The quality of your water is important. You drink it. You clean with it. It’s also a crucial part of your HVAC system. You may not realize it, but the presence of contaminants in your water can affect your heating and cooling. Let’s look at water quality and its role in HVAC.
Perils of Hard Water
Hard water contains a buildup of minerals, such as calcium and magnesium. It’s safe to drink, but it can make it difficult to build up a good soap lather, often leaving behind a residue on your skin. But it doesn’t just affect your showers. It also affects your HVAC. When hard water runs through your system, it can leave a buildup of those minerals behind in a scaly residue on the inner walls of the unit.
That residue then acts as insulation, absorbing the heating and cooling that your system produces before it can reach your home. The unit can’t operate as efficiently and uses a lot more energy to make your home comfortable.
These mineral deposits can also build up on the system’s various components, causing them to corrode over time. The unit breaks down more often, you end up spending more money on parts that need to be replaced, and the system’s overall lifespan is shortened.
Improving Water Quality
There are a number of steps you can take to improve the quality of your home’s water. Many people have filters that they attach to the end of their faucets, or put into pitchers to get rid of contaminants. This is fine for the water you drink, but it doesn’t do much good for the water in your HVAC system.
Therefore, you might consider investing in a whole house filtration system, to filter out those hard water minerals at the source, sending clean, pure water through your pipes. You can also use a water softener to remove the minerals that build up in your water.
To learn more about water quality and other factors affecting your HVAC system, contact us at Mowery Heating, Cooling and Plumbing. We’re Indianapolis’ source for quality HVAC solutions.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Brownsburg, Indiana and surrounding areas about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).
