For many people, summer is about spending as much time outside as possible: hiking, swimming, sports, fishing, and of course, the occasional cookout. During the hottest days of the year, however, there’s only one place to find refuge from the scorching outdoor temperatures: inside your air-conditioned home.
While your home may be a place of comfort and safety during the summer heat, it can also make you sick. Poor indoor air quality contributes to asthma, allergies, and other respiratory conditions, which in turn can cause or exacerbate more serious health problems. This can be a particular issue during the summer when you are stuck inside with all the doors and windows tightly shut as your AC unit works overtime to keep you cool.
Fortunately, with a few practical strategies, it’s possible to improve indoor air quality while still keeping cool. In the following blog post, we’ll offer expert advice to enhance your overall air freshness and reduce the health risks associated with indoor pollutants so that you can enjoy a healthy and comfortable home during summer and beyond.
Minimize Indoor Pollutants
The first step in improving your indoor air quality is to remove any sources of indoor pollutants. Take a moment to consider anything you might have in your home that is negatively impacting the health of the environment. For example, harsh cleaning chemicals can prove harmful to a home’s inhabitants. Consider transitioning to gentler ones during the summer season, when the windows and doors are usually closed.
Take special care to vacuum regularly to ensure that dust and pet dander are cleaned up before they enter the atmosphere. If you have a gas stove, try to minimize its use during summer, as the byproducts of burning gas for cooking can contribute to poor air quality.
Proper Ventilation Is a Must
One of the main reasons that air quality in a home suffers is due to a lack of adequate ventilation in the building. If air cannot circulate properly, it may create a number of issues. First, pockets of humid air can cause moisture to accumulate in certain areas, encouraging the growth of mold and mildew. These fungi can then release toxic spores into the indoor atmosphere, which can trigger allergies, cause asthma attacks, and lead to other health problems such as fatigue and digestive issues.
There are several methods through which you can improve the ventilation in your home, but the most important thing to do is to ensure that you have the correct HVAC system for your building. If your HVAC system lacks the power to circulate air effectively—for example, because the blower fan is too small for the size of the home—then you won’t be able to adequately ventilate your house. If you believe your HVAC system may not be suited to your home, contact an HVAC professional like All Weather Heating & Cooling for a consultation.
Once you are confident that your equipment is up to date, the next step is to ensure the air has a clear path to travel. HVAC filters and ducts should be cleaned regularly to maintain their efficacy and allow clean air to move freely throughout the building.
Use High-Quality Air Filters
An effective HVAC filtration system is a critical feature in any healthy home. As air circulates throughout a building, it picks up dust, dirt, pollen, pet dander, and other impurities that may be present in the atmosphere. These impurities are captured by filters, which are usually installed near the air handler of the HVAC system. The better the filters, the more impurities they will remove from the indoor air.
Ideally, you should invest in the best quality air filters you can afford. Filters are assigned a MERV rating, which stands for Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value. This refers to the size of the particles the filter can remove from the air. A low MERV rating means that only larger particles, up to 10 microns, can be removed with reliable efficiency. As the rating gets higher, smaller and smaller particles can be captured efficiently.
The best quality filters receive a HEPA rating, which stands for high-efficiency particulate air. These can remove particles as small as 0.3 microns with 99.7 percent efficiency. This means they can not only capture dust and dirt but also mold spores and even the aerosolized particles that carry communicative bacteria and viruses.
Manage Humidity in the Home
Excessive humidity is another contributor to poor air quality. Too much moisture in the air doesn’t just create conditions favorable to the growth of mold; it can also encourage the growth and spread of dust mites, bacteria, and viruses. Excessive humidity also makes it feel hotter than it is, forcing you to spend more money on cooling than you otherwise would. It can also damage wooden structures and paint, forcing you to pay for potentially expensive repairs.
An HVAC system designed to improve indoor air quality must be able to efficiently remove excess moisture from the air. Generally, an air conditioner will remove humidity as part of its normal operations. Warm air contains water vapor, which condenses back into liquid when the air is cooled. Most of this liquid will accumulate around the air conditioner’s evaporator coils. However, if these coils are dirty or otherwise malfunctioning, they won’t be able to perform this important task.
Managing humidity in your home is as simple as scheduling periodic maintenance for your HVAC system. At All Weather Heating & Cooling, our professional contractors will go down a checklist that includes cleaning the HVAC coils and adding more coolant as needed. Regular maintenance can help ensure your system is both cooling and dehumidifying effectively.
Contact us today to schedule a consultation and maintenance visit so that you can enjoy clean, fresh air when you’re taking refuge from the heat this summer.