The exhaust fan market in the United States is experiencing steady and sustained growth. While often overlooked as a simple mechanical component, exhaust fans have become increasingly critical in building design, energy efficiency strategies, and indoor air quality (IAQ) management. Exhaust fans along with the wider HVAC industry is growing at approximately 6.9% per year and reflect a shift in how buildings are designed as well as code enforcement across the country*. So yes, the exhaust fan market is growing. A few key factors are driving this growth:

1. Increased Focus on Indoor Air Quality (IAQ)

One of the most significant drivers is the growing awareness of indoor air quality. Homeowners are prioritizing healthier indoor environments, particularly after heightened attention on airborne contaminants and ventilation. Homes now require better air exchange systems to remove moisture, pollutants, and odors, functions that exhaust fans directly support. This is especially critical in residential kitchens, bathrooms, laundry rooms, and main living spaces. Improved IAQ is no longer a luxury, it’s becoming a standard expectation.

2. Stricter Building Codes and Regulations

Government regulations are playing a major role in market expansion. Energy efficiency standards and ventilation requirements such as those developed by ASHRAE and the U.S. Department of Energy are pushing building owners to upgrade or install compliant systems.

These regulations often:

   • Mandate minimum ventilation rates

   • Require energy-efficient fan technologies

   • Drive retrofits of older buildings

As a result, many upgrades are no longer optional, they’re required for compliance, creating a consistent demand base. While these codes are not necessarily new, the increased enforcement of them has pushed the exhaust fan market forward.

3. Growth in Construction and Renovation Activity

Both new construction and renovations in residential housing are major growth engines. As homeowners are upgrading (new and existing construction), the ventilation system is now a focus, and as was stated above, part of code compliance. The need for residential homes continues to increase in the United States, so the need for proper ventilation through exhaust fans is also increasing.

4. Energy Efficiency and Sustainability Trends

Energy efficiency is now central to building design. Homeowners are now more educated on ventilation systems and indoor air quality, and are asking for better products. These include increased energy efficiency, lower sound, and automated functions such as humidity-sensing fans that turn the fan on and off depending on the humidity level of the space. These innovations help meet sustainability goals while lowering operating costs and increasing convenience, making upgrades financially attractive.

5. Retrofitting Aging Infrastructure

A large portion of U.S. buildings were constructed decades ago and are now being upgraded to meet modern standards, and are now required to conform to current codes. As more and more homes are being renovated, exhaust fans are either being added or upgraded to better, more efficient models. It is unheard of for a contractor to reuse an exhaust fan when doing any type of renovation. That results in an increased need for exhaust fans.

U.S. Exhaust Fan Market Conclusion

The exhaust fan market in the U.S. does not show any signs of slowing down, supported by both regulatory and consumer-driven requirements. Consumer education and code compliance are creating new growth opportunities. The U.S. exhaust fan market is no longer just about basic ventilation; it is evolving into a critical component of building performance. Driven by indoor air quality concerns, regulatory requirements, energy efficiency goals, and technological advancements, the market is positioned for sustained growth over the next decade.

To learn more about Air King exhaust fan solutions for kitchens, bathrooms, laundry rooms, and other living spaces, visit airkinglimited.com.

*source: https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/us-hvac-systems-market

What indoor air quality strategies do you have in place to make your home a healthier place to live? This might not be a question you have asked but one that your home would benefit from. Creating a healthy living environment involves looking at all aspects of the home and how you live in it. Here are 5 strategies to consider that will help to improve your indoor air quality.

Have a Moisture Strategy

Controlling the moisture in your home is a critical aspect of a healthy home. Too much moisture can lead to mold and mildew growth and if not controlled can cause a wide range of health issues. For most of us, when we think of moisture in the home we immediately jump to the bathroom and using the shower. While the shower is a major contributor to moisture in the home, there are other areas that need addressing as well:

Kitchens – Most homeowners don’t think of the kitchen as a source of moisture but it can quickly become one both from usage and maintenance. Things like boiling water, making coffee and most everyday cooking will produce moisture. If not properly mitigated, this moisture will build up over time and can cause some serious issues in your home. Using a range hood is one of the easiest solutions. A second source of moisture is a maintenance issue. That leaky pipe under the sink, the little puddle of water around the fridge, or the water that always seems to be around the faucet all can turn into something much bigger if not taken care of right away.

Laundry Rooms – With bathrooms and kitchens, many homes across the country have some type of strategy to remove moisture. Whether it is an exhaust fan, range hood or something else. When it comes to the laundry room, it can be a forgotten area. Laundry rooms produce moisture from items such as wet clothes, washers that might leak a little or from utility sinks. Making sure to clean up any spills, drips or puddles is important, but having an exhaust fan in the laundry room can have a real positive effect on your indoor air quality.

Basements – In many homes, the basement has become a living space or at least an area that is occupied as a laundry room, home gym and so on. Many basements also have a moisture issue. If your basement has a bit of a smell, feels humid or you can actually see water, you will need a strategy to mitigate the moisture. Some strategies might be easy, something like utilizing a dehumidifier. Others might be more advanced like installing a sump pump or needing to waterproof the walls.

Have an Exit Strategy

No, we are not talking about a way to exit your home. We are talking about a way to exhaust the air out of it. Home ventilation is a very commonly overlooked item. Making sure to have exhaust fans in all of the bathrooms, power rooms, kitchen and even the laundry room is a first step. Exhaust fans will remove the moisture we just talked about above as well as other contaminates that build up in the home. Just breathing in your home will cause stale “bad” air to build up. This is the reason why building codes across the United States now require a continuously running exhaust fan in a central location of the home. This is sometimes referred to as a wholehouse exhaust fan. The purpose is to ensure the home has a constant source of ventilation to remove all the contaminated air that occurs from normal everyday living.

Have a Replacement Strategy

We just talked about a strategy to remove air, now we need one to replace it. When using an exhaust fan, it will create a negative pressure in your home as it draws the air out. To balance the pressure, the home will replace that exhausted air however it can. In older homes it will be from air leaks in the home. The common name for this is drafts. Things like open doors or windows are another place that air can come in. These are all fine, but you as the homeowner do not have control over them. In newer homes, there aren’t as many air leaks and if all the doors and windows are closed, the home is still going to find a way to balance. This can lead to air coming back through things like chimneys, heater flues and other locations you really don’t want air coming back in the house from. In both old and new homes, having a strategy for replacement air (otherwise known as fresh air or make-up air) is a must. A mechanical solution is your best option as it puts the control into your hands. A fresh air machine like the Air King QFAMD provides a controlled flow of fresh air into your home that you are able to place where you want and has settings to make sure the air coming in is not too humid, too cold or too hot. To make the air even better, you can also add an air filter to ensure only the best air is coming into the home.

Have a Usage Strategy

We have talked about indoor air quality strategies that include exhausting air out of the home and bringing air into the home, but none of these work if they are not being used. A very common issue is the exhaust fans are not turned on or even the ones that are supposed to run continuously are turned off. There are a few ways to combat that.

Automate. Installing an exhaust fan with a humidity sensor built into the fan or that utilizes a humidity sensing wall switch provides an automated – set it and forget it way of ensure proper ventilation is happening. This can be very effective in bathroom settings but not as much in other rooms.

Combine room lighting with the Exhaust Fan. If you are installing an exhaust fan with a light, the two functions can be wired independently or together. To ensure the exhaust is utilized, you can wire the fan and light to operate together. You can also use this strategy and wire the room lighting with the exhaust fan. This can be especially effective when the fan is used in locations like laundry rooms, powder rooms and other locations that do not have a shower. In rooms with showers you will generally want/need to operate the exhaust fan longer than you are in the room and you probably do not want the light on if you are not in the room. These areas are better suited for a humidity sensor that we talked about above.

Education. Having everyone in the house educated on the benefits of good indoor air quality strategies can help get the household onboard. While we will suggest reading through all our blog posts over the years about proper ventilation to hopefully scare them into compliance, we do understand that might not be the most attainable path. Just basic education found in this post will hopefully help answer the “Why” questions.

Have a Storage Strategy

Everything we have discussed up to this point are what we’ll refer to as reactive strategies. Exhausting items already in the home, removing moisture already in the home, bringing fresh air in once the stale air is exhausted. What we have not discussed is a proactive strategy of not having the contaminates in the home from the beginning. Most of us store items such as cleaners, detergents, paint and other chemicals in the home. These items can give off harmful gases that will negatively affect your indoor air quality. The best strategy is to store them outside the home as much as you can. That is not always obtainable. Storing your laundry detergent in the garage and having to go out to get it every time you do laundry is not exactly convenient, but doing an audit of all the chemical-based items in your home and removing as many of them as you can is a great starting place. From there, as we talked about above, having an exit (exhaust) strategy is the next best thing.

Having an indoor air quality strategy in place for your home is critical to the health of your home and those living in it. Taking a few steps – some more involved than others can greatly increase the quality of air you are breathing. For more information about exhaust fans, fresh air intake and range hoods, visit the Air King website at airkinglimited.com.

5 Benefits of Exhaust Fans in Your Home

The benefits of exhaust fans in your home are many. They are one of the simplest yet most effective ways to improve comfort, safety, and air quality inside your home. Whether installed in the bathroom, kitchen, or laundry area, these fans effectively work behind the scenes to remove excess heat, humidity, odors and other contaminates. Here are five key benefits of exhaust fans in your home:

1. Improves Indoor Air Quality

Exhaust fans pull stale, humid and polluted air out of a room and replaces it with fresher air. In kitchens, range hoods help remove smoke, grease, fumes and other contaminates that happen during the cooking process, while in bathrooms, they eliminate odors and moisture. The laundry room can be a forgotten area when it comes to exhaust fans. A laundry room traditionally has many contaminates including heat from the dryer, moisture from wet clothes, and a buildup of chemicals from detergents and other cleaning products that are typically stored there. By improving airflow, exhaust fans reduce airborne irritants that can trigger allergies or breathing issues.

2. Reduces Mold and Mildew Growth

Moisture buildup is a common problem, especially in bathrooms and laundry areas. Without proper ventilation, condensation can lead to mold and mildew, which not only damage walls and ceilings but also pose health risks. Exhaust fans clear out humidity, which reduces the chances of mold and mildew buildup. It is important that the exhaust fan has enough airflow (CFM) for the room size and operates for the proper amount of time. As a guideline, the fan should operate for at least 20 minutes after a shower – longer depending on the amount of moisture generated and the relative humidity in the room. Exhaust fans with a humidity sensor built into the fan or a fan connected to a wall mounted humidity sensor can be an easy way to ensure the proper amount of ventilation is taking place.

3. Protects Your Home’s Structure

Excess moisture doesn’t just encourage mold—it can also weaken paint, wallpaper, wood, and even drywall. If you are experiencing peeling paint or wall paper in your bathroom or laundry room, the culprit might be there is too much moisture and you either need to install an exhaust fan or upgrade the one that is already there. By controlling humidity, an exhaust fan helps protect your home’s finishes and structural integrity, saving you money on costly repairs in the long run.

4. Increases Comfort

There are two main ways an exhaust fan increases comfort in your home. The first is what is known as local ventilation. This is an exhaust fan installed in a bathroom, kitchen or laundry room to remove contaminates when the room is in use. It will make a bathroom more comfortable by removing the excess moisture, odors and heat. In a kitchen it will remove steam, grease and odors. In a laundry room it will remove excess moisture, contaminates and odors (think about when your children throw their sports equipment in there). The second why to increase your home’s comfort is wholehouse ventilation, which is a fan in a central part of the home that runs continuously, ensuring that there is a constant exchange of stale air with fresh air for the entire home. When sized and operating properly, you will experience a home that just fells “fresher”. When used properly, exhaust fan creates a more comfortable space that you actually want to be in.

5. A Healthier Home

Indoor air quality can have a direct effect on the health of the people living in your home. Poorly ventilated homes are more likely to cause illnesses. Whenever mold or mildew is present and it is being breathed in by the occupants of the home, that can lead to all kinds of health items. Doing everything you can to prevent mold and mildew as well as other contaminates in the home is always going to be the best strategy. The common saying: "Treat the cause, not the symptoms" holds very true. In a past blog post we went a little deeper into this subject and looking at what is called Sick Building Syndrome. You can read that post by clicking here.   

Final Thoughts

The benefits of exhaust fans in your home are many. From increasing your indoor air quality to extending the life of your home, exhaust fans play a key role in maintaining a clean, comfortable, and efficient living environment. For more information about Air King’s solutions for bathroom ventilation, laundry room ventilation and kitchen ventilation, visit airkinglimited.com.

Do I need a Continuously Operating Exhaust Fan?

You might be getting ready to buy your first home, your dream home or even renovating your current home and the builder starts talking about a continuously operating exhaust fan. Your first reaction might be – what’s that? You’re not alone. For many homeowners exhaust fans are something that just comes with the house and not much thought is given to them. As home building has advanced, so has the need for ventilation within the home. Lets take a look at a few reasons you do need a continuously operating exhaust fan, starting with what is it.

What is a continuously operating exhaust fan?

The name is fairly descriptive. It is an exhaust fan that is continuously operating to remove moisture and contaminates from the home and providing multiple air exchanges per day (about one air exchange every 3 hours). To maximize their effectiveness they are typically installed in a central location of the home such as a family or living room. Because they are located in a main living space, they are required to have a very low sound level – less than the sound of your refrigerator.

Why do I need one?

The importance of a continuously operating exhaust fan will depend on the age and construction type of your home. In the paragraph above we talked about air exchanges. This is actually part of the national building code known as ASHRAE 62.2. The purpose of the code is to make sure the air inside the home does not become “stale” and in some cases dangerous. Newer homes are now being built to higher insulation standards, which make the home less susceptible to drafts. This is a good thing. What happens however is that because the house is so tight, it doesn’t allow for fresh air to come in or stale air to get out. This is where the exhaust fans come into play and in some cases a fresh air intake fan. In older homes, they generally have more air leaks and a continuously operating exhaust fan might not be as crucial. A benefit of using an exhaust fan is it puts the control in your hand instead of depending on drafts or other factors to determine the quality of your indoor air.

What should I look for?

As we mentioned, for these fans to be most effective they need to be installed in a centralized room such as a living room or family room. Choosing a fan with a low sound level is important. Exhaust fan sound levels are measured in sones with one sone being about the sound your refrigerator makes. The building code calls for a fan with a sound rating of one sone or below. The lower the sones, the quieter the fan is. A second consideration that is just as important is to make sure the fan has enough airflow. Airflow is measure in CFM or cubic feet per minute. Air King provides an easy calculator along with ASHRAE 62.2 information here. It is important that you have enough ventilation without over powering it and causing a negative pressure in the home (exhausting more air than is coming into the home). A final consideration is that you want an energy efficient fan. Since it will be running continuously, you don’t want it to be a burden on your electric bill. Air King offers a wide range of ENERGY STAR® certified models to fit almost any residential home need.

For more information about Air King exhaust fan solutions as well as continuously operating exhaust fans and ASHRAE 62.2 building codes, visit airkinglimited.com.

Do I Need a Humidity Sensor For My Bathroom Fan

A popular addition to a bathroom exhaust fan is a humidity sensor but what is it, what is its function and do I really need one? These are all great questions to ask. Lets take them one by one.

What is a Humidity Sensor?

A humidity sensor is a device that detects the humidity level of the room or surrounding area. You might hear them called humidistats or even dehumidistats. When is comes specifically to bathroom exhaust fans they are either located inside the actual fan or mounted on the wall. A wall mounted device will give a better indication of the overall room humidity where a sensor integrated into the fan will have a quicker response to a rise in humidity – especially when the shower is in use. When the sensor detects a rise in humidity it will turn the exhaust fan on until the humidity decreases. There are many factors that can contribute to how long that might take including items such as size of the room, how long the shower was on, how hot the water was, ambient temperature and so on.

What is the Function of a Humidity Sensor?

Removing the humid air is a key factor in increasing your home’s indoor air quality. If you allow the humidity level to stay very high (above 50%) items like mold and mildew will start to grow and if not mitigated can cause issues with rot as well as health concerns. If you notice a lot of mildew in your bathroom, paint that is peeling, or a musty smell, you probably have a humidity issue. A sensor is a built in way to monitor the humidity level of your bathroom and adjust accordingly without you needing to constantly be monitoring it. Sensors are able to be set for a wide range of humidity level usually from about 5% to 80% relative humidity. The lower the humidity level is set for, the longer the fan will run. The ability to set the humidity level allows you to adjust to your specific needs and geographic location. More humid climates will need to set the humidity level higher than less humid areas. A quick note. If the fan is continuously running, it might be because the normal humidity level is too high and air conditioning or some type of dehumidifier needs to be added.

Do I Need a Humidity Sensor?

As we stated above, humidity sensors provide an automated way to ensure the humidity level of your bathroom is where it should be. Sadly, the exhaust fans in many homes are not used properly or even turned on at all. It is recommended that the exhaust fan run for at least 20 minutes after the shower is turned off and that is in the best-case scenario. In more humid situations that time might go up to an hour or more. Having a sensor in place takes the guesswork out of determining if the humidity level of the room is where it needs to be. Considering if you need a sensor can be determined by answering the following questions:

Is my exhaust fan being used properly by everyone utilizing the bathroom? Is it being turned on and allowed to run for the set time needed to fully exhaust the humid air out?

Do I notice signs of mildew, mold, peeling paint that tells me I need more ventilation?

Are there any building codes in my area that require it? California CALGreen requires any exhaust fan in a full bathroom must have a humidity sensor.

Do I have a rental property? Having all the bathroom exhaust fans on a humidity sensor in rentals is a great way to ensure the fans are being utilized properly.

What to Do Next

If you are in the middle of a bathroom remodel or are looking to replace an old exhaust fan, this is a great opportunity to upgrade to one that has an integrated humidity sensor. If you already have an exhaust fan installed, adding a wall mounted sensor switch is a fairly easy way to ensure the humidity level of the room. We do caution that while this is a project most do-it-yourselfers can handle, if you have any questions or concerns to consult a license electrician. We also caution to make sure your exhaust fans can be used with a humidity sensor. All Air King exhaust fans are able to be used with a humidity sensor and in general most exhaust fan can be used with one, but there may be other brands that can not. One other item to consider when choosing an exhaust fan that will be used with a sensor is the sound level. Fans with sensors are most likely going to run for longer periods of time. If you have a really loud fan, this could cause a less than ideal situation. One of the main reasons people do not turn on the exhaust fan is due to the sound level. Look for a fan around 1 sone or less. These are very quiet fans and will probably provide a much better experience. 

For more information regarding bathroom exhaust fans as well as fans with integrated humidity sensors such as the BFC90H, visit airkinglimited.com. To learn more about a humidistat view our video on YouTube.

5 Ways to Improve Your Holiday Indoor Air Quality

With the holiday season upon us, family and friends will be gathering to celebrate in homes across the country. Just at the mention of the holidays might evoke smells of cookies, pine trees, the roast cooking and so many others. These are all wonderful things that make our homes welcoming to our guests. The question however is what are we doing to ensure the holiday indoor air quality of our homes? Here are 5 common things we do around the holidays that affect the indoor air quality of our homes and what we can do to improve them.

Cooking and Baking

Nothing says the holidays more than the smells coming form the kitchen. Whether it is Christmas cookies baking, a big pot roast, or other holiday favorites. You might be getting hungry just reading about it. The challenge to IAQ is when these items are cooking they are also releasing contaminates into the air in the form of smoke, moisture, carcinogens and more. Yes, we know – way to ruin the holidays by talking about this. Before we panic and serve carrot sticks instead of cookies, there is a solution – ventilation. Making sure the kitchen range hood is operating and venting to the outdoors while cooking will alleviate most of these contaminates. If your range hood does not currently vent to the outdoors, consider replacing it with one that does. If venting to the outdoors is not an option consider utilizing an air purifier.

Lighting Candles

Candles have become a holiday tradition across the country. The smell of pumpkin spice, apple spice, holiday spice and the other endless scents waffling through the air turn our homes into a delight for the senses. We even use candles for holiday traditions and ceremonies. The issue is that when we light a candle we basically have an open fire inside our home and no place for the smoke to go so we end up breathing it in. Air King has a whole blog post dedicated to candles and IAQ that you can read here. The solution is to have a ventilation strategy when using candles. That could be utilizing the exhaust fan in the bathroom, having general ventilation in other areas of the home and so forth.

Hosting Parties

Tis the season for homes full of friends and family. It warms the heart just thinking about it. However, we already have the food cooking in the kitchen causing contaminates. We have lit candles around the home to fill it with the smells of the holidays but creating smoke and now we have a home full of people who are breathing which fills the room with CO2 as well as any other contaminates they are breathing out (we really do know how to ruin the fun of the holidays). As with cooking and candles, the solution is ventilation and fresh air. As the home fills up and the room temperature rises, many of us will open a window or door to cool off. This is a fantastic idea as it allows fresh air in and pushes the stale, contaminated air out. The issue is we typically need a little more. Having a centralized exhaust fan operating or the range hood operating even if nothing is cooking can dramatically increase the indoor air quality. An HVAC expert can help you identify how you can more effectively ventilate your home and ensure you have the right balance of fresh air coming in while ventilating out the bad.

Crafts

You can’t have the holidays without decorations. For a lot of people that means breaking out the craft kits gluing, painting and so forth. What a lot of us miss is that if you look at most of the craft kits, paint and glue – it says right on the bottles “use in a well ventilated area”. Unfortunately in most homes, the living room, dinning room or craft room is not a well-ventilated area. Something simple like doing the craft on the kitchen table or counter with the range hood running can have a positive impact. Another thing to remember is that many paints continue to produce air contaminates as they dry so once the project is done, moving them outside the home to a garage or storage space is very helpful. 

Cleaning

A holiday tradition that no one likes is the cleaning. You have a full guest list coming but the house is a mess (from all the cooking) so it needs to be cleaned. If you have read this far, you know something bad is coming. Here it is. Using cleaners can have a real negative effect on IAQ. Cleaners can be really nasty – bleach, ammonium, and so forth produce a ton of contaminates that fill the air we breathe. They are very effective in killing the bacteria and germs but it is at the expense of the IAQ of the home. That is why it is crucial that exhaust fans are utilized when the cleaning is happening. When the bathroom and powder room is being cleaned, make absolutely sure the exhaust fan is turned on and stays on until the smell of the cleaners is gone. When cleaning the kitchen, turn the range hood on. If you are able to open windows, do so.

With a little thought and some simple steps including a plan for ventilation and fresh air, you can drastically improve the holiday indoor air quality of your home, truly making it an inviting place to gather.

For more information about Air King’s exhaust fans, fresh air solutions, and range hoods utilize the links at the top of this page. Also make sure to visit Lasko’s page for a full line of air purifiers.

Fighting VOCs

If you are reading this post, you probably either have a little bit of an understanding of what VOCs are or at least are interested in finding out why we need to be fighting VOCs. VOC stands for Volatile Organic Compounds. Volatile is not a word generally used in the everyday language and it sounds a little scary. Let's first understand what a VOC is.

Volatile Organic Compounds are all around us in many of the products we use. The most common use is in paint products as well as cleaners. VOCs dilute or dissolve other ingredients in those products to make them more effective. Paint is probably one of the most recognized ones but VOC are also used in items like mattresses and building materials as flame-retardants. A common alternative name for VOCs is off-gas. This happens because VOCs have a high vapor pressure that allows them to evaporate easily. For instance when paint is put on a surface it immediately start to off-gas as part of the drying and curing process, that is what you are smelling. With paint, this off-gas is a byproduct but with items like perfumes and fragrances, the off-gas is part of the design. It is what allows them to “smell” nice for longer periods of time.

Why do we need to be fighting VOCs as the title of this article suggest? Part of the off-gas process means that the “bad” stuff is entering into the air that we are breathing. This can cause minor symptoms like coughing or eye irritation but can also escalate to things like headaches, decreased lung function or a metal fog and in extreme case even more serious health issues.

Now that we have most of the bad news out of the way we can turn our attention to fighting VOCs. The first step is to try and reduce your exposure to VOCs by looking a little closer at the products you are using. Here are a few tips on what you can do:

1. Look for paint that is VOC free or at least low VOC. While these are still going to have some VOCs (even the VOC free ones – sorry), they will be greatly reduced from the standard paints.
2. Look for fragrant-free cleaners and especially laundry detergent. Have you ever gone into your laundry room and been “hit” with the smell of flowers or fragrance – that is your cleaners and/or detergents off-gassing their VOCs into the air. This is usually intensified in a laundry room due to the fact that it is a smaller and typically enclosed room.
3. Avoid items that come in the form of an aerosol. VOCs are detrimental due to them being able to easily enter the airflow. Aerosols by nature put product into the airflow. Aerosols also typically have some type of product like formaldehyde or some of the other nasty chemicals in them.

A second step in fighting VOCs it to look to the ventilation of your home. Having a well ventilated home is essential to having a better living environment. VOCs as well as other contaminates are going to build up in you home. That is part of living. Having a plan in place like a ventilation system and a way to bring fresh air into the home will great reduce your risks and exposure. Even opening a window while cleaning if you can is a great way to help your indoor air quality. Many home are already equipped with exhaust fans in their bathrooms and kitchen. This is great and they should be utilized. More and more homes are now also utilizing a continuous running exhaust fan in a central location of the home. It is actually part of the building code. The goal is to exhaust as much as possible out and then bring fresh air in to dilute anything that remains. Most would agree that these methods make sense and many practice them, here is where a lot of homeowners lose a little sight. For many homes the largest source of VOC’s is typically located in the laundry room. As we mentioned above these rooms are usually small and enclosed so the amount of VOCs that build-up is significant. Adding a small exhaust fan that vents to the outdoors in these rooms can have a tremendous effect on lowering the amount of VOCs in the room.

While we would like to suggest avoiding VOCs all together, that is almost impossible to do in our currently living environment. VOCs in some form or fashion are all around us. Doing what you can to limit your exposure to them is step one, improving your indoor air quality with ventilation and fresh air is step two.

For more information about the indoor air quality of your home and how you can improve it, please read through the many articles we have written over the years. Visit airkinglimited.com for information regarding Air King exhaust fan and fresh air intake solutions.

When you walk into a room, office, business or a home do you ever stop and think – is the indoor air safe here. Four years ago our guess is that maybe one in a thousand people would ask that question. Now it might be one out of ten or more. The fact that more people are asking that question is a good thing to our overall health and well-being, the challenge is how do we tell if it is safe or not?

To answer that question we have to look at it a few different ways. There is a scientific method that tests the air for contaminates. Some of these can be fairly low tech/low cost, while others cost a significant amount. One that has gained a lot of popularity is a CO2 monitor. As it’s name suggests, it tells you the level of CO2 in the space at any given time. The lower cost ones just tell you the amount of CO2 at the time of the reading, more expensive ones can actually take multiple reading over the course of time so you can track it and get an average. Why is CO2 important? Since CO2 is what we exhale a monitor can tell us if proper ventilation or a stream of fresh air is coming into the space to dilute the air. This in theory would also give us an indication if other contaminates or viruses are hanging around in the air. For instance: if you are in a room with 20 other people and you get a CO2 reading of say 1000, you know that the room is not ventilated very well and all kinds of “bad” things could be lingering in the air. Now open a window or turn on a ventilation fan and you should see that number drop significantly. The theory being if the CO2 is leaving the room or being diluted so will all those “bad” things as well.

Now we know that most people are not going to walk around taking CO2 readings, especially if you were invited as dinner guests. Talk about awkward. So what are other indicators of poor indoor air quality? Here are a few things to look for or be aware of:

1. What is the size of the room and how many people are in the room – does it feel like you are packed in like sardines?
2. Are there lingering odors (good or bad)? If so, this indicates that the room may not have a good flow of air.
3. Do you see any type of air filtration system or an air purifier in the room? Some of these are easy to see, others are a little more difficult as they might be working behind the scenes like a ventilation fan or fresh air intake system.
4. Are there windows in the room and are they open? Better yet, is there a window fan in them?

Our hope is this gives you a few simple points to help answer the question – is the indoor air safe in the place I am entering. There are a host of other things like asking about the HVAC air filters, what the air exchange rate for the builder is, what is the fresh air mixture for the HVAC and so on. These require a bit more involvement and can not be answered by simply walking into a location and looking around.

While we might not be able to identify a 100% safe location, we can utilize these tips to help reduce risk. The common theme in all of this is that the more ventilation, filtration and fresh air coming into a location, the better. Stagnant, poorly ventilated areas are going to be the highest risk.

For more information about indoor air quality read our other blog posts. For information regarding Air King exhaust fan and fresh air intake solutions visit airkinglimited.com.

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.

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

Assessing Indoor Air Quality

Indoor Air Quality or IAQ is a term that has certainly gained a lot of popularity over the course of the past few years. While COVID has propelled the conversation forward it is much more far-reaching than a pandemic. Assessing Indoor Air Quality is something we should all have at the forefront of our minds in all areas of our daily living. Study after study is showing that increased IAQ boosts health, productivity and promotes better living. The challenge is finding a way of assessing Indoor Air Quality.

Generally with bad IAQ we are dealing with contaminates that are either invisible or barely visible such as gases, viruses, spores, dust and so forth. This makes it difficult to walk into a room and make an accurate assessment of the IAQ. What we are able to do is access some of the attributes of the room. Here are a few things to look for:

1. Is there a good source of ventilation? This could be natural (air blowing into the area) or mechanical (some type of exhaust fan or fresh air intake fan). For instance, are there windows open with fresh air coming into the area? Do you feel a “breeze” dispersing the air? Can you see exhaust fans in operation?
2. Does it feel or smell stagnant? Does it feel like odors are lingering in the area? In a restaurant there are going to be smells – hopefully good ones. The smells we are looking for are more like yesterday’s food smells that aren’t as pleasant. Smells like when you have left the dirty laundry sitting in the room for a little too long. This is an indication that there is not enough ventilation or fresh air being brought in.
3. Are there signs of mold or mildew? This is probably the easiest one to identify because it is for the most part visible. Generally you will see it in bathrooms but also check around windows and in kitchens. Proper ventilation along with a good cleaning routine can help eliminate it.
4. Occupancy and room size. This is where we get into spreading viruses (not just COVID). Assess the space. Is it a large open space with only a few people in it? Are you jammed into a space like a can of sardines? More and more studies are confirming proper ventilation is a key for fighting the spread of viruses. Why this is effective is they are removed from the area with the exhaust fan then also diluted by the fresh are coming in. This is why there is very little transmission of viruses outdoors. Why occupancy and room size is important is it changes your odds. Think of the old run down smoky bar you see in the movies. There is a haze of smoke (no ventilation) and the place is packed with people (reason there is so much smoke). If you take the same bar and there is only one or two people, now the amount of smoke is a fraction of what it is when it is full. In this scenario, the smoke represents viruses. The more people the more everyone is exhaling, the more chance that something is being spread. 
5. CO2 monitors. These are becoming a popular way to assess indoor air quality. When we breathe we omit CO2 so logic tells us if we are in a space with high levels of CO2 there is a higher chance of something being spread. This goes hand-in-hand with what we just discussed with occupancy and room size. It will take a lot longer for a large room to fill with CO2 than a smaller one.

So where do we go with all of this? We all have different comfort levels of assessing risks in our lives. As a consumer or guest we want to educate you on things you can look out for when entering a building or home and then make the determination that best suits you. As a business owner or if you are opening your home up to guests, we hope to press you to consider what you are doing to ensure your indoor air quality is good and you are providing a better, healthier experience for your guests. If there is one thing we would say is the most important, it is making sure your space is properly ventilated. We know, the first thing you are going to say is of course we would say that – we are a ventilation company! We will not deny that but when you stop and think about it, so much can be mitigated by proper ventilation and something like opening a window my be all you need to do.

We also want to take a moment to say, just because an area might have factors of bad indoor air quality, this does NOT mean you will automatically get sick if you walk into it. You can’t be infected with a virus that isn’t present. Sound funny to say but it is true. This is all about determining your comfort level within a space.

For more information about indoor air quality and proper ventilation please read though our previous posts on indoor air quality. Also visit the Air King website at www.airkinglimited.com to learn about products such as exhaust fans, range hoods and fresh air intake fans that can improve your IAQ.

ENERGY STAR Homes

Have you ever used the phrase: I wish I would have (or as we say in eastern Pennsylvania – I wish I wood-a)? Probably most of us have said this phrase at one point in our lives. Building or doing a major renovation to a home can be a place where this phrase is commonly used. “I wish we would have upgraded to the better cabinets”, “I wish we would have put hardwood floors in”, “I wish we would have made the house more energy efficient” and so on. When building a new home a great place to start is making sure it is an ENERGY STAR home.

As the cost of energy continues to rise, making sure your home is as energy efficient as possible will have life long benefits. To this end, ENERGY STAR has developed the ENERGY STAR Residential New Construction Program. As ENRGY STAR puts it: “To earn the ENERGY STAR, a home or apartment must meet strict program requirements for energy efficiency developed by ENERGY STAR's Residential New Construction program. These program requirements are based on extensive interaction with the nation’s home-building industry, including builders, developers, verification professionals, and building scientists.”

So what does the entail? It starts with the exterior, making sure everything is sealed, proper installation, uses ENERGY STAR windows and so forth. You will hear this referred to as the building envelop or the thermal enclosure. All these elements are designed to prevent drafts and make the house tight. This will greatly reduce the monthly utility bills, as the HVAC system will have to work less. There are some consideration when building a tightly sealed home – make sure to read our blog post on the subject by clicking here.

Next we move to the home's heating and cooling system (HVAC). An ENERGY STAR Home will have a certified heater and/or air conditioner installed as well as special attention given to the ducting to make sure they are sealed and installed as efficiently as possible. A mechanical ventilation system that draws fresh, filtered outdoor air into the house and exhausts stale air from inside the house is also a requirement of an ENERGY STAR home. This is where Air King comes into the equation with the QFAMD and a host of ENERGY STAR certified exhaust fans and kitchen range hoods.

Onto the water management – yes we said water management. We don’t think too many people would think to add this to the check list but as ENERGY STAR states: “ENERGY STAR certified homes include a comprehensive package of water management practices and materials that help to protect your home from water damage and reduce the risk of indoor air quality problems.” These processes include making sure water is directed off the roof, the home, has moisture-resistant barriers and that materials are protected during construction. All of these ensure the home is being built to last.

We finish with the appliances and lighting. These are probably the easiest to understand, as they are typically the most visible ones. They are also ones that can easily be changed in an existing home. Many ENERGY STAR Home builders will utilize an appliance and lighting package of products that carry the ENERGY STAR certification. Items such as the refrigerator, dishwasher, clothes washers, ceiling fans, ventilation fans and so forth should all be ENERGY STAR certified. For lighting, high efficiency LED lamps should be used throughout the entire home.

Building an ENERGY STAR home will have long lasting benefits for your utility bills, your indoor air quality, your piece of mind and for the environment. If you are in the market to build a new home, make sure you talk to your builder about building an ENERGY STAR home. Remember our phrase at the beginning of this blog? Now it will be your friends and family saying, “We wish we would have done what you did.”

To learn more about ENERGY STAR certified kitchen range hoods, exhaust fans and fresh air systems visit www.airkinglimited.com. Also visit the ENERGY STAR Residential New Construction Page on their website.

COVID has shut down countries and disrupted lives. In a word, it stinks (technical term). As we are hopefully nearing the end of COVID, or at least learning to live with it, there is a temptation to put everything into a history book and call it a day. While COVID stinks (there’s that technical term again), it has taught us some very valuable things about our living environment. The biggest is the indoor air quality (IAQ) of our homes and work places.

Prior to COVID not much attention was paid to our indoor environment. How many times did colds or the flu make it’s way through families or work places. No one really did much as the common practice was to “let it run its course”. You might have had that one person who doused themselves with sanitizer and ran around the office with a can of disinfectant spray, creating a dense fog that you could barely see through anytime someone sneezed but in general you just hoped it missed you.

While concerns with indoor air quality are not new concepts, COVID has allowed them to finally get some prominent airtime with the general population. The goal is to create a better living environment no matter what is happening with pandemics, endemics or any other viruses floating around. So what have we learned? Proper ventilation and airflow inside your home creates a better living space. Properly utilizing bathroom exhaust fans, kitchen range hoods and having a system for bringing fresh air into the home, will exponentially increase your indoor air quality.

So how do we properly use these components? Well the first step is to use them. As comical as that sounds it does need to be the first thing on the list. There is a long list of reasons these are not used – they're too loud, it doesn’t cross my mind to turn it on, I’m only warming something up, and the list goes on. Our response to all of those excuses is they are all bad. There are a lot of really good, efficient, quiet and affordable options on the market today to upgrade to.

A second step is to make sure they are working properly. You might be noticing a trend here. These are some really basic things we are highlighting. Something like noticing if your exhaust fans are even working seems very basic and it is but it’s always amazing how many times you walk into a home and the fans are not working.

Finally, you need to make sure the exhaust fans are installed and functioning properly. This one is a little more difficult and a lot less obvious. The main culprit with this is the kitchen range hood. To maximize your IAQ it should vent to the outside. Many range hoods do not; instead they recirculate the air back into the kitchen. While this is better than nothing, it does very little for the IAQ of the home and can actually give you a false sense of security. The fans throughout the home should also be working in harmony with each other. Air King’s Total Ventilation System is a great way to ensure this is happening. See how it all works here.

While COVID has been difficult, it is up to us to make sure the lessons learned are not wasted. To learn more about Air King’s Total Home Ventilation System, Air King Range Hoods, Exhaust Fans and Fresh Air Systems click on the links in the menu bar above.

What Is Particulate Matter and Why Should I Be Concerned?

When talking about air quality, a term that has and continues to gain popularity is Particulate Matter. Particulate matter is sometimes referred to as PM2.5 or fine particulate matter. To get a sense of why it is concerning, lets first define what it is.

Particulate matter refers to fine particles in the air that are 2.5 microns or less in width, hence PM2.5. To give you a sense of how big, or in this case how small that is, there are about 25,000 microns in an inch. Their small size also allows them to hover in the air for long periods of time and travel long distances outside. So we know they are really small, why is that a big deal?

Because of their small size these partials are able to travel deep into our respiratory track, reaching the lungs. This makes them especially dangerous. Here is where it gets scary. There can be short term and long-term effects to exposure. Short term we can experience things like itchy or irritated eyes, nose irritation (sneezing or running), coughing or even shortness of breath. Longer effects can include increased chances of chronic bronchitis, reduced lung function as well as other lung related health issues. For people with underlying health issues such as asthma, exposure to particulate matter can be especially bad.

So where does particulate matter come from? Unfortunately there are many sources for PM2.5 both indoors and outdoors. The main source is from items that burn fuel such as cars, trucks, construction equipment or from burning wood, leaves, coal, heating oil and in some parts of the country forest fires. Indoors, the kitchen is going to be the main source of PM2.5 and is released during the cooking process, especially if using a gas cooktop. Other sources inside the home can be burning candles, oil lamps, fireplaces and fuel burning space heaters (time to get rid of that kerosene heater – Lasko has a full line of safe ceramic electric heaters). 

We need to take a minute for a public health announcement. Smoking and vaping are the quickest ways to infuse particulate matter into your body. Both methods contain PM2.5 and the process delivers it directly into your lungs.

Hopefully you are not so depressed that you stopped reading. There is hope. Eliminating PM2.5 from the outdoors is going to be almost impossible. What you can do is make informed decisions. Many states post the daily air quality and will send out warnings for elevated levels. If it is a bad air quality day, you might want to postpone that hike, run or anything else that will cause you to breath heavily that day. For those who are around forest fire smoke, staying indoors in a filtered air environment will help.

Indoors is where you can really make a significant impact. First, identify what could be producing PM2.5. The first stop should be the kitchen. This is where it is critical that you are utilizing a properly sized range hood that vents to the outside every time you cook. We have written a lot of blogs regarding the usage of range hoods and encourage you to read through them for more information.

Second, have a constant flow of air coming in and exhausting out of the home. Utilizing a fresh air intake that also filters the air coming in along with exhaust fans removing all the “bad” air inside your home will reduce contaminates inside the home. Air King has developed a Total Home Ventilation system to improve the indoor air quality of the home. You can read more about it here or watch a video on how it works on the Air King YouTube channel here.

Third, think about items that are releasing PM2.5 into the air that you along with your family are breathing. Items such as smoking inside, burning candles (yes we know this is a tough one especially with pumpkin spice candles in the fall), and even some air fresheners.

Eliminating PM2.5 is not attainable, but limiting exposure to it and creating better indoor air quality is. The goal is to reduce by utilizing some common sense and easy solutions. To learn more about ventilation solutions visit airkinglimited.com.

5 Ways to Improve Your Indoor Air Quality

Finding ways to improve your indoor air quality (IAQ) has become a hot topic. More and more research is being done and studies are finding that when you improve your indoor air quality it can have some very beneficial results. Almost everyone can agree that better IAQ is good, but how do we get there? There are a lot of “solutions” on the market today. Some good, some not as good, and some that might be good but need more development. In this post, we are going to focus on the time-tested ways you can improve your IAQ. 

1. Ventilation

As a result of our daily living, contaminates build up in our homes. Each time we exhale we release CO2, when we cook all kinds of contaminates are released into the air, we use cleaning chemicals, and the list goes on. We can choose to stop breathing, cooking and cleaning, or have a strategy to combat these contaminates. A first line of defense is ventilation. It is a very simple concept – take the bad stuff and get it out of the home. Using a kitchen range hood that exhausts to the outdoors can be one of the most effective ways to instantly increase your IAQ. Add to that utilizing your bathroom exhaust fans and now that IAQ score is going to continue to rise. 

2. Dilutions / Fresh Air

Now that we know we have contaminates in the home, another effective way to combat them is diluting them by bringing fresh air into the home. There are many ways to accomplish this and it will look different depending on what area of the country you live. In mild climates, simply opening a window or door is an effective way to bring fresh air in – especially if you are utilizing your ventilation fans properly. The fans will draw the bad air out and the fresh air coming in will replace it. In areas that have more extreme temperatures a mechanical solution might be needed. This is basically a fan that brings air into the home. We have written many post about fresh air and you can learn more by reading through them. One large caution is in areas that frequently have forest fires or consistently bad outdoor air quality. In these cases, some type of filtration might be necessary for the air coming into the home. 

3. Filtration

For homes that have central heating/cooling systems, making sure your air filters are changed on a regular basis can have a big impact. Filters typically have a MERV rating. The higher the MERV rating the more pollutants it filters. A typical furnace filter is about a MERV8 which is effective for filtering out general pollutants including pollen and mold spores. A higher MERV rating will filter out more pollutants but be sure to consult your furnace manufacturer to see what it is rated for. You can read more about filters in our post – The Air Filter Debate – Is Too Much Too Much? The next time you check your filters (or your HVAC technician does), take a look at how dirty they are, and then realize that if the filters weren’t in place, you probably would be breathing that.

4. Remove

Ever walk into a laundry room and immediately are hit with a chemical smell that almost knocks you out? That is because the items you are storing in there are releasing contaminates that are just not good for you to be breathing. We already talked about using ventilation fans to take those contaminates out, but an even more effective solution is to store them outside of the living area if possible. We understand that it is not always possible or feasible to store these outside of the home but the more you can remove, the better your IAQ will be. 

5. Resist

Resist the temptation to utilize air fresheners and candles. These are effective at replacing the odors in the home with better smells but at what cost? No matter what type of candle you use, it will be releasing carcinogens of some type into the air. In the same way, almost all air fresheners (especially the more popular brands) are going to put chemicals into the air that are just not good for you. A good way to think about this is if you are trying produce the cleanest, purest air possible do you want to remove all the “bad” things or keep adding more things to it? Now before you go and tackle the next person in your house that tries to light a candle or excommunicate your kids because they sprayed an air freshener (okay that might be a little extreme), take a deep breath. If you are going to us candles make sure you are using them in a well-ventilated room (goes back to our first point) and use them for a limited time. Taking a bath with a candle or two lit in a bathroom with a properly functioning exhaust fan can be a good balance. 

For more information about how to improve your indoor air quality we suggest reading through the other Air King blog posts on related topics.

Indoor Air Quality Products – What are the best options?

It seems like the entire world is talking about indoor air quality products, aerosols, spreading of viruses and so forth. There are also a lot of IAQ products on the market today that are putting some fairly aggressive claims out there. Everyone’s favorite is “Kills 99.9% of….”. We always like how they keep the 0.1% open just in case. In this post we are going to take a look at some of the more popular IAQ solutions currently being offered.

Air Filtration
Products that filter the air either coming into a space or the air already in a space have fairly universal acceptance with air quality experts. The downside of air filtration is, and this is going to sound obvious, it only filters air moving through the filter. In other words, if viruses and particles are not being drawn into the filters, they will not have any effect. Filters can be installed in many places. Most commonly they will be in the HVAC system but portable as well as installed air filtration devices are also effective. A negative about filters is they need to be replaced on a regular basis to stay effective. Another challenge is having the right filter in place. Studies have found that filters with a MERV rating of 13 or higher are effective in capturing contaminates and viruses. HEPA filters provide the highest level of filtration with MERV16 filters being a very close second. The issue is simply adding a HEPA filter to your HAVC system or mounting it to a box fan can cause other issues. HVAC systems are usually calibrated for a MERV8 filter which is good for most pollutants but when you get down to virus level, they are not doing much. Adding a higher rated filter is going to restrict the airflow, and could cause damage to your HVAC system or considerably reduce the life of a box fan. You should consult the manufacturer for the highest rated filter you can use in your system.

Air Movement Products – Exhaust Fans and Air Intake products
As with air filters, air movement products have a universal acceptance with IAQ experts as being a good solution. As you see more and more articles citing poor ventilation as a cause, it become clear that ventilation and air movement products are good solutions. These include exhaust fans to move the “bad” air out of a space and air intake products to bring fresh air into a space to replace the “bad” air. When it comes to viruses, studies are showing you are less likely to contract a virus in outdoor spaces than indoor. A main reason is the outdoor air dilutes the viral load (concentration of viruses) to a point it is not as contagious. Exhausting air while bringing fresh air in is using this same principle – remove and dilute. With exhaust and air intake products we are now talking about an installed item so there is an upfront cost but these are also going to be some of the most effective, long term solutions. As with filters, exhaust and intake fans are only going to work if they are operating so it is important you utilize products that will run continuously providing constant air exchanges.

Ultraviolet Light Products
These products output high doses of UV light that claim to kill viruses when exposed. They can be added to the HVAC system or as their own system. Hospitals have been and continue to use UV-C to sterilize rooms. UV-C has been shown to be effective at killing viruses. The issue is the time of exposure needed to effectively kill viruses as well as the intensity. The other issue is UV – especially UV-C light is harmful to humans. Therefore it is important that these products are installed by professionals and used according to the manufacture’s recommendation. This also makes them a bit expensive. UV-A has not shown as wide a level of acceptance. You see these added to products and the disconnect seems to be in what can be proven in a lab and what can be proven in a real world setting.

Ionizers
This is another emerging technology that has some things that sound good, but also some red flags. Ionizers output charged ions that seek out viruses and contaminates and attach themselves to them. By doing so, they increase the weight, causing it to drop to the floor quicker (think about the 6 foot social distance recommendation). They also increase the size of the virus, making it easier to capture in an air filter. Now you might only need a MERV8 instead of a HEPA. Everything sounds good so far but here is the catch. To produce the ions many (not all) will also produce ozone, which is bad. Another issue is that ions only trap viruses; they do not kill them so you need a filtration device to remove the trapped particles. When looking at portable ionizers it is debatable if they can produce enough ions to be effective for the space.

Conclusion
Indoor Air Quality experts seem to agree that proper ventilation, fresh air and filtration are very effective in removing contaminates from the air we are breathing. They also agree that any one of these used individually is not a magic solution, so using a combination of these solutions is most effective. Past air movement and filtration it gets a little less clear. Technologies like UV and Ionizers may work, but further studies and real world testing needs to be done before there is a universal stamp of approval. If you do utilize UV or Ionizers, make sure you do your homework to ensure they are providing what they say they are and they are doing it in a safe way that does not have bad side effects.

To learn more about Air King’s fresh air solutions visit www.airkinglimited.com/fresh-air