Clean that dirty air

As Winter has been blowing through, the air inside may get dirtier.

Winter weather in many regions means closing the windows, weatherstripping the leaky doors and hunkering down on the sofa with your pets at your feet, a good book in your hands and a cozy wood fire in the fireplace.

Unfortunately, those pets shed. And that cozy wood fire emits particles from smoke and unseen vapors. Without proper cleaning, indoor air can become populated by the particles that make life uncomfortable or even unhealthy, especially for those with allergies or asthma. With homes tightly sealed during the winter to prevent cold air from getting in, air quality inside most homes, already laden year round with a variety of pollutants such as dust, pollen and smoke, can get even worse.

It’s enough to make you cough. But don’t panic. By taking a few simple steps, you can improve your indoor air quality and make your home cleaner and cozier. Here are some solutions from the Home Comfort Institute at Trane, the leading maker of energy-efficient heating, ventilating and air conditioning systems, to help you improve your home air quality during the cold winter months:

• Change your air filter. Dealing with winter indoor air quality most effectively means filtering or cleaning all the air in the home using the heating system.

Most furnaces come with a 1-inch disposable filter that traps and filters out large airborne particles. During winter heating season, these filters can become covered with dust and particles. Trane recommends changing this filter monthly during the heating season to ensure it is operating effectively. These filters cost just a few dollars and are available at all home improvement stores.

“Regular filter changes help keep your system running efficiently, but they won’t do much to help clean the indoor air,” said Robert Helt, director of the Trane Home Comfort Institute. “For that you need an air cleaner designed specifically to clean indoor air throughout the entire home.”

• Upgrade your filter system. The 1-inch filter on most systems traps relatively large airborne particles, but it catches less than five percent of total particles. The most effective filtration product is an electronic air cleaner (EAC) attached to the furnace. As the indoor air circulates back to the heating system, an EAC’s pre-filter first traps larger particles. Smaller particles then receive a positive electrical charge as they pass through the EAC, and negatively charged electric plates then attract the particles like a magnet. Such devices typically use little power; for example, a Perfect Fit EAC from Trane uses only about as much electricity as a 40-watt light bulb.

A Perfect Fit EAC can be up to 95 percent effective at removing airborne particles, versus less than five percent effectiveness for cleaners with a 1-inch disposable filter. Perfect Fit is available with new Trane systems but also may be retrofitted to most existing systems. Contact a Trane Comfort Specialist dealer to schedule an in-home assessment to evaluate your options.

• Think holistically. Over the last few years, a number of appliance-type in-room air cleaners have hit the market. And while these plug-in units also remove particles from the air, many of them have a cleaning range of only a few square feet. Because it cleans all of the air that circulates throughout the entire home, a whole-house filtration system installed in the central heating or air conditioning system cleans significantly more air than individual in-room air cleaners.

You can measure the difference between whole-house and individual-room air cleaners through the Clean Air Delivery Rate (CADR), the pace at which your particular air cleaning system circulates clean air through a given space, measured in cubic feet per minute. The higher a CADR, the larger the space the system effectively can clean. For comparison, an in-room cleaner using “ionizing” technology might have a CADR of about 10 because so little air passes through it; one that circulates air through a HEPA-grade filter might have a CADR of about 150; and a Trane Perfect Fit EAC might have a CADR of 660 or higher.

For more information on dealing with winter indoor air quality or to find a Trane dealer near you, visit www.trane.com. Consumers can also visit the Web site to order a free copy of the Trane Home Comfort Guide, which has other tips for improving the indoor climate.

— ARA Content