Clean Air In Buildings Challenge

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently launched the Clean Air in Building Challenge. As per the EPA: “The Clean Air in Buildings Challenge is a call to action and a set of guiding principles and best practices to assist building owners and operators with reducing risks from airborne viruses and other contaminants indoors.” So what does the clean air in buildings challenge involve? It is broken down into four steps.

Create an Action Plan. Do you know what your current indoor air quality is? A general understanding of how your HVAC is functioning is a vital part of this. Is your HVAC system bringing fresh air into the system or is it just re-circulating existing air? What type of filter(s) is installed and are they able to capture particles that could cause harm or the spread of viruses? As a general rule you will need a MERV 13 filter or better if your system can handle it. Do you have a maintenance plan to make sure the system as well as the filter(s) is checked regularly? This can be a contract with an outside service company or your own maintenance manager. Is the air flowing in a way that maximizes the delivery and ventilation in each room? This can be a little tricky to determine and you might need to enlist the help of a HVAC professional.

Side note: While this challenge from the EPA is directed at buildings almost all of these principles can be applied to residential homes as well.

Optimize Fresh Air and Ventilation. Making sure there is a proper amount of fresh air coming into the building has been proven to increase the indoor air quality. There are many ways to accomplish this. Something simple like opening doors and windows is a quick and easy way. The downside to this is you do not have a lot of control over the amount or quality of air coming in as well as the temperature. You could be bringing in things like pollen (rural areas) or carbon dioxide from cars (urban settings). A mechanical fresh air intake that has filtration might be your best option. In addition to fresh air coming in, you need to ensure the “bad” air is being ventilated out. The best way to solve for this is utilizing exhaust fans. Most people think of exhaust fans or bathroom fans as items that run on an as needed basis such as when a bathroom is in use. While this is correct research has shown that they should actually be running continuously when the building or home is occupied and in most cases a few hours before and after occupation. Organizations such as ASHRAE have set standards for building and home on how much and how long an exhaust fan should be operating. They refer to it as whole house or continuous ventilation. 

Enhance Air Filtration. We touched on this earlier with the HVAC filters. This can get a little tricky. You first need to determine what the highest rated filter you can use in your system is while still maintaining proper air movement though the system. Using too high a filter can also cause extra stress on the system shorting the lifespan. If your system can handle it, MERV 13 or higher are best and will remove almost all of the “bad” stuff. Items such as portable air cleaners can also be effective as a supplement. When choosing an air cleaner make sure it can handle the size of the room. In some cases multiple units might be needed. Although we are talking about filtration in this section it should also be mentioned that in high emission areas such as music rooms in schools, meeting rooms or gyms, adding extra ventilation and increasing the fresh air intake to those rooms along with filtration will be your best way to ensure the IAQ.

Community Engagement and Participation. It takes a commitment from everyone to make it work. Communicating with occupants can be a very effective way of ensuring everyone is doing their part. Hosting walkthroughs of the building as well as explaining the what, why and where helps everyone understand. It also engages everyone, allowing them to provide feedback and help identify items or systems that might not be functioning properly or could use improvement.

To learn more about the EPA’s Clean Air In Buildings Challenge visit www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/clean-air-buildings-challenge

For information about fresh air or ventilation solutions visit the Air King website at airkinglimited.com. Also be sure to visit Lasko’s website to view the current air purifier options available including the Air Flex™ Air Purifier and Room Fan.

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’s Your Strategy For Fighting COVID?

We all wish there was a simple solution to fighting COVID as we are all about worn out. Unfortunately COVID is still here and while we have learned a lot, we are still not there yet. One issue is we need to look at fighting COVID as multiple layers rather than a “magic bullet”. What we mean is that just getting vaccinated or just wearing a mask isn’t going to fully protect you.

Think of it like walking in the rain. If you just go outside in the rain without any protection, you are going to get wet. If you try the good old newspaper over the head trick, you might keep the top of your head dry but the rest of you will be wet. Now add an umbrella and possibly your top half will stay dry. Next add a full-length rain jacket and you might keep your pants dry. Put on some rain boots and you are about as fully protected as you can get. Using all these items together gives you the best chance of staying dry.

We should be looking at COVID in the same manner. Being vaccinated is one layer of protection but it is not 100% full proof as we are currently seeing across the United States and the World. Wearing a mask as well as social distancing and limiting gatherings helps but is also not 100% full proof.

Now, we want to take a second and say, we are not here to debate vaccines, masks and so forth. We know this is a hot topic and our goal is to help everyone see how all these things can work together then leave the decision up to you.

Going back to our walking in the rain analogy. The umbrella might be a mask and the rain jacket might be a vaccination so what are the rain boots? Ventilation and filtration. Here is an earth shattering revelation. It is really hard to be infected with COVID if it is not present. We know – mind blowing. If we are able to remove the virus through proper ventilation while bringing in fresh filtered air, we just might be able to get ahead of this. While there has been debate as to if we should call COVID an airborne virus or not, almost everyone agrees that it is able to hang in the air for a considerably longer time than other viruses like the Flu. If that air is not moving, being exchanged or filtered then you have increased the chances of infection. 

Adding exhaust fans, fresh air intake and filtration greatly decreases that risk. While we believe proper ventilation is a key factor in fighting COVID as with the other methods, it is not full proof. However, when you add it to a full strategy it provides a pivotal layer. At some point (and hopefully very soon) we will move past COVID but a good ventilation strategy will be one that will benefit your overall health for the long term in many ways.

To learn more about Air King’s Total Home Ventilation System as well as the products to help increase your indoor air quality visit airkinglimited.com/total-home-ventilation.

CO2 Monitoring and Your Indoor Air Quality

You read the latest news headline that “If you are not CO2 monitoring the air inside your house you are putting your entire family at risk!” then the next article reads, “CO2 monitoring is a hoax!” So that makes it fairly clear on what to do – right. In this post we are going to try and find the common ground.

First, what is CO2 monitoring? CO2 or Carbon Dioxide is what we exhale. A lot of people confuse it with Carbon Monoxide, which is what cars produce. CO2 monitors come in many shapes, sizes and price points but all function in basically the same way. The monitor takes readings of the room and displays the CO2 level of the room in parts per million (PPM). The recommended level inside a home or office should be under 1,000 ppm. Now before you run out and get a CO2 monitor, take a reading in your home and freak out because it is over 1,000, we have more for you to read.

Next, why should I monitor the CO2 level? Many people feel that monitoring the CO2 level will give you a direct reading on what the indoor air quality (IAQ) of the home is. This is not untrue but there are a lot of caveats to it. The principle behind CO2 monitoring is that it will give you an indication of the ability of your home to exchange the air, moving bad things like CO2 and other pollutants out of the home. If you have high levels of CO2 it probably means you have poor ventilation and not enough fresh air coming into the home. You will have a constant flow of CO2 in your home from people breathing. This is going to be elevated depending on how many people live in the home as well as if you host and guests.

Okay, sounds fairly straightforward that every home or office should have a CO2 monitor. While we agree that it would be helpful, this is where we get into the caveats. CO2 is only one of many contaminates in your home. While monitoring the levels is helpful, it is not a be all end all for the IAQ of the home. There are a ton of other contaminates that you also need to be aware of – mold, viruses and pollutants produced from cooking to name just a few. The other issue with monitoring is where you place the monitor. If you place the monitor in the middle of the dining room table as the entire family sits down for a meal, the levels are going to skyrocket. This is because everyone will be breathing directly on the monitor. Conversely if you place it in a closet that is cut off from everything, the levels will probably be very low. Both these scenarios are going to produce inaccurate results.

So now we are back to why would I want to monitor the CO2 when I can’t trust the results? One of the main reasons CO2 monitoring has gained popularity is that it is one of the few indicators for risk of exposure to COVID. Lets make one thing very clear – CO2 monitors do NOT detect COVID in the air. The theory (and we think it is a sound one) is that when dealing with an airborne virus or at least one where the main form of transmission is through the air, you can detect how much air has been exhaled by the level of CO2 in the room. Put another way, if the virus is transmitted from people exhaling, the CO2 level will determine how much air has been exhaled. The other thing we know about viruses is if they are not exhausted or diluted the chanced of transmission increases as more air is exhaled into the room. All of this assumes that someone in the room is a carrier of a virus.

Still not sue about a CO2 monitor. It’s okay, the debate is far from over. CO2 monitors can be a helpful tool but are not going to be the magical solution to your indoor air quality issues. As a matter of fact, they will do nothing to solve IAQ issues. At best they will just let you know you have issues. The route of the problem is how to make sure you don’t have CO2 build-up in your home or office. The good news is that there are very simple answers.

Proper ventilation and a source of fresh air are going to be your best solutions. If you have a CO2 monitor and want to demonstrate this, take a reading inside your car. Next drive in your car with the windows up and no air conditioning or the heat on for about five to ten minutes (like on your way to work or the store) and watch the CO2 level increase significantly. Now open the windows and watch it drop almost instantly. What happens is when you are in your car without any air coming in or going out there is nowhere for the CO2 to go. Once you open the windows, it is quickly exhausted out and fresh air comes in to dilute the level. You are still exhaling the same amount of CO2 just now it is being mitigated. The same principles hold true in your home. Having properly installed and functioning exhaust fans as well as a fresh air source will make your home or office a better place to live or work in. Air King has introduced the Total Home Ventilation System aimed at providing proper ventilation throughout the living space by viewing it as a whole and not as individual pieces. See it in action at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbzdzT5CabY

Lets sum all this up. Even with their limitations, CO2 monitors can be an effective tool in determining the level of ventilation and fresh air of a space. They can also be effective at gauging the risk level of a room, especially in a more corporate setting. Using the information gained from the results of the monitor as a piece of the puzzle can help formulate an action plan on how to increase the overall IAQ of the area.

To learn more about ventilation and fresh air solutions visit the exhaust fan, range hood and fresh air sections of the Air King website or view the Air King YouTube channel.

You’re looking to buy a new home. You take a tour and see the bedrooms, the type of flooring and so on. Now you turn the corner into the kitchen and before you even notice the cabinets, flooring and colors you are looking to see if it is a gas or electric cooktop. For some it is gas or nothing. For others electric is fine and now for a handful of people it has to be induction. While this might not be a deal breaker, buyers definitely have strong opinions on the type of cooktop in the home. The type of cooktop can also have a direct effect on the indoor air quality of the home. Matching the ventilation and cooktop is an important consideration. Let's take a look at each of these.

Gas Cooktops
Gas cooktops utilize natural gas or propane to power the burners. An open flame provides almost instant heat allowing pots and pans to heat up very quickly. For this reason it is the preferred method for cooks and chefs. While the cooking benefits are good, it produces a lot more contaminates than electric or induction cooking. If you stop and think about it – you are starting a fire, all be it a controlled one, in the middle of the kitchen. That is going to produce all kinds of contaminates and in large quantities. To properly ventilate the area, you need a more powerful range hood, probably something in the 300 to 600 CFM (cubic feet per minute) range and one that vents to the outside. With the hood removing that much air, you might need to consider how to make that air up depending on how tight the home is (you can read more about tight homes here). In some cities like San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, New York and more, they have either banned gas appliances or there is legislation to do so in the coming years. If this becomes a nation-wide movement the need for more powerful range hoods might be decreased.

Electric Cooktops
Electric cooktops are more common and utilize an element that heats up when current is passed through it. That in turn heats the pot or pan. Electric cooktops are generally less expensive than gas and are easier to install, especially if there isn’t already a gas line to the house. The negative to electric cooktops is the time it takes to heat a pan or especially boil water. For a large pot you might need to start on Monday so it is boiling by Wednesday – okay that might be an exaggeration but you get the point. While electric cooktops still produce contaminates during the cooking process, it is at a reduced rate when compared to gas cooking. Therefore a less powerful range hood can be used, something in the 150 to 300 CFM range. Even with the lower CFM it is still highly recommended that it be exhausted to the outdoors. Unfortunately a hood that the air passes through a filter and then recirculates back into the kitchen is not effective and the indoor air quality of the home will suffer.

Induction Cooktops
This is a new technology that is quickly gaining steam (yes – pun intended). Electric induction cooking utilizes magnets to heat the pot or pan so the cooking surface stays relatively cool. There are some real technical things going on with terms that you need to look up in a dictionary, so for our purposes we will just go with it heats the pan and not the surface. Because it is heating the pan directly, it is the most efficient way to cook as almost all the energy is going directly to the cooking process. With gas and standard electric cooktops, a lot of the energy is lost in the heat transfer. The challenge with using induction cooking is your pots and pans must be magnetic otherwise they won’t work and since this is a newer technology, the price of induction cooktops is still very high. From a ventilation standpoint, they are very similar to standard electric cooktops. Because there is not a lot of wasted energy causing contaminates so a lower CFM range hood can be used. The other benefit is with electric and especially gas cooktops, the residual heat and contaminates being generated can last a lot long than with an induction cooktop.

Summary
In looking at all these technologies, it is important that your kitchen is properly ventilated. How much ventilation depends on the type of cooktop you have as well as how you utilize it. Matching the ventilation and cooktop is an important step as a gas cooktop is going to require a higher CFM range hood while an electric or induction cooktop will require less. Your style of cooking will also factor in. If you are cooking for 20 people every night using all the burners your ventilation needs will be different than someone who is just cooking for themselves.

For more information about matching your ventilation and cooktop as well as Air King range hoods visit the Range Hood section of the Air King website.