Even though you might not see it, your home’s indoor air quality might have a higher concentration of harmful chemicals and gases than you realize. According to the EPA, indoor air is often two to five times more polluted than outdoor air, even in developed areas. If pollutant concentrations get high enough, you may start to get symptoms like fatigue, headaches, dizziness, or irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat.
Can Opening Windows Help?
Getting rid of indoor air pollution is a key part of maintaining a healthy living space. Here’s the good news: you can do this just by opening your windows. In fact, opening windows to get a cross breeze going is one of the fastest, most effective ways to push out pollutants like VOCs and combustion products and let fresh air in.
But what if the weather is much too hot and muggy to open windows? Fortunately, there is a solution!
What If It’s Too Hot or Too Cold to Open Windows?
Here in Georgia and North Carolina, opening windows to let in fresh air isn’t always an option, especially if we want to keep our energy bills reasonable. But how then do we flush out the pollutants in our indoor air and let fresh air in? The answer is an energy recovery ventilator.
As its name implies, an energy recovery ventilator improves your home’s ventilation by exchanging stale, polluted indoor air with fresh air from outside. It can help you save money. This highly efficient equipment is typically installed in the attic.
How does an Energy Recovery Ventilator Work?
When you open a window to let in fresh air, you need to spend energy to heat or cool that air from the outdoors. An energy recovery ventilator eliminates this problem. The equipment contains energy recovery ventilation chambers, where the indoor and outdoor air’s heat and humidity are exchanged using minimal energy.
Once the outdoor air is allowed into your home, you will not have spent as much money heating or cooling it to match your desired temperature. This saves money compared to opening your windows to ventilate your home on a hot or cold day.
To learn more about installing an energy recovery ventilator in your home, contact our friendly HVAC experts at Premier Indoor Comfort Systems, LLC today: (770) 268-2422!