

What’s the Right Temperature for Yoga at Om? I Mean Home!
If you’re like me, maybe you don’t have time to jet to a yoga class. I have a jam-packed schedule and have to plan my laptop-based yoga sessions around it. For the best workout, I require two things: the absence of family members pointing and laughing at me and a temperature that doesn’t leave me so cold that I hurt myself. Not to mention (but I’m completely mentioning), it’s a bummer when I get to Shavasana and I’m too chilly to fully relax. The argument for warmth in yoga i

Is Your Programmable Programmed?
According to Energy Star, approximately 45% of a typical home’s energy consumption is relegated to heating and cooling - roughly $2,100 to $2,500 per annum. Not exactly chump change. Suffice to say, some of that energy, in the form of hot or cold air, gets lost in the cracks, literally. That is, tempered air escapes through gaps around door jambs and window sills, via roofs and floors, heating or cooling unoccupied areas, etc. There’s no shortage of ways for air to escape, an

Why Won’t My Furnace Turn Off?
In the midst of a prolonged arctic blast, the problem of a furnace that will not turn off is certainly preferable to the specter of a furnace that will not turn on. However, a furnace that doesn’t stop-and-start, or cycle, is problematic. While it’s certainly plausible that your furnace is perpetually running because it’s simply not able to supply the heat demanded by the thermostat, continuous operation of a furnace over a protracted period causes undue strain on the machine


How to Avoid the HVAC Zeros (and Find Your Hero)
There’s a host of occupations that have gotten a bad rap over the years. Often stereotyped as unscrupulous or shady, if you thought about it for a second you could probably call to mind a few jobs with bad reputations: auto mechanics, lawyers, used-car salesman, politicians. Some even put HVAC contractors in this bunch. Obviously, there are “bad apples” in every industry, across every job demographic. And as much as we hate to admit it, there are some chiselers in the HVAC fi


Why Isn’t My Heater Heating?
Sleigh bells are ringing, Jack Frost is nipping at your nose, and you are freezing your behind off! Unless you’re literally sitting in a snowbank, this means the heater ain’t working. So, after you put on a couple extra sweaters, but before you call the HVAC professional, there is a host of usual suspects to check off the list of probable malfunction causes. Troubleshooting and fixing some common problems regarding the furnace is not out of the realm of possibility; it’s not


Sweater Weather is the Best Time for HVAC Checkups
September. The days become shorter, the air gets crisper, and the leaves start to wither. The two things on everybody’s mind come autumn: kaleidoscopic panoramas of Fall foliage and the furnace in the cellar which has sat dormant for months now. (Well, at least everyone in the HVAC biz thinks of those two scenarios.) Aside from the leaves that will eventually require raking, you should also schedule an annual HVAC inspection by a licensed professional. Autumn is an opportune


Don’t touch that (thermostat) dial! Or should you…?
Separating fact from fiction when it comes to home utility consumption can be so mind-boggling that the subject is fit to give an aspirin a headache. Myth versus reality. For instance, will closing your vents reduce the heating bill? (No.) Even though the DVD player is turned off does it still consume power? (Yes.) Is it beneficial to run the air conditioner all day, even when nobody’s home? (Mostly no.) There are a lot of misconceptions regarding the last question that get b


The ideal temperature for a restful night’s sleep.
We are a tired nation. 25% of our countrymen complain of frequent inability to experience a complete and restful night’s sleep. One would assume that we would achieve mastery in any endeavor that we’ve devoted about one-third of our life to, but when it comes to sleep approximately 40 million American adults suffer from symptoms of insomnia annually. Why? There are scores of factors, both internal and external, that interplay with one another to determine how sufficiently we