Good quality indoor air is always important, but it’s even more crucial as the weather starts to turn cold in the fall because people spend more time indoors. Windows are more likely to be closed, impacting ventilation. Fortunately, options exist for improving indoor air quality, including air purifiers.
What Causes Poor Quality Air in the Home?
Poor indoor air quality (IAQ) starts with two items frequently working together.
Poor Air Circulation
The first common cause is lack of ventilation or poor air circulation. When talking about energy-efficient buildings, people often think that means sealing up the building to outside air to keep warm air in during winter and cold air in during summer, but that’s wrong. Avoiding heat or cold loss is important, but buildings need a steady outside airflow for good ventilation. Good airflow is also essential to avoid the growth of mold and mildew.
For best results, talk to your HVAC service provider about adding a heat exchanger to your HVAC system. A heat exchanger draws in outside air and expels stale indoor air. While doing so, the channels pass through separate chambers that “pre-warm” cold, winter air and remove excess heat from hot, summer outside air. This way, good ventilation is maintained while minimizing heat/cold loss.
Pollutants
The other main cause of poor IAQ is pollutants or contaminants. When the word “pollution” is mentioned, people often think of giant smokestacks, but indoor air pollution is very common. Even something as common and pervasive as dust falls into this category. So does mold, mildew, pet dander, residue from smoking, and improperly vented heating equipment.
What Are the 4 Major Indoor Pollutants?
The four major categories of indoor air pollutants are:
- Excessive moisture
- Radon
- Volatile organic compounds (VOCs)
- Byproducts of combustion.
Don’t let those category names fool you into thinking your home is safe. The EPA breaks them down into types that demonstrate how common indoor air pollutants can be.
Indoor air pollution can be caused by:
- Tobacco smoke
- Appliances that burn fuel, such as a gas oven or dryer.
- Fumes from products used for household cleaning, maintenance, hobbies, and personal care.
- Excessive humidity
- Radon gas
- Fumes from new carpeting, flooring, paint, pressed wood cabinets, or upholstery
- Pesticides and other outdoor air pollution
Do HVAC Systems Bring in Fresh Air?
According to the EPA, the typical existing residential HVAC system does not bring in fresh air. However, new methods for improving indoor air quality are creating a new trend.
Modern HVAC systems may include outdoor air intakes or offer them as an add-on to the system to mechanically improve indoor air quality through better ventilation. Ideally, an outdoor air intake should be part of an energy-efficient heat recovery ventilator, which is also known as a heat exchanger, to maintain energy efficiency while improving ventilation.
How Can I Purify the Air in My Home?
Several options exist for purifying indoor air. First, minimize potential indoor pollutants. Second, regularly clean or replace (depending upon whether they’re single-use or washable filters) your furnace and air conditioning filters. Consider changing or washing them more frequently than the minimum interval recommended by the maintenance guide. Also, consider talking to your HVAC service professionals about upgrading those filters. They can advise about the highest MERV rating that will work with your system.
Another option is to consider plants that help clean the air. Even NASA has researched, quantified, and ranked house plants based on their air purifier ability. However, it’s not always possible to have plants in every room, and if you don’t have a green thumb, it might not be an option at all.
A whole-house air purifier is another possibility. COVID renewed interest in this type of air purifier. For forced hot air systems, they’re generally added to the return air duct of your furnace system, but whole-house air purifiers can also be added to other types of heating systems, such as heat pumps. Old school air purifiers used filtration. Modern air purifiers use UV light, with or without filtration.
The most efficient way to clean air in a home and achieve the best results is by installing Air Scrubbers by Aerus. Here at Express C.O.D, we use Aerus Air Scrubbers because they use ActivePure® technology, which uses UV light and propels disinfectant molecules in the air. UV-only systems can only kill pathogens that pass through the UV light, making Air Scrubbers with the ActivePure® technology more thorough and effective.
Express C.O.D Has the Best Prices for COD Oil Delivery
Your home should be comfortable and safe, and the experts at Tragar Home Services is dedicated to providing you with safe, quality HVAC systems, servicing Long Island homeowners for more than 60 years. Similarly, Express C.O.D offers the same reliability for COD oil delivery. Trust the company Long Islanders have been relying on for decades and become one of our satisfied customers. Contact us online or call (855) 426-3645.
