Boost Your Home's Safety with High-Efficiency FiltersPosted: 2022-06-23 While you and your family are perhaps preparing for a summer vacation, you can’t afford to not take any steps to increase your home’s protection against airborne contaminants. When you get back, you’d want a home that is not just comfortably cool but also safe. Four Seasons Air Specialists is your trusted HVAC company in Centerville MN. We offer a full range of air quality products, including high-efficiency filters. Overview Pollution usually spikes in summer due to dry weather, which loosens more dust into the air. According to a study, dry and dusty weather, combined with higher temperatures, significantly increase the presence of PM10 pollution. This is the kind of pollution that includes dust from construction sites, landfills, and agricultural lands. The study found that about 40 percent of the total particulate matter in summer comes from loose soil, airborne ash, and stirred-up road dust. These contaminants, in addition to the existing particulate matter found in your home, have the potential to affect your home’s indoor air quality and put your family at risk of developing respiratory diseases. Why Clean Indoor Air Matters In case you didn’t know, indoor air is more polluted than outdoor air. This is so particularly because of the chemicals you are using for your daily household tasks. Your indoor space contains microorganisms that are unseen but can cause harm to your health. For this reason, it is important to ensure your home is equipped with a capable air filtration system. If you are living with newborn babies, children, people aged 60 and above, smokers, or persons with preexisting respiratory conditions, you should consider upgrading to HEPA filters. These filters are also helpful in cleaning your indoor air if you have household pets. The High-Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) Filter Advantage Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value (MERV) reports a filter’s ability to catch larger particles between 0.3 and 10 microns. This helps consumers to compare different filters. The effectiveness of the filter depends on its MERV rating. The higher the MERV rating, the better the filter is at capturing airborne contaminants. HEPA filters are designed to eliminate at least 99.97 percent of fine airborne particles larger than 0.3 microns, as specified by the United States Department of Energy. These filters were developed in the 1940s and used to contain the spread of airborne radioactive contaminants. Later, HEPA filters were introduced for commercial use to eliminate viruses, bacteria, fungi, pollen, and other airborne particles. They usually use a pleated sheet of randomly arranged fiberglass with diameters between 0.5 and 3 micrometers. A motorized fan passes air through the filter, where particles are effectively captured. A study conducted in 2003 found that asthma symptoms and treatment requirements were statistically better for asthma sufferers with a HEPA filter than those without. In a separate 2009 study, it was revealed that a significant decrease in nocturnal asthmatic symptoms in children with an authentic HEPA filter than in those with a counterfeit HEPA filter. Millions of people are suffering from allergic rhinitis in the United States. According to statistics, about 15 to 20 percent of the entire U.S. population has allergic rhinitis. Some of the most common causes of this disease include exhaust and factory smoke, dust mites, pollen, mold, and pet hair. You can keep your loved ones safe by upgrading to a HEPA filter, which provides outstanding protection and relief from allergy and asthma symptoms. To increase your family’s safety, you can use a vacuum cleaner with a HEPA filter to clean surfaces like floors, carpets, and couches. Over the past couple of years, COVID-19 has been the focus of health professionals. Therefore, researchers installed HEPA filters combined with UV into a COVID-19 general ward and discovered that the filters were able to add a significant amount of protection. The virus was detected on nine out of ten days without the filter while no presence of it on each day they tested the air with the filter. Call the Air Quality Experts To find out more about how HEPA filters can help you and your family, talk to Four Seasons Air Specialists. Our air quality professionals would love to help you establish a thoroughly safe indoor environment. We are your friendly Lino Lakes heating and air conditioning company. |