Category: Air Quality

During the month of August, we celebrate National Wellness Month. It’s a time to focus on and develop healthy habits to improve overall health, manage stress and prioritize self-care.

We hope you’ll take some time this August to focus on your health and to take some time for yourself. One easy way to do this is by improving the air quality in your home.

With this in mind, today we’re going to talk about the role that your HVAC system plays in your indoor air quality and ways that you can maintain or improve your indoor air quality.

How Your HVAC System Improves Air Quality

Did you know that your HVAC system plays an essential role in ensuring that your home’s air is safe to breathe?

We often appreciate the role that HVAC systems play in keeping our home comfortable but don’t fully appreciate the role they play in keeping us healthy.

It’s your HVAC system that keeps your home’s air free of dangerous pollutants, allergens and contaminants. Furthermore, it helps to prevent a number of diseases and illnesses.

Without this protection, our everyday lives and overall quality of life would look significantly different. Given its important role, you want to always ensure that your HVAC system is functioning properly and keeping your indoor air safe.

Focusing on Indoor Air Quality

One key way that you can maintain or improve indoor air quality is by regularly replacing air filters. The average air filter needs to be replaced every 45 to 90 days, yet it’s a good idea to check your filters monthly to ensure that they are clean and functioning properly.

Additionally, there are different types of filters to meet your air quality needs. The most common filter is a flat, fiberglass filter. These are easy and affordable to replace but don’t catch all particles.

In contrast, pleated filters are more expensive but catch more particles and can help family members that suffer from allergies. HEPA filters are the most effective at trapping all particles, but they also restrict airflow, which can make your HVAC system less efficient and can increase your utility bill.

Whatever type of air filters that you choose, just make sure that you check and clean them regularly as they play an important role in maintaining the air quality in your home.

Preparing your Home for Back to School

As you get your family ready to go back to school this August, make sure that you’re preparing your home for back to school too. School means your kids are exposed to more illnesses and germs.

One way to help protect them and their immune system is by keeping your home’s air safe and clean. As a result, August is the perfect time to prioritize your home’s indoor air quality.

Your HVAC system plays an integral role in your family’s comfort and health, so it’s always important to make sure that it’s functioning properly and safely. If you have any concerns about your HVAC system or your home’s air quality, call Chad’s AC Direct today at (334) 264-6464.

We all love the outdoors, especially with the warm weather finally returning to us and a bitterly cold winter behind us. Pretty soon, we’ll be able to have comfortable backyard barbecues, lovely evenings outside on the patio and have all the outdoor fun without bundling up in so many layers.

Even with that in mind, that doesn’t mean that we want everything that is outside to come inside our house, right? One example is that with all the flowers in bloom and the plants returning to life, there is lots of dust and pollen in the air.

Your home should be a sanctuary. However, those sensitive to seasonal allergies can tell you that that isn’t always the case. Even if you are not very allergic, poor air quality in your house can be causing you problems that you don’t even realize.

How Bad Indoor Air Quality Affects You

Remember all the dust and pollen in the air? Without a good air filtration system, all of those allergens can find their way into your house. This will make allergy sufferers miserable but it can impact everyone in some way.

Often, the presence of these allergens in your house will make you feel just a bit under the weather, kind of like having a minor cold. You may get headaches, feel a bit congested or just be a bit more tired than usual.

A lot of these symptoms can be chalked up to poor indoor air quality if you haven’t maintained your air filtration system. Even worse, a malfunctioning air filtration system can increase the number of viruses and bacteria in your house, making sickness spread more easily.

Fixing The Problem With an Air Filter

Normally, the biggest problem with indoor air quality is poorly maintaining the existing air filtration system. This can be pretty simple, just requiring regular changing of the filters themselves.

However, many homeowners greatly neglect this task. It is one of those things that is often out of sight, thus out of mind. Filters get changed at different frequencies, depending upon a few factors for your household.

If you have a lot of pets and people, you’ll want to change your filter every month of so. If you are single and not at home a lot, you can go with changing the filter just once or twice per year. If you aren’t sure about how often you should change your air filter, an expert at Chad’s AC Direct would be happy to help.

Clean Air Makes You Feel Better

Some of those subtle aggravations that you previously blamed on stress or a cold will go away with improved air quality. If you have allergies, you’ll find that your house becomes a safe place to recover from exposure to all the allergens, making it the comforting spot it was always meant to be.

However, feeling better won’t be the only positive effect. Maintaining your air filtration system can also save you money. Your HVAC system will run more smoothly and effectively, meaning its energy usage will decrease, saving you money.

Wear and tear will also decrease, meaning you are less likely to face a massive repair bill. Take a deep breath of clean air, it’s good for you and good for your wallet. When we are helping maintain air filtration systems, we can almost always tell when it’s been neglected. The dust cloud that comes out of a dirty filter has us woefully singing along to “Another One Bites The Dust.”

Maintaining your air filtration systems will keep all of this dust out of your house, meaning you won’t be the one breathing in the dust. If you are curious about maintaining or upgrading your air quality, call an expert at Chad’s AC Direct at (334) 264-6464 and we’ll be happy to help.

 
If you’re the type of homeowner that goes above and beyond to recycle and cut down on your environmental footprint, you may be missing a major opportunity in your home!

You change your air filter generally once a quarter - sometimes more if you have pets or allergies - and each time you do so you’re throwing those filters into a landfill.

While they have cardboard on the outside, the inner filtering section is sometimes made with fiberglass or wire mesh, which cannot be recycled.

With a simple upgrade to a washable, reusable, air filters, you could be making a major difference not only to your indoor air quality but also the environment. Read on to learn more about what you can be doing with your air filter usage.

What You Don’t Know About Traditional Air Filters

A major component of regular AC maintenance is air filter replacement. For most homeowners, the replacement filter used is your traditional cardboard bound filter.

While they look recyclable because of their paper and cardboard exterior, the additional materials are the problem. Many filters include materials like:

• Fiberglass.
• Plastics.
• Wire mesh.
• Polyester.
• Paper blends.

While certain parts of an air filter are biodegradable, when woven with other materials, they’re no longer eco-friendly.

How to Get Eco-Friendly Filters

In order for your air filter to be “green,” you’re either going to have to use one that’s completely bio-degradable, which can be found with the help of an HVAC company or by using a washable air filter.

These filters work the same way as traditional filters in that they help catch impurities and prevent them from entering your home, however, they’re made from a washable mesh, which can be cleaned with your hose.

This helps you cut down on costs, keep your indoor air quality at the highest level possible, and also cuts down on your footprint. These washable air filters can be found at any traditional home store or can be provided by your air conditioning contractor. It’s important to learn how to remove and wash these filters, so you can easily service them as needed.

The Importance of Replacing Used Filters

The air filter inside your air conditioner is your first line of defense for keeping all sorts of impurities out of the air you breath. As such, the last thing you would want to do is reuse an old air filter. Keeping your filter clean gives you plenty of benefits including:

• Improved indoor air quality.
• Longer air conditioner lifespan.
• Fewer AC repairs.
• Better energy performance.

You should be replacing your air conditioner at the very least every quarter. If you have a home with pets, this should be even more frequent.

This is why investing in an eco-friendly washable air filter is the way to go. At Chad’s AC Direct we can help you find the right air filter for your AC unit and get it installed in no time. Best of all, we always give you the knowledge you need to keep your system in tip-top shape.

No one wants to have mold in their homes because of how damaging it is to air quality. While no mold is good mold, it is especially problematic if it is growing inside of your air ducts. Mold likes to grow in areas that are moist and where there is the right kind of materials to help it thrive. That’s why you will often see mold in basements, crawl spaces, bathrooms, kitchens and yes- in air ducts.

The problem is that when it is located inside the air ducts, the spores are free to move throughout your home. This means that there is a higher risk of mold spreading and growing elsewhere in your home; also, the physical symptoms associated with inhaling mold can be made worse when it is throughout your home.
How do you know if you have mold brewing in your air ducts? Here are some signs to help you find out.

1 - Musty Smell Everywhere in Your Home

Mold has a distinctive, strong smell. If you have mold growing in an isolated spot (say under your kitchen sink) you’d just be able to smell the odor within that room or right in the vicinity.

However, because air ducts extend to all corners of your home, the air that passes over the mold carries the odor along with it.
If you can smell that musty mildew everywhere in your home, that is probably because you’ve got mold in your air ducts.

2 - Frequent Health Problems With Your Family

Does it seem like you’ve had more colds than usual this year? How about worsening allergy symptoms? Guess what? Those aren’t colds or allergies.

There is a good chance that poor air quality and mold in your air ducts is the culprit.

Be wary if you also experience dizziness, nausea, congestion, respiratory problems or skin rashes. These could all be tied to mold in your air ducts.

3 - Take a Look

One of the most trusted ways to determine if you have mold in your air ducts is if you can see signs of mold. When it is growing inside your ducts, there will be stains on the exterior.

Furthermore, you may see foam like substances appear. What should you do if you think you have mold? You should call a certified mold technician to come and inspect your home and advise you on how to proceed.

If you are concerned about mold growing in your ducts, a good ongoing maintenance move is to get your ducts cleaned regularly. We can help you with that in order to improve your air quality in Montgomery, AL.