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What Can I Do To Improve My Indoor Air Quality? · Shafer Heating and Cooling Service Repair Podcast

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  Check A Pro Joe here on Check A Pro Radio a lot
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  of us spend a lot of time in our homes which means we are living in the air
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  that is circulating in our home so i want to talk about air quality inside the
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  home so I've asked Nathan Shafer from Shafer Heating and Cooling to join
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  me today on the program hello Nathan hey Jim how are you i am living the dream thank you so much,
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  Air quality, we hear a lot about it today.
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  Now, years ago, people spent more time in natural, fresh air.
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  They opened their windows. They spent more time outside.
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  Office buildings weren't sealed up. So today we spend a lot of our times,
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  even our cars, I think, are sealed up more in these sealed areas.
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  And we spend a lot of time at home.
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  Well, is that air really good for us? And how can we improve the quality of it?
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  Yeah. So, I mean, studies show, you know, that just like you said,
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  we're spending so much more time in our homes.
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  Our houses are more airtight, which is awesome, right? When it comes to efficiency,
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  we want to have them airtight, insulated really well.
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  But man, we've got to treat that space because the air, the quality inside the
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  houses now, studies show are becoming so much more polluted and oftentimes,
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  you know, way more polluted than the outside air.
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  Yet that's what we're spending so much time in what we think is our safe place, right? It's our home.
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  We don't picture that as being maybe a place of danger or harmful to our health.
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  And so very, very, very important and much different now how we need to treat
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  that space in our homes compared to years ago.
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  I mean, some of us may still live in an older, what we call a drafty farmhouse,
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  right? Or just an older house in town, whatever.
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  And you almost feel the air coming through. Terrible for the efficiency standpoint.
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  However, great for the fresh air being introduced and keeping that air moving throughout.
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  So there's lots of different ways that that air can be treated inside the home.
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  There's kind of, you know, several different categories that we want to look
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  at, whether it be the particulates in the air, the things that we sometimes
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  we can see floating around, but oftentimes a lot of we can't see because it's so small.
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  However, we're breathing it in. It's collecting the house. You know,
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  you're dusting all the time and that can come down to the proper types of filtration that we use.
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  So are we using just a standard one inch throwaway filter that can only catch
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  so much? Just kind of picture it like a chain link fence.
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  You know, when you throw a basketball at it, it's going to catch it, right?
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  But you start getting smaller and anything maybe smaller than a golf ball is
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  going to go right through it.
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  We'll picture that as your one inch filter. It's going to catch the big particulates.
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  But man, all the small stuff that you can't see is passing right through it.
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  And it's getting caught in the blower wheel. It's getting caught in the heat exchanger.
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  It's getting caught in the evaporator coil for your air conditioner.
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  And that's just decreasing the efficiency of your system, causing premature
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  failures, increasing utility rates.
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  And of course, you're breathing it and it's not good for your system.
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  So causing more dust in the house, everything.
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  So there's the particulates. So there's the one-inch filter.
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  Then there's what we call...
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  Uh, media filtration. Um, and so that's going to catch a lot more of those smaller
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  particles up to 99%. Um, and then there's air cleaners.
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  Uh, so electronic polarized media air cleaners, and that's actually going to
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  put a positive charge to the negative and positive ions in the air and cause
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  those to gather together. So it to become bigger particulars to catch in that air cleaner.
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  So now we're really truly cleaning that air. Then you, of course you have your
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  HEPA filtration, which is top of the line, keeping that space very,
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  very extremely clean and healthy. So that's going to be the particular side.
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  Then you've got things that you can clean in the air as far as VOCs.
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  Everything in our house is off-gassing. So maybe you just recently painted the
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  walls or put new flooring down, brought some new furniture, and all these things
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  are off-gassing, dry, but everything does.
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  The stain on your trim and different things. And so all those chemicals and
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  things that are terrible for us, I mean,
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  cancer and all these different things, you hear it every day I was
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  talking to somebody just yesterday and it was like so-and-so just passed away
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  and so-and-so just got diagnosed with this and so it's just cancer cancer all
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  these things that we're either consuming in our bodies and we're breathing and
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  oftentimes a fortress coming from right inside our homes we don't even realize
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  it's the things we can't see it's out of sight out of mind and we don't know
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  we don't know so there's ways we can treat for that too for the help with.
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  Vocs and things off gassing and stuff and that's where uv technology comes in
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  Um, as well as for odors, uh, and things of that nature as well.
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  So there's all these different areas and humidity plays a huge role into that,
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  uh, as well in the indoor air quality.
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  So, uh, where are those humidity levels in the home? Not only for the comfort
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  side, uh, not only for the health of your home side, uh, your flooring,
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  your woodwork, your piano, whatever.
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  I mean, a lot of those things have warranties and they'll stay right in the
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  warranty of, uh, hey, if your humidity is above X percentage,
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  you know, oftentimes it's around 50% or 55%, then those warranties are voided
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  for that new hardwood flooring you just got.
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  Or that baby grand piano or whatever the case may be.
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  And so you'll notice your doors are swelling or floors are swelling or squeaking
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  or shrinking because of the humidity going up and down.
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  And with that, organisms, they absorb moisture from the air.
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  And so if we don't keep those relative humidity levels in the right range inside
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  the home, it's also not going to be comfortable, but you're also going to cause
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  a very unhealthy habitat for those things to be able to grow.
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  And once again, we're breathing and inhaling that. So lots of different areas. It's amazing.
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  One of those things that you don't see, no one oftentimes, unfortunately, don't talk about a lot.
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  But man, it's so crucial to the air quality and to the health,
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  to the comfort, to you and your family inside your home. So,
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  yeah, there are so many things to consider and we don't really think much about it.
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  Something that's important to understand, you talked about humidity is for most of us,
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  our central air conditioning system or any AC unit for that matter is your major
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  tool to reduce humidity in your home. That's why it condenses.
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  That's why there's water that comes out of it.
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  And it's important to have that tuned right, balanced right.
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  You want to make sure that your AC doesn't cycle off too soon.
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  It may cool down, but is it pulling the humidity out? So all of that is in play.
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  Absolutely. Absolutely. That can even go into sizing and different things,
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  you know, as far as short cycling, shutting off too.
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  I mean, that's one of the primary jobs of your air conditioner is to dehumidify.
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  And so if it is just kicking on, kicking off or really short run cycles,
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  it's not going to do a good job of dehumidifying.
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  And now there's some applications too in some houses or actually
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  i shouldn't say some it's actually a lot of times where
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  a whole home high capacity dehumidifiers are
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  necessary too and humidity has a stack effect and so coming from the basement
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  or the crawl space and different things and it rises up through right so it
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  soaks into the floor joists and the sub floors and works this way up through
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  we feel it here in the main floor and the second floor if you go upstairs and
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  check the rh level it's a little bit higher and you go in your attic it's even
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  a little bit higher yet, it rises just like heat does.
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  And so if we can obviously want to treat the source of where it's coming from,
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  and oftentimes it could just be coming from the foundation walls, right?
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  You don't necessarily, I think you don't see it, but it's there, it's prevalent.
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  And so treating that makes a huge difference.
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  And obviously there's ways that we can, that we can do that as well.
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  And when it does come to, I know we're talking about the quality there,
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  but when it comes to the comfort too, we're talking about humidity.
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  Just remember that, Hey, every 5% in
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  relative humidity feels like one degree in
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  temperature um to us to the skin and so
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  the difference of let's say setting the thermostat at 70
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  and it's we'll just use a 50 humidity for
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  example if it was 55 humidity in the home uh that would actually feel like 71
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  if it was 60 humidity would feel like 72 and or vice versa in the wintertime
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  as it gets drier you know if it was 70 and it dropped to 45 it's going to feel
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  like 69, 40 is going to feel like 60.
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  So you can, and then you're like, I keep turning the thermostat down.
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  It's just still not comfortable. It still feels sticky.
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  Or in the wintertime, I keep turning it up. And so just some things to remember
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  that where that relative humidity comes into a huge factor, like I said,
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  for the health side and the organisms that either can or can't grow and also the comfort side.
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  Yeah. Great tips here. Nathan, as
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  always, thank you so much for joining me today. Hey, you bet. Thank you.