How An AC Repair Technician Can Help Improve Indoor Air Quality | Fort Worth, TX
An air conditioning system serves your home in different ways. It ensures a perfectly cooled home to your liking, promoting comfort. Additionally, it removes moisture from the air to ensure that your indoor settings have a perfect humidity level. This critical appliance is a savior whenever the summer season kicks in. The net effect of a cooled home with perfect humidity is high IAQ.
Whenever you are outside, there isn’t much you can do to regulate the temperatures besides sitting under a shade. Even then, the dust carried by the winds pollutes the outdoor air. But did you know that sometimes the outdoor air is cleaner than the indoor? Therefore, your air conditioning system should operate optimally to ensure your Fort Worth, TX home has high IAQ.
However, this IAQ has many threats, as we shall discuss below. Fortunately, there are many measures that you can take to ensure that your indoor air is of the perfect quality. Remember inhaling contaminated air could lead to various infections and discomforts. Therefore, if your air conditioner is not properly functioning, it is prudent to call an AC repair technician for an inspection and repair.
What Is Indoor Air Quality?
The EPA defines air quality through how it can affect your comfort and health if inhaled. If you are sitting at your home and coughing, experiencing asthma flare ups, or even sneezing, the air you inhale is probably contaminated. The air you breathe indoors, if not perfectly cleaned by your air conditioner, can cause various respiratory issues, which shouldn’t be the case. When last did you replace the air filter? If you cannot recall when you even cleaned the air ducts, you should immediately call an AC repair technician for a duct cleaning service and filter replacement. Your home should be a haven, meaning clean and free from any contaminants. Below are the common threats to IAQ.
Off-Gassing
Introducing new products at your home can lead to IAQ issues. Those manufactured products emit a variety of gasses. These harmful substances often dissipate and mix with your indoor air after a few days or hours. Unfortunately, off-gassing can continue for a minimum of five years, particularly with recently laid carpets. Unfortunately, there isn’t much your AC repair technician can do in this case other than maybe installing an air purifier. Hence, always choose a safe place to open your newly purchased products.
Volatile Organic Compounds
Smoke, aerosols, vapors, and gasses in your air supply are referred to as volatile organic compounds or VOCs, and they can be dangerous if consumed. Your Fort Worth, TX, home may include VOCs from various sources, including cleaning products, paint, cigarette smoke, cooking fumes, perfumes, and cosmetics. The long-term effects of VOC exposure on your health can be quite detrimental. Because of this, you should always take every precaution to keep VOCs as low as possible in your home. To keep your air clean and filter out as many volatile organic compounds as possible, have your reliable AC repair technician install a quality air filtration system or an air exchanger in your home. Remember, although volatile organic compounds might at times amount to just some nasty smells, they can, at times, indicate the presence of various toxic gasses. Therefore, never hesitate to contact your reliable AC repair technician whenever you detect them at home. Better to be safe than sorry.
Excessive Moisture
Your home shouldn’t have excessive moisture for any extensive period. One of the functions of an air conditioning system is to eliminate moisture from the air. If your AC is on, but the moisture levels are still high, something is up with your AC. You should immediately contact your reliable AC repair technician for further inspection. Although you cannot see them, excessive moisture enables spores that generate microbial, bacteria, mold, and other live allergens to grow and breed on your surfaces. You might even breathe air with bacteria or mold floating on it since it can grow inside your air conditioning system. This is why having a routine air conditioning service is paramount. The technician will remove any mold growing in the ducts or on your filters, ensuring you have high IAQ.
Biological Contaminants
Biological contaminants are any microbes such as viruses, bacteria, or fungi that could dissolve in your indoor air. These microbes are pathogenic and should be avoided by all means possible. Have you noticed black spots on your air conditioner’s vents or some musty smell? If you have, you should immediately call an AC repair technician for a duct cleaning service. The smell indicates mold is growing in your air ducts or filters and could cause serious consequences if inhaled.
To emphasize, it is crucial to take all necessary steps to safeguard your health and those of your loved ones in the circumstances we currently find ourselves in. Therefore, you should have an AC repair technician install an Ozone or UV air sanitizer in your home to reduce VOCs. These devices are made to eliminate a wide range of germs and viruses. Installing a UV & Ozone sanitizer immediately is highly recommended if your home is home to any elderly, young children, or immunocompromised persons.
Household Disinfectants and Cleaners
Today’s household disinfectants and cleaners are created with greater environmental consideration. However, many still contain compounds that produce overpowering odors. There is an adverse impact on the interior air quality if odors from these products are released into your home. The best thing you can do after cleaning is to leave a window open until the home has had a chance to air out and most of the scent has subsided. Breathing the chemicals in long bursts is dangerous for your lungs and should be avoided. Additionally, have an AC repair technician install an air purifier and change your Fort Worth, TX, home’s air filters with those having higher efficiency.
Smoke
Smoke is probably one of the most common and serious threats to your IAQ. It even kills. Are you a smoker? At least smoke your cigars outside. The smoke from the cigarette gets pulled by your air conditioning system and settles on the filters and air ducts, meaning your unit will be blowing smelly air even when you aren’t smoking. A routine air duct cleaning service by a professional AC repair technician should be done regularly, especially if you have a smoker at home.
How Can You Improve the IAQ?
Regularly Changing Your Air Filters
To ensure that air pollutants like dust, pollen, and pet dander do not enter your air ducts, your air conditioning system has a washable or disposable air filter. The air filter is fitted on the right of your air handler or in your unit’s cold air returns. You must replace the air filters frequently or clean them as it helps extend the service life of your air conditioner and greatly improves your IAQ. If the filters are clogged, they starve your system of air.
Therefore, you might notice a reduction in your unit’s cooling capability. You also may notice stuffy or stale air. Additionally, have your air ducts cleaned by an AC repair technician to ensure you have high IAQ.
Installing a Dehumidifier
Although your air conditioner also removes humidity from the air, you can have your reliable AC repair technician install a dehumidifier at your home. Some modern thermostats display your home’s temperature and humidity levels. Monitoring the humidity in a climate like that of Fort Worth, TX, is a good approach to ensure you aren’t promoting the growth of mold and dust mites. Besides reducing indoor pollen levels, balanced humidity improves filter performance. Therefore, you should strive for a humidity level between 40% and 60% in your home. Do you think your air conditioner doesn’t remove enough humidity from the air? If so, having an in-line dehumidifier installed by an expert can help deal with the constant summer humidity.
Installing Smart Thermostat
Do you usually forget to replace the air filters on your air conditioning system or even check the humidity levels at your home? Then you could benefit from having an AC repair technician install a smart thermostat that can do much more for you. These gadgets can maintain your home’s temperature at a pleasant level all day and the appropriate relative humidity level of around 40%. To ensure that you never forget to replace the air filter again, several models also offer reminders each one to three months. An automatic reminder is helpful because changing your air filter is among the simplest and most efficient ways to enhance the IAQ in your house.
Zoning Systems
Is your home on the larger side? Or have you added another room or a whole wing? Then your normal heating and air conditioning system might not be able to provide the required level of cooling or air quality. Hence, an AC repair technician should replace your existing air conditioning system. Remember, conventional HVAC systems struggle to maintain a constant/consistent temperature in larger rooms, especially those on the lower or upper levels. But replacing an air conditioner isn’t a cheap undertaking. Are there other solutions?
Yes, your AC repair technician might advise that you install a zoned system. The technician can retrofit your existing air conditioning system to a zoned one for better cooling the additional rooms. They will add several dampers in the air ducts and connect them to a central AC circuit board. The professional will also install a separate thermostat for every zone to ensure that you can control the indoor temperatures and air quality distinctively in every part of your home.
Zoning systems are not only to be used in large homes. Do some parts of your Fort Worth, TX, home appear too humid or hotter than others? Then installing a zoned system could be a great solution. This is also perfect for storied houses. Because zoned systems target improving comfort and air quality at your home where it is most needed, you get to save a fortune on energy utility bills.
Installing an Air Purifier
In some homes, an air filter does not do enough to remove the pollutants in the air. If you live in such a home, you should have your AC repair technician install an air purifier. Whole-house air purifiers can work alongside your air conditioning system to purify and clean the air whenever your HVAC system cycles. High-end, modern air purifiers can remove over 95% of the contaminants such as pet dander, pollen, cigar smoke, mold, and dust particles from the air. Some air purifiers can kill or trap common viruses, substantially improving your IAQ and health.
Energy Recovery Ventilator
An experienced AC repair technician understands that stale air can make your home uncomfortable. They know that smelling bad, old, and stale smells can also induce sickness in you or your family. Buying an energy-recovery ventilator might be a good idea if the air in your house never smells fresh. This HVAC accessory puts a lot of effort into removing stale air from your Fort Worth, TX, home while continuously bringing in fresh air. The equipment uses the energy from emitted air to precondition the entering air, reducing the strain on your HVAC system. This makes it possible for your energy recovery ventilator to maintain clean air in your house without using energy.
Maintaining the AC
Regular HVAC maintenance from your AC repair technician is another measure you can take to improve IAQ. They will clean the air ducts, replace the filters, and fix the damaged parts to ensure that the unit optimally works to remove the humidity, trap the contaminants, and cool your home.
As can be seen, there are many measures that an AC repair technician can take to enhance your IAQ. Are you suffering from the above threats to IAQ at your Fort Worth, TX home? Contact us at One Hour Air Conditioning & Heating of Fort Worth today.