If you have a
fireplace in your home and have ever started a fire and forgot to open the
chimney damper, you know how quickly things can go bad as the room fills up
with smoke. While maybe not as dramatic and visible the same thing is happening
in our homes if we are not using the ventilation systems properly.
Local ventilation
is a very important component to your overall indoor air quality. Maybe a
better term for it is localized
ventilation as it is locating a fan where it is most needed. As with our
fireplace analogy, the chimney is located right over where the fire is burning.
I think we can all agree that it doesn’t make much sense to put the chimney
in another room. Local ventilation is placing exhaust fans in area such as
bathrooms, kitchens, powder rooms and other places that are producing
contaminates. The purpose of local ventilation is to remove harmful moister,
particulates, odors and more as they are occurring. In a bathroom for instance
local ventilation removes steam and moisture from the room that happens during
a shower. In a kitchen it is utilizing a range hood when the cook top is being
used.
ASHRAE 62.2
requires that there is an exhaust fan/range hood installed in any area that
produces contaminates (bathrooms, kitchens, in some cases laundry rooms, etc.).
ASHRAE also requires the fans to operate at or below 3.0 sones (which is a
measurement of sound). Many people ask
what the sound level of a fan has to do with exhausting contaminates. As we
have discussed in earlier posts, the sound level of the fan is important to the
usage of the fan. It comes down to the fact that if the fan is too loud,
homeowners will not turn it on which defeats the entire purpose of having the
fan.
In a previous
blog post we discussed continuous operation fans (see post). While the continuous ventilation continuously dilutes contaminated air within the home, the local ventilation
provides ventilation for times when there is a rapid build up of contaminates
such as what happens when the bathroom or kitchen is in use.
The good news
is there are many options on the market. Air King has one of the largest
selections of exhaust fans and range hoods to solve for local ventilation
including energy efficient models, virtually silent models, single and dual
speed models and options ranging from entry level cost effective to super
deluxe with all the bells and whistles you want. Visit www.airkinglimited.com for more information.
