Your indoor air quality

Your indoor air quality is based upon the ability of your heating and air conditioning system to filter and scrub the air that passes through it. The number of air changes per hour is critical to ensure proper air distribution to avoid “dirty air” or “stagnant air” corners of your home and business.

Many things can affect your air quality. Some of those variables that indoor air quality:
1. Type of filtration system.
2. Amount of air filtered.
3. How much air pollution is being generated.
4. Building envelope sealing.

The first item on the list is the amount of air your heating and air conditioning system is moving. If your system is not moving air all the time, then it is not filtering the air all the time. No air cleaning system can work if the air is not being filtered.

I cannot recommend a standard furnace for air cleaning purposes. The blower motor required way too much electricity and this constant high speed air movement is not conducive to maximum air cleaning and costs way too much to operate. I only recommend variable speed motors in your air handler or furnace for air cleaning purposes. The slower amount of air delivered in air cleaning mode helps the filter trap the maximum amount of air borne particles while only consuming about 40 watts of electricity. That’s about the same amount of electricity as a night light.

The picture shows dust mites. Dust mites can use the airflow in the heating and air conditioning system to move around your home. While dust mites don’t typically live in large numbers in your heating and cooling system, they can use it to spread from one bedroom to another throughout your home. Dust mites thrive in moist wet environments, like your pillows and bedding.

You have three filters in your home

The first filter is your air filter in your furnace or air handler. If you purchased a dime store filter, like shown in the picture on top of evaporator coil, you are not cleaning air. The picture shows a cheap collapsed air filter amount the dust and debris on the evaporator coil that has been building up for what looks like several years. Yearly maintenance is a must for health and efficiency.

The second air filter in your home is the evaporator coil. In the summertime the coil is wet from condensation. When the air flows through the air handler or furnace, the dirt that is missed by the first air filter sticks to the moisture on the evaporator coil. This dirt-mud mix runs down the coil and much of it runs through the condensation drain. Often this drain will plug up and could flood the home or rain down through the furnace or air handler short circuiting the circuit board and blowing out the transformer. All because of a poor quality air filter.

The third filter is, of course, your lungs. When you turn your furnace on in the winter time that smell that is so awful is the precursor to the pollution that is going to lodge itself deep into your lungs. That dirt burning off the firebox and cooking on the evaporator coil from the heat of your firebox dries out. That dirt is mostly dead human skin as we all shed tiny skin pieces year round. Some is regular dirt, some is pollen and some is hair, but most is skin.

Once this dead human is dried out it becomes airborne and floats down your ducting. Some of it sticks to the sides of the ducting and the rest ends up floating around your home for your lungs to breathe in. All this because of a poor air filter.

Proper air duct cleaning and air purifying require the services of a seasoned professional. Having a carpet cleaning company clean your ducting is like asking a gardener to paint your home. You are asking for problems.

Your ducting is crucial to proper air movement

In order to stop the dirty dead zones in your home, the zones where airflow doesn’t really happen and dirty air tends to congregate, your ducting must be installed professionally and with care to maximum the effectiveness of your air cleaning system.

It doesn’t a single penny more to move air properly and effectively through your home that to move haphazardly. I am sure that the ducting in the picture cost a pretty penny to install. I pulled this picture off a web site from a contractor bragging about what good job they did. It is a horrible mess.

Some of things wrong are the carbon monoxide venting for the furnace is actually touching the ductwork. The ductwork will melt under this heat the very first time of operation. The vents are installed improperly in that they are sharing the same vent. Sharing the same vent is allowed, but the large btu furnace must be the straight run into the stack vent and this one is backwards. I am sure they received some very upset calls from the homeowner during the winter when the furnaces were going off on thermal overload.

Your ducting should be neat, clean and pulled very tight….drum skin tight. It should never make tight bends as you see in this picture. The tighter then bend in the ducting the lower the airflow will be as the resistance to airflow is increased. It doesn’t cost anymore to do the job correctly and often it will cost less, but the operation of the furnace can be considerably less when the ducting is properly installed as the furnace can move more air while expending less electricity.

The single greatest and most common cause of indoor air pollution

The single greatest and most common cause of indoor air pollution coming from your heating and cooling system is broken ducting. Broken ducting exists in more than 50% of all homes older than 15 years. These broken ducts push heated and air conditioned air into the crawl spaces of your home and business as well as blow it in the attic.

When the ducting breaks it can create a venturi-effect, called an aspirator, and suck in contaminated air from under your home, in your walls or in your attic and then distribute that air to where you live and breathe. If the break is in the return air ducting the contamination is a free for all. The contaminated air from those parts of your home that are not clean, contain mold, mildew, dirt, pollen, animal debris, found in areas of your home such as the attic or crawl space is literally drawn right into the furnace or air handle for conditioning and distribution throughout your home.

Breaks in the supply air actually depressurize your home and this causes air to be drawn in from around windows, doors, cracks around the outside of your home and through the walls at the ceiling line. This reduces the efficiency of your system, pollutes your home, and causes your heating and air conditioning bills to skyrocket out of control. We can help. We are here to help. Give us a call for a free in home evaluation.

If you are dusting too much, feeling flu like systems or are suffering from allergy related problems when you are operating your heating and air conditioning system you should give us a call. We can probably make those problems a thing of the past.