air filters

Indoor Air Quality IAQ

Indoor Air Quality (IAQ)

Why should you keep your home's air clean?
Poor air quality can lead to poor health. Pollutants in your home's air can cause dizziness, headaches, nasal congestion and fatigue, plus it can aggravate allergies / asthma.

What causes indoor air problems?
Pollutants can come from many different sources inside the home. For instance carpeting, upholstery, cleaning chemicals, and plastics release chemicals into the air call volatile organic compounds. High temperature and humidity increase concentrations of mold and bacteria. Leakage or negative pressurized homes pull dust, dirt, and pollens into the home. Cooking orders, pet dander, dust mites, viruses, and fungi are constantly present in all home as a normal part of life.
Many studies have shown that as homes become tighter and more energy efficient, more contaminants can become trapped inside. Our homes air can be full of pollutants, including:
dust
pollen
animal dander and hair
dust mites
tobacco smoke
viruses
bacteria
The typical throwaway furnace filter only traps about 5 - 15% of these polluting particles.

When used properly, some or all of these products can help reduce or eliminate the effects of allergies.

Air-to-Air Exchangers- Often called HRV's (Heat Recovery Ventilators) or ERV's (Energy Recovery Ventilators), these devices bring in fresh, outdoor air without sacrificing comfort. They have a heat exchanger that transfers the energy, and in some cases, humidity from the outgoing, stale air to the incoming fresh air. They can be run on a timer, or thermostat.
Humidifiers - Without the proper humidity level, your home will not be as comfortable as it should be. In fact, many homes are drier in the winter then a desert! By adding humidity in the winter, many people are able to turn the temperature in the home down by 3-4 degrees, and be more comfortable.
Media air filters - Use disposable filters between MERV 10 and MERV 16. MERV is Minimum efficiency reporting value. A higher MERV offers more effective filtration. Media air filters trap particles as small as .01 microns. That means it will remove bacteria, pollen, plant spores, some viruses, smoke, animal dander, lint and dust from the air to improve the quality of the air you breathe, far outperforming the standard, throw away filters, These filters usually last 6 months to 1 year, and are very easy to service and actually cost less then buying 1" filters 3-4 times per year.
Ultraviolet lamps - Bring the power of natural sunlight into your home. Using the same process as natural sunlight, UV lights breakdown harmful bacteria, viruses, mold, fungi and other microscopic living organisms, common to many home's duct work. This same process has been used in hospital clean room for many years. The UV lites we install do not produce ozone.

HRV - Heat Recovery Ventilator

The Heat Recovery Ventilator puts fresh Aar bck where it belongs ...
in Your Home.

The average home should have at least .35 ACH (air changes per hour). An ACH of 1.0 means that air in the home is changed once per hour. Newer, high-efficiency homes generally have an ACH rating of less than .35, and many are as low as .05. That can lead to extremely poor indoor air quality. The Lennox heat recovery ventilator (HRV) provides a simple and economical way to freshen the air. Thanks to some clever engineering, the Lennox HRV is able to conserve energy from indoor conditioned air and transfer it to the outdoor air as it's brought into your home.

The Benefits

Whole-house air purification is integrated into your forced air heating and cooling system.
Allergy symptoms inside your home are relieved.
Neutralizes odors of pets, cooking, smoking, chemicals, paint, solvents, carpet, etc.
Allows you to enjoy the sweet smell of fresh air during the entire year.
Destroys micro- and macrorganisms such as spores, molds, mildews, fungi, bacteria, and viruses, and their associated odors.
Is registered as a class II medical device.
Is FDA approved.
Is CSA/NRTL approved and UL recognized.
Has no costly filters or chemicals to replace.

Combustion Air

Fuel burning appliances in your home need a reliable supply of outside air to work properly. This replacement air is commonly called "combustion air". Without enough combustion air your house can quickly become polluted with unhealthy gases. In general, combustion problems such as back-drafting of gasses occur when fuel-burning appliances demand more air than the house can supply through normal air leakage. you can easily check for combustion air by performing a simple draft hood test. The draft hood is an opening in the vent pipe just above the water heater or furnace flu. The test is done by holding a smoking object (incense stick) near the hood when the appliance is running; and watching to see if the smoke is drawn up the flue. If the smoke is blown away from the hood, combustion gases are not going up the flue, as they should. The Minnesota building code requires that all new homes being built or when revisions are made to fuel burning appliances in your home, that a combustion air duct that brings outside air directly to the heating system be installed.