Proper sizing is key. It is not based on square footage, a heat load calculation is how your system is sized.

Changing your air filter should be done every 30-60 days depending on the type of filters used with your unit. We recommend a pleated filter.

Manufacturer recommended a minimum of at least twice a year. We recommend having your system checked in the spring to make sure everything is working properly for summer months, and again in the fall to make sure everything is properly working for the winter months.

It really depends on the time of the year that you ask us to come visit with you.  If our generator service or installation visit comes in the middle of the Summer,  keeping the house cool with the air conditioning on will be a primary concern.  If you ask us to come out in February, you’re probably more concerned with your furnace and keeping your home at an even temperature.

In general after doing evaluations on each and every home that we sell a generator to in the past 10 years, what we have seen is that people can get whole-home generators that they didn’t think they could afford to get ten years ago. For example, the generators are 60% smaller in size and KW.  That saves a lot of space in the yard and requires less energy or fuel to power. What we have also found in the past 6 years is that 18KW generators should be effective for backup power in the majority of homes in South Carolina.

Today, natural gas standby generators have an automatic exercising switch. It’s a lot simpler than it sounds, I promise. Simply put, the system, just like a person’s body or heart or what-have-you, it needs to be tested to operate properly. At A/C Advice, what we do is we teach you how to just set the standby generator at any time during the day to be “tested.” Every day at that time during the day or night the following week and weeks and months after that, it will always exercise.

The generator, without interrupting power to the home, exercises the necessary functions to ensure maximum efficiency for the long haul. For about 15 minutes, your generator is made operational. After, there will be a green light saying it’s good to go. The machine is in great working order, however, if you want to enhance that process as you travel quite a bit (maybe in the Summer or for business), we offer on-site generator monitoring. With this service, A/C Advice will email you anywhere in the world on your iPhone or iPad or Mac or whatever you have, we will send you a confirmation alerting you to the fact that your generator just completed its exercise, how long the exercise lasted, if there was a power outage, the extended run time and most importantly, if there’s a fault. If there’s any fault it emails you and/or the A/C Advice team and the dealer, simultaneously so we can respond very quickly and get the standby generator serviced right away.