Ventilation Past Present and Future

If you have ever been in Barcelona and have had the opportunity to visit La Pedrera (Case Milà) built by Antoni Gaudi in the early 1900’s, one of the interesting facts is how Gaudi integrated natural ventilation into his design. Gaudi was a man ahead of his time but he understood that ventilation, even in the early 1900’s was an integral part of the health of the home and it’s residents.

Internal courtyards were integrated into the design of La Pedrera. Each courtyard allowed the residents to open windows inside their apartment for a source of fresh air and cross ventilation as each apartment had access to a courtyard as well as an outside (façade side) window.

If we go back even further we see ventilation coming into play in the 17th century when King Charles I of England decreed that all ceilings must be 10 feet high and windows must be higher than wide to increase ventilation. I guess we can attribute the first building code to Charles the 1st. As we skip though time we see ventilation become more prominent with windows, open courtyards, additional chimneys and so forth.

Then came the big innovation – the advent of what is known as mechanical ventilation. This includes bathroom exhaust fans, kitchen range hoods as well as air intake to assist with the ventilation and balancing of the home. These items became code and are now commonplace in almost all homes across the United States and beyond. They are also required as part of the national building code, which is a great thing.

Unfortunately there has been a recent trend where the importance of ventilation was put to the side a bit as the importance of energy efficient homes was brought to the forefront. It wasn’t that ventilation was forgotten, it was just not as important. The issue was that to build a “tight” home, you didn’t want any air leakage in or out. If you were removing air, you had to replace it and replacing the air caused you to have to condition that air – using more energy. Thankfully it was recognized that while having a tight home with minimum air leakages is great for your energy bill it is not great for your health. Now we are understanding that we need a balanced approach to make sure we have proper ventilation while still maintaining the energy efficiency of the home. This means taking control of the air coming in and out of the home using exhaust fans and air intake products.

As we look to what is next for ventilation, it is great to see that the importance is permeating into our workspaces as well as our residences. More and more offices and public building are realizing there is a responsibility to provide a healthy and safe space. Part of that is making sure the air that is being breathed in those spaces is the best it can be. There have been many studies done showing that a properly ventilated office can actually increase productivity and decrease the number of sick days taken by employees. The interesting thread through the history of ventilation is the simplicity of it – remove the stale indoor air and replace it with fresh air. The methods have changed over the years but the principles have stayed the same.

For more information about Air King’s line of ventilation solutions including exhaust fans, range hoods and fresh air intake, utilize the menu links at the top of this page. Also check out our other posts about ventilation and indoor air quality.

You have probably heard it said one way or another that the first step in fixing a problem is identifying the problem. The same holds true with our home’s indoor air quality (IAQ). Home contaminate identification is the first step on the path to improving it. Here is a list of our top 5 contaminates:

1. It sounds a little silly but one of the largest sources of contaminates in our homes is us. We breath, we bring in contaminates from the outside on our clothing (pollen, dirt, dust, etc.), viruses and so forth. Other than never leaving the house and stopping breathing (not really an option), there isn’t much we can reduce. Maybe leave the dirty shoes outside before coming in the home but not much more. What we need to look at is how to mitigate. A regular cleaning schedule is a good start. Using natural cleaning agents that do not give off harmful gasses is a must, otherwise you might be doing more harm than good. Also a good vacuum cleaner with a HEPA filter will prevent you from putting all the “bad” stuff right back into the room. Lastly, having a good system in place to ventilate the home as well as bring in fresh air is a must. The ventilation fans will help remove contaminates replacing them with fresh air coming in.
2. The kitchen and cooking. While there might be some out there that never use their kitchen, our guess is the vast majority do. Cooking is one of the top contributors to bad indoor air quality. You have steam, grease, smoke (some of us more than others) and all kinds of other contaminates generated during the cooking process. If these are not mitigated it cannot only be bad for the indoor air quality, it could also be dangerous. The good news is there is a simple answer – your range hood. Ideally, your range hood should vent to the outdoors rather than return the air to the kitchen after going through a filter. In previous blog posts we listed a lot of reasons why people do not use their range hoods. Moral of the story – USE YOUR RANGE HOOD!
3. You might say – wait, you just told us to clean our homes in the first point. You are correct, but we need to focus on the way to properly clean. Cleaning agents are some powerful things. If you have ever used toilet bowl cleaner, the smell can knock you back a bit. It does its job but it is also giving off more bad gases than you probably want to know about. The same holds true with a lot of the other items we use to clean – furniture polish, bleach, laundry detergent and the list goes on. So we know we need to clean but how do we do it without negatively affecting the IAQ of the home. There are a lot of “natural” cleaners on the market today. We are not necessarily endorsing these as so many make claims but after a little investigating are not as advertised. What we do advocate is utilizing the exhaust fans of the home when cleaning. Do you turn the bathroom exhaust fan on when you clean? If not you should. Even turning the kitchen range hood when you are cleaning in or around the kitchen will help. Slightly opening a window when you can is another easy and effective way to bring fresh air in, diluting the concentration of cleaners.
4. The bathroom. This is another area of the home that is a necessity but can also have a negative effect on your indoor air quality. When we shower it produces moisture. Moisture leads to mildew which leads to mold, which is bad. For the sake of those around you, please continue to shower but lets look at ways to reduce the moisture generated. The number one thing you can do is to properly utilize the exhaust fan. A properly sized and functioning exhaust fan will greatly reduce the amount of moisture in the room. Without moisture it is very hard for mold and mildew to grow. The key is making sure your fan is powerful enough and runs long enough. Exhaust fans have progressed a lot in the past few decades and now you can get them with integrated humidity sensors that automatically turn the fan on when the humidity rises and then turns off when the humidity drops. A mistake many people make is not running the exhaust fan long enough after a shower or bath. In some cases it might take more than an hour to clear out all the humidity that has built up. Air King has a full line of effective and affordable humidity sensing exhaust fans. Opening windows is another solution but you need to be careful. Not sure if you live in a northern state you want to open windows in the middle of winter, same holds true for southern states in the middle of summer.
5. Candles, incense, diffusers. This is probably the one that gets the most push back. We are writing this blog at the beginning of November right in the heart of pumpkin spice season. We enjoy a nice smelling candle as much as the next person but we need to stop and think about what is happening. When we light a candle, or more accurately, burn a candle it is releasing all types of contaminates as well as scents. At its root, we are burning something that releases carcinogens into the air. You might see “Clean burning candles” but generally all that means is the wax gets burned up with the candle instead of dripping all over everything. Another one is “naturally made”. This is great, but it still needs to be burnt. Wood is “naturally” made but if you light a bonfire in your living room, you’re going to have some problems (okay, maybe a little extreme but you get our point). Now if you still want to light candles, a way to lessen the impact on your indoor air quality is to utilize them in well-ventilated areas. Taking a bath? Make sure the exhaust fan is on. If using in the main living area, is there a way to have a flow of fresh air coming in to dilute it?

BONUS: Pets. Yes we love them as they are part of the family but they can be a menace to the indoor air quality of the home. There is the dander, the hair, what they bring in on their fur (pollen, dirt, etc.). Don’t get us wrong, we love pets but it is important to have a strategy to keep their impact on the indoor air quality of the home as little as possible. Oh and guess what, pets benefit from good IAQ as well. The good news is the strategy with pets is mostly the same as the other items we have been talking about, cleaning, proper ventilation and good airflow.

Now, if you have been paying attention, you probably noticed a common theme through all of these points on home contaminate identification – ventilation and fresh air. If you can properly ventilate your home while replacing the stale “bad” air with fresh, your indoor air quality will be the best it can. Now also add in regularly changing your air filters if you have central heating/cooling, you’re really going to see a noticeable difference.

For more information about Air King’s line of indoor air quality solution including exhaust fans, range hoods and fresh air intake, visit airkinglimited.com. Also check out our other posts about indoor air quality.

When is the Cooking Done?

You just finished making your favorite meal for the family and you are about to sit down to enjoy it, but is the cooking done? The first thing you might ask is, do you mean is the meat done or are the vegetables fully cooked? Those are good questions to ask but we are asking if the cooking process is done from a ventilation standpoint.

A mistake a lot of us make is that we immediately turn off the ventilation system as soon as the food comes off the cooktop. The problem with that is the pots and pans we have been using are still emitting contaminates into the air. Think about it, let's say you are sautéing vegetables in a pan. During the cooking process they are emitting items like grease, steam, carcinogens and so forth. All of those items are also gathering in the pan itself. Now you transfer the food to a plate and are done – right? Not really, the pan is still hot and still emitting those items. Sometimes it is really easy to see this playing out as steam or smoke is still coming off the pan even after we have taken everything out. Even the cooking surface it still going to be sending off contaminates as it is still at a high temperature.

Some will depend on what type of cooking you are doing but in general you want to keep your range hood running for 10 to 15 minutes after the cooktop has been turned off. This will give ample time for all of the contaminated generated during the cooking process to be ventilated out. It will also provide enough time for the pots/pans and cooking surface to cool to a point they are no longer producing contaminates.

So why do so many of us turn the range hood off immediately after the active cooking is completed? Our guess is it comes down to one main reason – sound. We get it. Most of the range hoods out there are just plain loud. Here is where we have some suggestions. First, if you are in the market to replace your range hood or are thinking about a kitchen remodel, there are a lot of quiet options when it comes to range hoods. Air King has models that are almost as quiet as your refrigerator.

If a replacement is not in the immediate future, look to use the speed control of your range hood. Almost all range hoods have at least two speeds. During the active cooking process you’ll probably want to use a high setting to effectively clear out as much of the contaminates as possible. Once the active cooking is done, there are less contaminates being released so you can go down to a lower/quieter speed while still effectively ventilating. For the ultimate in kitchen ventilation, Air King offers continuously operating range hoods that operate at an almost silent sound level then have higher settings to effectively clear the air. You can learn more about them here.

A second reason some might be quick to turn the range hood off is energy usage. If the range hood is running, it is using electricity. This is true but once again, we have some answers for that. In general range hoods are fairly efficient as far as appliances go. The good news is that there are many models on the market today that are ENERGY STAR® certified and use a significantly less amount of energy than a traditional range hood, in some case up to 30% less. The lighting can also make a measurable difference. An ENERGY STAR certified range hood is going to use LED lighting, which is usually not more than 11 watts. A traditional hood might use up to 100 watts or more. Now here’s more good news. Even in a traditional hood, changing the lighting to LED is a simple process that can reap immediate benefits without a full kitchen remodel. While the ventilation should run for additional time, the lighting does not need to. You can turn the lighting off at anytime you want, it will not affect the exhaust function of the range hood.

So we come back to the question of when is the cooking done? Our goal of this post it to get you thinking about all the factors that go into ensuring good indoor air quality within your living space as well as getting you to look a little deeper into how you utilize the tools you have.

For more information about Air King’s line of quiet and efficient range hoods, visit airkinglimited.com. Also check out our other posts about continuous operating range hoods and the benefits of range hoods.

Do Fans Cool?

The topic of do fans cool is one that has been debated for decades. As with all debates there are two sides to it. When we say fans, we are referring to products like box fans, pedestal fans, pivoting fans, window fans and so forth. Let’s also get this out of the way from the start – we are a fan manufacturer so our opinion might be slightly bias. What we hope to do in this post is to give you the information to make your own determination.

Why People Say Fans Do Not Cool

This is a fairly simple answer. You will hear fans referred to as “air circulators” because that in essence is what they are doing – circulating the air. The types of fans we are talking about do not have any refrigerant or “cooling” devices attached to them, they simply move the air from one area to another. Because of this there is no temperature change in the air itself. This is more of a scientific answer to the question of do fans cool? So when they say that fans do not cool, technically they are correct. Before you stop, read on for the rebuttal.

Why People Say Fans Do Cool

Scientist make a strong argument that fans do not cool but there are two ways that we hope to show you that they do indeed cool. The first is in a room. In this scenario we can actually use scientific methods to show that fans do cool a room. Here is how they accomplish that.

1. In any room heat will build up in certain areas – generally in the upper parts of the room as heat rises. Utilizing a fan to distribute the cool air and to disperse the hot air in the room can have an overall effect of cooling the room. This could be an actual temperature change that can be measured or could be a perceived temperature change (more of temperature perception later). Once again, the fan is not cooling the air, it is using the cooler air in one part of the room to cool the warm air in another.
2. Another way that fans can be used to cool a room is by bringing cool air from one part of the home to another. A prime example of this is when fans are used in harmony with air conditioning. Most air conditioners including central air systems are going to have variations from room to room. Think about your home, is there one room that is always hotter than another? Just like in our first point, using a fan to move that cooler air from one room to another will give you a consistent temperature in your home. In theory this should actually lower your cooling cost. Generally if you have hot and cold rooms, you need to over cool some rooms in order to make the other “warmer rooms” livable. If you have a consistent temperature throughout the home, your AC unit(s) will run less.
3. The last way a fan cools a room is utilizing cooler outdoor air. Window fans are a great example of this. During the daytime, the temperature of the home will rise and it will either be very hot inside, or you will need to run your AC unit. During the evening and nighttime hours however the temperature outside might drop below the temperature inside the house. The issue is just opening windows generally doesn’t bring the outside air in quickly enough to make a significant change. Using a window fan speeds the process along. As we have a theme going, the fan is not cooling the air, it is bringing the cooler outdoor air and exchanging the warmer indoor air.

Next we move to perceived cooling. Perceived cooling is simply making your body think it is cooler. A perfect example of this is if you stand outside on a hot, sunny day and there is no breeze. It probably doesn’t take long for your body to tell you it’s hot. Now stand out in those same conditions but now a nice breeze starts to blow and all of a sudden your body feels cooler. The temperature of the air hasn’t changed – it’s the same but for some reason your body feels cooler. Now there is a scientific reason for this in that the air is removing the warm moisture (sweat) build up on the skin which is how your body is cooling itself. We’re not going to get too far into that – a Google search can help you understand that process. The point is that our bodies perceive that it is cooler even though the temperature is not. Using a fan is the “breeze” that tricks our bodies into thinking it is cooler, making it more comfortable.

So where does this leave us in the debate of Do Fans Cool? We agree that if you want to get down to the technical level, fans do not cool. However we hope we have given you enough information to combat that argument with a yes, but….

To learn more about the air circulating fans that Air King offers including box fans, pedestal fans, window fans as well as industrial grade fans and more, visit airkinglimited.com.

Is Your Home Clean?

Seems like a simple question – Is your home clean? Many of us would say yes, for the most part it is clean. There might be a loose sock or two lying around and the kids might have just dragged some grass or dirt in, but its not like there is an inch of mud on the floors. Asking if your home is clean is a bit of a loaded question because the answer always NO. Now we are not here to judge your house but we are here to help you understand what factors make it not clean. Notice we are not saying dirty. While dirt does contribute to the uncleanliness of a house, it is not the only factor.

When we refer to a clean house we are looking at things you can see as well as things you can’t. Some are easier than other. For instance when your white rugs look closer to brown than white, they are not clean. If there is dirt and dust all over, it is easy to see that the home is not clean. Where it gets tricky is when you are dealing with unseen or very hard to see contaminates. These would include things floating around in the air like viruses, particulate matter and so forth. Even something like dust is actually hard to see until it piles up on surfaces.

There are numerous items that cause our homes to not be clean. Just daily living in your home is going to cause it to not be clean. Add in pets, kids, guests and so forth and the battle to keep it clean increases exponentially. Here is where we can go one of three ways. First is to ball up in a fetal position and tell yourself you're doomed. We don’t recommend that. Second is to try and clean everything constantly, hose off the dog and kids every time they come in from outside and basically drive yourself crazy. Again, not what we recommend. Third is to create a strategy to minimize contaminates and increase your indoor air quality. How do you do this?

1. Look at your home and what activities are causing contaminates. As we have spoken about at length in other blog posts, cooking is one of the top contributors to contaminates in the home. If you are finding grease or other build-up on or around the cooktop that is an indication that you haven’t been using the range hood, don’t have one, or need a better one that vents to the outdoors.
2. Are you using your bathroom exhaust fans? Exhausting contaminates including moister decreases the possibility of mold and mildew from forming. They also help to remove any off-gassing from things like cleaners.
3. Do you make everyone take off their shoes when they come into the house so they don’t drag dirt in? Do you brush the dog regularly to decrease the amount of hair floating around (large dog owners we understand, this can be a full time job with a shedding dog in the summer months – do your best).
4. Do you burn candles? They can be a major contributor to poor indoor air quality. You can read more about that here.
5. Do you have a regular cleaning routine. We talked about obsessive cleaning and it being a bit unrealistic, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be part of a regular routine. When using cleaners look for ones with low VOC’s and utilize the exhaust fans of the home (bathroom fans as well as kitchen range hoods) to exhaust any of the cleaning chemicals that are released into the air during the process. On good air quality days, opening a window is also a good option.

So we come back to the first question – Is your home clean? The answer is always going to be no, but hopefully we have given you some things to consider and look for to increase the cleanliness of your home which will have a positive effect on the overall indoor air quality of your home.

For information about exhaust fans, range hoods and fresh air solutions visit www.airkinglimited.com

What Makes Particulate Matter So Harmful?

A term that has gained popularity lately is particulate matter or as it is sometimes known – PM2.5. So what is PM2.5? They are tiny particles or droplets in the air that are 2.5 microns or less in width. To give that perspective there are about 25,000 microns in an inch. Okay, so we know they are small but how does that affect my health?

Particles that small are able to travel deep into the respiratory tract and end up in the lungs. Our noses are able to trap particles in the 10 micron range. Since PM2.5 are a quarter that size or smaller, they are able to bypass our first line of defense and travel to the lungs. You don’t need to be a doctor to realize that particles getting trapped in our lungs does not sound like a good thing. It’s not. There are short-term health effects such as eye, nose and throat irritation, coughing, sneezing and runny nose. A more serious effect can be shortness of breath. Long-term effects can be even more serious and include lung and heart issues.

So now that we have you completely paranoid about particulate matter let’s take a closer look at where it comes from and how we can lessen exposure. PM2.5 is all around us so completely eliminating it is basically impossible. Main outdoor producers are items that use combustion (burning of fuel) like cars, trucks, construction equipment as well as fires. Unfortunately there are also indoor items that also produce PM2.5. Main culprits are cooking, fireplaces, smoking (as well as second hand smoke) and burning candles. This is why lung cancer is directly linked to smoking as all the particulate matter generated during smoking goes directly into the lungs. While a single particle is way too small to see, we are able to identify concentrations as well as situations that are producing them. Outdoors when the air is hazy and visibility is decreased it could be because of an increase in PM2.5. Urban settings are going to see this more in times of heavy traffic and especially if there isn’t any wind to dilute the build-up of particles. In rural settings heavy pollen counts can cause a similar situation. Increases in wildfires are also a heavy contributor. Fires are especially concerning as wind can blow the smoke hundreds of miles away from the source, affecting a much larger area. Inside it is a little harder to identify. If your kitchen is filled with smoke from burning dinner – yes that is all particulate matter and is fairly easy to identify. The challenge is that during normal cooking you might not be able to identify how much PM2.5 you are producing.

Okay, enough with all the bad stuff. How do we combat particulate matter? As we mentioned PM2.5 is all around us so we need to look for ways to reduce it as best we can. We have been talking about two categories throughout this post – outdoor and indoor. Outdoor is a little harder to control and we need to take a more knowledge-based approach. Most states have a resource that informs the residents of the fine particle levels on a given day. Checking that before going outside can help. If you are in a high level area, avoid things like exercise or anything that will increase your air intake. Maybe postpone that hike until the levels drop. In urban setting, look to schedule outdoor activities on lesser traffic days or times. For instance if you like to run in the city, do it during lower traffic times where you won’t be breathing in as much of the contaminates coming from car exhaust. Same would hold true if you are in an areas that has stagnant air in the morning but then gets afternoon breezes that will carry away or at least dilute a lot of the contaminates.

Indoors is where you have a lot more control. The simple thing to do is stop PM2.5 from being produced. Unfortunately that is a lot easier said than done. We still need to cook and use things like clothes dryers. Eliminating smoking inside (doesn’t help the smoker but will benefit everyone else), stop burning candles, cook less fried foods are all good things. For the rest of the particles the key is to remove or dilute them. The easiest way is to exhaust them out of the house. The biggest contributor to PM2.5 in the home is the cooktop. Having a properly functioning and sized range hood that exhausts to the outside is your best defense. Some range hoods just recirculate the air back into the kitchen and are not effective at removing the particles. Over the counter microwaves, while convenient, do not do a great job of removing particles. Exhaust fans are generally installed in a bathroom, which is great, but they can and should be used in other areas of the home like laundry rooms. With all the exhaust going out, you also need a solution for the air coming in the home. As we discussed earlier, the outdoor air might not be any better than the air going out. Having a fresh are solution that can also filter the air – removing the PM2.5 is critical.

Air King offers solution for all your exhaust and air intake needs. Air King range hoods are perfect for almost all residential kitchens while a full array of exhaust fans offer solutions for any room of the home. Air King fresh air intake solutions offer controlled and filtered air to replace the exhausted air and filter out almost all of the PM2.5 that would come in from the outside (when using a MERV11 or MERV16 filter).

For information about fresh air or ventilation solutions visit airkinglimited.com.

Is Fresh Air Fresh?

We say it all the time – I’m going outside for some fresh air or, open the window to let the fresh air in. But is that air fresh? It is a question with many answers and we are going to take a look at some of them.

First, what is fresh air? As defined by the Google Oxford Languages dictionary it is “the air outside as opposed to that within a room or other enclosed space.” Great so as long as we are outside the air is fresh – case closed, thanks for reading. Well we think it is a little more involved than that. We know that the air inside a home or office can be 5 times more contaminated than outside air so does that confirm that outside air is fresh?

Here is where it gets a little complicated. What is in the outside air? If you live in a city with a lot of air pollution from cars, businesses and so forth, it is hard to call that fresh. Now let's go the opposite direction to a rural area. That air has to be fresh – right? While it might not have the man-made contaminates, there could be a host of other contaminates like pollen, dust, and more.

Great, so we know that the air inside is bad and the air outside might not be any better, what do we do? Here is where we take a step back, relax and realize we can’t control everything so let's concentrate on what we can. The reason the air inside our homes can be so bad is because it takes everything and concentrates it. Even the “polluted” outside air is going to have less concentration of contaminates than the indoor air (unless you are standing right next to a car tailpipe or under a building exhaust system). You have contaminates you generate (cooking, showering, breathing, and just living) plus contaminates coming in from the outside. Without a mitigation strategy they build up and linger inside the home. A very easy solution is a properly operating ventilation system. Using exhaust fans in the bathrooms, a range hood in the kitchen and exhaust fans in any other areas where contaminates build up such as laundry and craft rooms. The ventilation system will take the bad air out but we still need to deal with the air coming in.

The air coming into the home will dilute the remaining contaminates that the exhaust fans do not get. The key is controlling the air coming into the home. Opening a window or door will definitely bring air in but you will not have any control over it. On days where the pollutants such as pollen, dust and so forth are high, you might not want to open the windows. Utilizing what is known as a mechanical solution puts the control into your hands. A mechanical solution is just a fancy term for a fan that brings air into the home. Some HVAC systems have an intake that pulls air in from the outside, which is then filtered as it goes through the system. Standard HVAC filters capture items like dust, dander, pollen, and larger contaminates. Upgraded filters can capture items like viruses. Read our “The Air Filter Debate – Is Too Much Too Much” blog post for more information about air filters. For HVAC systems that do not have an outdoor intake function or need more air, utilizing an air intake system with a filter is a great way to control the amount of air coming in as well as ensuring it is as “clean” as possible.

So where does this leave us? Is fresh air fresh? Maybe instead of using a generic term like fresh air we should be asking if the air is the best we can do? Having a good strategy in place for your home such as proper ventilation as well as air intake will allow you the peace of mind that you are doing everything you can to provide the best indoor air quality you can.

For information about fresh air, exhaust fan or range hood solutions visit the Air King website at airkinglimited.com.