How Air Moves Through Your Home Helps Determine Comfort

Nowadays, efficient home are known to be airtight. Most all of the heating and cooling remains where it’s needed and intended, while saving hundreds of dollars on your electric bill throughout the year. However, if you’re lucky enough to have an airtight Long Island home, you may not realize you could benefit from a proper ventilating system to refresh the air you are breathing.

Here are a handful of issues that airtight homes face that can be remedied with a ventilating system:

Mold and mildew growth – Mold and mildew are caused by a lack of air circulation, which allows areas of the house to experience a buildup of moisture, particularly in dark corners and along your duct system. Little spores will float through the air, causing respiratory problems for you and your family.
Return of vented toxins – With air ducts from the kitchen range and the bathroom venting to the outside, a low pressure is created inside. Nature prefers a neutral state, and air will automatically seep in from unlikely and unwanted areas. The exhausts for your fireplace or furnace may return the carbon monoxide and cause unsafe conditions, leaving your family at risk. The codes for new houses now require specific ventilation regulations. It’s important check these areas for safety.
Indoor air quality – Homes lacking an effective ventilating system can continuously circulate pollutants and allergens around the house. These can bring on mild to severe risks to the health of you and your family.
Moisture buildup – This is harmful to both the structure of the house and the furniture in the home, as it can cause wood rot and warping, among other things.
Radon buildup – Radon seeps up through the ground and can be trapped in the basement. The Environmental Protection Agency warns that this gas is the second most common reason for lung cancer in the United States. Unlike other gases, you cannot smell radon, so you have no idea it’s present.

For more expert advice about your ventilating system, or for questions relating to home comfort, contact the professionals at T.F. O’Brien Cooling & Heating. For nearly a century, we’ve been proudly serving the HVAC needs of Long Island.

Our goal is to help educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.

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