Kilowatt Heating, Air Conditioning and Electrical Blog:
Posts Tagged ‘West Hollywood’

Signs You Need Electrical Wiring Repairs

Monday, April 5th, 2021

home-electrical-wiring-types

Some home repairs you can delay for a while, but electrical wiring repairs are not one of them. When you have a warning of electrical issues with the wiring in the house, call for a licensed electrician to look into the problem and find a solution. Do not attempt to do a DIY inspection or repair: the safety hazards are simply too high, and it will cause your house to violate the local electrical code. Stay safe and have the job done right: call our electricians for the work.

To help you know when it’s time to call for a West Hollywood, CA electrician, we’ve put together a list of a few of the biggest warning signs of wiring problems in your house.

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Some of the Biggest Do-It-Yourself HVAC Repair Mistakes

Monday, January 13th, 2020

refrigerant-adding-air-conditioning

Don’t try to “do-it-yourself” when it comes to HVAC repair. It’s that simple. These are jobs for professionals. Trying to fix a furnace, an air conditioner, a heat pump, a blower fan, a thermostat, or any other HVAC component will lead to increased costs, poorer performance, wasted time, and possibly safety concerns.

We wish we could leave it there, but people still feel the drive to try to fix problems on their own. The internet and its cornucopia of DIY videos don’t help.

The best way to illustrate why DIY HVAC jobs are a non-starter is to look at a few of the big DIY mistakes. We’ve often run into these problems when we’re called to look into a malfunctioning heater or air conditioner. Often, the current homeowner wasn’t the one who made the error—the consequences of bad DIY repair job echo down through the years!

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Some Typical Heat Pump Troubles That Call for Repair Work

Monday, December 30th, 2019

Kilowatt install of heat pump systems in Studio City, CA

We’re having an unusually cold early winter in Southern California, with mornings and evenings that can dip into the 40s and hover in the 50s. Yes, we can hear people in Minnesota and New York laughing at our definition of “cold,” but it’s still cold enough to make it necessary to switch heat pumps into their heating mode. This is one of the great reasons to have a heat pump—it mostly does the job of an AC, but when you need heat for the mild winters, the heat pump has you covered with relatively inexpensive warmth. It’s much cheaper and more effective (not to mention safer) to run a heat pump than to use a space heater.

But if you’re reading this, it’s because your heat pump isn’t working right and you think you need heater repair in West Hollywood, CA. There are a few simple checks you can make before calling our technicians, such as examining the thermostat settings and changing a clogged HVAC filter. But the problems below usually require the help of trained techs like ours.

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Understanding Capacitors and Contactors: Essential Air Conditioning Parts

Monday, July 29th, 2019

Byron-holding-Capacitors

Air conditioning systems are often called refrigerant-based systems because they use the circulation of refrigerant to move heat from inside a building to the outside. But air conditioners don’t actually run off the refrigerant: they’re electrical devices that take the power to run their components from the electrical system in a building. They’re complex electrical devices as well, and the majority of malfunctions an air conditioner can encounter happen because of electrical problems.

We’d like to focus on two electrical components in your AC that are essential for it to work: the capacitors and the contactors. These parts work together to allow the motors in the air conditioner to run—and they will both eventually wear out, fail, and need replacement. It’s best to think of them as temporary parts. Regular AC maintenance will help technicians catch dying capacitors and contactors early, but you may find yourself caught off-guard and need AC repair in West Hollywood, CA.

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Some Quick Troubleshooting Tips for a Central AC

Monday, June 17th, 2019

ac-unit

You can trust your air conditioning system to turn on and cool your house during the hot summer weather. Well, most of the time you can trust it. No AC system can work perfectly in all circumstances, and you may find one day that you turn on your air conditioner and that it either doesn’t come on, or it turns on but the air coming from the vents isn’t cool enough.

Your first instinct may be to call a professional for air conditioning service in Studio City, CA That’s a good idea—it’s much better than trying to see if you can fix the problem yourself or finding an amateur (“a guy who knows a guy”) to do the work. However, there are a few troubleshooting steps you may go through that may reveal the cause behind your AC not cooling properly.

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Do Attic Fans Make Sense for My House?

Monday, June 3rd, 2019

old-fan

Handling the summer heat in Los Angeles can put immense strain on a residential air conditioning system. Many homeowners want to find ways to cut back on their AC use to lower their bills. There are several ways to help combat the indoor heat without using a refrigerant-based air conditioning system. Attic fans are one of these tools, although people are often unsure if these types of fans will help or not.

You can always ask an electrician in West Hollywood, CA at Kilowatt for help in making a choice about cooling your home and improving ventilation. We’ll give you a short overview of attic fans in this post to help you see the possibilities—but please call us before you make any major decision!

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Considerations for Installing a Whole-House Generator

Monday, April 9th, 2018

natural-gas-generatorWith all the storms that have struck the East Coast and the Southeastern U.S. over the past few years, whole-house generators have become more vital than ever for keeping houses powered and families comfortable and safe.

In California, whole-house generators are less common—but that doesn’t mean there’s no use for them. Some of you may remember the rolling blackouts we experienced here in the mid-2000s. Those can happen again in the future, and most likely during intense heat waves when the stress from the operation of air conditioners can cause the electrical grid to fail. This jeopardizes comfort, which can be life-threatening for homes with elderly people or infants in them. Power failures also endanger residents of homes who rely on powered medical equipment.

Have you been thinking about installing a whole-house generator? If so, you probably aren’t sure where to start. The best place is to call us: we’re local experts in generator installation.

Here are a few considerations, things to think about, when you start out looking for a generator.

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Kilowatt Receives the Customer Care Dealer Award from American Standard

Monday, February 15th, 2016

At Kilowatt, we’ve always dedicated ourselves to providing customers with the best in comfort technology, trained technicians, and superb customer service. Our dedication has paid off in many ways: Here you can see a photo of our own Dean Gilford receiving the Customer Care Dealer Award from our American Standard hero, Jeff Winter.

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