Does Your Home Have Adequate Ventilation?

While homeowners are used to thinking about how well their home is insulated or whether their windows and doors are properly weather-stripped, they often have less understanding about the importance of good ventilation for the health of their home. Although energy efficient houses do save homeowners money, they can also create other potential costs that need to be addressed.

Why is Ventilation Important?

When indoor air is sealed in and rarely replaced, it becomes very difficult to remove chemical contaminants, germs, and even lingering odors from your home. A home with no way to refresh indoor air is also prone to higher indoor humidity – a situation that could provide the ideal environment for the growth of unhealthy and unwanted mold. There are several systems available to increase air circulation in your home, and improved ventilation will make your home a healthier place to live and breathe.

What Are My Ventilation Options?

One of the simplest ventilation systems available accesses outside air through an installed damper and can be connected to your home furnace system via an air duct. Another type of system that can increase ventilation in your home and reduce energy costs is a heat exchange system. This option uses the heat from the air inside your home to warm the air it pumps in from outside of your home, which keeps your air fresher and your home warmer during the colder months. During warmer months, the same system removes heated air from inside your home and pumps it outside to help keep your home cool. These types of heat exchange systems are also good for preventing high humidity inside the home.

Regardless of which ventilation strategy you ultimately adopt for your home, experts agree that a balanced approach to ventilation is preferred. Balanced ventilation systems provide a way for air to both enter and leave your home, which is preferable to supply-only systems which simply bring in air from the outside, or exhaust-only systems which only blow air out.

How We Can Help

A home ventilation system is an important tool that lets homeowners have more control over the air quality and humidity in their homes. Consult a professional from Coast Plumbing, Heating & Air to help you identify which system would make the most sense for your home and budget.