A Checklist for Maintaining Your Home's Heating and Cooling Systems

Properly maintaining your home’s heating and cooling systems can improve energy efficiency, reduce your utility bills, and prevent the need for costly repairs. The best time to check your systems is in the spring and fall, before a heating and air conditioning contractors’ busy summer and winter seasons.

You can do many general maintenance checks yourself and then report potential problems to a trusted heating and air conditioning professional. It’s also a good idea to hire a professional to do a thorough inspection once or twice a year. A typical checklist should include:

• Reviewing your thermostat settings to make sure the temperature inside your home makes things comfortable when you’re there and saves energy when you’re not.


• Tightening electrical connections to make sure your appliances are running safely and to prolong the life of system components.


• Lubricating moving parts to reduce damaging friction and strain on your home’s electrical supply.


• Inspecting condensation drains if your home has central air, a furnace or a heat pump. Blocked drains can lead to water damage and mold infestation.


• Checking system controls to make sure everything is working properly. Be sure systems start, run and shut down as they should.


• Cleaning and changing air filters on your furnace, air conditioner and heat pump regularly. Dirty filters increase utility costs and can damage equipment. Most filter manufacturers have recommended replacement schedules clearly printed on product packaging.

If your home has central air conditioning or if you use portable window air conditioners, the following are some routine maintenance issues you should be aware of. (If you don’t feel comfortable doing this yourself, it’s best to consult a certified professional heating and air conditioning contractor such as Horizon Services):

• Clean the evaporator mechanism and condenser coils. Dirty coils will restrict the air conditioner’s effectiveness in cooling your home, making the system work overtime to compensate. This will cost you more on your utilities and can significantly shorten the life of your system.


• Check refrigerant levels and adjust fluids as necessary. The wrong amount of refrigerant chemicals circulating through a system can cause irreparable damage and will increase your energy usage.


• Have blower components cleaned and adjusted if needed. This ensures that the proper amount of air is flowing through the system at all times, which makes for more comfortable temperatures. Airflow restriction can decrease your energy efficiency by as much as 15 percent.

Heating systems require regular inspection and maintenance, too. No matter what kind of heat source you use, the following checklist can help your system work as effectively and efficiently as possible:

• Check all connections, especially if your heat is supplied by oil or natural gas. Loose or malfunctioning connections create a fire hazard and can lead to serious health risks like carbon monoxide poisoning.


• Make sure pilot burners and heat exchangers are functioning properly. Dirty, damaged or malfunctioning burners and exchangers can impede the operation of your system and may cause heating quipment to run less safely and less efficiently.
  

More Info About Heating and Air Conditioning Maintenance...

• Seasonal Energy Saving Tips
• A Precision Tune Up is Your Air Conditioner's Best Friend
• Horizon's Furnace Tune-Up

Non-Fried Batata Wada

I'm Enjoying my stay @ Chennai. Enjoying my Mom's Cooking. Shopping, Shopping and Shopping.
Recently bought Tarla Dalal's Non-Fried Snacks CookBook. It has got some great recipes, that can be baked/cooked on a Tava instead of Deep Frying. Me and My Sister, tried Batata Wadi recipe from that book. Came out great.
Here comes the recipe.

Ingredients

For the Batter

1/2cup Besan
1/4 tsp turmeric
1/4 tsp chilli powder
a pinch asafoetida
1 tsp oil
Salt to taste

For the Wadas

2 green chillies, finely chopped.
1 tsp  ginger-garlic paste
1 tsp mustard seeds
a pinch asafoetida
2 cups boiled, peeled and mashed potates
1/4 tsp turmeric
1 tbsp choped coriander
1 tsp lemon juice
salt to taste
Oil for cooking

For the Batter

Combine all the ingredients together in a bowl, add enough water to make a batter of pouring consistency.  Keep Aside.

For the Wadas.
Heat oil in  a small pan and splutter mustard seeds, add curry leaves and asafoetida and saute for few seconds.  Add Green chillies, ginger-garlic paste and saute again for few seconds.
Add Potatoes, turmeric powder, coriander, lemon juice and salt and mix well. Remove from the flame and cook.
Divide the mixture into 6 equal portions and shape them into flat round wadas.

Dip the wadas in the batter and place them on a greased non-stick pan.
Cover and cook on a low flame for 3 to 4 minutes.  Turn upside own, cover again and cook for another 3 to 5 minutes, using lil oil.

Remove the lid and cook the sides holding the wadas with your fingers till they turn golden brown.
Serve hot. Enjoy with sauce.
Sending this to WYF-Tea Time Snack Event Hosted By EC of Simple Indian Food

You can also find this @ LYRO#Potato happening @ Sindhi Rasoi

DILL DAL

DILL DAL

Pasta and cheese, wholemeal bread toast, butter, cheese slices, mashed potatoes, boiled peas, broccoli, custard and fruits, ice cold milk, ice cream, chilled fruit yogurt ……
These are few of the many dishes in the menu card provided by the maternity hospital in Sydney for ‘new born’ moms to select their meal! While the spread was nutritious and very delicious as well, I can very well imagine my mother’s horrified face shaking violently in disapproval.

Mother was well versed in preparing the special diet or pathiyam for pullaipetha or the new mothers. The diet to be followed by mothers for 21 days after childbirth, was prepared with great care using select ingredients. Chillies, tamarind, any roots and tubers with the exception of ginger were taboo. No oil was used in cooking. A dollop or more of pure home made ghee was a must in each meal. No citrus fruits or curd was allowed. Though there were too many dos and don’ts in the preparation, the pathiya sapaadu is a very delicious diet which every one can relish.

Dill (Sabsige Soppu in Kannada / not sure what its called in Tamil!!) has a special place in the special diet as it is supposed to help the lactating mothers and is a rich source of calcium. Here is a ‘method of preparing a pathiya dal with dill. Tomatos are typically not used in pathiya diet, so the one below is a ‘no-so-strict’ version!
INGREDIENTS:
Dill – 2 bunches
Split green gram dal (Mung) – 1 cup
Tomatoes – 1
Garlic – 3 fat cloves
Peeled Ginger – 1 inch
Turmeric powder – 1 pinch
Black pepper – 1 tsp
Salt – 1 tsp
Curry leaves – a few
Cumin seeds – ½ tsp
Olive oil or ghee – 1 tsp
METHOD:
1. Wash and cop dill discarding the thick fibrous stalks.
2. Grate garlic and ginger.
3. Chop tomatoes.
4. Heat olive oil or ghee in a pressure cooker and throw in the ginger and garlic.
5. Add chopped dill. and stir.
6. Add washed dal and turmeric.
7. Pour in three cups of water.
8. Stir in the chopped tomatoes
9. Pressure cook until three whistles.
10. When the steam has subsided open the lid and add salt and coarsely ground black pepper .and stir vigorously
11. Fry cumin seeds and curry leaves in a little ghee and add it to the dal.

Relish the aromatic Dill Dal with very hot and soft rice, topped with a dollop of home made ghee.