How a Broken Furnace Can Contaminate Your In-Home Air

When we think about a broken furnace, we often think about it in the sense that the furnace is not working at all or as well it could be in order to heat your home fully. Certainly, this is a problem on colder nights; but a "broken" furnace doesn't always mean it isn't functioning, and not realizing that your furnace could be broken and still functioning could be letting dangerous pollution into your home.

Often, pollution from the furnace doesn't come from a problem, but rather a lack of maintenance. Every year, you should have a maintenance technician out to your home so that they can check the furnace and ductwork. As homes are typically not well ventilated during the winter, to keep out the cold; dust, carbon, and other contaminants often stick around. Said contaminates are blown and settle into the air or carpeting, thus affecting the overall air quality in your home. Much of the time, simply changing the air filter can prevent a lot of contaminants from entering the home. However, if you have breeches in the ductwork, then an air filter may not completely stop pollutants until that breach is fixed.

Of course, the major worry about a furnace polluting your air is the silent killer – carbon monoxide. Usually, the appliance functions to keep this out of the home, but one crack in the heat exchanger or the combustion chamber and it can enter the system, and then enter your home. Therefore, it is so crucial to have your furnace inspected every year or at least have a carbon monoxide detector installed in your home to catch a problem before it becomes deadly. While these issues can be costly to repair, they can prevent something devastating from happening. Your air quality could make your family sick, but carbon monoxide is on another level of danger.

If you want cleaner and healthier indoor air then please do not hesitate to contact us here at Kent Heating and Air Conditioning, Inc. - we're here to help!

The Importance of Indoor Air Quality

You may not be aware that the air in your home is even more polluted than the air outside! Dust, mold, and other allergens can get trapped inside your HVAC system and home and negatively affect its indoor air quality, leading to health concerns and overall discomfort. Thankfully, there are many ways in which you can improve the indoor air quality of your home. Continue reading this blog post to learn more about the importance of indoor air quality.

Indoor air quality can be affected by many different pollutants, including, dust, dirt, pet hair and dander, mold, as well as many others. Even when your home is kept squeaky clean, pollutants in the air can affect the health and comfort of your home or building occupants.

Some effects can be felt immediately or after only short-term exposure to poor indoor air quality, such as itchy eyes, irritation of the nose and throat, headaches, dizziness, and fatigue. For allergy or asthma sufferers, babies and toddlers, as well as elderly members of your family, these symptoms and health effects can be exasperated when exposed to poor indoor air quality.

If not properly addressed, long-term exposure to poor indoor air quality can result in respiratory diseases, heart disease, and cancer. These kinds of medical conditions can prove to be very severe and in some cases fatal.

If you are concerned about the indoor air quality of your home, or have been experiencing cold or flu-like symptoms inside of your house there are many steps you can take towards improving the indoor air quality:

• Invest in an in-home air filtration system. An HVAC professional can provide more information about the latest products on the market.

• Open windows for 10 to 15 minutes everyday (weather permitting).

• Ensure that your home is cleaned on a regular basis - this includes having air filters cleaned or replaced, ducts and vents cleaned, as well as the area around your HVAC unit.

• Add an air-filtering plant to your home. Plants such as English Ivy, Peace Lily, and Chrysanthemum all have air-filtering properties, and add a little life to your home!

• Keep your home at a low-level of humidity. This can be achieved through the use of a humidifier or dehumidifier.

For more information on indoor air quality, or to request an estimate for an air filtration system, we encourage you to visit our website.