Keeping the air clean in your home isn’t something you can afford to skimp out on – especially as we continue to barrel straight through the heart of a season where it seems like everywhere you turn, someone else is coming down with an illness. More particles than we know are floating around, and ridding the air of the ones that can cause harm isn’t something that needs to stress you out with all the other curveballs life can throw at you.
There’s a simple way to take care of it, though, and all it takes is a simple call to Always Plumbing & Heating to have that problem remedied before you know it. We’re proud to offer Electric Air Cleaners as well as UV lamps – two simple additions to your home's furnace and ventilation system that will noticeably change the quality of your air -- from Dynamic Air Quality Solutions.
Filtering Out the Undesirable Particles
You’d be surprised at just how many types of particles get through your filter and start to drift through the rooms of your home. They’re usually split into two categories: ones that are larger than 2.5 microns in diameter, and ones that aren’t – a micron is 1/25,000th of an inch, so the size that demarcates the difference is still an infinitesimally small measurement to make.
- Most fiberglass air filters aren’t equipped to handle particles of that size: their job is to prevent larger molecules from disrupting the heating and cooling equipment, not screen the tiny things like viruses, bacteria and allergens from entering the system.
- Basically, all the things that actually cause adverse effects to your health are precisely the size that a typical HVAC filter isn’t going to come anywhere close to stopping. You can spray disinfectants all day long, but the root of the problem isn’t going anywhere.
Polarizing Proposition
As the saying goes, the simplest answer is often the best, and the simplest answer is to just replace your filter with an electric one! By using an electric air filter, you trap a significantly increased amount of the particles that try and get through.
- An electric filter traps 97 percent of particles .3 microns and larger. It’s fitted with a media screen that carries a harmless 24-volt current through it, so when any particles that are too small to catch pass through, they become electrically charged and begin combining with other similarly sized particles. When those joined particles circulate again, they are trapped since they’ve become too large to squeeze through.
- The filter doesn’t short-circuit, and you only need to replace the media inside it roughly 3 times per year instead of throwing out a disposable filter every month.
While installing an electric filter will catch a sizable portion of the particles you want out of your house – like pollen, which is comparatively massive at 5 microns in diameter -- it’s unfortunately not going to catch everything. In fact, there’s a good chance it won’t be able to remove the organisms that can pose the greatest risk – at least, not alone.
- To do that, you’ll want to install a UVC lamp in addition to the filter. A UVC lamp targets the DNA of microorganisms floating in front of it, killing them before they have a chance to settle down and begin to multiply. Most viruses are between .0004 and .3 micron in size, so they’re going to slip through even the finest filters. A UVC lamp can take care of them.
- The lamps we offer had a 35 percent capture/sterilize rate on the first pass-through.
With both of these additions to your HVAC unit, the air in your home can become noticeably cleaner before you know it! Give us a call at 780-489-8118 (Edmonton) or 587-601-1253 (Fort McMurray) and let the professionals at Always Plumbing & Heating help you take the next step to creating a safer and more enjoyable environment at home today!
