DeHart Plumbing, Heating, and Air Inc. Blog: Archive for the ‘Indoor Air Quality’ Category

Is a UV Air Purifier Worth the Investment? Exploring the Benefits

Monday, February 26th, 2024

In an era where air quality is increasingly vital for our well-being, UV air purifiers have emerged as a promising solution. But the question lingers: Is a UV air purifier in Stockton, CA worth the investment? In this blog post, we’ll unravel the benefits that make UV air purifiers stand out and delve into how they work. Understanding the technology and advantages will guide you in deciding whether investing in a UV air purifier is the right choice for improving your indoor air quality.

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The One Indoor Air Quality Solution Every Home with Central HVAC Needs

Monday, May 9th, 2022
uv-lightbulb

Nobody likes to get sick–and unfortunately, the germs and viruses that make us ill are typically too small to see or feel. Microscopic pathogens such as bacteria, mold spores, and viruses can cause a wide range of health issues, and most people are unaware of what they’re breathing in as a result.

A general rule of thumb of the last couple of years has been that staying home helps us avoid sickness. But on the contrary, contaminants can be indoors and still make you sick, even without you going anywhere. This is especially true for households with central HVAC systems, which have a risk you might not have ever considered.

There may be mold, mildew, or bacteria present in your HVAC air ducts! And every time you run your central air conditioner or heating system, the blower fan helps those spores and particles enter your living space, where they have the opportunity to infect you and your family.

The solution to this? A UV germicidal light! This is also referred to as a UV air purifier. Read on to learn more!

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How Do Duct Leaks Start in the First Place?

Monday, August 23rd, 2021
Inside-an-Air-Duct

Our top concern with our customers is helping them enjoy the best energy efficiency for their home so they can “Live Green, Save Green!” One of the major sources of energy loss in homes comes from ductwork leaks in the HVAC system, and unfortunately, this is a problem that’s easy to escape homeowners’ notice for a long time. 

We’ve previously written about how you can detect duct leakage in your home, and in this post, we’ll address another question about this problem: Why do duct leaks start in the first place? 

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How We Can Improve Ventilation in Your Home

Monday, July 12th, 2021
airflow-diagram

Proper home ventilation is on people’s minds more. Too many houses today have limited ventilation to allow for the proper movement of air and to allow fresh air to circulate. This poor ventilation is one of the main causes of bad indoor air quality, which has been on the rise over the past few decades. 

At Greenhart, our goal is to help our customers enjoy the best quality of living in their homes thanks to better indoor air quality—and helping their homes achieve energy efficiency at the same time. There are steps you can take to help with better fresh air ventilation, such as opening multiple doors and windows and remembering to use exhaust fans in the kitchen and bathrooms. But we have several ways to better your ventilation and improve your home’s indoor air quality in Modesto, CA.

Energy and Heat Recovery Ventilators

These devices allow for fresh air circulation through a home without also causing heat loss or heat gain that will affect energy efficiency. Opening up windows and doors brings the outside temperatures with it, but energy recovery ventilators (ERVs) and heat recovery ventilators (HRVs) solve this problem. They draw fresh air into the HVAC system and use the air from indoors to either pre-heat or pre-cool it. This can recover 80% of the energy that would otherwise be lost to opening up windows and doors. There are differences between the two types, and we’ll help determine which one is best for your home.

Duct Sealing

Your house may have problems with leaky air ducts without you even knowing it. Duct leaks are common issues, and they can throw off air circulation for the whole house as well as cause the AC and heater to waste power. We recommend you schedule duct testing with our team if you aren’t certain about the condition of your ducts. We’ll discover if you have duct leaks and how extensive the problem is, then use advanced techniques to make the ventilation system airtight once more. 

Duct Cleaning

After three to five years, the ducts in your home will have picked up enough dust, lint, and other debris on the walls that it will interfere with proper airflow and ventilation. Professional duct cleaning can restore the ducts—just make sure you have actual professionals like our team to do the job. There are many low-cost “duct cleaning” services that do next to nothing at all. You can expect the best from us. 

Air Filters

You already have an air filter on your HVAC system, but it isn’t there to help with the indoor air quality; it protects the interior of the cabinet. If you want to have healthier air circulating through the house, you’ll need to have professionals install powerful pleated or media filters into the ductwork. These filters will remove dust, lint, dander, dust mites, and more. You will need to change the filters every few months or else they will start to block proper airflow. 

Talk to our experts today for great IAQ solutions. At Greenhart, we help you “Live Green, Save Green!”

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Address Your Comfort and Health with These Lennox IAQ Products

Monday, May 10th, 2021
woman-leaning-back-on-couch-looking-comfortable

While there may be an end in sight, there is no denying that homeowners today are living in a unique and unprecedented time. COVID-19 has opened up questions for many consumers—do you have the right products at home to keep you not only comfortable but also healthy and safe? Are you doing everything in your power to protect your family?

Lennox understands these questions! As an essential business, Lennox felt and fulfilled a responsibility to help homeowners feel confident in their home products with the addition of important indoor air quality systems such as the PureAir S and the Healthy Climate PureAir Purification system.

Homeowners often don’t realize that their indoor air quality products, or lack thereof, have a huge impact on their health. We’ll talk more about the above-mentioned products here, and provide some tips to take care of your air, and therefore your family’s health.

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Why Your House May Need an Air Purifier

Monday, April 5th, 2021
clouds-in-sky

You want air in your home that’s not only pleasant to breathe, but healthy for you and your family. Good ventilation is a starting place, followed by having our professionals install an air filtration system. Sometimes, these steps will do the job necessary for the best indoor air quality.

But you may need to go a step further and have an air purification system installed; i.e. an electronic air purifier that uses ionization, UV lights, or another process to remove pollutants from the air. We think air purifiers are a good idea in general, but we want to address why your house specifically may need air purification along with air filtration and improved ventilation.

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Your Home vs. Allergy Season—We Can Help You Win!

Monday, March 8th, 2021
sprinkler-in-spring

This is a big title fight—one held in many homes each spring. It’s allergy season taking on the air quality in a house, and the losers can be anyone in the house who suffers from even mild allergies and asthma. This can be a miserable time of the year for these people, and with many trapped indoors this year, there isn’t much chance to get away from the concentration of allergens and asthma triggers that build up indoors.

But if your home has to duel it out with allergy season each year, you don’t have to fight the battle alone. We can help you! 

The allergy season dilemma

Let’s get to know the enemy. Why does “allergy season” happen at all? 

When the weather starts to warm up, it causes a spring bloom. The warmer weather is pleasant—who doesn’t like it when the cold starts to ebb?—and the flora sure looks pretty. But the bloom of plants and the warmer temperatures causes a release of pollen into the air, where it thrives. This pollen isn’t just from flowers. Ragweed, trees, and grass are major sources of allergens in the air. Mold spores are common as well during spring, and these are big allergy triggers. If your house has pets, they also start to shed fur at this time and that puts more dander into the air. 

As the pollen count rises in the air, it leads to many seasonal allergy problems, such as runny noses, sneezing, congestion, raspy breathing, itchy eyes and skin, and a general feeling of “ickiness.” Hay fever (allergic rhinitis) is the most common allergic reaction during the season. 

Staying inside isn’t much protection

“Wait, I’m staying indoors most of the time because of COVID-19. Why should I have problems with spring allergies?” 

It sounds sensible, right? But your home isn’t the fortress against outside air you may think it is. Pollen travels—that’s the point of pollen as a plant reproductive strategy. You only have to go for a short walk outside or open up the windows for fresh air and you’ll let the allergens inside, where they’ll circulate through your HVAC system. 

How we can help

Now, don’t despair. You don’t have to find a way to seal up your house entirely and give up those healthy walks that are necessary during the pandemic so you don’t go stir crazy. We can help you enjoy better air quality with IAQ solutions that trap or zap the most common allergens of the season. Air filtration systems can remove the larger particles, and to handle smaller ones we can find an air purifier in Ceres, CA that targets the specific seasonal allergens that bother your house. For example, a UV air purifier targets mold spores and bacteria, which are huge troubles for people with asthma and allergies. 

Spring hasn’t officially started, but it’s almost here—as is the warmer weather that will cause the pollen count to skyrocket. Now is the time to prepare your home and family with indoor air quality services. Speak to our experts today and we’ll see what you need to make allergy season as sniffle and sneeze-free as possible. 

Greenhart serves Modesto, CA with great indoor air quality services. Let us help you “Live Green, Save Green!”

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How Can an UV Air Purifier Help My Home?

Monday, February 8th, 2021
UV-air-purifier-light

We offer several types of air purifier in Modesto, CA to help our customers improve the quality of their indoor air. Many purifiers target chemicals, smoke, molecule odors, and the insidiously common volatile organic compounds. We can help homeowners determine what pollutants are moving through their HVAC system and install the air purification system that will remove them, often up to 99%.

When it comes to dealing with the many biological pollutants that can roam through the rooms of a home, a house may need a special dedication purifier: a UV air purifier a.k.a. UV germicidal lights. These biological hazards include toxic mold spores, viruses, germs, bacteria, and many other microbes. You probably don’t need us to tell you these are undesirables—but you may need an explanation for how a UV air purifier can help you win the fight against them. 

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How Often Do I Need to Schedule Duct Cleaning?

Monday, January 25th, 2021
duct-cleaning-with-vacuum

The ducts in your house are hidden from sight, so you won’t have a good idea about how much dust, dander, lint, and other debris builds up inside them over the years. To give you an idea, a six-person home circulates on average 40 lbs. of dust through the ventilation system annually. Plenty of that will stay on the duct walls, and the more that collects, the more dust it will catch. This eventually leads to ductwork with so much build-up that it affects the energy efficiency of the HVAC system and adds to the amount of debris and allergens blown out into the air.

Professional duct cleaning will restore the ducts to near-pristine condition and help significantly to improve the HVAC system. But how often does your home need this service?

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“Is My HVAC Air Filter Protecting My Indoor Air Quality?”

Monday, January 18th, 2021
woman-leaning-back-on-couch-looking-comfortable-in-her-home

The short answer to this is, “No.”

It’s not that the standard HVAC air filter hurts your indoor air quality. In fact, it does help a little. However, it’s not doing much to protect your indoor air quality, because that is not its purpose.

The air filter that comes standard with your HVAC system is actually in place to protect the system itself. It’s placed on the intake side, where your HVAC system draws in air. This prevents the system from sucking in dirt, dust, and other debris that can build up on its components and do the system harm. While it’s a very important component, it won’t do a whole lot to protect or help your indoor air quality in a significant way.

What will, then? A whole-house air purification system.

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