Did you know that the air inside your home can become polluted? Trapped fumes, dust, mold and pet dander are a few of the pollutants that can contaminate your home’s air. Luckily, maintaining proper home ventilation can improve your home’s indoor air quality (IAQ).
At Channell Heating & Cooling, we help our clients achieve the proper amount of ventilation by conducting professional HVAC maintenance. Improving your home’s IAQ can be overwhelming, but we’re here to help. Let us inform you about home ventilation and how to reach the correct balance of indoor/outdoor air.
What Is Home Ventilation?
Ventilation within a home is the continuous exchange of outdoor and indoor air. Although insulating your home is important and improves the efficiency of your HVAC system, it’s also important to allow for ventilation as well. You can improve your home’s IAQ by implementing proper ventilation systems.
How Do I Increase Ventilation In My Home?
There are a few ways to improve your home’s ventilation. All homes should implement one or more of these methods to ensure the IAQ is at a safe level.
Natural Ventilation
Natural ventilation is the most common form of home ventilation. Every time you open a door or window, you are using a natural ventilation technique. Natural ventilation doesn’t require any human action and includes cracks in the doors, windows and walls.
Having too many cracks in your home can be harmful, since your HVAC system will run harder and more frequently to make up for the air lost to the outdoors. However, it’s a good idea to open the windows on a regular basis to allow for proper ventilation and air exchange.
Spot Ventilation
Even if the term “spot ventilation” is unfamiliar to you, there’s a good chance your home already has this in it. This method includes bathroom fans and range hoods. Spot ventilation removes the indoor air pollutants or excess humidity from a certain area or room of your home to improve IAQ.
Spot ventilation isn’t a stand-alone solution for poor IAQ. It’s effective at removing pollutants from smaller areas of your home but can’t reach every room in your house. Instead, you should implement this method with others that target your whole home.
Whole-House Ventilation
There are a few methods of whole-house ventilation. You can install an exhaust-only, supply-only or balanced system to achieve better home IAQ. Choosing the system that’s right for your home depends on the climate you live in.
In Mississippi, opting for a supply-only or balanced system will provide the best ventilation for your home. Exhaust systems don’t do anything to treat the warm air from outside, only focusing on pushing the polluted air out of your home. This means that when it gets hot outside, nothing is done to treat the warm, humid air that naturally leaks into your home.
Supply-only systems focus on treating the air that comes into your home, stripping away the humidity and heat. Balanced systems can take care of supply and exhaust functions, which makes them the ideal option for any climate. However, they are more expensive to install and run.
How Much Home Ventilation Do I Need To Improve IAQ?
Every home has natural ventilation to some extent, even if you’ve sealed most of the cracks. However, this shouldn’t be the only form of ventilation that your home has. If you’re going to open windows often, we suggest that you invest in an air purifier. Unfiltered outdoor air can contain other pollutants that will get trapped in your home once you close the windows.
Air purifiers can also be installed in the air ducts of your home so that the air circulating throughout your house stays pure. Installing air purifiers is one of the air duct services we provide at Channell Heating & Cooling.
Spot ventilation is advisable in every bathroom and over your stove and oven. A higher concentration of pollutants and/or humidity collects in these areas, and installing spot ventilation will improve IAQ.
Whole-house ventilation is more expensive to install than spot ventilation. However, for homes that struggle to maintain good IAQ, investing in (or upgrading) this type of ventilation could make a big difference.
Taking Charge Of Your IAQ
It’s time for you to take a stand against your poor IAQ. Improving your home’s ventilation is a great way to achieve healthier air for you, your family and your visitors. We’re ready to help you at Channell Heating & Cooling. Contact us today to schedule an appointment!
