Why Your Home's Ventilation is More Important than You Might Think

Posted: 2022-05-05

When people think about home comfort, heating and cooling usually come to mind, right? But being snug at home is more than just the temperature. There are other factors you need to consider to achieve a comfortable living space, one of which is good ventilation.

Four Seasons Air Specialists is your preferred HVAC company in Centerville MN. We provide total home comfort solutions that ensure all your HVAC needs are met.

What is Ventilation?

Ventilation is the process of removing stuffy air and providing clean air in a given space. This may be achieved by either natural or machine-driven methods. If your home is constructed to be energy-efficient, it needs mechanical ventilation to maintain good indoor air quality.

The Environmental Protection Agency recommends the use of ventilation systems to prevent the accumulation of smells, excess moisture, and contaminants in your home. These factors can damage your home, compromise your health, and cost you money. That goes without mentioning the discomfort and inconvenience they bring about.

Proper ventilation is necessary to achieve home comfort and eliminate household contaminants. Without proper ventilation in a home, you will experience comfort issues and even health problems sooner or later. These issues may include allergies, sleep problems, and respiratory illnesses. To combat these problems, your home should utilize a good ventilation system.

How Does Poor Ventilation Present Challenges at Home?

When your home does not have a proper exchange of indoor and outdoor air, pollution builds up indoors. One of the main problems associated with poor ventilation is the accumulation of carbon monoxide, a colorless, odorless yet deadly gas. When exposed to high concentrations over an extended period, a person can experience different kinds of health concerns, such as breathing difficulties, loss of consciousness, heart irregularity, and even death.

Radon is also another indoor pollutant that can affect the human body. Prolonged exposure to radon can cause lung cancer. Such a risk should be avoided at all costs, especially if you have children, the elderly, or family members with preexisting respiratory conditions.

Not only does poor ventilation affect the human body, but it also impacts your home’s humidity levels. Too much moisture can make your indoor air more humid, which increases the risk of moisture damage in your home, such as the development of mold and warping of wooden items.

Ventilation Systems: How Do They Work?

A ventilation system adds the right amount of fresh air from the outside to your indoor air. It uses ducts and fans to attract and circulate fresh air throughout your home, and can also release stale air from certain areas such as kitchens and bathrooms.

How Ventilation Systems Help

A ventilation system can give you benefits in ways more than one. For example, it can help reduce condensation, which happens when humid air is cooled quickly and unable to hold all of the moisture. It then migrates to the coldest surface and condenses. When ignored, this issue can lead to structural damage to your home, especially if your home has wood supports. A ventilation system helps you avoid these problems.

Not everyone knows that indoor air is more polluted than outdoor air. But with proper ventilation, you will have uninterrupted, filtered, fresh air circulated throughout your home. A ventilation system will continuously remove stuffy, moist air from your home, creating a healthier and more comfortable living environment.

With a ventilation system installed in your home, you can reduce radon concentrations to safe levels, which is a step toward avoiding lung cancer.

Also, your home’s ventilation suffers greatly because of VOCs (volatile organic compounds), which are emissions from household chemicals you use daily, such as air fresheners and insect repellants. While a ventilation system will not completely eliminate VOCs in your home, it does allow you to control the concentrations to low-risk levels.

Ask Four Seasons Air Specialists

There are many other ways in which a good ventilation system can help you maintain clean, fresh indoor air. If you want to find out more, give us a call. As your trusted Lino Lakes heating and air conditioning company, we aim to help you ensure your family’s comfort and safety in the most efficient ways. Give us a call today!