Air Blue’s Air Analysis: What Do We Look For and How Can We Help Your Indoor Air Quality?
Around the world, over 2 billion people cook over an open fire or stove that’s fueled by coal, kerosene, or wood. Even safer natural gas or propane stoves must be properly installed and maintained to avoid dangerous emissions. Here’s an alarming fact – about 3.2 million deaths in 2020 were the result of poor indoor air quality. Air Blue is here to help you improve your indoor air quality to get you back to doing what you love.
The Importance of Indoor Air Quality
If you look at what poor air quality does to your body, it’s alarming. Close to a third of all deaths related to indoor air pollution are tied to ischemic heart disease, and about a fifth of them involve strokes. Lower respiratory infections, COPD, and lung cancer round out the top diseases in both children and adults that are tied to poor indoor air quality.
What Air Blue Looks for in an Air Analysis
What is Air Blue’s air analysis going to look at? All of the following.
- Biological Contaminants
Allergens like dust mites, pet dander, and pollen are just one of the contaminants found within your home. They trigger allergies and can worsen asthma. Bacteria and viruses cause many different illnesses. The other involves mold spores that are common in overly humid homes. Mold is another allergen that’s known to cause skin rashes, sinus issues, headaches, and more.
- Gaseous Pollutants
Carbon monoxide is one of the biggest dangers inside your home. You cannot smell or see it, so it’s impossible to detect without a carbon monoxide detector. If a person stays in a home where carbon monoxide levels are high, it can kill them.
An air quality assessment also looks at nitrogen dioxide resulting from appliances like a gas, coal, wood, kerosene, or oil boiler or furnace, and a woodstove or fireplace. It’s also released by stoves and ovens, water heaters, and gas clothes dryers. A properly installed and maintained flue is important.
Radon is a radioactive gas that’s found naturally in the soil. It occurs when uranium that’s in the soil, groundwater, and bedrock breaks down. It can enter a home through tiny cracks in a foundation or your well water. It’s important to have the radon levels in your home tested as radon is a leading cause of lung cancer in non-smokers.
Ozone isn’t just outside. Long-term exposure to high ozone levels impacts your respiratory system, nervous system, and metabolic processes. Ozone levels increase when high levels of nitrogen oxide and VOCs meet under hot, sunny conditions.
- Particulate Matter
Air pollution has both fine and coarse particles from cleaners, chemical reactions, and soot/smoke. If the sky is hazy, that’s particulate matter impacting your view. When you breathe these particles in, they end up in your lungs and bloodstream where they can impact your heart and lung health. If you have asthma, the PM worsens it. It’s classified as PM2.5 (particles are no larger than 2.5 micrometers) when it’s fine or PM10 (2.6 to 10 micrometers) when it’s coarse.
Particulate matter (PM) is too tiny to see. As a comparison, a single grain of sand measures around 90 micrometers. Because you cannot see them, the only way to determine if the PM is in your house is through an air analysis.
- Volatile Organic Compounds
Particulate matter is one of the forms of pollution that air analysis measures. It also checks for some of the common VOCs that are found in your household. VOCs (volatile organic compounds) are carcinogenic and linked to central nervous system, kidney, and lung damage, as well as eye, skin, and throat irritation. They’re found in cleaning products, paints, office equipment, building materials, and permanent markers.
What Benefits Does an Air Analysis Offer?
When you hire an HVAC specialist to perform an air quality analysis in your home, you find out exactly what you’re exposed to every day. With indoor air pollution causing many of today’s common health issues, you have the chance to lower your risk by taking corrective action.
If you ever go to sell your home, you already have the right system in place to ensure air quality is ideal. That increases your property’s value, too. It also makes your home appealing to prospective buyers as some of the stressful parts of homeownership are already addressed.
How Do You Improve Poor Indoor Air Quality?
Once an indoor air analysis is complete, you’ll have results showing you exactly what pollutants are in your home. That helps you determine the best path forward. High radon levels require a mitigation system. High levels of carbon monoxide or nitrogen dioxide must be addressed to find out what appliance is causing the issue in order to fix their flue and ensure exhaust fumes are vented to the outside of your home.
Air Blue Heating and Cooling offers two exceptional air purification systems.
- Carrier Infinity Air Purifier
The Infinity Air Purifier became a popular option during COVID as it charges, captures, and kills contaminants like dust, germs, pollen, and viruses. It’s also installed in your current HVAC system and kills 99% of the bacteria and viruses that pass through it before recirculating the air back into your home. Tests show that it’s especially effective at killing the common cold, COVID, the flu, and strep throat.
- Respicare OXY 4 Ultra Violet Air Purifier
This photocatalytic ionic oxidation system cleanses, sanitizes, and purifies air inside your home. It’s installed within your current central heating and air system. It’s a multi-spectrum lamp requiring 120 volts that runs up to 9,000 hours before needing replacement. Annual service is recommended to ensure your system works effectively.
Why not just buy an air purifier? You could, but make sure it removes everything found in your home. Air purifiers are not one-size-fits-all all. You want a system that kills everything, not just a few of the pollutants. If you don’t have expertise in air purification systems, you could choose an inadequate product.
Why Choose Air Blue Heating and Cooling?
With more than 30 years of experience in HVAC and expertise in improvements that boost indoor air quality, Air Blue has the knowledge you need. Our prices are by the job, which means you never get a surprise bill with more hours of labor than you were quoted.
Our technicians undergo background and drug tests as part of the employment process. We provide 24/7 service and even accept Bitcoin if that’s how you prefer to pay.
Air Blue’s award-winning team of expert air quality specialists needs just three days to give you a detailed analysis of your indoor air quality. Call our office to arrange the placement of a whisper-quiet AirAdvice IAQ monitor in your home for a total of three days. You receive a detailed report of your home’s air quality each day and the steps you can take to improve your air quality if our analysis finds any trouble spots.
