Mold & Mildew in your home making you or your kids sick?
There are many reasons for mold and mildew to be in your air at home, and the health implications can be minor to severe. In the spring time as the snow melts its already in the air to begin with, but in your home all it takes is a small amount of moisture behind a basement wall, or under the carpet to make your basement almost unlivable, triggering all sorts of breathing complications. I myself struggle with this as an asthmatic, sometimes causing me to have to go to the hospital just so I can breathe and mine isn’t even severe.
Small kids and the elderly are the most susceptible to complications from indoor mold and mildew, and if the problem in your house is serious the first thing that should be done is to call a profession to have it cleaned properly. But if its minor or just started there are a few things that your HVAC contractor can do to help. But first things first, we need to remove anything in your home that is wet or even damp. Materials such as carpet, drywall and insulation are the obvious culprits. Then we treat your floors and the inside of the walls with a fungicide and allow everything to thoroughly dry out. Then its time to think about keeping the air clean and fresh.
While most new houses already have most of these features, it’s reasonably easy and inexpensive to add these systems into an older home. In new homes it is part of the building code to have what is called a primary exhaust system installed, but in the interest of saving money MOST contractors run these to a switch to be turned on and off manually, we can take this existing system and tie it into the furnace so that anytime the furnace is running the fan is exhausting stale air and bringing fresh air into your home. If you have issues with mold, mildew or even just a foul/stale smell in your home or basement, we can install a similar fan with nice looking modern intakes in strategic areas to exhaust this air, while installing a second air intake to replace stale air with fresh air. Other more intricate systems are call HRV’s or Heat Recovery Ventilators, these systems are designed to do exactly what I just explained, but they pass the already warm but stale air through a core, that also brings in fresh air, while keeping them completely separate, they pre warm the fresh air coming into the house saving energy while removing the stale and replacing it with nice clean fresh air.
Some people would have you believe that an expensive filter is the answer. While this is not exactly a bad plan, it cannot do anything with the stale air, and some of the disposable filters can be so restrictive that it can cause your furnace to over heat and go into a locked out setting which most of the time will cause you to have to call a professional to reset your furnace leading to an unnecessary bill. Electronic air cleaners are great at removing particulates from the air, but again, they do nothing about the stale air. Your best bet is to give us a call, we will send out a qualified service technician to take a look at you HVAC system, design a few different options for dealing with these problems and best of all, there’s absolutely no charge for this service.
At Red Deer Heating and AC we are firm believers that good heath starts with the air you breathe in your home. After all, you spend up to 2/3 of your life there. We have the knowledge, skills, and experience to design the best, most cost effective HVAC system to fit any budget. Please call us for your free estimate today, and start cleaning up that air in your home and relieving yourself of those pesky health issues and foul smells today.
