Indoor Air Quality

Indoor air quality has become increasingly important to homeowners. Year round temperature control inside homes results in windows that are seldom opened and air that is continuously recycled. Skyrocketing energy costs have accelerated the sealing off of homes from the outdoor environment.

Many homeowners believe that their air handler filters can play a larger role in the quality of air inside the home. Towards this end they spend money on expensive furnace filters in the hope that that will significantly improve the air quality in their home.

To affect air quality in your home you will need an air handler that is capable of 10 to 15 air changes per hour. Typical residential air handlers average only 4 to 7.5 air changes per hour if run continuously and may only operate twenty minutes or less out of every hour on auto.

After reading above you now know that your system is not optimized to affect indoor air quality. You may have made maters worse by installing a “high efficiency” filter. A filter that has high efficiency (catches more and smaller dirt) has a low air flow. It is simply more restrictive. Low air flow will result in inadequate cooling or heating.

In order to efficiently cool or heat your home your system needs optimum air flow. this is achieved with a less restrictive filter. The purpose of the filter in your system is to protect the air handler components only, not to affect air quality.

Save your money and buy the least restrictive filter for your system. In the long run you will save on energy costs as well simply because your system will run less to do more work!

An Independent Home Inspection can save you money over the life of your home.

 

Carbon Monoxide in your home?

Many of us are familiar with the poisonous fumes of automobile exhaust as carbon monoxide. One carbon atom joined to one oxygen atom its molecular abbreviation is easily recognized as the letters CO.

Now before we go too far it’s important to recognize that CO is a colorless, odorless gas. Completely invisible it is not to be confused with the visible water vapor or oil smoke associated with car exhaust. Just as important is the fact that CO is a byproduct of incomplete combustion. Any combustion, so this includes any fuel burning device or appliance in your home.

Fuels that are most often burned inside the home are heating oil, natural gas, propane, wood, and some years ago coal.

The most obvious appliance to burn any fuel is the home furnace or boiler and if you heat your home with wood then a wood stove or fireplace. Gas cooking ranges and ovens can be fueled either by natural gas or propane as can be your water heater which might alternately be fueled by oil.

Did you know that your gas dryer’s combustion exhaust is vented through the same four inch duct as the moist air? It is essential here to use a metal foil duct.

For the most part all of these devices are vented through a chimney in some way to the outdoors. A negative pressure in the home or an equipment malfunction (flue damage) can occur which does not allow the combustion gasses from these appliances to vent properly. Should this happen a working CO detector can save your families’ life.

The place to put your CO detector is in the hallway outside the bedrooms or one in each bedroom. Yes, I know the furnace is not in your bedroom, but the time when you are most susceptible to CO poisoning will be when you are asleep. While you are asleep your air handler will distribute the CO, should any occur, to the various bedrooms. This might happen in either a heating or cooling situation, you will want the earliest possible alarm so you can move your family to fresh air (outside) and call someone to correct the problem.

Take a moment this evening to consider your homes fuel burning appliances. Install a CO detector, readily available at all the lumber outlets, outside of the sleeping areas for your families’ protection.

Visit me at: http://www.IndependentHomeInspectionMD.com for more information on this and other safety items in the home.