Home Air Quality Basics
People tend to take a lot of pride in their homes and they also like to make them as livable as possible too. This means doing such things as making sure there are no fire hazards present, the home is sanitary and there is nothing about the home that is an accident waiting to happen. Another thing that many people are concerned about around their home is the quality of the air they breathe too and that is never a bad thing. Why? The American Cancer society estimates that people spend over 90% of their time indoors and over 50% of this indoor time is spent in one’s own home. That is a lot of breathing that is done all in one place. What many people do not realize is they may have a built in air cleaner in their home that they are not taking full advantage of.
What are we talking about here? We are taking about the additional benefits to the air quality in your home you could be getting if you own a forced air heating system. It seems people will do such things as shop for air purification systems, buy fancy ionizers or other air cleaning products and completely overlook the fact that the forced air furnace system they own can really help the air quality in it too.
How Can Your Furnace System Help Improve The Air Quality In Your Home?
There are basically three main ways that a furnace system can do this:
Fresh Air
One of the worse things about a home is the air exchange rate in them. This is especially true in the hotter and colder months when windows are shut and very little air circulation in your home results. This causes your body to take in large amounts of harmful CO2 which can make you lethargic and tire easily. A forced air heating system in most cases replenishes the air in your home by bringing in fresh air from the outside.
Filtration
All forced air furnaces have a filter on the system. Many times the factory filter that comes with them is just a cheap fiberglass filter which only filters large particles of dust and things like that out of the air. There are many aftermarket filters that are made for furnaces that are of much higher quality. If you add a filter type such as a HEPA filter it will go a long way toward making the air quality in your home much better. Filters like these will do such things as eliminate pet dander from the air, stop pollen from circulating in your home and eliminate or reduce many types of allergens too.
Filtration Time
Just because your forced air furnace is not calling for heat does not mean that its air circulation system should not be running. There are control features on most systems that will allow you to run the air circulation feature in your furnace up to 24/7 if you so wish. The more you run it the more you purify the air in your home.
So look into making your home’s furnace a bonus air purifier too and make the quality of the air you breathe in your home that much better.