Ventilation and Air Quality for Your Home
As we head inside and close the windows and doors and turn on the furnace, the indoor air quality may deteriorate, and that can make the home environment uncomfortable and unhealthy. Our homes today are built to keep the cool air out; all in the name of energy efficiency. As a result, we reduce our heating and air conditioning costs. But at the same time you have made it more difficult for fresh air to move into the home and for stale air to move out.
Have you ever seen a house in the winter that has sweating windows? This is a sure sign of an indoor air quality issue, specifically high relative humidity in the house.
So what can we do to improve the air quality in a house?
Adequate ventilation promotes a healthier home environment by circulating and renewing the air removing pollutants and excess humidity as well, it protects the structure of your home by removing excessive moisture.
Types of Ventilation:
When was the last time you changed the furnace filter? Now this is not just done in the winter months this should be done all year long especially if you have central air conditioning or continual furnace air circulation.
You may want to consider adding a filter to your air return grille to filter the air before it enters the ductwork and furnace. These are available in a variety of sizes to fit most existing vents.
Bathroom fans and range hoods: This is a primary way of exhausting stale moist air directly to the outside. Note: Run your bathroom fan at least one hour after each shower and bath.
Heat Recovery Ventilators: Heat Recovery Ventilator “HRV” or Air to Air Heat Exchanger. The HRV allows fresh air to enter while exhausting an equal amount of stale air while recovering the heat from the exhaust side and using it to warm up the cooler fresher air coming in. This is by far the most economical way of improving the indoor air quality in the house while reducing energy consumption. Air is filtered before being redistributed in the house. Also now available are Energy Recovery Ventilators (ERV’s), which return not only heat energy, but moisture to help humidify the home if required.
If you suffer from allergies and asthma you can add a HEPA filtration system to the HRV and have fresh, clean, air. There is also an extremely efficient air purifier called IQAir you may want to consider.
Attic Ventilation: For every 200 feet of attic (roof cavity) you must have 1 square foot of venting (144 square inches). After calculating the required square inches of venting 50% (half) should go into the roof or ridge the other 50% (half) into the soffit (overhand of the home).
Dehumidistats: A dehumidistat is a device to operate a ventilation systems in your home. The setting of this unit is determined by the outside air temperature .
NOTE: Digital Humidity indicators (Hygrometers) are available from most local hardware stores.
Duct Cleaning: How often they should be cleaned really depends on the individual household, under normal circumstances every two to three years is advised. Having dryer vents cleaned is often overlooked and this should be done every year to avoid a blockage and a potential fire hazard
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