Ventilating Your Home

When it comes to heating or cooling a home, it’s not enough to simply think of the appliances that get the job done. No furnace or air conditioner can be effective without taking into consideration a key overriding element: Ventilation. And there’s more to that idea than mere vent covers and ductwork.

Properly ventilating a home is crucial for both the health of the occupants as well as the efficiency of heating and cooling appliances. In fact, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), too little outside air entering a home can result in pollutants collecting in numbers that can cause health problems. It only makes sense, then, to consider increasing the amount of outside air entering your home. But how to do that without wasting energy?

Most residential heating and cooling systems do not bring fresh air into the home. Opening doors and windows, as well as running fans (both whole-house and window), can increase the rate of ventilation. So can individual room vent fans, such as those found in kitchens and bathrooms, which remove pollutants as well as moisture.

The key is to explore various ways of arriving at an optimal air exchange rate – which is simply the rate at which outdoor air replaces indoor air. It’s doubtful that your home’s ideal air exchange rate can be achieved simply by living in it “as is.” In most cases, mechanical ventilation – whether in the form of exhaust fans for individual rooms, whole-house ducted systems or a combination of both – will need to be added or improved in order to lower pollutants and provide enough fresh air to run combustible devices, such as furnaces.

And that’s where the experts at AC World can be of help. We’re well aware of various techniques for assessing and improving your home’s air exchange rate. One such method, provided by the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineering (ASHRAE), outlines procedures for calculating whole-house ventilation rates.

The technical name for the document, called Standard 62.2, "Ventilation and Acceptable Indoor Air Quality in Low-Rise Residential Buildings," lays out requirements for exhaust ventilation in various rooms within your home, as well as other places where appliances like clothes dryers directly vent their exhaust outside the home.

Sound complicated? Let one of experts guide you through the steps to determine the best plan for keeping your home well ventilated!