Indoor air quality and ventilation is important, but often overlooked!

Have you ever gone home from work or school and feel that your house is more humid than normal and little has changed even when you turned up the air conditioner? All seemed fine yesterday, so why is the quality of ventilation so low? Has the ventilation system broken? Does it need to be replaced?

Luckily, that is often not the case since some common actions done by people can often interfere with the capabilities of what your ventilation system can do. Because it is rarely the case of broken ventilation systems, it is important to know about some common causes of poor ventilation and how to stop them.

Cooking

Have you ever gone into your kitchen and smelt that delightful smell of your mom or dad cooking food for dinner? Doesn’t the smell just feel like you are already having a taste of the food? Well, smelling delicious food may be very satisfying but would you like your home to be smelling like roasted chicken and grilled meat all day?

Cooking, especially the foods requiring a lot of heat, can contribute to the humidity of a room and cause the ventilation in the house to become very low quality. Although, this does not mean that you should stop eating delicious foods like roasted chicken and grilled meat, it is important to not be cooking high-heat requiring foods to keep a balance in the room’s ventilation. 

Cooking means the use of heat and it is important to realize that heat quickens the process of condensation which adds a lot of humidity into an environment.

Smoke

We all know the negative side effects of smoking and just how harmful it is to our lungs. But unfortunately, quitting smoking is not something easy to do. This is why frequent smokers often have a hard time giving up their habit even though they are aware of the harm it causes to their body. But have you ever wondered that maybe smoking can impact your family too?

Have you ever been around a person who is smoking and you smell the smoke coming from the cigarette and feel the need to cough and get away from it? Well, that is your body telling you to stay away from the smoke.

When people smoke inside a closed environment such as a house, the smoke stays in the environment, releasing toxins into the air and further adding into the effects to decrease the benefits of ventilation.

Space Organization

Have you ever wondered how larger places often seem cooler than smaller places even when they are under the same climate? Well, it is scientifically proven that larger places have heat more spread out and therefore, keeping the closed environment cooler due to the lower concentration of heat.

So even if you may live in a large room, if your room is crowded and messy, chances are, there would be poor room ventilation. Crowded spaces often means that there is less open space for air to flow through. This leads to heat being more concentrated and high levels of heat often means poor room ventilation.

So when your mom asks you to clean your room, think of it as a small investment of your time for later comfort through better air and feeling more comfortable. 

Building Components

Although it may seem like ventilation systems just seem to be in our wall, it is important to see that what we make the home up to plays a large part in the capabilities of ventilation systems. Especially in smaller rooms, it is a good idea to consider the correct types of paint and types of walls to use. This is because bigger rooms are often known to have better ventilation since they are often very spacious and allow a lot of air to flow through. 

In the case of smaller rooms, it is important for the walls to be made out of material that does not keep the ventilation systems from doing their job. It is also probably not a good idea to paint the walls a dark color since darker colors absorb a lot of heat.

If you are worried about the air quality in your home, Jeff's HVAC located in Effort, PA can help you with their indoor air quality testing services and solutions! Call Jeff's HVAC today and check out their heating and cooling solutions here.