SPONSORED FEATURE
The Tuesday before Christmas, Tim Barfield, owner of Airstat Heating & Cooling, came over in the morning and installed a cozy, beautiful set of gas logs in our fireplace. It was good timing, as temperatures dipped into the twenties for a few days. It’s even better timing now. The forecast for tomorrow morning in Peachtree City is fourteen degrees, with more days like it predicted this week. Yikes!
Thankfully, numbers like these are rare in these parts. What may be rarer is a guy like Tim Barfield. Tim is a second-generation HVAC expert. His father was a pioneer in the field, starting a business installing central air conditioning in businesses in 1949. In those days, movie theaters advertised air conditioning along with film titles. People were as excited about getting cool as they were about seeing an Oscar-winning movie.
As a kid, Tim learned a lot while working as his father’s sidekick. In 1971, just as he was heading to college, his father died in a car accident. At one point, Tim had to sell his car to pay tuition. After graduating in 1975, he followed in his dad’s footsteps, starting Airstat Co., which offers heating, air conditioning, and electrical services.
While maintaining Airstat, he also owned a hardware store in Bainbridge, Georgia, for a few years before relocating to Peachtree City in 1986. For five years, he rode the city’s building boom, working for as many as 25 local contractors at a time, buying two or three permits a day, running a crew, managing subcontractors, passing inspections, chasing receivables–all the challenges and headaches you can imagine in those fast-paced days. In the early 90s, he sold the new construction aspect of the business and, for more than 30 years, has focused on changing and repairing units and ductwork in existing homes. He continues to help people with their air conditioning systems. He also specializes in repairing fireplaces and installing gas logs. After more than half a century in the business, he’s a big fan of modern radiant heat, especially as an addition to your central heating source.
“When you’re chilled, and you come inside, it’s so nice to back up to a heat source,” he says. “Maybe it’s a throwback to an earlier time, but it’s good to get that feeling again.”
He’s also a fan of the efficiency of gas logs.
“We don’t lose heat like you do with a furnace,” he says.
Tim says a typical central air gas furnace is about 55% efficient overall. Heat is lost in the duct system and the flue pipe.
By comparison, gas logs are 99% efficient. For instance, a 40,000 BTU set of gas logs will heat about the same space as a 75,000 BTU furnace. Give or take. Much depends on the layout of the rooms, ceiling height, number of windows, etc.
“These air conditioners and furnaces all get fancy and fancier,” Tim says. “I went to all the schools and continue to stay on top of it. They’ve done about all they can do. They are about as efficient as they can get.”
Having access to an additional heat source can make a big difference. Warming up a room with radiant heat can take pressure off the central system, which shouldn’t have to run as much as a result.
Tim told us a lot about this last fall when we were considering gas logs for our fireplace. Years ago, when we had kids at home to carry wood and such, we enjoyed our fireplace. But for a long time, it’s been a dust collector. Tim changed that for us.
We live in a John Wieland home. Our fireplace had a gas starter, probably like a lot of others around here. When we burned wood, the gas starter helped get the fire going. I’m sure this made it easier and quicker to install logs than it might have been in a different setup.
Tim came over about ten in the morning, laid down cloth to protect our floor, and then cleaned and painted our existing fireplace. In less than three hours, he was tutoring us on how to turn the logs on and off with a remote control and letting us know what to expect in those first hours of operation. He was in and out quickly, and life has been cozier ever since.
Tim answers his phone personally whenever we have a question and has also stopped by to check on us a couple of times.
In addition to enjoying our fireplace again, we have peace of mind knowing that if there’s a power outage, we still have a heat source. I don’t know how cold it will be this week, this winter, or next year, but I do know we’re glad to know we’ll be warmer than we were before we called Tim.
If you’re interested in gas logs or need fireplace or HVAC repairs, call Tim at 770-631-8946. You can also visit his website, www.airstatco.com.
