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Your air conditioning system needs to breathe too!

A well-built home is not necessarily a well-ventilated home. And a home or small business that doesn’t ventilate properly (eg, “breathes”) leads to poor indoor air quality (IAQ), leading to illness. This is no small thing: IAQ is becoming a major health problem.

Think of Shawn and Jim. Shawn likes to have a fire in his backyard on warm nights, but Jim is bothered by the smoke, who can’t open the windows. Shawn, on the other hand, has allergies and is upset by diesel fumes caused by truck drivers in his neighborhood. He is also in a quandary about opening his windows. What improvements could Shawn and Jim make to their homes to solve their problems?

There are basically three ways an air conditioning system doesn’t breathe properly.

1. Older HVAC systems in homes and small buildings may not ventilate the building at all, contributing to poor IAQ and illness..

When it comes to HVAC systems, homeowners focus A LOT on comfort, but not enough on convenience. quality of the air they breathe, especially indoor air.

Dangerous indoor air pollutants are easy to miss. Shawn has respiratory problems that make him susceptible to factors such as high pollen levels. While HVAC filters can remove things like pollen, they do not remove toxinssuch as VOCs, carbon monoxide, radon, etc. In other words, because his HVAC system removes pollen, Shawn might assume that the IAQ in his home is fine. when it is not.

2. Today’s HVAC technology for homes and small buildings ventilates without regard for OAQ. This can make IAQ worse than not having any ventilation.

Remember the good old days when people opened their windows? Today’s houses are built “hermetically,” and homeowners tend to use air conditioning a lot, which sounds good in theory, since they keep bad air out. But there is much more to proper ventilation than opening or closing windows. Opening windows when outside air quality (OAQ) is poor may not be a good idea, but keeping them closed not good for shawn and jim’s breathing either.

PROPER ventilation involves the exchange, or replacing, inside and outside air. Without this exchange, closed windows lead to the accumulation of indoor pollutants such as smoke, dust, radon, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the home. Regardless of outdoor air quality, ventilation can bring outdoor environmental pollutants such as pollen, smoke, smog, and exhaust gases into the home.

3. Today’s HVAC technology for homes and small buildings ventilates regardless of outside temperature and humidity. This wastes energy and can promote mold growth indoors.

Standard air conditioning systems not only draw fresh air from outside without taking into account the quality of the outside air, but without taking into account the outside temperature or humidity. Even if the outdoor air has fewer pollutants than the indoor air, if the outdoor air temperature or humidity is significantly different from the indoor air temperature and humidity, the incoming air requires the HVAC system to heat, cool, and dehumidify the incoming air , often at great energy cost.

So what can homeowners like Shawn and Jim do?

4. Automation gives owners the ability to correct the n. 1 by modifying and perfecting No. 2 and No. 3 ventilating only when OAQ and outside air temperature / humidity (OAT / H) are beneficial to IAQ.

In modernization, a contractor or technician takes the existing HVAC system and adds additional ventilation and a smart HVAC system controller that can adapt to factors such as the amount of moisture and potentially hazardous contaminants entering the home. Installing smart sensors can alert the owner of a factor such as increased humidity or a potentially dangerous contaminant, and the resident then adjusts the upgraded and modernized system accordingly.

However, other sensors can make determinations like these automatically. For example, the windows in Shawn’s house may be open, but sensors that detect a dangerous pollutant or increased humidity in the air can close the vents and keep these “bad things” out.

Lack of adequate ventilation is a common problem in today’s HVAC systems. Adequate ventilation does not mean keeping the doors and windows closed and the air conditioning on. And it doesn’t mean turning off the air conditioning and keeping the doors and windows open.

The solution lies in upgrading your HVAC system so that there is a better balance between IOQ and OAQ, OAT / H; in other words, increasing the quality of the good air that “comes in”, while also eliminate “bad air” from your house. And a system with increased air circulation and distribution is not only healthier, it is also more efficient, which means Shawn and Jim will save money on their utility bills. As the saying goes, it is a true “win-win”.