Experiencing Thermostat Problems? Read This First

In terms of home comfort, your thermostat is the real MVP of the household. Not only does it regulate your home’s temperature, it acts as a beacon to tell your HVAC system when to turn on and off. It essentially acts as the remote for your entire system. Far too often, homeowners take their thermostat […]
The Most Efficient HVAC System Is the One That Runs the Least

With the sun beaming down on your home during the day and the chill creeping up on you at night, it might feel like you’re jumping through hoops just to keep your home at a comfortable temperature. Switching from heating to cooling so frequently can really increase your energy bill! You might be wondering about […]
What’s Involved in a Professional Furnace Tune-Up?

Just like that, it is finally starting to feel like fall here in Sacramento! We were wondering if it was ever going to cool down! After a long, hot summer, it is time to fire up your furnace. For most of us, our furnace has not been touched since the spring, so it is important […]
Furnace Backfiring Sound? HVAC Expert Answers – Bell Bros

Tim in Sacramento is having somewhat of a scary issue with his furnace this weekend, so he’s reaching out to ask an HVAC expert about it. Tim writes: “Hey Bell Brothers crew, I hope you all are having a nice winter. I know it gets much busier toward the middle and the end, when […]
How to Do an Energy Audit on Your California Home

I was watching a rerun of one of my favorite shows of all-time the other day, Cheers. Now, I don’t mean to give away my age here, but Cheers was a sitcom that was on when I was much younger. It was basically about a bunch of people who worked in a bar or hung […]
Checklist for Troubleshooting Gas Furnace Problems

If you have a forced-air furnace, air gets pulled in from the rooms, past a filter, and into the furnace to get heated. A typical forced-air furnace burns either gas or oil and then a heat exchanger transfers the heat to filtered air, keeping the hot flue gases safely separated. The warm air then gets […]
Winter HVAC Safety: Recommended Baseboard Heater Clearance

I’m just going to come out and say it: most homeowners don’t know some of the most important basic tips for keeping their homes and furnaces safe in the winter. Sure, they know how to turn their furnaces on, how to adjust the thermostat, and maybe even how to change the filter every few months […]
Why Your Furnace Smells Sweet? HVAC Odor-Related Issues

I have a lot of fun associations with wintertime from back when I was just a kid. Yessir, when I think of the winter, I think about spending weekends up in Tahoe, or drinking hot chocolate after coming from a cold day at school. Sometimes, I even think of the pine-scented air fresheners that my […]
Furnace Won’t Turn Off, Blows Cold Air: What to Do?

Recently, we had a problem with our garage door. The mechanism that makes it open and close with just the push of a button stopped working. Now, we could have just forgotten the dang thing and started operating the door manually, but this thing has one simple job to do: open and close a door. […]
3 Cool Tips to Reduce Your Gas Bill in Winter Without Freezing Out Your Family

Have you ever heard that old cliche that folks like to throw around: There’s more than one way to skin a cat? Now that I think about, it’s kind of a morbid saying, really. I love cats, and I’d never ever hurt one. But I actually think about that saying pretty often, especially when it […]