Winter brings with it more comfort challenges in a home than just ensuring everybody stays warm when the temperatures outside dive. Indoor air quality can become a serious issue because a home is frequently sealed off against the outdoor air to prevent heat from escaping. A sealed-up house will begin to develop stale, dry, and contaminant-filled air.
There are ways to boost indoor air quality during the winter that don’t require you to throw open the doors and windows and allow the outside chill to gust through the rooms while it’s freshening the air. Below are a few of the indoor air quality solutions we can offer you for a more comfortable, healthier winter.
A Whole-House Humidifier
Low humidity most often occurs in Staten Island during the winter, when the cold weather removes moisture from the air. When relative humidity drops below 30%, a house will feel colder than it is (because heat is more easily escaping from your body) and it will be easier for flus and colds to spread from person to person. A portable humidifier is only an option for a single room, and these units aren’t easy to control. We can install a whole-house humidifier to help you balance humidity in all the rooms.
A Heat or Energy Recovery Ventilator
We mentioned above how opening up the windows and doors of your house will help freshen the air, but the resulting loss of heat means discomfort. You can keep the heating system running full blast to try to counter the loss of heat, but that’s a huge waste of energy. To get around this dilemma, there are installation called energy recovery ventilators and heat recovery ventilators (ERVs and HRVs). These units draw in fresh currents of outdoor air and then use the warm air indoors to heat it up before it enters the house, thus maintaining comfort and keeping the heater from working too hard. This “recovers” the energy used to heat the indoor air in the first place and uses it for the incoming fresh air. (They also operate in the reverse during hot weather; you’re covered all year round.) We can help you choose between and HRV and ERV and install the right unit for your needs.
A UV Air Purifier
Winter is the time when illnesses are most likely to become problems in a household. Nobody wants to deal with a bad cold or a nasty case of the flu during winter, but this is the season when they’re likely to strike. You can prevent the spread of germs and viruses around your home thanks to a UV air purifier placed into the HVAC system. This purifier uses ultraviolet rays from lamps to kill harmful microbes without placing any chemicals into the air. Aside from feeling better during winter, you won’t even notice the UV air purifier is at work.
We’re an HVAC contractor in Staten Island, NY who can handle your indoor air quality issues. We install and service all of the above IAQ solutions. Contact us today to learn more.
Bob Mims Heating & Air Conditioning: Serving Staten Island’s Heating and A/C needs since 1955.
