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4th of July is a time for watermelon and water balloons, fireworks and bonfires, as well as hot dogs and dog walks.  No matter what your plans are this holiday weekend, whether you are going out of town or entertaining at your home, here are some simple ideas to stay cool and save money.

• Keep doors and windows closed.  If you have your air conditioner running full blast (which it might be, since it is going to be in the 90’s in Southeastern, Michigan), you want to make sure to keep the cool air inside and the hot air outside.  This may be difficult to accomplish if you have many friends and family over, so perhaps try to disuade people from going inside at all or put a sign on the doors, reminding people to close them.
• Jump in the Pool. If you have a pool in your backyard, or one that you can use, now is the time to make use of it!  Stop worrying about your hair and start to appreciate the cannon ball splashes.  Fresh water will feel great on a 90 degree day with sun beating down on you.  Also, while you are drying off, the evaporating water will cool you down.
• Ice, ice, ice. This is obvious and self explanatory, but cooling down your drink with ice will help to make you feel cool while you drink it.  Also popsicles and ice cream are always good, tasty, cold treats for anyone and everyone.
• Barbeque! Barbequing is a staple on 4th of July!  This can help to keep your home cool, by keeping the warm cooking air OUTSIDE of the house.  (Just hope that you aren’t the one standing there and flipping burgers)
• Go down below.  If the heat outside becomes too unbearable, go hang out in the basement!  That is most likely the coolest area of your house (besides the freezer) and you can hang out in cool air, without having to turn down the temperature on your thermostat too far.

If you are leaving your house for the weekend, make sure to turn the thermostat up–so your air conditioner is not wasting money and energy by cooling an empty house all weekend long.  Good luck staying cool and have a great weekend!

Contact Flame for More Information!

image found at: http://folbot.wordpress.com/2009/07/page/2/

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4th of July is a time for watermelon and water balloons, fireworks and bonfires, as well as hot dogs and dog walks.  No matter what your plans are this holiday weekend, whether you are going out of town or entertaining at your home, here are some simple ideas to stay cool and save money.

• Keep doors and windows closed.  If you have your air conditioner running full blast (which it might be, since it is going to be in the 90’s in Southeastern, Michigan), you want to make sure to keep the cool air inside and the hot air outside.  This may be difficult to accomplish if you have many friends and family over, so perhaps try to disuade people from going inside at all or put a sign on the doors, reminding people to close them.
• Jump in the Pool. If you have a pool in your backyard, or one that you can use, now is the time to make use of it!  Stop worrying about your hair and start to appreciate the cannon ball splashes.  Fresh water will feel great on a 90 degree day with sun beating down on you.  Also, while you are drying off, the evaporating water will cool you down.
• Ice, ice, ice. This is obvious and self explanatory, but cooling down your drink with ice will help to make you feel cool while you drink it.  Also popsicles and ice cream are always good, tasty, cold treats for anyone and everyone.
• Barbeque! Barbequing is a staple on 4th of July!  This can help to keep your home cool, by keeping the warm cooking air OUTSIDE of the house.  (Just hope that you aren’t the one standing there and flipping burgers)
• Go down below.  If the heat outside becomes too unbearable, go hang out in the basement!  That is most likely the coolest area of your house (besides the freezer) and you can hang out in cool air, without having to turn down the temperature on your thermostat too far.

If you are leaving your house for the weekend, make sure to turn the thermostat up–so your air conditioner is not wasting money and energy by cooling an empty house all weekend long.  Good luck staying cool and have a great weekend!

Contact Flame for More Information!

image found at: http://folbot.wordpress.com/2009/07/page/2/

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Dogs are man’s best friend.  In fact they can even be woman’s and children’s best friends as well.  Let’s face it, often the family dog is the most loved member of the family.  At Flame we know that your dog or cat is very precious to you, which is why we are joining with the Michigan Humane Society to collect donations of dog and cat food from July 1 through August 31.

You can drop off donations to the following locations:

• Flame Heating, Cooling & Electrical, 2200 E. 11 Mile Road, Warren, MI 48091
•  Flame Heating, Cooling & Electrical, Riverview Showroom, 11781 Longsdorf Rd., Riverview, MI 48192
• Michigan Humane Society, Detroit Center for Animal Care, 7401 Chysler Drive, Detroit, MI 48211
• Michigan Humane Society, Rochester Hills Center for Animal Care, 3600 W. Auburn Road, Rochester Hills, MI 48309
• Michigan Humane Society, Berman Center for Animal Care, 900 N. Newburgh Road, Westland, MI 48185

Flame and the Michigan Humane Society also want you to know some important information about keeping your pet happy, healthy and safe in the summer.  First of all, you should keep your pets away from the outside air conditioner unit.  If there is a problem with the unit, it could leak coolant, which is dangerous for your pet.  Also, shade and water are very important in these hot months.  You should also make sure to not leave your pet in a parked car while it is hot out.

We hope you and your “best friend” have a great summer together, and that you can help to feed other potential “best friends!”

Questions?  Contact Flame!

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Dogs are man’s best friend.  In fact they can even be woman’s and children’s best friends as well.  Let’s face it, often the family dog is the most loved member of the family.  At Flame we know that your dog or cat is very precious to you, which is why we are joining with the Michigan Humane Society to collect donations of dog and cat food from July 1 through August 31.

You can drop off donations to the following locations:

Flame Heating, Cooling & Electrical                                                                                                                 2200 East 11 Mile Road                                                                                                                                Warren, MI 48091-1088

 Flame Heating, Cooling & Electrical                                                                                                          Riverview Showroom                                                                                                                                           11781 Longsdorf Road                                                                                                                              Riverview, MI 48192

 Michigan Humane Society                                                                                                                            Detroit Center for Animal Care                                                                                                                7401 Chrysler Drive                                                                                                                                       Detroit, MI 48211

 Michigan Humane Society                                                                                                               Rochester Hills Center for Animal Care                                                                                                3600 W Auburn Road                                                                                                                             Rochester Hills, MI 48309

 Michigan Humane Society                                                                                                                                Berman Center for Animal Care                                                                                                                  900 N Newburgh Road                                                                                                                        Westland, MI 48185

 Flame and the Michigan Humane Society also want you to know some important information about keeping your pet happy, healthy and safe in the summer.  First of all, you should keep your pets away from the outside air conditioner unit.  If there is a problem with the unit, it could leak coolant, which is dangerous for your pet.  Also, shade and water are very important in these hot months.  You should also make sure to not leave your pet in a parked car while it is hot out.

We hope you and your “best friend” have a great summer together, and that you can help to feed other potential “best friends!”

Questions?  Contact Flame!

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Gold Plans, Gold Plans-you are probably sick of hearing all about them on either this blog, the website, Facebook or Twitter.  Yet, there is a reason we keep screaming about them.  They are a good investment.  It is simply a matter of numbers:

• Flame has a $98 diagnostic fee for a technician to simply come out to your home, whether he stays there 5 minutes or 5 hours.  This is used to cover labor, time, gas, truck where and the excellent service Flame provides.
• On top of the $98 diagnostic fee, you may also have to purchase parts which could be over $100.
• An annual inspection for your furnace or air conditioner costs $129.50.  These are very important to maintaining your unit and making sure it has a long life.

98+100+129.50=$327.50

1 Gold Plan for 1 Unit = $161

With a Gold Plan your diagnostic fee is waived, and you receive a free annual inspection plus 10%  discount on parts, service, electrical work and duct cleanings. Which adds up to….

10% of $100 (for parts) is $10

$161 + $10 = $171

If in one year you get an inspection, have just 1 service call and only buy 1 or 2 parts… it would cost you $327.50 without a Gold Plan and only $171 with one!

With the Gold Plan you will also receive discounts on generators, water heaters and home comfort systems as well as you will have priority on emergency calls.  Now do you see why we talk so much about it?  It’s really the best deal since sliced bread.

Sign up for a Gold Plan

Contact Flame for More Information

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So you wanna save energy?  Good, that’s the first step.  However, there are some do’s and don’t’s with saving energy.  This article by Consumer’s Energy:  Your Home:  Top Ten Energy Myths spells out some of these “don’t’s.”  The article disputes ideas about closing vents and leaving electronics on among other things.  Check it out!

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Look out!  On Saturday, June 19-it is supposed to be 91 Degrees with Thunderstorms in the Detroit area according to The Weather Channel .  This could mean power outages.  Oftentimes, a loss of power simply means using some candles and flashlights for a little while.  Perhaps it is even a little relaxing.  However, did you realize that if your power outage goes longer than just “a little while” it could end up being very expensive? This is why you may want to contact us for generator services. Here are some examples of how much it could cost you without a generator:

• Food (estimated loss: $500-$800).  If you have  a stocked refrigerator or freezer, perhaps even two– you could lose all of your food as well as the money you spent on it if it spoils (Imagine milk sitting for a day or more in 80 to 90 degrees…yech).
• Water (estimated loss: up to $50 or more). According to the CDC, tap water during a power outage could be contiminated since water purification plants may be unable to operate.  Therefore they recommend that you use bottled water for drinking, brushing your teeth, washing your hands etc….
• Computer (estimated loss: around $1,000 and hours of your time). A power outage could cause you to lose data and documents on your computer.  These could be vital to your job, or they could be the product of hours of hard work.  Also, a power surge can occur when the power comes back on and these can fry out your computer.
• Flooding (estimated loss: $500- $3,000 and memories) If your basement is prone to flooding, you probably have a Sump Pump, but if that fails due to a power outage during a storm, you may have problem-especially if your sump pump does not have a battery back-up.  A basement flood could ruin furniture, pictures, laundry appliances, televisions, stereos, pool tables etc….
• Misc… batteries, candles (estimated loss: $30) During a power outage, you will likely be using lots of batteries and candles that will eventually need to be replaced.

Total Loss:  $4,880

As you can see, a power outage can be a very costly thing.  Though chances are you will not lose almost $5,000, it is still a possibility.  One way to avoid this is by investing in an Automatic Stand-by Generator.  These are installed right near your house, and automatically switch on just a few seconds after the power goes out.  These can help save you all the economic loss and distress mentioned above as well as give you peace of mind.  Another plus?  These generators run very quietly.

Contact Flame for more Information about our Generators and Generator Services!

Some information obtained from “Sump Pump” and “Power Outage” at Wikipedia:  The Free Encyclopedia,  The CDC “What You Need to Know When the Power Goes Out Unexpectedly” Image found- at Invention, New Scientist Blogs

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I’ll be honest.  Sometimes, not all the times, but sometimes it is a tad bit difficult to find inspiring topics to write a heating/cooling blog about.  Some bloggers just write about their life, but that may be boring for you which is why I decided to do some research today.  I searched on the Air Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration NEWS and looked at their blogs.  I found one that I liked so much, I decided to re-post it on the Flame Furnace Blog:

When The NEWS hopped onto Facebook over a year ago, we set the goal to get more “fans” on the social media site than Alan Thicke. And with the help of our loyal readers we were able to take down that pompous, Canadian has been/never was.

Now that we have been on Twitter for awhile (twitter.com/achrnews), we decided it was time to revisit the sitcoms from the 1980s and capture yet another impressive victory. So we set our goals high — the highly respected father Heathcliff Huxtable. Yes, The NEWS was planning on beating Bill Cosby like a drum.

Then a funny thing happened. We got online and found out that Cosby has over 1 million visitors. Not going to lie to you, we were a bit shocked. Time to reframe the goal. Let’s go after Rudy! Sure she was cute in the 80s, but we were almost positive that she had gone down the road of Todd Bridges, Corey Feldman, and Danny Bonaduce and was probably a huge mess. Well, it turns out Rudy is a very well-adjusted adult. She graduated from college and still gets work in the industry and is rolling with close to 10,000 Twitter followers. We just can’t catch a break.

We then set our sights on Theo, a.k.a., Malcolm Jamal Warner. Surely two of the Cosby kids could not have turned out to be well-adjusted adults. And Warner uses three names so the odds that his life has gone off the tracks seemed fairly high. But foiled again, we found out that he has kept his nose out of trouble and is a contributing member of society. And Warner also has more than 9,000 followers. Dang the luck.

But we keep looking. And we have our target: Phylicia “Claire Huxtable” Rashad and her 669 followers. There is no reason to dislike her, but we have manufactured reasons since she is in shouting distance of our 355 followers. Here are the reasons we shall destroy her in a Twitter war:

1. She rode Bill Cosby’s coattails farther than Tom Arnold did Roseanne’s.

2. She accepted Ahmad Rashad’s wedding proposal on national TV only to divorce him and keep his last name. Not sure why, but that bugs us.

3. She has one of those diacritical marks over the last “a” in her last name. How annoying is that? And we can’t even put it in this blog because we can’t figure out how to type that in Microsoft Word.

Time for her to be taken off her high horse. Just go to twitter.com/achrnews and follow The NEWS. In addition to getting great links to breaking industry news, you also have the satisfaction of propelling the HVAC industry to a victory over a 1980s sitcom icon. Who’s with me? Let’s Go!

Kyle Gargaro
Managing Editor. E-mail him at kylegargaro@achrnews.com.

I hope you enjoyed reading this and that it was more entertaining to you than tales of what I ate this morning for breakfast (a bowl of cereal: Fiber One and Special K Vanilla Almond mixed together)

Remember, if you have any questions on heating, cooling, and electrical services…you can always Contact Flame!

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AARRRGHHHH!  (Is that what you sounded like when your dog ran across your nice hardwood floor for the millionth time and scratched it up again?)  Due to pets, age etc… you may be planning to re-do your hardwood floor.  Other than simply moving out furniture, there are other things to think about such as…

Indoor Air Quality

First thing is first, you want to make sure that your furnace or air conditioner is shut off during this hardwood process.  Why?  Because re-doing hardwood floors is a very dusty activity and furnaces/air conditioners tend to suck in this dust and re-circulate it throughout your home, in rooms you didn’t even make a mess in!  This could be especially inconvenient for those with allergies.

Finishing or staining products such as Glitsa can produce odors and vapors that could cause headaches or nausea.  And therefore ventilation is incredibly important.  Unfortunately your furnace and air conditioner will not be very effective at venting these smells and fumes, and so it is best to do it the old fashioned way-with fans and open windows!  The goal is to change the indoor air with the outdoor air.  Though your heating and cooling unit may “suck up” the bad air, it may just as easily “spit it back out” in another area of your home.

A factor to think about with ventilation is the age of your home.  Older homes are less energy efficient and so they have natural cracks and leaks where the fumes can slip out and so they may not need as much work with ventilation as the newer tightly sealed homes do!

Good luck with your project and maybe a dog gate will help keep man’s best friend off of the new beautiful wood floors (though if you’re like me, your home is your dog’s playground).

Information gleaned from these articles and the Glitsa website…check them out for more info, “Breathing Easy” and “Ventilation”

Also, remember you can Contact Flame! for further information on air duct preservation and cleaning services.

Image found at: “How to Care for Hardwood Floors” by Maurie Backman

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You may have read about E3’s on this blog before:  Energy Efficiency Evaluation.  You may have thought well that sounds neat, but I don’t really feel like spending the money right now….good news for you!  For the month of June only, an E3 inspection is only $49.  This is an enormous discount.

If you’ve never heard of an E3 before–here is a brief introduction.  They are whole house energy efficiency exams that inspect your home to find leaks and places where your home may be losing energy or is not properly heated or cooled.  It begins with a discussion between you and a trained consultant.  That way you can tell the consultant your opinion on what rooms feel warmer, cooler, dryer etc… and give him/her some things to look out for.

This leads to an equipment inspection and an inspection of the insulation (because insulation is imperative to making sure that warm or cool air stay inside or outside your home, depending on the season).  After that the consultant will perform the Infiltrometer Blower Door Test to test for leaks, an air flow diagnosis to check for blockages and finally the Electronic Air Flow Capture Hood Test that tests out how much cool or hot air is actually making it to your rooms.

Infiltrometer Blower Door Test

After all of these tests (it almosts seems like your taking the SAT again?  Don’t worry–not nearly as painful!), the consultant will sit down with you and design an improvement plan.  The plan simply contains suggestions to help increase the energy efficiency of your home and you are not obligated to follow through with any of them.  These suggestions could range from things you could do on your own, such as adding more insulation up to much larger changes involving heating and cooling units.

The E3 exam is great not only  because its results could help you find ways to save energy and lower your bills, but also because it is very interesting to be able to see where there are energy leaks and problems in your home.  E3’s provide you with valuable information, and now is the time to get it.  As you are starting to use that air conditioner, you want to make sure that your precious cool air is not being wasted this summer.

Contact Flame for More Info or to Schedule an Appointment!

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