Your home heating and cooling system may not be delivering the comfort and efficiency you’re paying the utility company for.
HeatMaxx™ and CoolMaxx™ reports provide a preliminary snapshot of your comfort system’s delivered performance.
What Is a Comfort System Analysis?
Since the days when we began heating and cooling our homes, service agreements have only included checking the heating and cooling equipment. Until now, our industry has lacked the technology and skills to include duct systems in service agreements. There was no real way to measure the operating capacity of your system.
Until recently, when a system didn’t work, our only option was to replace the equipment. This is very costly and often does little to improve system performance. Today we can include the duct system and testing system performance as part of our service and are able to diagnose and pinpoint system deficiencies.
Even a Brand New System Should Have a CoolMaxx
It’s easy to assume that if you have the most recent model of furnace or air conditioner in your home, you should have the most efficient system possible. But unlike a self-contained stove or refrigerator, your air conditioning and heating system depends on a series of ducts and registers winding through your home. HeatMaxx and CoolMaxx rate the live operating efficiency of the entire installed system. This has been previously unavailable to homeowners.
What Should I Expect From a CoolMaxx Test?
Filter Restriction Illustration
Your HeatMaxx and CoolMaxx Report is a first step in analyzing your system. There is never any obligation to do anything. If you are happy with your delivered efficiency, no further steps need to be taken.
If, however, you find you are only getting 50, 60 or 70 percent of the rated equipment capacity, you may want to have further testing and diagnosis completed to determine how performance can be improved. A National Comfort Institute (NCI) certified contractor is well equipped to provide you with the testing and knowledge to enable you to make the best decision possible.
The HeatMaxx and CoolMaxx reports offer a preliminary rating of your heating and cooling system’s level of performance. These reports have been created as an air conditioning and heating educational tool for customers of NCI contractors.
Part of our testing includes measuring air pressures in your system. From these tests we can determine the airflow through your system and verify the resistance through your air filters. Using this and other data we can calculate the delivered BTU from your system. Filter pressure can have a drastic effect on the performance of your system.
CoolMaxx Testing is always performed while your system is running under normal operating conditions. Your contractor will drill a few harmless test holes in your system, but will plug them when they are finished. No harm or setting changes take place until you have seen the CoolMaxx report and decide if you want to take any action.
Only NCI-certified contractors are authorized by NCI to use the HeatMaxx and CoolMaxx forms and test procedures.
CoolMaxx testing is relatively inexpensive compared to the potential energy savings. In many cases contractors will include CoolMaxx testing as part of routine service or as part of a new system quote. Doing a CoolMaxx test before and after you install new equipment is a great way to see how your total air delivery system is performing. In certain cases additional testing may be required to pinpoint a specific area of trouble.
