact, probably the largest portion of future air conditioning
in general. Now, there are old timers out there who are, like,
I know about those heat pumps. They don't uh, they
don't produce well when the temperature gets cold outside. That
used to be the case absolutely when heat pumps were
first developed, because there needs to be a temperature differential
(06:05):
of sorts in order to draw heat. But that I'm
happy to tell you is long gone. When it comes
to heat pumps. A standard heat pump can run at
total capacity and do an excellent job heating the inside
of your home right up until the outdoor temperature gets
to about five degrees fahrenheit. Okay, that's pretty dang cold outside.
(06:31):
That's the standard heat pump. Okay, it can handle that.
New cold climate heat pumps can run effectively here me now,
all the way until the temperature outside is negative twenty
two degrees fahrenheit. And so if you live in southern California,
and I assume most of you who are listening right
(06:52):
now do well, honestly, just about anywhere you live now.
Unless negative twenty two is a regular occurrence for you,
then yeah, you can lose the gas furnace and go
with just a heat pump system or your home. That
is what a heat pump is. It doesn't mean you
have to. It is a myth right now that heat
(07:14):
pumps are mandated in the state of California for new systems,
although I will tell you probably won't be long until
that's the case. You can still go with a new
high efficiency gas furnace instead of an electric heat pump
system if you want to. But you got to know
that these are the options on the table. All right,
(07:38):
Who did we get over that hump? I know this
is a very very technical show, and I'm just trying
to make it break down so it makes sense to you.
There is more great stuff on the way.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
We're talking air conditioning and heating because you know, July
time to get ahead of it and make sure yours
is up to snuff. And working or if it's time
to replace it, giving you the insight so that you
know what it is that you're dealing with. That's just
one of the thousands of ways that we approach taking
(08:15):
your ordinary house and making it an extraordinary home. So
in terms of where I want to go next, I
want to talk about the variable speed system. I said
earlier in the program that I was going to share
with you what the future looks like. And it's the
future for most of you. The reason I say it
(08:36):
is because most of you are running off of an
older unit and it may not be anywhere time for
your unit to get replaced. So I'm not telling you
you've got to drop everything and go out and get
one of these. I say the future, but it's now.
I mean it's happening now. These units are available now.
We've actually been doing it for several years now. But
(08:59):
I want you to and this doesn't apply to every home. Okay,
the smaller the home, the less this actually applies what
I'm about to say. But here is the thing. The
future of residential HVAC is zoning and variable speed air
conditioning units. Okay, variable speed and zoning. Now, what does
(09:23):
that amount to I'm just going to take the classic
example of the problem that people have. If you have
a two story house, and it's not just two story,
you may have one. You may be in a single
story house and have one room that's important to you
that gets blasted by sun and other rooms that don't
get that kind of direct sunlight. And so the classic
(09:44):
situation where part of the house is always hotter than
another part of the house, and what do you do
with that, Well, there's not a whole lot you can
do with it. If you have a traditional unit, which
is an air conditioning system, where it turns on, it
goes full blast, turns off, that's the end. Some people
try to mitigate this by adjusting the fins on the
(10:06):
vents that are coming into each room, cutting them down
in some areas, opening them up in others. That can
be okay, as long as you don't shut off vents completely.
That's always a mistake always. But here is what the
new system looks like. It is a unit that is
variable speed. And by variable speed, we're not talking about
(10:27):
overcoming your cooling issues by a unit that runs even
more powerfully than the unit you have now. It's actually
just the opposite. It's a unit that can run smaller
and slower than the unit that you have right now
when it needs to. Now, how does that work? Imagine
this come into your home. We're going to completely replace
(10:49):
the air conditioning system. Okay. We've got ducts running to
every room. Some of those rooms are upstairs or in
that hot end of the house. Some of those rooms
are downstairs or in the cool side of the house.
On each of these duct trees, the branches that reach
out to those spaces, we create zones. One zone, this
(11:09):
cool area over here, another zone, this super warm area
over here, maybe a third zone that's sort of in between. Okay.
We create zones, and on those zones, we cut the
duct and we insert of an electronically controlled damper okay
that can close or open the airflow through those ducts
(11:32):
back where it's important to do, near the heart of
the system, not out at the vents. Okay. So we
put these controlled dampers on, and then we put a
temperature sensor, not a thermostad. Okay, you can still have
one thermostat in the whole house, but it's a smart
thermostat that's getting input from temperature sensors in each of
(11:54):
these zones or you know, in the kind of ultra
custom homes that we often design, sometimes there's a temperature
sensor in each individual room. But the idea is there's
a temperature sensor that's giving proper feedback for each zone.
That means that hot upstairs there's a temperature sensor up there,
the cold downstairs, there's one there, and it's feeding info
(12:17):
to the thermostat. And what the thermostat now can do
is it can decide, well, downstairs is cold enough, downstairs
is exactly where it's at, So it shuts off the
ducks to downstairs and lets downstairs ride for a while
at that cooler temperature, and it gives all of its
attention now to upstairs and no longer cooling the downstairs
(12:41):
by controlling those dampers. Now, how can you not do
this with the existing system you have? But can I
just add dampers to it? Well, no, because your system
was sized to run through all of those ducks all
at once, and if we're going to shut some of
them down, then we're putting strain on on the actual system,
(13:01):
back pressure strain on the system. This is where the
variable speed air conditioner comes into play because It gets
that information from the thermostat saying, okay, we're only going
to be cooling the upstairs for a while. I need
you to only run the upstairs. And so it sizes
(13:22):
itself down to an air conditioner that can just run
a couple of rooms, and it keeps topping off all
these spaces all around the house. Does that make sense?
All right? We will go further into it when we return.
There's so much more to come your Home with Dean Sharp,
the house Whisperer.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Hey, if your home needs some personal house Whisper attention,
you can always book an in home design consult with
me and t Yeah. Actually us just coming over hanging
out for a bit, giving you some vision casting, helping
you solve the problem that you haven't been able to
solve so far. Just go to house Whisperer dot design
(14:08):
for more info house Whisper dot Design. Yes, Tina and
I design custom homes. That's what we do. I don't
just play one on the radio. We actually do this
for a living, which is why I think you can
appreciate the authenticity and the accuracy and the helpfulness of
(14:29):
the show. It's just part of our secret sauce as
we go along. Here we're talking air conditioning, very technical,
very technical topic today. I'm trying to both educate you
a bit and keep us from getting into the weeds
too far. And right before the break, I was describing
to you what the current and future home for air
(14:52):
conditioning is in your home, and that is a variable
speed system using dampening control rolls on all of the ducks.
So how does it all play out? It just imagined.
This doesn't matter how hot the upstairs of your house
is or how cold the downstairs is. Just imagine this.
Imagine living in your home. Every room or group of
(15:16):
rooms that are essentially the same temperature have a temperature
controller in there. And when the system realizes, oh, you
know what the primary bedroom upstairs it got to It
went up a couple of degrees. We need to top
that off and bring it back down to temperature. Everything
else in the house doesn't get anything. The system closes
(15:37):
all the dampers everywhere else and just ramps itself down
to function like a single room air conditioner to basically
just cool that space until it brings it back up
to temperature, and then it moves on to other spaces. Oh, oh,
the second bedroom needs a little topping off, and there
it goes. Oh downstairs, it needs a little cooling downstairs,
(15:58):
And so it controls the airflow into all of these spaces.
And the magic of the unit outside is that it
can actually ramp itself down and pretend to be a
much smaller air conditioner. What does that mean. It means
that during the summer, the air conditioner is running almost
all the time, which sounds like it could be a
(16:20):
huge energy expense, but it's just the opposite. It's the
starting up surge of AC units starting and going full
blast that to take up so much energy and run
and run and run, and then they shut themselves off.
It's what we call cycling, hard cycling. That kind of
(16:41):
stuff is what just eats it up as far as
power consumption. Imagine, if you're teaching you your kids how
to get the best gas mileage out of the car,
you never tell them at the as they're sitting at
the intersection waiting for the light to turn that as
soon as the light turns green, just floor the accelerator
and is possible up to speed. No, that is not
(17:03):
how you save gas in a car, And it turns
out it's not how we save energy on an air
conditioning system. So if we get the house everywhere it
needs to be temperature wise, and then the AC can
just spend the rest of the day topping off this
room and a little here, a little there, a little here,
a little there, super quiet, super small moves. You have
(17:29):
the best interior environment imaginable, and the power bill goes
way way down. This is what's available. It is the
future for most of you, because most of you don't
have this kind of system, but it is the present.
In other words, if you're thinking about changing out your AC,
these units are available, This technology is available, it's all
(17:50):
happening right now. May not be the best for your situation.
There is a cost, of course, installing that kind of
system versus just an old stupid system. I don't mean
that as an insult. I just mean it's not a
smart AC system, therefore it's a dumb one. But it's
something you got to look at. And I cannot emphasize
this to you enough as I do all the time.
(18:13):
Be educated with all of your options, make a decision
from a position of being fully informed, and then your
decision will very very likely be the correct one for you.
In all the decades that we have been designing homes
and working with clients and building custom homes, I've never
(18:33):
had a client come back to me and say, Dean,
why didn't we ever discuss this option. I discuss options
with our client's ad nauseum. Okay, they're rolling their eyes
at some point, and I'm like, no, hang with me,
because I need you to make an informed decision here.
I want you to make an informed decision. So that's
(18:54):
what I want for you as well. That is your
best option when it comes to this kind of stuff.
Stay informed, you know what's available. This is a multi
zoned variable speed system. May not be the best for
your budget at this time in your life, may not
even be the most efficient way to deal with your
particular home, but you need to know it exists and
you need to have that conversation with your air conditioning contractor.
(19:16):
And I want to put in a little word for
many split systems. This is also a technology that's grown
and grown and grown in popularity. A mini split system
is a system that just has no ducts. It has
a canister or a cartridge that mounts either high on
a wall or in a ceiling, and it is exactly
like a full scale system, except it's miniature and room size.
(19:39):
This is another option for taking care of that wild, rampant,
extra hot room in the house without changing everything else
about your air conditioning system. So you should look into
many splits as well as a choice. The last thing
that I want to talk to you about today is
why your choice of h VAC installer is so dang important. Okay,
(20:04):
in other words, vetting out getting comparable bids, but really,
really really feeling confident about the quality of the air
conditioning company that is doing your servicing and doing your
new system is so dang important. If you don't know
why right off the top of your head, you need
(20:24):
to hang on because I'll address it right on the
other side of this break.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Why is your choice of HVA installer HVAC installer so
dang important? Well, it comes down to this, my friend,
heating and air conditioning. It's not a plug and play appliance.
The units are very important. Selecting the right units important
for your home, of course, but it's not like a
regular appliance in your home that's plug and play. It's
(20:59):
not like a well, you just buy an oven, you
bring it home, you plug it in, it functions. That
oven does exactly the same job in your home and
a thousand other homes. Because it's all internally built within itself.
An HVAC system has to be custom fit to your home,
how the ducks run, where the vents are in each room.
The same equipment can be installed in two different homes
(21:22):
in two different ways, by two different companies and yield
two very very different results. One home can get it
done efficiently and the equipment lasts for years and years.
The other can be nothing but problems and the system
ages prematurely. So in the end, hear me, it all
comes down to the installer, and that is why you've
(21:45):
got to pick the right HVAC contractor. I'm not trying
to freak you out. I'm just trying to say, you
want one who's vetted, who's certified with the equipment that
you've decided to buy, and who's got a fantastic reputation,
and who is willing to take the time and make
it happen in your home the right way. Why because
design matters.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Most.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Last thing that I'm going to tell you today your responsibility.
We talked earlier in the show about cleaning units. That's
all well and good. You got one job. Change your filter.
Change the filter on your system every ninety days, every
three months. You're kidding me, I haven't changed the filter
in two years. Get it done. Get it done. You
(22:29):
can set a reminder. You know we live in the
twenty first century. Put a reminder on your calendar or
your cell phone to remind you every ninety days time
to change out the filter or better yet. Okay, and
I would love to get one of these companies as
a sponsor of the show. But I'm just telling you
right now there are a slew of filter subscription companies
(22:50):
out there online. I'll give you one as an example,
filter by filter by buy filter by dot com. You
go on, you get you figuigu're out the size and
the type of filter that you want and need for
your system, and you set up a subscription and you
set the frequency in every ninety days, the new filter
(23:10):
shows up on your doorstep, and guess what when it
shows up, change it out. That's it. The number one
cause of premature system failure in most HVAC systems, poor
circulation because of dirty filters. It is your one job.
That's it, the most important thing you can do to
your system. All right, that's going to be a wrap
(23:33):
for me today. If you're new to the show, I often,
not always, but often spend a few minutes right at
the end of the broadcast on Sundays telling you a
little personal thing about me and just how life is
seen through these eyes. So here is I'll leave it
(23:54):
with this thought today. Yeah, we're just back from spending
a few days backpacking in the East in Sierra. It's
a place that I just can't seem to get enough of,
though I've been enjoying it my entire life. Going into
the mountains is always a moving experience for me. I've
realized it happens much the same way every time. Maybe
(24:15):
you can relate it's not just a single emotion, but
a step by step progression of deepening emotional layers. First
there's the anticipation, the planning, the gear checks, the growing excitement.
Then the day finally arrives and it's the long drive
with its roadside leg stretches and bathroom breaks at unfamiliar
(24:37):
places in the middle of nowhere. It's kind of a
ritual that helps to leave home at home and embrace
the adventure that we're now on. And then, after a
few hours to finally leave the highway, wind your way
up an ever narrowing mountain road until you arrive at
the trailhead, step out of the car, you take in
(24:59):
that first full breadth of alpine air. Wilderness parking lots
just might be the happiest places on Earth. Everyone there
is either newly excited about beginning an adventure or they're
tired and they're satisfied as they return from one, and
as you begin to unload your car, you think, ugh,
this is beautiful. It does not get better than this, ah,
(25:22):
but it does, because the deeper I hike into the
Eastern Sierra, the deeper my emotions grow. Beautiful gets replaced
with pristine. Pristine becomes stunning. And then when we're at
the end of a long hike, I finally find myself
standing alongside a crystal clear alpine lake at the feet
(25:43):
of towering granite peaks, Stunning becomes majestic. So we pitch
our camp and we settle in, humbled that my tiny
life found its way into this land of ancient wonder.
But the show is not over yet. There remains one
final act. Soon the sunsets, and above this ancient temple,
(26:09):
one by one, the stars begin to appear. Not the
faded handful that we're used to seeing at home, that
are always fighting to make their presence known through the
glare of our city lights, but thousands upon thousands of
stars blaze into view until they've filled every corner of
the sky, with the white clouds of the Milky Way
(26:32):
glowing the light of countless million moors behind them. And
that is when it hits The true nature of these massive,
towering peaks, and of me along with them, is revealed.
We are but tiny aspects of the speck of sand
that we call Earth that is floating through the limitless
vastness of the universe. And for that emotion there are
(26:54):
no words, only perhaps resolutions, resolutions in me. To feel
that small is not an easy feeling. It's not comfortable
to be stripped of all your self importance and reminded
that that you're fragile and that your life is brief.
But also in that moment, life becomes very simple. Who
(27:17):
am I, I'm me? Where am I I'm here? How
long will I be here? Not long? What can I
do about that? Not much, nothing, but perhaps when I
come down from the mountain, to be grateful that I'm
here at all, to embrace those other, warm, tiny lives
(27:37):
around me even more, to make the most of every moment,
and of course, to get busy building myself a beautiful life. Well,
those are my thoughts for the day. I hope you
have a fantastic first week of July ahead of you,
and we will see you right back here next weekend.
(27:58):
This has been whole with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper.
Tune into the live broadcast on k PHI A M.
Six forty every Saturday morning from six to eight Pacific
time and every Sunday morning from nine to noon Pacific time,
or any time on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Home with Dean Sharp News
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