Comfort At Home: Improving Your Indoor Environment

Breathe easier with healthy, clean air

Air pollution. If you thought it was just an outdoor concern, think again. You can’t always see them but contaminants like dirt, dust, pollen, mold, grease and smoke particles are present inside your home, around the clock. Even worse, because your home is a “sealed” environment, most of these particles are recirculated over and over, contaminating your air, your furnishings, even your lungs.

The particles you see in a beam of afternoon sunlight streaming through the window only represent about 1% of the millions of airborne contaminants in your indoor air — most of which you can’t see. Most standard fiber glass-mesh furnace filters only trap about 15% of these particles, leaving the other 85% to pollute your home.

Clearing the air

A Carrier mechanical air cleaner can trap up to 28 times as many particles as a standard fiber glass filter, including animal dander and plant spores. A Carrier electronic air cleaner can capture up to 95% of all airborne particles — smoke, grease, bacteria and even many viruses. Electronic models work by giving a small electrical charge to particles so they are attracted like magnets to grounded metal plates. Yet they only use about as much electricity as a 30-watt light bulb.

What you can’t see can hurt you

The particles you can’t see in your indoor air include potentially dangerous bacteria and viruses that can make breathing in your own home hazardous to your health. Pet hair, dust, pollen and molds are the most common culprits. If someone in your family has allergies or breathing problems, the effects can be eve more irritating.

Contaminants like dirt, dust, mold, grease and smoke can have an impact on your home, too. Polished woods, precious antiques, upholstery and drapes can deteriorate before their time. Plus, airborne contaminants can choke the delicate inner workings of expensive electronic equipment, causing premature failure. They can also reduce the efficiency of your heating and cooling system. An air cleaner can keep your entire home cleaner, protect your valuable investments and save you the time and aggravation of constant dusting.

Take a fresh approach to Indoor Air Quality

While today’s energy-efficient homes do a great job of keeping heat or cool air in, they also seal in stale, recirculated air. A ventilating system solves the problem of stale air by bringing fresh air into tightly constructed homes without wasting precious energy.

Every home contains a certain amount of unhealthy gases from a variety of sources — building materials, the earth under your home, your heating and cooling system, and even people, who breathe out carbon dioxide. The easiest way to get fresh air into your home, of course, is to fling open a window. The problem is that you lose expensive heated or cooled air in the process.

A ventilator allows your home to “breathe” by bringing healthy, fresh air inside. But before it removes stale air from your home, it also recovers much of the heat or cooling energy and transfers it to the fresh incoming air. Making a ventilator part of your home comfort system is like being able to open a window in every room even on the hottest or coldest days ... without the drafts, the humidity or the high energy costs. It’s a comfort solution that literally gives you a breath of fresh air.

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