When the cost of filling up your car makes you wince in pain, it's natural to think about how you might save money on energy. You can't control gas prices, but you can make plans to set aside your tax return for a heat pump, a highly efficient heating and cooling system. You should see the payback in the form of lower energy bills in no time.

It’s easy to become complacent about your air conditioner — that big, boxy home system that we think should give us two decades of reliable service.  But “should” is the operative word here, because Ol’ Faithful depends on you to provide regular maintenance checks to help it go the distance. So if a tune-up isn’t on your spring to-do list, it should be.

Although a ductless mini split heating and cooling system sounds small, don't let the name fool you -- these systems are extremely effective. Because they use heat-pump technology to provide heating and cooling, they are also very energy efficient. Eliminating the requirement for ductwork also makes them very flexible in terms of installation.

There’s a lot homeowners need to know about their heating and cooling systems in order to ensure efficient and trouble-free operation, as well as greater comfort and good indoor air quality.  That’s why we’re starting our new blog for residents of Massachusetts in the Routes 495 and 128 area who may have questions about how to get the most out of their investment in home comfort.

We hope you’ve been following our blog each week, and getting your HVAC questions answered right here.  Whether it’s how to change a filter, improve your indoor air quality or size your replacement HVAC equipment, we want to make sure that you get the facts you need to make informed decisions about your home comfort.

One of the most interesting types of HVAC systems are geothermal systems. A geothermal heating and cooling system is a type of heat pump that exchanges heat from your home with the earth beneath your feet. It has an excellent efficiency and effectiveness, but there are many geothermal myths that steer homeowners in the direction of more popular systems.

As winter reluctantly leaves us and spring moves forward, it's time to consider air conditioner maintenance. Our air conditioners have been sitting idle, enduring the assaults of winter weather and the wear and tear of last season's use, not to mention the mice that have eaten the protective covering on the wires of your outdoor equipment. This all wreaks havock at the worst times.

The assaults of major snowstorms and arctic blasts have made our air conditioners the last things on our minds. In only a few weeks, if they are not working properly, they will be the first things on our minds.

When the season ended last summer, was your air conditioning in good working order? Have you needed repairs during the past two seasons? Is your air conditioner more than 10 years old? Does your energy bill increase dramatically when the weather gets hot?

These are all questions to ask yourself to help determine how your cooling system will perform during the summer heat that's about to arrive in Massachusetts.  Here are a few "repair or replace" tips:

If your air conditioner is 10 to 15 years old, it may still keep you cool, but it also may be costing you more than you know. New high-efficiency air conditioning systems can cut operating costs significantly. EnergyStar, a program of the federal government, says replacing an A/C that's more than 12 years old with a qualified model could cut your cooling costs by 30 percent.

An optimum HVAC system includes high-quality ductwork. Even the best heating and cooling equipment can't run at peak efficiency on its own: It needs a thoughtfully sized and designed and professionally installed system of ductwork to circulate warm or cool air throughout your home or business.

In the old days, home ducting was "designed" as a sometimes-convoluted mess. Often, installers ran ducts in longer sections than necessary in order to avoid pillars, beams, bearing walls and other structures. These days,  the best ductwork is designed with each individual home and its HVAC equipment in mind.