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Are you wondering if you need maintenance for your residential or commercial HVAC system? The truth is that all HVAC systems need some type of regular maintenance, and one of the best maintenance plans involves preventative maintenance, which is the process of inspecting your HVAC system for worn parts and problems before it stops working.
Residential and Commercial HVAC Preventative Maintenance
Performing preventative maintenance on your residential or commercial HVAC system can help prevent major breakdowns and large repair bills and help you maximize the useful life of your heating and cooling equipment. This is accomplished with twice-yearly visits from your local HVAC technicians. During these visits, the technician examines your heating and cooling equipment to determine if it is operating within the manufacturer’s recommended guidelines. The technician checks airflow, fan and compressor operating, air intake and electrical current. Your thermostat is checked to ensure it is set to the correct temperatures and programmed appropriately for your building. Your air filter is changed, and if any extremely worn or broken parts are found, you are informed so that they can be repaired or replaced before your HVAC system completely stops working.
If you are receiving preventative maintenance in the late spring or summer, the refrigerant levels of your air conditioner are checked and the copper coils are checked for leaks. If you need new coils or a coolant refill, your technician will notify you and explain the costs.
How Often Should You Get Preventative Maintenance
Our HVAC technicians recommend getting preventative maintenance twice a year, once in the late spring and once in the middle to late fall. By getting maintenance on your HVAC equipment twice a year, you are helping to ensure cool, comfortable temperatures all summer long and warm indoor air temperatures during the winter.
Cost of HVAC Preventative Maintenance
The average cost of an HVAC preventative maintenance visit for customers who are not on a maintenance plan with their local HVAC contractor can expect to pay between $70 and $150 per visit, according to Fixr. If the business or homeowner has a preventative maintenance package, they will save additional money. This is because maintenance packages often include at least one maintenance visit as well as a discount on parts and labor. Some HVAC contractors also offer priority service to businesses and homeowners who have a maintenance package, which means faster service and repairs in the event of a breakdown. Annual preventative maintenance packages typically cost $150 a year. Commercial HVAC maintenance packages typically cost a little more and are custom designed for the building and its heating and cooling needs.
Cost of Replacing an HVAC System
When you think about the cost of ownership of your HVAC system and its lifespan, you should know that most HVAC systems are designed to last between 15 and 25 years. The cost to install a residential HVAC system ranges between $5,000 and $10,000, according to HomeGuide. Large commercial and rooftop HVAC system can cost between $100,000 and 2.5 million dollars, depending on the size and complexity of the system.
When you fail to properly maintain your HVAC system, you could be looking at large repair bills and the need to replace the system long before it’s expected useful life is reached. For example, if you have a residential heating and cooling system that you never maintain unless it completely breaks, you could be shortening its life by as much as 10 to 15 years. This means that you’d have to replace the system every 10 to 15 years rather than every 20 to 25 years. This is a significant cost increase when compared to purchasing a maintenance plan and repairing your system before it completely breaks.
To learn more about our HVAC services and to schedule preventative maintenance for your residential or commercial heating and cooling equipment, give us a call today.
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As a professional freelancer, you’ll sometimes find yourself with a piece of content that your client refused to buy. When a client doesn't pay for their content, it remains the property of the freelancer, and the freelancer is free to do whatever he or she wants with that content.
Who Steals Content?
People that want fresh content for their websites and don't want to pay for that content often steal content from other popular websites. Some people even use scrapers to grab new content as it’s made available. Other individuals may post extremely low-paying orders on content sites to get custom content, then tell the writer it needs extensive work or is, in fact, plagiarized. The client in this scenario knows that if they list enough problems with the content they received that the writer will drop it rather than continue working on it.
Read more: What Should You Do with Custom Content the Client Didn’t Pay for?
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Are you wondering how to price your content in order to pay your monthly bills and attract new clients? The truth is that freelancers can charge any rate they wish from less than $10 per article to more than $1,000. Your answer will probably depend on your experience level, your education and your experience as a freelancer.
Typical Custom Content Prices
When it comes to pricing your custom content articles, you can set your prices anywhere that’s comfortable for you or that you feel are fair to both yourself and your clients’ needs. With that being said, here are a few common price points.
- No Research Needed or a Brand New Content Writer - .01 to .05 cents per word
- Some Research Needed or a Freelancer with 1 to 3 Years Experience - .05 to .10 cents per word
- Experienced Freelancer with 5 to 10 Years Experience - .15 to .30 cents per word
- Experienced Freelancer with 10+ Years Experience - .30 - .60 cents per word
- Lots of Research and/or Formatting Required - 1.00 per word to $2 per word
- Extremely Experienced Freelancer or Niche Topic - $2 to $4 per word
- Knowledge Requires a Degree in the Field - $5+ per word
Read more: How to Properly Price a Custom Content Article, Blog Post or Webpage
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While it doesn’t happen often, sometimes you’ll have a client send you a message or an email stating that the topic they requested and you wrote isn’t the topic that their client wanted. This typically happens when your direct client is actually a middleman between the writer and the actual website owner or business.
Don’t Work for Free
The first thing you should know is that it’s not your fault the client didn’t like the topic the middleman or the website owner selected. You are not a mind reader. You can only work off the information that you received in order to write the topic. If the client changes the topic, you are not obligated to write it for free. The client paid for the first topic, and you wrote it, which means you fulfilled your obligation.
When a client changes a topic and essentially wants a second article, they must pay for that second article.
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How often do you use your Internet connection? If you’re like most people, you use it daily for shopping, working and entertainment, and with all the digital devices and appliances we use today, it’s never been more important to have a strong, fast Wi-Fi signal, especially when more people are staying home and working from home. If your Wi-Fi is suddenly slowing to a snail’s pace, making streaming, gaming, internet browsing and performing your job duties nearly impossible, there are things you can do to increase your speed.
1. Check to See That Your Modem Is on and All the Cables Are Connected Securely.
When troubleshooting your slow Wi-Fi connection, it’s best to start simple, and the truth is that more Internet problems are caused by loose cables than anything else. In this scenario, your cat, dog or child could have pulled a wire loose or you may have accidentally bumped or hit your modem or router. This means that the the first thing to check is that your modem is on and all the cables, including the power cable, are connected securely. If you have a cable moden, make sure the power cord is securely connected and not loose. Next, make sure your cable wire is securely screwed to the post. If they were loose and your Wi-Fi speed increased after performing this task, your problem is fixed and taking additional steps is not needed.
2. Reboot Your Modem and Devices
If all the connections were secure, you may need a reboot, especially if you're noticing slow Wi-Fi speeds suddenly and in the morning when you first look at your devices or wake your computer up for work. In this scenario, your service provider may have updated something overnight, and the update didn’t fully download or mesh with your system or devices. In this case, unplug your modem and turn off all your devices. By the time you get done turning off all your Wi-Fi devices, your modem should be ready to be turned back on. Next, plug your modem back into the wall and wait for all the lights to turn on. This can take several minutes. Once all the lights on the modem are showing, turn on all your devices and check to see if you can access the Internet. If you can, your problem has been solved.
Read more: Working From Home: 16 Ways to Improve Wi-Fi Signals