Is Your Home Clean?

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Makes Particulate Matter So Harmful?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is Fresh Air Fresh?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.