According to the EPA, the air inside our home is regarded to have up to 5 times higher concentration of air pollutants. Like lungs in your body, your home needs to be able to breathe to make sure that fresh clean air is coming in, and old stale air is going out. Unfortunately, in modern day construction our buildings are built extremely airtight. A good thing, right? Yes, but only If the fresh air intake to the building has been properly engineered and the homeowners know and adhere to requirements involved in keeping that fresh air coming in.
Most homeowners that own a home in Whatcom county with a forced air system have the following two components in order to bring in fresh air:
- A fresh air duct integrated with your forced air mechanical system (with a damper that can be opened or closed)
- A whole house exhaust fan on a timer that works in conjunction with the fresh air intake on the forced air furnace or air handler, in order to exhaust the stale air in the home and bring in fresh air at an equal rate. The air being brought in from the outside should also be filtered before being brought into your system.
The sad reality is that the following scenario likely happens… The homeowner buys the home, nobody ever informed them of the fresh air duct that is meant to be opened in order to allow for fresh air, and nobody every informed them that the pesky whole house fan that they have in their laundry room or main area, is in fact supposed to be running at a set rate to balance the house out. We see all too often that both of these primary functions of fresh air are not being used at all!