The summer wildfire season is upon us. Check out this link provided by the Indoor Air Quality Association. It offers helpful tips and advice to protect you home and belongings, as well as your health, if you’re in an area stricken by wildfires. A whole home air cleaner from Aprilaire is a great way to help remove smoke from the air in your home; not only from wildfires but also in the winter when you’ve got the fireplace burning or even from cooking. Now if your in an area close to a wildfire where the smoke is heavy you should leave the area immediately there is no air cleaner that will keep you safe in that situation.
So yeseterday I thought I'd pulled off quite a coup. I went to another blog yesterday; the author of which was someone I had just met. I was curoious about her blog. One post discussed the kinds of emails she hated to receive. One kind of email she hated to receive was from someone trying to get her to write something for them for free; a way to get free content under the guise of providing her with amazing exposure.
So, I commented, sharing my blog post about the nastiness of some blog strategies used for marketing.
I figured this amazing tactic, linking my blog post to hers, was so clever that, in our little blog strategy world, it should at least count as much as an original blog post.
You see, we have blog post quotas. And our Blog Nazi keeps her Blog Nazi Boot planted firmly in our collective behinds in order to make sure we all perform at least to quota.
Well guess what? Blog Nazi, while acknowledging that what I did was positive, would not budge on my quota. Not an inch! So here I am, making stuff up again! What good is that!?!??
On second thought, if B.N. DIDN'T have a large boot, and DIDN'T exercise it's influence, and just left us bloggers alone, you would be alot less informed about indoor air quality!
Maybe we should get paid per post. Maybe that would be a better motivater than a boot!
Just read an article from Time magazine about “greening” up President Lincoln’s old cottage. The house which is a national monument achieved a Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, but still kept 98% of the existing home.
When most people think of a green home they think of a new home, but with about 100 million existing homes a major impact can be made by making them more earth friendly.
A major contributor to making a existing home green is indoor air quality. Improving indoor air quality is also probably one of the easiest, and least expensive ways to make your home more healthy and earth friendly.
A great starting point to save energy is a programmable thermostat. An Aprilaire programmable thermostat installed costs less then a night out on the town. Plus in a short period of time you will have saved more money on your heating and cooling bills than you dished out to put it in.
Of all the information out there about HEPA filters and air purifiers that help rid the air of unwanted allergens, it seems clear that you can benefit from a healthier home environment by using a high-efficiency air cleaning system that will reduce airborne contaminants.
There are plenty of manufacturers' claims about how best to clean the air in your home. Portable air purifiers , or even larger HEPA filters can be pretty effective at cleaning air in one room.
Of course, we believe that for homes with forced air HVAC systems and duct work, using an air cleaner installed within this system, is a more comprehensive and efficient way to clean the air, because it works throughout your house. As your system blower operates, air movement takes place throughout your house and airborne contaminants flow through your return air ducts where an air cleaner captures them before the air is recirculated through your system and back throughout your home.
But let's get beyond the obvious health benefits for a minute. If you're in the market for cleaner air at home and doing your homework to make the best decision, but still struggling with which way to go, consider this.
A high efficiency air cleaner installed with your system also keeps your system cleaner, which keeps it running more efficiently, which in turn saves energy! It also prolongs the life of your HVAC system, which saves you even more money!
Here's proof. This photo compares two air conditioner A-coils; both 10 years old. One from a system that used an Aprilaire air cleaner (left); the other used a standard 1" furnace filter.
A-coils are messy, expensive things to have cleaned; even more expensive to replace.
So consider whole-house air cleaning and also consider preserving your expensive HVAC system and saving energy!
Did you know....Mold can have devastating affects on your home and your health. In some extreme cases, entire houses have been condemned due to the grave health concerns that mold infestation can cause.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) lists moisture and mold prevention and control tips on their website. One of the tips is "Keep indoor humidity low. If possible, keep indoor humidity below 60 percent (ideally between 30 and 50 percent) relative humidity."
Actions that will help to reduce humidity One of the actions the EPA suggests to reduce humidity in the home is the use of a dehumidifier. Aprilaire would like to take this one step further - use a whole-house dehumidifier. While a portable dehumidifier only removes moisture from the room it is in, an Aprilaire whole-house dehumidifier works in conjunction with your HVAC system to remove moisture from every room in your home.
An Aprilaire dehumidifier is also easy to maintain with no tanks to lift and empty. Simply clean the air filter every year and you're good to go. Call your Aprilaire dealer today and ask how you can benefit from having an Aprilaire dehumidifier installed in your home.
Aprilaire - preventing mold growth to protect the health of you and your family.
I get Google alerts everyday of Aprilaire products being talked about online. Today I received one that turned out to be a Craigslist posting; someone selling a five-year old Aprilaire humidifier for fifty bucks. Great deal, eh?
I don't think so.
Yes, fifty bucks is alot cheaper than having a new humidifier installed.
And yes, it's true that there really is very little that can go wrong with an Aprilaire humidifier, so a five-year old unit is likely to perform just like new if it's been properly serviced throughout that five years.
Big "IF"! But why risk that? YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!
My advice is spend the money to do it right. It's not that expensive to get the peace of mind and up-to-date technology of a brand new unit. Do it right and call a qualified Aprilaire Indoor Air Quality Specialist in your town. Yes, you'll spend a few hundred bucks. But you'll have better comfort for a lifetime.
Plus, while they're at it, you can have your entire system cleaned and checked for the season; something you need to do anyway in order to keep a very expensive system running efficiently and safely.
I love Craigslist; use it alot to buy and sell. Heck, if I was that guy with an Aprilaire humidifier that I wanted to sell, I'd probably do the same thing. But as buyer, no thanks.
The Surgeon General released a Call to Action on Tuesday to promote healthy homes. The move involves many different facets of making a home healthy but one of the main things the Surgeon Generals office mentioned was the need to improve indoor air quality “by installing radon and carbon monoxide detectors, eliminating smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke, and controlling allergens that contribute to asthma and mold growth.
So basically what they are saying is put a radon and carbon monoxide detector in your home, don’t smoke in your home or where smoke can get in your home, install a whole home indoor air cleaner to control particulate and control humidity with a humidifier or dehumidifier.
Hmmm….sounds eerily similar to what the Aprilaire bloggers have been posting for months. Check out Aprilaire.com for more information about our indoor air quality solutions.
When the America’s top doc recommends taking steps to improve your indoor air quality it’s probably time to do something about it.
Aprilaire and our network of professional contractors are the answer to your IAQ needs.
Right now everyone is watching there p’s and q’s when it comes to spending money. It’s a tough economic time, and determining what’s important to spend money on and what’s not is something every family and company is doing right now.
One thing most aren’t cutting back on are things like healthy food and regularly scheduled doctor’s visits. Why? Well, those things are too important to you and your family's health. Instead of buying those fan tail shrimp to put in your stir fry you might be eating chicken instead, but you’re still going to make sure your family is getting plenty of nutritious meals. The great Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote “The first wealth is health.” And like the nutritious food you put into your stomach every day the air you put into your lungs each day is just as important.
So don’t skimp on indoor air quality. If you’re having a contractor come out to clean and check your equipment have him quote an Aprilaire air cleaner, programmable thermostat and depending on where you live a humidifier or dehumidifier (or in many places both).
Tell your contractor you’re interested in improving the quality of your homes air. Any good contractor will be able to educate you on what you can do to improve your IAQ. You can always give our dedicated customer service team a call at 1-800-334-6011 they too can help you decide on what the best IAQ products are for you.
Aprilaire IAQ products provide clean healthy air to millions of homes across the country. Is yours one of them? If you don’t think indoor air quality is an important part of a healthy lifestyle just Google Indoor Air Quality or Indoor Air Pollution there are vast amounts of good credible information out there.
Are you tired of rising energy costs? Heating and cooling costs are the #1 expense in most American homes. Do you feel uncomfortable in your home? Most homeowners turn up the thermostat when they feel cold. The EPA states you can save up to 4% on your heating bill for every degree you lower your thermostat. Most people typically don’t want to invest additional money into their heating and cooling system but the fact is Aprilaire Indoor Air Quality products can actually help you save money on your energy bills: An Aprilaire Zone comfort control system can help you reduce your energy costs while maintaining a comfortable indoor environment. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, zoning combined with a programmable thermostat strategy can save you up to 30% on your energy bills. Want to learn more? Visit us at here.
A common term used when talking about indoor air quality is “Elimination and Ventilation”. I don’t know who coined the term but it is a good way to think about improving indoor air quality. Older homes get natural ventilation because they were built “looser” meaning there was opportunity for fresh outdoor air to make it in the house even when the house was closed up. Mechanical ventilation is something that has become more and more popular with the improvements to home building practices. Nowadays homes are built much “tighter” and although keeping the cold winter air or hot summer air out is an excellent way to save energy it also creates a situation where indoor air quality suffers. By not bringing in fresh air all the bad stuff like volatile organic compounds, fireplace smoke, tobacco smoke, particulates put in the air from cooking, carbon dioxide, bioaerosol, biological contaminants, dust…..the list goes on and on, build up in your home.
The best way to combat the buildup of bad things in your air is to ventilate with fresh air and eliminate the particulate with an effective whole home air cleaner that removes the stuff from the air.
Did you know....There are four core benefits to proper levels of relative humidity (RH) in your home: health, comfort, protection and energy savings. While all four are important protecting the health of you and your family is the most critical of the four.
The American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) has done extensive research to determine the ideal levels of RH to eliminate or reduce certain health ailments. As you can see from the chart, air that has low levels of RH increases the occurrence of bacteria, viruses, respiratory infections, allergic rhinitis, asthma, and ozone production. High levels of RH increase bacteria, viruses, fungi, mites, allergic rhinitis, asthma, and chemical interactions.
How do you ensure that you and your family are protected from these ailments? A whole-house solution from Aprilaire is the answer. Whether it's a humidifier to add soothing moisture in the winter months or a dehumidifier to remove excess humidity in the spring, summer and fall, Aprilaire has the products to solve your humidification needs. And, unlike portable products, Aprilaire conditions your entire home, ensuring that every room in your house is at the proper level of humidification.
Aprilaire, keeping homes healthy for over 50 years!
The rule of 1,000 is what air researchers use to describe how much more potent indoor air pollution is then outdoor air pollution. Basically, anything released into the air indoors is 1,000 times more likely to be breathed in than that same thing being released outdoors. Bottom line indoor air pollution can be very, very potent and potent pollution is never a good thing for your health. I learned about the rule of 1,000 from an article in the New York Times…the article says that burning a candle is combustion and just like smoking a cigarette indoors it will have similar health effects too.
Your covering up odors with air fresheners you say…one of the doctors quoted in the article says “it’s just adding chemicals on top of chemicals.”
The best way to control indoor air is to filter it with a whole home air filter, and Aprilaire offers the best air cleaners on the market. From the Aprilaire 4000 series with a standard MERV 13 filter to the Aprilaire Model 5000 EAC which has been proven by third party testing to be the most efficient and effective air cleaner on the market, you are protected. Unlike the standard low efficiency high resistance to air flow(which means wasted energy) 1” inch filter you buy at the hardware store you only have to replace your filter once a year, and you have the piece of mind knowing that Aprilaire provides the worlds best IAQ products.
With new homes being more energy efficient the importance of proper conditioning of your homes air becomes more important. The reason is newer energy efficient homes are tighter, meaning that less fresh air gets in (and stale air out) of your home. That is why Minnesota, for instance, made it code to have a mechanical ventilation system installed in all new homes.
But achieving good indoor air quality isn’t just about bringing in fresh air; you need to further condition your air by filtering it and controlling the amount of moisture in it. Just as you condition your air by heating and cooling it, indoor air quality is about conditioning it to produce a comfortable, healthy, protected home that is also energy efficient.
You can learn more about indoor air quality by visiting Aprilaire.com or just Google "Indoor Air Quality."
The Asthma Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA) recently released its list of 2009 Allergy Capitals with Louisville, KY topping the list. The designation means Louisville is going to be the worst/most difficult place to live in 2009 for people who suffer from allergies. They use scientific data to create the rankings and base the rankings on 3 different criteria including:
• Pollen scores (airborne grass/tree/weed pollen and mold spores) • Number of allergy medications used per patient • Number of allergy specialists per patient
AAFA doesn’t recommend moving but instead recommends having a comprehensive plan to help fight the effects of allergies and asthma. Any good allergy/asthma control plan needs to address indoor air quality. With Aprilaire whole home air filtration, along with humidity control the negative effects of allergies and asthma can be overcome.
As a side note also making the list is Madison, WI, at number 4, the location of Aprilaire headquarters. For your daily allergy forecast check out Pollen.com
The American Lung Association just published a report on the worst cities for ozone and particulate pollution. Not surprisingly Los Angeles was at the top of the list although California has reduced pollution levels drastically compared to levels in 2000. But it's definitely not just LA where people are breathing unhealthy air.
The report is full interesting information, but what I found interesting is that 6 in 10 Americans live in an area where they are at risk of being negatively effected by air pollution levels. Other than, as a Yahoo article says, moving to Fargo, ND, Lincoln, NE or Honolulu, HI areas with some of the lowest pollution levels, all you can do is understand and avoid the risks associated with air pollution.
The EPA states “In the last several years, a growing body of scientific evidence has indicated that the air within homes and other buildings can be more seriously polluted than the outdoor air in even the largest and most industrialized cities”.after reading the report by the ALA the EPA’s statement is an astounding, no scary statement.
Protect your home and your health from air pollution by using the best air cleaners on the market Aprilaire Air Cleaners.
I have not purposely avoided Twitter, but I haven't scrambled to start using it either.
I just found out you can search Twitter without participating. Just go to http://search.twitter.com and search for words or subjects and you can see what, if any buzz is out there right now.
I came across a great blog today by The Hoots Group located in Atlanta, Georgia. Matt Hoots, the founder of the green building company, does an excellent job of covering a whole host of green issues, including of course, indoor air quality.
I had the pleasure of meeting Matt last year at the EcoLumina house, a project on which he was selected as the builder. The beautiful EcoLumina house is an environmentally friendly home that utilizes the latest technologies and is meant to be a source of inspiration for home owners and home builders alike. I was there because Matt was installing Aprilaire air cleaners and dehumidifiers as part of the geothermal HVAC system.
Matt is a wealth of information when it comes to green building and his blog is a must read for anyone looking to get good information about going green. With all the greenwashing out there it is difficult for the average consumer to sift through all the information. Matt puts a difficult subject into easily understandable layman’s terms. Check it out! (If you’re in Atlanta, The Hoots Group showroom is also a place worth checking out)
Aprilaire offers a full line of indoor air quality products that help you go green. You can’t go green without addressing indoor air quality! Matt Hoots will vouch for that…
The Asthma & Allergy Friendly Certification Program put together one of the most comprehensive lists of things you can do to "Allergy Proof" your house I have seen. They did a very good job of exploring all aspects of what can be done to improve indoor air quality of your home.
If you are one of the 20 million people in the United States who suffer from Asthma or Allergies I would highly recommend taking the time to read the report. It talks about things that trigger asthma and allergy symptoms, but the report also has a home guide which is a list of actions you can take to make your home a healthier place.
One thing they mention is to add a whole home air cleaner to your HVAC system, which is one of the easiest things you can do to improve your indoor air quality. Another important aspect of managing your asthma and allergy symptoms is controlling humidity in your home. A whole home humidifier and/or a whole home dehumidifier (depending on where you live) are by far the most effective means to controlling your humidity.
Check out this video on why portable air cleaners, and for that matter portable humidifiers and dehumidifiers, are not the answer to effective indoor air quality management.
Model 5000 Whole Home Electronic Air Cleaner is not designed to produce ozone, but just like most home electronic devices, it does produce a very small amount.
Ozone is produced as a result of many factors, some are man-made and some originate from nature. On any given day in the US, outdoor levels can be as high as 150 parts per billion (ppb). More polluted areas typically have higher outdoor ozone levels because there is a greater concentration of the components that create ground level ozone.
Levels of ozone inside our homes typically range from 10 to 70 percent of the level found outdoors, primarily depending on whether windows and doors are left open. (ref. "Ozone Decay Rates in Residencies.", Harvard School of Public Health, Environmental Science and Engineering Program). The reason indoor levels are lower than outdoor levels is because ozone readily reacts with other gases and surfaces.
As a manufacturer, we develop and produce products to meet or exceed standards set by goverenment organizations. The Model 5000 electronic air cleaner produces 2 ppb of ozone, well below the established FDA standard of 50 ppb for medical devices and the UL standard to evaluate products for consumer safety.
The high voltage power supply contained in this (and any other) electronic air cleaner produces ozone only as a byproduct of operation: the small amount of ozone generated dissipates by the time clean air filters out and into yoyur home. In addition, the Model 5000 removes particles from the air that have proven by research to be harmful to humans.
I've been told when I look to buy an air cleaner to check the MERV but don't know what that is. MERV is an acronym which stands for "Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value" . The MERV rating is the standard method for comparing the efficiency of an air filter. The higher the MERV rating, the better the filter is at removing particles from the air.
The MERV scale ranges from 1 (least efficient) to 16 (most efficient). Filters with higher ratings not only remove more particles from the air, they also remove smaller particles. A typical fiberglass furnace filter might be rated from 1 to 4 on the MERV scale. High efficiency filters would have a MERV of 10 to 16. Aprilaire whole home air cleaners fit into the 10 to 16 scale. The models 2210/2410 are MERV 10. The models 4200/4400 are MERV 13. The model 5000 is equivalent to a MERV 16.
A where people are breathing unhealthy air.
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