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.

A Tight Home Versus Proper Ventilation

When you think of age-old rivalries or battles your mind might go to sports teams or one state versus another but it probably doesn’t go to tight home versus proper ventilation one. That’s understandable, but in the building world it is one that is gaining traction. Let's first look at each side of the battle and get a working knowledge of them.

A Tight Home

A tight home refers to how well the exterior envelope of the home is resistant to air penetration. The tighter the home, the less air it lets in or out. Most people refer to air penetration as “drafts”. In some homes you can feel the cold air in the wintertime seeping into the home. That would not be a tight house. Building technology has come a long way and with the advent of spray foam, house wraps and so forth homes are a lot tighter than they used to be. The reason a tight house is beneficial is that it will hold the warm air inside during the winter and the cool air inside during the summer. This has a direct impact by reducing the heating and cooling costs. Seems like a simple solution and we can end the article here. Well there are some downsides to a tight home. We’ll get to them a little later.

Proper Ventilation

Proper ventilation contributes to the overall indoor air quality of your home. In simple terms it is taking the bad air and contaminates out of the home and replacing it with fresh and/or filtered air. This is accomplished using items like exhaust fans, kitchen range hoods and a fresh air supply unit. So what’s the problem and how is this a battle with a tight home?

The Battle

The battle comes in that homes are being built to do everything they can to not allow air to enter or leave the home. Exhaust fans and fresh air intake are meant to do exactly that. On the tight home side of things, the argument is that you are taking conditioned air and exhausting it out. The same with bringing air into the home, causing extra stress on the HVAC system. This is a valid point, however we need to examine it a bit closer. 

Studies have found that the air inside a home can be up to 5 times more polluted than outside air. How does it get so polluted? Our normal living produces a lot of contaminants. Just think of your typical day. You wake up and take a shower. The shower produces moisture that if left unresolved can turn into mildew or mold. Then you go to the kitchen for breakfast and your morning coffee. Guess what cooking and making coffee does – yep, produces contaminates. Oh and by the way, unless you are holding your breath during all this, breathing produces CO2 that can build up in your home. We are barely alive and haven’t even gotten out of our pajamas (might be a slight exaggeration). Add in pets, cleaners, candles and a hundred more things and you can see how the air can become so polluted.

The solution

So we don’t want to exhaust conditioned air out or bring unconditioned air in, but we also need to get all the bad things out of the house. So what do we do? Here is where we try to make sense of everything. The energy efficiency side is always going to argue for less and the indoor air quality side is always going to argue for more. What we need to strive for is a balance. For most homes, as little as 30 to 50 CFM of exhaust during normal activity is all that is needed. When a shower or the cooktop is in use – a bit more is needed. The key to all of this is that when you utilize mechanical solutions (exhaust fans and air intake units) you are in control. You determine how much, when and where the air comes in or leaves. So instead of annoying drafts, you can direct the air how you want it.

Another way to counteract the energy usage is to utilize energy efficient exhaust fans and air intake units. There are a plenty of models currently on the market that will meet the air movement needed and fit within the budget.

Hopefully this gives you a better understanding of the balance between good indoor air quality and energy efficiency. So the next time you are tempted to not utilize your exhaust fans because you’re worried about “wasting” energy, remember that your indoor air quality is also very important.

For more information about indoor air quality please read through the many blog post Air King has created over the years. For more information about exhaust fans, range hoods or fresh air intake, visit airkiinglimiited.com

How Does ENERGY STAR® Certified Ventilation Help?

For the most part almost everyone in the United States has at least seen the ENERGY STAR® logo and many understand what it signifies. Many people however only think that certification is for things like TVs, computers and appliances. While they are some of the more “big ticket” items, there are many categories of products that can earn certification including ENERGY STAR® certified ventilation.

So what sets certified ventilation apart from typical products? Here are a few of the main items. ENERGY STAR® certified ventilation must perform at a higher efficiency than standard ventilation solutions. Efficiency is measured by taking the amount of air the unit moves (measured in CFM – cubic feet per minute) and dividing that by the amount of energy (Watts) needed to operate the unit. To put this in perspective a standard low end or entry-level exhaust fan operates at about 1 watt per CFM or worse. In contrast a certified unit has to operate at a minimum of 2.8 CFM per watt with some units exceeding that and operating as high as 19 CFM per watt.

A second way ENERGY STAR® certified ventilation products stand out is they are required to offer a longer warranty. While this might not sound like a big deal, it actually is. With a longer warranty, there is more peace of mind that that product is going to last a lot longer and is constructed of high quality parts. In the case of ventilation products that typically means a better motor.

For units that have a light feature, which include some exhaust fans as well as most range hoods, the light bulb must be included or integrated with the unit and it must be a certified LED bulb. The lighting in these units can sometimes be the biggest energy draw of the unit. For instance changing from a 60-watt incandescent light bulb to an equivalent 8 watt LED is saving approximately 52 watts.

Lastly, and this one might seem a little out of the ordinary is that there are sound restrictions on the units. For most units, they must operate at or below 2 sones. Sones are the unit of measurement for sound in ventilation products. We have explained sones in some of our previous posts but basically 1 sone is the sound your refrigerator makes and 4 sones is about the sound of a typical conversation.

When you put all this together, it is hopefully clear that ENERGY STAR® certified ventilation is going to be a much better product than a standard one. For more information regarding ENERGY STAR® certified ventilation solutions from Air King including exhaust fans, range hoods and fresh air intake, please visit airkinglimited.com. For more information about ENERGY STAR®, please visit energystar.gov.

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.

Want to Save Energy and a Few Dollars?

Now that we are in the heart of the summer almost all of us are seeing those energy bills skyrocket upwards. So how do we save energy without spending a ton of money to do so? Thankfully there are a few easy and cost effective things we can do that are little to no cost.

Windows

While replacing older windows with ENERGY STAR certified ones is a great way to save money, it can be really expensive. A simple way to help is to utilize curtains or shades. Make sure they are closed when the hot sun is out. This will help to deflect some of the heat coming in. This technique can also be utilized in the winter except you keep the curtains open to let the heat in instead of keeping it out. Best part about this is it cost no money (assuming you already have curtains or shades in place).

Thermostat

In the summer time raising the temperature a couple of degrees can have a big effect on your cooling costs. A great way to offset the higher temperature is to utilize a portable fan or your ceiling fans. While these fans do use energy it is significantly less that your HVAC unit. While portable fans won’t technically cool the room, the air movement makes it feel cooler (you can read our blog – Do Fans Cool for more info). If you already have the portable fans, this is an no cost way to save.

Exhaust

If you are in an area where the nighttime temperatures drop to a comfortable level, exhausting all of the hot air out of the home and replacing it with the cool outdoor air is a great options. The best option is if you have a window fan that is powerful enough to exhaust the entire home like the Air King 9166. You can either bring the cooler air in or exhaust the hot indoor air out. If you have a box fan or other type of fan, this can be utilized as well. ONE CAUTION – make sure the fan you are using is rated for use in a window and never use a fan if it is raining. Depending on if you have fans or not, this can be a no added cost option. If you do need to buy a fan, the prices can range from small to significant.

Water Heater

This might seem like an odd one but a majority of water heaters are not set correctly. Does your hot water get to a temperature that is so hot you can’t handle it? This probably means it is set too high and you are paying to over heat the water. If it is too hot, you can adjust the top temperature of the water heater, which will save you money. This might take some trial and error to get it right but it will be worth it in the end. Going away for a week? Turn the temperature down considerably so you are not heating water you will never use. NOTE: make sure to remember to turn the temperature back up when you return. Once again this is a zero cost to you item you can do.

Light Bulbs

This is one that we have suggested in many of our other blog posts but it still holds try. While there is a cost to this, it is worth it to replace any incandescent or fluorescent light bulbs with LED. LED bulbs use a fraction of the energy and in general last a lot longer.

These are just a few things that can save energy and save you money. We would love to hear your ideas.

To learn more about Air King air circulator fans including window fans use the menu bar at the top of the page. Also read through our other energy saving blog posts.

Am I Building Code Compliant?

For most of us when we hear the question asked; Am I building code compliant, the answer is I have no idea. Codes can get complicated even for building professionals. For most of the population, building codes are not something we need to deal with as we leave it to the professionals. With that being said, it is very helpful to have an understanding of the codes in your area. Building codes are broken down into basically three levels – National, State and then County or City. In order to keep this post to less than a billion pages (maybe a slight exaggeration) we are not going to list every code across the entire country. There are some great online resources that can guide you through the codes in your area. Sites like UpCodes can give you a quick overview.

So why is knowing if you are building code compliant important?

Building codes are in place for a reason. They are written and designed to help maximize things like safety, energy efficiency and so on. When building a home or with a major renovation there are multiple inspections that need to be passed. While most people classify these inspections into the “what a hassle” category, they are extremely important and in place for our own well being. Where things can go sideways is when it is a smaller job or one that does not require a permit. A “for instance” is an exhaust fan installation. Generally this is a project that does not require a permit and is a very popular do-it-yourself one. It might be replacing an old fan or installing a new one. The challenge is knowing if what you are doing complies with building codes in your area. Many states are now adopting new energy efficient standards when it comes to exhaust fans. So going into your local home improvement store and picking out whatever fan they have on the shelf might not match up with the code. While there are some expectations, most of the new codes for exhaust fans are written to ensure an ENERGY STAR® certified fan is being used. Having a basic understanding of the codes in your area can help with DIY projects as well as with conversations with your contractor if you are using one. It will hopefully give you a better understanding as to why they might be doing things a certain way or using different materials that what you expect.

So what should I do about codes?

Air King is always going to recommend that you consult a building professional to make sure you are fully covered and building code compliant. With that being said we don’t want to scare you off from completing the projects you want to do. Taking some time to so a little research in regards to the codes in your area could have a huge impact on keeping you compliant and safe. It can also be a big factor if you plan to sell your home. The last thing you want is for a home inspection during the sale process to reveal all the things that are not up to code.

While Air King can’t help with things like if you need an extra support beam or if you have enough outlets installed, we can help with your ventilation and fresh air intake. To learn more about energy efficient options that comply with most codes across the country visit airkinglimited.com and look for the ENERGY STAR® logo.

What is Air Exchanges Per Hour?

When talking about ventilation the term Air Exchanges Per Hour is probably going to come up, but what is it? The simple answer if how many times the air inside your home is replaced by either outside or filtered air per hour. Think of it this way – if you have a glass full of water and you pour it all out, then fill it back up with water you have exchanged the water in the glass one time. The same holds true with air but it is a little more difficult to see.

How is the air exchanged?

Air exchanges take place in one of three main ways.

Exhaust Fans: Exhaust fans are one of the most effective ways to exchange the air in your home. They take the stale indoor air and exhaust it to the outdoors allowing fresh air to replace it. National building codes now require a continuously running fan to be installed in all homes for this very reason.

HVAC system: Your HVAC system also helps provide air exchanges but there are some challenges with using this as the only method. The biggest one is that the system has to be running in order to provide air exchanges. You can set your system to just run the fan, but this is a very inefficient way to exchange air in your home. Another challenge is for this to be effective, the system needs to be drawing fresh air into the home or have filters installed that will take out the “bad” stuff. A good amount of HVAC systems do not draw fresh air in – you can check with your technician. As for the filters, most systems utilize a MERV 6 or MERV 8 filter. These are good for capturing dust and larger particles but when it comes to the stuff we are really trying to remove, they are not as effective. It is recommended that a MERV 13 or above be used, but not all HVAC systems can handle that (see our blog on Filters).

Natural exchange: It sounds so nice – Natural, but there are also some issues with this method. Most of the time this means opening a window or door and letting the air come in. If you have a nice breeze blowing on a moderate temperature day with good outdoor air quality (low pollen, smog, etc.) this is a good way to exchange the air. The big issue is you can’t control how much air is coming in or what is in the air. A second and significant issue it temperature, think Texas in the summer or Minnesota in the winter. Opening doors and windows probably is not an option.

Why are air exchanges important?

A key component to Indoor Air Quality is air exchanges. When we are not properly exchanging the air we allow all kings of contaminates to linger in the air. Think of a smoky bar room. Without any ventilation or air exchanges the smoke just lingers in the air. While hopefully our homes are not full of smoke, they are full of contaminates in the air caused by breathing, cooking, pets, and just general everyday living. Having a plan to continually remove these contaminates is key to better living. 

How many air exchanges per hour should take place?

This is where we come to the great debate. Home many air exchanges are needed, what is too little, what is too much. There is always a balance and as we learn more about our indoor air quality the numbers can change. As of this posting ASHRAE, who sets most of the building standards when it comes to indoor air quality recommends that a minimum of 0.35 air exchanges per hour occur in your home. Other organizations recommend up to 5 per hour. Our thought is that 5 per hour might be a bit extreme and will definitely have a negative effect on the efficiency of the home in that you have to condition all that air coming in to replace the air going out. With that being said, lets examine what 0.35 exchanges per hour looks like. For a 1,000 square foot home with 8-foot ceilings you have 8,000 cubic feet of space. Divide 8,000 by 60 (minutes) to get 133. Now times 133 by 0.35 to get 46.67. This is the amount of CFM you would need to provide the recommended air exchanges per hour. ASHRAE also provides a calculator that is a bit more involved to determine how much continuous ventilation your home needs. You can access the calculator on the Air King site by clicking here.

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. For information regarding Air King exhaust fan and fresh air intake solutions visit airkinglimited.com.