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.

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.

Sick Building Syndrome Solutions

A term that is being used a lot more these days is Sick Building Syndrome or SBS. What is Sick Building Syndrome? Wikipedia defines it as: “A condition in which people in a building suffer from symptoms of illness or become infected with chronic disease from the building in which they work or reside.” Sounds a little scary. SBS can affect the health as well as the productivity of people working in the building. This is not a new concept and now it is expanding to Sick Home Syndrome.

As more people are spending more time indoors making sure your home or workplace is “healthy” is even more important. A lot of issues boil down to the Indoor Air Quality of the area. There are some fairly simple things you can do to identify issues in your workplace/home. They can be broken down into three areas of concentration:

Common Symptoms Between Occupants
Are there any common symptoms with people sharing the area? Do people complain about headaches, dizziness, being stuffy and so forth? Do they say it gets better when they are outside of the space? Many of these symptoms can look the same as allergies but can also be a tell tale sign of something bigger. Common symptoms are a big one as if people are experiencing symptoms; it probably means something needs to be addressed immediately.

Physical Signs
Are there any signs around the office or home such as mold or mildew growing or large areas of dust or dirt build-up? Are there items being stored indoors that shouldn’t be – gas, paint, cleaners or other odor emitting items? We refer to this as stopping it at the source.

Smells
Are there any smells that seem stagnant or just bad – think old socks. Some people will describe a “moldy” smell – that is not good and means that something is contaminating the air. Even good smells can be harmful (not all, but some can). Scented sprays, candles, aromas from cooking can smell good, but can also be contaminating the air.

Okay, now that we have identified the issues, what do we do now? Some solutions are certainly simpler than others. In the case of contaminates being stored indoors – move them outside the living or working area. Others are a little more complicated and difficult to address. We suggest a three-phase approach:

Remove
As we already stated, remove any contaminants that are contributing to bad indoor air quality but remove can also apply to the air. Properly using all of your exhaust fans (bath fans, range hoods and so forth) can have a huge effect on your IAQ. Exhausting stale, bad air removes it from being breathed in or staying stagnant. A good example of this is a smoky bar. Thankfully most bars and restaurants no longer allow smoking inside but go with us with this. If there is no ventilation, the bar continues to fill up with smoke to a point that you can’t see two feet in front of you. Now you and everyone else in that bar are breathing in the cloud of smoke (contaminants). Add ventilation to the mix and that smoke is directed out of the bar greatly reducing or even eliminating any smoke in the room. While most workplaces don’t allow smoking indoors, people are exhaling carbon dioxide and other contaminates are building up just from the normal daily activities. If they are not being directed outside of the building, that means they are staying stagnant inside and being breathed in just like that cloud of smoke in the bar example.

Dilute
Part B of Remove is diluting or more accurately, replacing the air you remove with fresh air. This can be done by opening a window or door or using a mechanical solution such as the Air King fresh air intake products that brings controlled and filtered air into the space. This creates a constant exchange of air that prevents contaminants from building up in the space.

Filter
Making sure the HVAC system is properly fitted with effective air filters that are maintained on a regular basis is a must. The system should be using the highest rated filter that is can without decreasing the performance of the unit. In older systems adding additional filtration devices might be necessary.

So the bad news is that SBS is a real thing that needs to be addresses and can cause issues at home and work. The good news is that it can be addresses and improved. While there is no magic solution or one size fits all remedy, using the technics suggested can have a positive impact on the Indoor Air Quality of your home or workspace. If you believe your building or home is “sick”, we suggest consulting a HVAC expert who can assess and test your space and help you identify how to increase your indoor air quality.

To learn more about Air King’s exhaust fans, range hoods and fresh air intake solutions, visit www.airkinglimited.com.

The Air Balancing Act

When you hear Air Balancing you might have pictures of a puff of air trying to stay on a narrow bar without falling off. While that might be something you would see in the comic section, when it comes to your home, Air Balancing is a bit different and more important. The simple explanation is that the amount of air coming into the home needs to match the amount of air going out of the home.

So what air is going out of your home? There is more air leaving your home than you probably realize. Items such as your furnace, water heater, clothes dryer, range hood, and bathroom exhaust fans can all be pulling air out of your home. All of these items provide a pivotal role in the overall comfort and/or indoor air quality of your home so not using them is not an option.

This is where the balancing comes in. As we defined earlier, balancing is making sure the amount of air going out matches the amount coming in. So where do we get the air (referred to as make-up air) to balance everything? This all depends on the construction of you home. Many older homes have what is called natural air infiltration. The rest of the world knows these as drafts. In newer homes, the amount of drafts has been greatly reduced. You might hear the term – tight home. While this helps with the comfort and efficiency of the home it creates an issue with the air balance of the home and it is harder to account for all the air leaving the home. An easy way to balance the air is to leave a door or window open. That works great unless you live in a climate that has temperature changes (like almost all of the United States). There might be a few weeks of the year that this would be a viable option but in the middle of summer in Arizona or the middle of winter in Minnesota, not sure you want to have a window open. This is where mechanical solutions come in. A mechanical solution like the Air King QFAM is set up to bring fresh, filtered air into the home – balancing the amount of air leaving the home. There are air test that can be done to your home to determine how much air is leaving, then the QFAM can be set to deliver the proper amount of air flow to make-up that air providing a safe living environment.

Wait, you used the phrase “safe living environment” does that mean mine is not? Maybe. If a home is too tight and the air leaving is not replaced, you can create a negative pressure inside your home. Air will always find a way to balance itself and can start pulling from things like furnace vents or chimneys. The negative pressure won’t allow them to vent properly and the harmful fumes, gases and contaminates that should be going out of the home could be coming back into the living environment. For these reasons the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), who is a leader in writing codes for indoor air quality standards has included a provision for fresh air (or make-up) air in the latest version of ASHRAE 62.2.

Balancing your home’s air is an important element to your indoor air quality and healthy living. For more simple and effective was to accomplish balanced air, visit the Air King website at www.airkinglimited.com.

What Has Happen to the Air We Breath?

There is a lot of talk lately about Indoor Air Quality (IAQ). You may have already read some of our other IAQ posts, but what has changed that it is getting even more attention? Why wasn’t this as important 5 years, 10 year, 30 years ago? That is a great question and one that has many answers.

They Don’t Build Them Like They Used To. Most of the time this is a negative for the newer item. That’s not the case here. Newer houses are constructed to a much tighter building standard that requires the house to be better insulated and more energy efficient. The biggest thing a homeowner will notice is that there are much less drafts. Here’s where it gets tricky. Less drafts are great from a comfort and efficiency standpoint but not good from an IAQ standpoint. The drafts you feel are outside air coming into the home and by default exchanging the stale air inside the home. Tighter homes do not have a natural way of exchanging the air, causing it to stagnate. Homeowners need to open windows or doors to accomplish this (not a great plan for those living in areas where it is 100 degrees outside or on the other end of the spectrum, minus 10).

Knowledge. We are getting smarter. Studies have found that the air inside our home can be up to 5 times more polluted than the outside air – yikes! That is from normal living. We have now learned that things like cooking, showering (creating mold and mildew if not properly ventilated), using cleaning chemicals or air fresheners and so forth are major contributors to bad IAQ. Just think how dusty your home gets and now realize that dust comes from somewhere and how much of that you have breathed in. We then go back to the first point and with a tighter home, there is even less chance for these pollutants to escape.

The Easy Factor. As we mentioned, a major contributor to bad IAQ are all the chemical products we use inside our homes. They are convenient and generally do the job. Included in these are air fresheners. There are two inherit issues with them. First is they are a chemical solution and second, why do you need them in the first place? Think of how much could be avoided by just having a properly ventilated home. Let something cook a little too long on the stove – a good range hood will take care of that. Kids clothing stinking up the house – a good exhaust fan plus fresh air coming into the home will take care of that. That spicy chili from last night causing an extended stay in the bathroom – rather then emptying a can of air freshener, a good exhaust fan will take care of that.

So are we all doomed? Nope, there is hope and it is actually an easy solution. As mentioned earlier, a properly ventilated home increase the IAQ dramatically – using bath fans, range hoods and other ventilation fans. That takes care of getting the bad air out of the home but you also want to bring fresh air into the home. When keeping a window or door open is not an option, a mechanical solution might be the answer. A product like the Air King QFAM provides a flow of filtered air into the home and can be set to account for humidity levels and temperature of the air coming in. Products like the QFAM can be installed in a non-intrusive location of the home and provide the fresh air that you need.

To learn more about IAQ and Air King’s solutions, visit www.airkinglimited.com