Warning: Is Your Home Properly Ventilated?

According to a 2009 EPA study, "Poor Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) has become the 4th greatest health risk Americans face today."

The first step to improving your home's IAQ is by ensuring that your home is properly ventilated. The results will be a more energy efficient home (lower utility bills), a more structurally sound home and improved health for your family. Let's first address the aspect of your healthy family.

Your Healthy Family
By properly ventilating your home you will turn unintended air movement into planned air movement. The greatest benefit for the family is that your indoor air will have a predetermined plan to escape, taking with it unwanted odors, excess humidity, mold spores, formaldehyde, small particles of pet dander, other dust particles and a myriad of gases produced by paint, varnishes and unnecessary, excess exhaust fumes (from dryers, cooking stoves and ovens, wood burning stoves, inefficient furnaces, etc.). Nearly all of these contaminants have been determined to be the cause more than 40% of child and elderly asthma and to have been the cause of or have prolonged the condition of the following:

• eye, throat and nose irritation
• sinus infections
• allergies
• insomnia
• depression
• ADD and ADHD
• fatigue
• upper respiratory infections
• intestinal disorders

Steps to Improving Your Home's IAQ

1. Physically remove the source causing the contamination. (mold remediation, clean your air ducts, shampoo carpets, sanitize food preparation areas, remove moldy wallpaper, place heavy mats at each entry door)
   
2. Exhaust the contaminated air around the source. (feed the contaminated air out and away from the house)
   
3. Dilute the contaminant with outdoor air. (open all windows and turn on ceiling fans, exhaust fans, attic fans, etc.)
   

Your Healthy Home
A poorly ventilated home will produce a myriad of structural challenges. Here is a list of questions to ask yourself as a homeowner:

• During the winter, is there condensation on the inside of my windows?
• During the winter do I have ice build-up on my roof? Does the snow melt quickly off my roof? (This is a bad thing...very bad.)
• During the summer, is there condensation on the outside of my windows?
• Is there mold growth in the attic on the underside of the roof?
• Is there paint pealing in any of my rooms?
• Is there mold and/or mildew growth in my bathrooms?
• Have I noticed mold in the corners of my basement walls?
• Is there mold growth on the back of any wall paper?
• Does my home feel drafty?
  

If you can answer "yes" to any 2 - 3 of these questions, you are strongly encouraged to have your home inspected by a professional ventilation/insulation contractor. Unnecessary moisture on the inside of your windows simply drips onto the sill which, in turn, creates mold, mildew and rot. (Have you checked the pricing for replacement windows these days? EEK!) A drafty home simply needs to be weatherized. (You'll start saving on cooling and heating bills immediately!) Mold growth in the attic on the back-side of the roof is a sign that the roof is too warm in the winter. (Check the R-rating of the attic insulation.)

Summer is a great time of year to address any structural challenges. Protect your investment and your family. A certified ventilation specialist can spot all of your structural challenges any time of the year by using many techniques such as blower-door tests, infrared camera scanning, smoke testing, contaminant surveys and several other methods.

If you are local to the Cleveland, Ohio area and you would like to have your home surveyed for proper ventilation and insulation, Call Leigh at The Comfort MD to set an appointment for a visit to your home. 216.663.9300

Otherwise, I'm just a phone call or an email away!

Pay a Little, Save A Lot

Once in a while we should pay for conservation. I think we would all agree that we can pay our auto mechanics a little bit once in a while for regular maintenance or pay for a major repair later. Service your air conditioner or heat pump regularly or you will end up uncomfortable and BROKE.

Your a/c unit or heat pump is a very durable piece of equipment. It has been designed to withstand major abuse and keep on working for you. The challenge we face is that this fine feat of engineering can lead to complacency regarding maintenance.

Without regular maintenance your unit loses 5% efficiency with each year of operation. This equates to a 12 SEER unit you purchase just a few years back operating like a 9 SEER unit! But you can recover this efficiency by conducting regular maintenance. It's not too late. Studies show that you can maintain 95% of your units efficiency with regular tune-ups. The cost of an annual tune-up can be recovered very quickly by saving on your electric bill and major repairs. This will also provide better de-humidification thus preventing the build-up of mold, mildew and other airborne particles. (Healthy Home)

The servicing of your unit should include the following:

• Cleaning the condensing unit coils
• Checking the amp draw of the compressor
• Oiling the fan motors
• Checking that belts are well adjusted
• Checking the units operating pressure and temperature according to manufacturers' specifications
• Checking the coolant level (freon) in the air conditioner. (A unit that is 10% low on coolant can cost about 20% more to operate. The Air Conditioning Contractors of America recommends that coolant levels be checked every year.)

There are other measures you can take to maintain efficiency that will be covered next time.

The Comfort MD offers special prices this time of year. They also offer specials on annual service contracts to ensure that you are reminded to perform maintenance on your heating and cooling units at the beginning of each cooling and heating season.

Call The Comfort MD for details and advice on how they can keep your home's respiratory system operating at maximum efficiency. 216.662.9300

The Conservationalist

The first step to going green is conserving energy. We have found that maintaining the efficiency of your airflow system and tightening up a home can save homeowners as much as 40% on their heating and cooling bills.

Let's consider that we buy a new car. Keep it waxed, gassed and insured. We feel great everyday when we strap in and charge into the day. Except this one morning when we pull out of the driveway late for a mandatory, morning meeting with the boss and all you hear is bzzzz-clunk-screeeeeeech...silence. A dead car at the most inopportune time. But that's what we get for not servicing our car for 60,000 miles!

So many homeowners take for granted that if they're cold they turn up the heat. And when they're hot they crank up the a/c. What many homeowners fail to realize is that every winter their heating system cruises 60,000 miles and another 60,000 in the summer. Many times without a tune up (or a clean and check). Protect your investment by investing in a reputable heating and cooling company to service your equipment twice per year; once in the fall and once in the spring. Throughout the rest of the year your maintenance is a simple filter change each month.

This is the 10% part of the 40% savings you can realize for less than $95 per season. Not to mention how much longer you are preserving your existing equipment.

The Comfort MD - 216.663.9300