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When you think of maintaining a comfortable and healthy home, your HVAC system may not immediately come to mind. However, the cleanliness of your ducts can have a significant impact on both your indoor comfort and your overall health.
Dirty ducts act as a reservoir for allergens, dust, debris, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), pet dander, and other pollutants, which can adversely affect the air you breathe. Let’s dive into how these contaminants can affect your home and health and why regular duct cleaning should be a priority.
We love our furry friends! At this point, we likely have more customers with pets than ones without them. They’re our best friends, companions, and family members. That’s why it’s important that we consider them and their needs when we assess our home comfort.
Don’t worry our tips aren’t very complicated. These tips are easy, cheap, and good enough to make a serious improvement to your home comfort and your air quality.
If you’re concerned about comfort or your air quality in Bellingham, WA, then you’ll definitely want to keep reading to see what we have to offer. And don’t forget to call us for any services or system installations you might need!
Spring is finally in the air! And with the arrival of birds, blue sky and warmer weather comes pesky allergens that can aggravate you and your family and negatively impact health. Keep the pollen, dust mites, and pet dander at bay by regularly maintaining your HVAC system. The better it runs, the happier and healthier your home will be.
Change Your Filters
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: pay attention to your filters! Check your filters every month, and replace every 3 months or so depending on wear. You want to make sure your unit is working efficiently to keep particles and allergens out of your family’s space, especially when any members are particularly susceptible (like asthma sufferers).
Check for Mold
Mold is an unfriendly guest no matter where you find it. It can be especially irritating when it takes up in your HVAC system, worsening allergies and overall health. If you see mold or notice a musty smell coming from your vents, it may be time to schedule a duct cleaning.
Seal it up
To prevent excess pollen and other particulates from making their way inside your home, one DIY approach is to weatherstrip, caulk or spray foam around windows, doors, and other problem areas. Taking these measures can help your air conditioner or heating system run to its fullest efficiency (and save you money).
Call in a Professional
After you’ve made the rounds yourself, it’s never a bad idea to get a full system checkup from a trained professional. Much like your family’s health, your HVAC system is an investment; it needs to be treated with care and attention to be at its best.
If you’re like most homeowners – dusting is not one of your favorite chores (are any chores fun?). We all like to give it the old “college try” and hit our tabletops, television, and maybe even our picture frames on a weekly basis. But, take a minute right now — look up at your return grilles then look down at your supply grilles. Yuck, right? Don’t feel bad – lots of people have the same dusty, grimy register covers in their homes. So why is this forgotten area of your housekeeping so important?
Finally, we can pack away our coats, gloves and winter boots and pull out our baseball hats, shorts, and tee shirts – spring is here!! If you’re like most homeowners you have a laundry list of things you want to accomplish this season: spring clean your home, finish those pesky projects you’ve put off all winter, get your lawn ready for the neighborhood barbecue, and much more. But don’t forget, spring is also the perfect time to focus on the quality of your indoor air. According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the air in the typical home is up to five times dirtier than the air outdoors. Keeping your air as clean as possible helps to reduce asthma and allergy symptoms and improve your overall health.
Here are a few simple tips to improve the air quality in your home this spring:
Do your spring cleaning – pay particular attention to those areas we tend to skip during our normal cleaning. Dust the heat registers and return vents in each room, as well as ceiling fans. Vacuum upholstery and drapes. When dusting, use a damp or treated cloth to avoid kicking up dust particles and dust mites while you work. Lookout for staining, wet spots or visible water drips so that any issues are caught and dealt with immediately.
Remove your shoes when you enter your home. The soles of your shoes pick up all sorts of dirt and toxins from outside and track them through your home.
Check your HVAC air filter and replace it if dirty. A clean air filter protects your system from dust buildup.
Wash your bedding in hot water every week, and vacuum your mattress to remove highly allergenic dust mite debris.
Control clutter in your home to reduce the amount of dust and allergens in your air.
Replace your kitchen sponges every week, or use washable cloths instead. Sponges may have as many as 100,000 bacteria per square inch.
Bring Mother Nature inside. Plants add oxygen into your home while actively working to reduce Carbon Dioxide levels to improve your air quality.
Call your trusted home performance trained contractor today to schedule a spring HVAC maintenance appointment.
This last weekend, Aeroseal duct sealing was featured on national television (again).
Check out this clip from Hometime for a great explanation of how the procedure works and how you could see improvements to indoor air quality, dust, consistent comfort and heating expenses.
I encourage everyone to ask your local heating and cooling contractor if they can provide this service. If they can’t, then make sure to find out who can!
Don’t let anyone tell you that hand sealing the duct system is “just as good” as sealing them from the inside.
If you are in BARRON HEATING’s service area, check out this page for more great information and how you can take advantage of this innovative opportunity: http://www.barronheating.com/aeroseal/
Don’t let the dust bunny be an issue during the holidays.
With the holiday season in full swing, it’s time to start preparing the house for guests. Finding dust in your home is no fun, and no matter how much you clean it always seems to come back.
Dust is made up of all kinds of particles including plant pollen, dead skin cells, pet dander, insulation and fibers from clothing and paper. When it accumulates, it’s annoying and can wreak havoc on asthma and allergy sufferers. To make matters worse, with dust come dust mites. Grossed out yet?
While it’s impossible to completely rid your home of dust, here are some easy tips for keeping it at bay.
Clean Smart.
Using feather dusters will push the dust around and cause it to settle somewhere else. Use a damp cloth or microfiber or electrostatic cloth to capture dust. Always start cleaning a room from the top and work your way down. Change your bedding once a week and de-clutter. Don’t forget to shake out dirt and dust from your area rugs and pillows. Sweep and vacuum a few times a week to keep dust build up minimal.
Use Doormats.
Dirt and dust can be carried through the front, back or garage doors on the soles of your shoes or feet. Using heavy duty doormats will help cut down on the dirt and dust tracked into your home.
Change Your Filter.
A dirty filter will not only reduce the quality of the air in your home, they also lose their ability to to trap dust. Clean them regularly to maintain a healthy airflow. We recommend changing your filter once a month.
Set an Appointment with Your HVAC Contractor.
It’s important to have humidity levels between 40% – 50% to reduce static. Static attracts dust and makes in harder to remove. A Comfort Adviser will check the humidity levels in your home to ensure a healthy, comfortable and static free environment. It’s also very important to have your ducts tested and inspected for leaks. A Comfort Adviser will be able to identify sources like duct leaks which allows dirt, insulation particles and dust to circulate in your duct system and make way into your home. The decision to have your ducts sealed or cleaned may be the solution to minimizing dust in your home.
It’s important to remember that no matter what you do, you will still end up having some dust in your home. It is our goal to help you minimize the dust in your home. Have a trained Comfort Adviser do a thorough inspection of your ducts and living environment.
Do you feel like as soon as you finish dusting…the dust seems to come right back?
A good deal of the dust in our homes comes from internal sources such as skin flakes, fabric fibers and pets. However, new research has found that in many homes a significant amount of the dust actually originates from outside the living space. The hot or cold outside air that leaks in through gaps and cracks often brings a lot of dust along with it. The air from outside always contains airborne particles such as mold spores, pollen, soot, tire rubber and agricultural dust. Think how dirty patio furniture can get after just a few days without rain.
However, that outside air leaking in around windows and doors is only a small part of the problem. Windows and doors usually represent less than 20% of a home’s air leaks.The air coming in there is often relatively clean in comparison to where the other 80% comes from. Building scientists have recently discovered that in the typical home, most of the incoming air first passes through dirty areas such as the attic, attached garage, outside walls, crawlspace, basement, or even from underground.
This incoming air is often contaminated with visible dust particles such as insulation fibers, pollen and mold spores. It may also contain invisible pollutants like carbon monoxide, automobile exhaust, carcinogenic radon gas, rodent allergens, pesticides and volatile organic chemicals. These can negatively affect your family’s health and safety. For more info, check out this video from Comfort Institute:
It’s a common complaint. Just a few days after a thorough house cleaning, that unsightly dust is back, settling on every surface in your house. Dust can also contribute to respiratory allergy suffering. What’s the answer?
Contact your home performance trained contractor and ask for an Infiltro meter blower door test to pinpoint where the bad air leaks are. This involves installing a computerized machine with a powerful fan in your front doorway, to temporarily pressure test your house. An air leak detector and infrared camera are then used to find the air leaks. Many are leaks you can repair as weekend projects. Others such as leaks in your air ducts, or through recessed can lights are better left to professionals.
Finding and fixing the leaks that let in bad air will make your home healthier and less dusty. Your home will also be more comfortable and have more controllable indoor humidity levels. Fixing these air leaks will even pay for itself through lower heating and cooling bills. In fact, duct leakage alone has been found to waste 20% to 40% of most system’s heating or air conditioning.
Leaky ducts cause drafts, dusty homes and higher utility bills!
There are a number of reasons that you might feel drafts or inconsistent temperatures throughout your home. However, there is one culprit that is more common than all others: leaky ducts.
When your ducts are leaking into the walls, crawlspace, attic or floors, some of the air that is supposed to be delivered to the home never makes it where it is supposed to. That paid for heat (or cool) moves through the structure to outside.
When the duct work is sealed either by hand or with our preferred method, AeroSeal, the air is delivered to all areas as was hopefully intended.
In addition to causing inadequate air delivery, duct leakage causes the home to suffer pressure imbalances which are a leading contributor to the introduction of unconditioned dirty air from the crawl space and attic. This introduction of “bad air” will contribute to poor indoor air quality, exacerbating respiratory issues, and cool drafts moving through the home.
Homes with duct leakage can suffer these issues:
Excessive dust and toxic airborne particulate
Drafts
Unexplained odors
Uneven heating or cooling (especially the extremities of the home)
Excessive indoor humidity
Increased asthma, allergy and other respiratory symptoms
Higher than expected heating or cooling bills
If you, or anyone you know, have experienced any of these challenges, it’s important that you contact your local home performance trained HVAC contractor to explore the solutions that are available.
Check out the video below to see how one homeowner solved their drafts:
