Indoor Air Quality - Cleaning Your Homes Air
What You Don’t Know CAN Hurt You
Unfortunately, most homeowners believe the standard throwaway furnace filter is doing the job and they couldn't bemore wrong. The typical one inch filters people use on the furnace only traps about 5–15% of airborne particulates, leaving 85% to 95% of particulate matter to accumulate in their homes. Additionally, with homes being built and remodeledmore insulated and tighter than ever, many homes are nearly draft-free.With the process of making homes more energy efficient, we are also creating a number of filtration issues. The particulate matter and allergens that can accumulate include airborne pollutants, biological contaminants and odors or vapors:
♦ Airborne pollutants—dust, dust mites, pet hair, dander, pollen, particulates
from clothing and furniture
♦ Biological contaminants—bacteria, viruses, mold spores, mildew
♦ Odors and vapors—tobacco smoke, cooking grease
Fixing The Problem There’s only one good way to deal with the problem. Create a strategy that includes ventilation to remove the odors and potentially harmful vapors and have a whole-house air cleaner to remove the particulate matter. Unless you remove the problems from every room in your house, you will only be treating the symptoms. Whole house air cleaning systems represent the best option for those with allergies and asthma, ridding their home of dust, dust mites, pet dander, mold spores, pollen, bacteria and viruses, smoke and more.
How They Work
Installed as part of your home’s central heating and cooling system, Whole-House Air Cleaners are out-of-sight and out of your way. So, each time your system runs, the air in your home is filtered through a state-of-the-art filter media and potentially harmful contaminants are removed from every room. The result is your heating and cooling system distributes clean air to your entire home. Better yet, theWhole-House systems are easy to maintain (generally once every one to two years, unlike portable units that requiremonthly care or standard filters that need cleaning every 1–3 months).
Why A Whole-house Air Cleaning?
The American Lung Association tracks indoor air quality and its impact.
Consider the following facts:
♦ Each person inhales over 3,500 gallons of air each day. Children inhale more particles for their size then adolescents or adults.
♦ Polluted air causes 94% of all respiratory problems.
♦ More than 31 million Americans have been diagnosed with asthma, about 1/3 are children under 18.
♦ About 40,000 dust mites, a common household allergen, can live in one ounce of dust.
♦ An estimated 10–15% of the entire population may be allergic to cat or dog dander.
♦ A person sheds up to 700,000 skin flakes per day.
Portable air purifiers can take a limited amount of particulate out of the air and can help for a single room or small apartment. For homeowners, an installed air cleaner removes more particles from every room where you have a return air duct.Whilemore expensive than furnace filters or portables, an installed system is a one-time expense providing help for the entire home. Once a year maintenance is simple and inexpensive.
When you consider what can occur without cleaning your home’s air, it’s hard to believe more people don’t do it automatically for health’s sake. And now, with new technology, you can control the air you clean in your entire home from a convenient location on your wall and you can choose various cleaning modes based on your own lifestyle and needs, whether you have allergies or you are kicking up extra dust while cleaning or if there’s construction going on around your house. And there’s no programming involved, just push a button. It’s the way to clean your air.
