A 1″ Furnace filter will clean the air for your furnace, but a 5″ Air Filter will clean the air for us. We all want to breathe clean filtered air, just as we all prefer to drink clean filtered water. On top of clean air for us, dust particles that are filtered from the air before they come in contact with your furnace and/or air conditioner’s evaporator coil will contribute to a long life, reliable and efficient heating and cooling system.

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Is it really worth getting your ducts cleaned? Is duct cleaning worth the cost?

Have you ever wondered what really happens when you get your forced air duct work cleaned? Some people just show up with a shop vac and a dust pan… and other will do a better job.

Watch this video… then draw your own conclusions:

I often overhear people saying that cleaning your duct work is a waste of money. So… do those same people ever vacuum the carpets or rugs in their homes? Ever wash the bathroom floor? Ever clean the tub and toilet?

If you find that your dining room table is covered in dust just a few days after you cleaned it, chances are you need a serious duct cleaning.

Duct cleaning is just like any other cleaning we do in our homes. Airborne particles, dust, mold, and pollutants are “sucked” into out duct work every day. Many of the pollutants just sit along the inside our duct work. When we heat or cool our house, air moves through the duct work and picks up that debris. Some of it is filtered though our furnace filter and some of it gets re-distributed throughout the house.

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Do this one thing and you’ll reduce (or eliminate altogether) the amount of condensation that accumulates on your windows and will make your windows last longer.

Did you know that if you remove the screens on the inside of your windows in the winter time, then your windows will last longer?

Do you ever get condensation building on the inside of your windows? Perhaps only on the coldest of days… or maybe it’s pretty much all winter long.

You see when it’s cold outside, the windows in our homes are like a funnel for all the warm humid air that’s in our house. Windows have anywhere from 5% to 15% of the resistance to keeping in the heat as of our exterior walls. In other words, houses built with 2×6 walls have an R20 insulation in the wall cavities, and those same houses may have vinyl framed, double glazed windows with an 1/2″ air space… that window has an R-value of about R2… That’s it.

So, since the window offers far less resistance (R-value) than our walls, the heat is naturally drawn towards the windows.

Contrary to popular belief… HEAT DOES NOT RISE… 

Hot air rises.

Hot air is moving air, possibly forced through your vents when the furnace is running. When your furnace stops, then the air movement also stops. The only thing happening now is that HEAT IS MOVING TO COLD.

So heat moves to cold. That is always happening. When we sit in front of the fire, we warm up because we are colder than the fire… When we touch the stove element, we get a burn because we are clearly cooler than the hot element.

When heat moves through the screen and towards a cold window, the air temperature cools. When the air cools, the vapor falls out of the air… or rather in the case of a window, the vapor condenses into water and sticks to the inside of the glass.

Warmer air can hold more vapor than colder air!

When our screens are in place, the naturally occurring air currents, ventilation systems, bathroom exhaust fans, and kitchen range hood fans simply cannot get past the screens to pull the water off. As a result, it just sits there and slowly destroys the integrity of the windows… the seals, the weatherstripping and you’ll find that you have to wipe the windows often.

If you have condensation on your windows, and you have your screens on the windows, get up from wherever you’re reading this, and go take a look at the windows with screens and the windows without screens and you will have your answer.  The windows with screens are usually much worse for wear than the others without screens. 

If you’ve enjoyed this article and you’d like to get more of these in the future feel free to sign up for my newsletter. Further, if you got something out of this, and you’d like to share it with others, post it to your Facebook page or leave me a comment below. As you can see, one little trick here will make your windows last longer… even if for just a few extra years!

Cheers!

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Biological Contaminants and Mold in a Rental Property in Canada

About a year ago (May 2014) I was invited to speak to the Ontario Region Landlords Association’ annual dinner. I It was an honor to be able to do so, as I was recognized for being an authority in the Indoor Air Quality subject matter. The following video captures my presentation.

I have spent the past 8 years (2007-2015) doing house calls; whether it was an energy audit, a proposal for new heating/cooling system, or an indoor air quality assessment. In that time I have visited over 4,000 homes and 99% of those houses had one or more indoor air quality issues. Most of the issues are things that are obvious, and easily fixed, such as high humidity, poor filtration, or little to no ventilation. All small fixes that when left alone will lead to larger issues, that cause havoc later on.

If you have mold in a rental property in Canada, whether you are a landlord or a tenant, you must watch this video. And to put it bluntly, it could save your life.

Do not take mold growth lightly. It can cause incredible problems down the road if left untouched.

Please leave me a comment and let me know if this video was helpful. I strive to educate people so that they can make informed decisions. I enjoy writing this stuff, and enjoy the feedback even more!

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Breathing radon gas in your home is the second leading cause of lung cancer in Canada. That is according to Health Canada that completed a study about a year ago.

In other words you have a better chance of developing lung cancer from breathing radon gas in your home than you do from breathing second hand smoke. Now does that not put it in perspective?

The problem with radon is that you cannot sense it by ordinary means. You can’t smell it. You can’t taste it. But it is there. Some areas of Ottawa have higher concentrations than others, but it is likely in your house regardless. You can test for radon if you like. There are many different ways to test for radon… the simplest is to use a do-it-yourself kit. These kit are easy to use. Simply place the kit in your basement for a couple of days, then send the kit off to be tested at a lab… and in a few weeks, you’ll have you answer as to what levels of concentration you actually have in your home.

Where you ask does radon come from? Radon is a carcinogenic gas that is under high pressure under ground. The gas is the result of rock formations (underground) breaking down. It is constantly pushing its way above ground to an area of lower pressure. When it does this and the radon is extracted outside of our homes, then it simply moves up in the atmosphere and poses no immediate threat to us. However, when it pushes its way into our homes then it gets trapped. And given that we are building our homes tighter and tighter all the time, that radon has little opportunity to escape naturally, through holes/infiltration in our home’s building envelope. We are simply trapping radon in our homes and, for lack of a better term, writing our own death certificate!

So whether you have high levels or low levels of radon gas in your home, you will want to remove them ASAP! There are two general ways to get rid of radon gas from your home:

The first method to remedy radon gas is to install a radon extractor. This things looks kind of like a chimney coming out of our basement concrete slab floor. The “chimney” creates a low pressure are for the radon to funnel towards. the radon is then pushed to this area, and delivered outside the house. This system works well, is not mechanical (so no moving parts), but it can be cumbersome and unsightly in some circumstances.

The second, and my personal favorite because it also solves so many other issues, is to install a Heat Recovery Ventilator (HRV)… commonly called and air exchanger. An HRV is a ventilation system that will send polluted “inside” air out, and will bring fresh “outdoor” air into the home. Though while it is changing the air, it is recovering the heat. In essence, you change the air, but don’t lose the heat. The HRV will dilute the polluted indoor “radon filled” air by exhausting it to outside.

There are many other things that a HRV does as well… from removing humidity, air borne chemicals, particulate, viruses among others. An HRV is also one of the best means of fixing issues that lead to mold growth.

For more information please message me at jchapin@climateworks.ca or visit us at www.climateworks.ca.

Please leave me a comment and let me know if this content was helpful and/or enriched your life. I strive to educate people so that they can make informed decisions. I enjoy writing this stuff, and enjoy the feedback even more!

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The average Canadian spends over 90% of their time indoors.

The first time I heard that statistic I said “No way!” Not me… I’m an outdoor kind of guy. I’m outside all the time, whether it’s walking the dog, working in the yard, or out dirt-biking with the boys… I’m outside. There’s no way I spend that much time inside.

Well…. do the math. If I leave the house at 7am to head to work, and I get home from work around 6pm or so… and I don’t leave the house until the following morning, then that’s 12+ hours at home… inside… that alone is 50% of the time. When I’m at the office I’m inside… at my martial arts dojo, I’m inside… doing sales quotes in other people’s homes, again… inside. It adds up very quickly.

But what does this all mean? The air that we are breathing is often very poor quality air.

As we build our houses tighter and tighter… more energy efficient, and cheaper to heat, we are in fact trapping the contaminants, chemicals, particulates, and otherwise polluted air in our homes. Many of these carcinogenic pollutants are undetectable. We cannot small them or taste them and most of the time, we have no idea that they are even in our homes.

Let me come and do a free indoor air quality assessment for you. If you live in the greater Ottawa area, I will pay you a visit on my dime. If we find nothing, you can rest your mind. If we do find issues, we will explore possible causes for the IAQ (Indoor Air Quality) problems. Some of these problems may be solved by changing habits, small changes… for little to no cost. Some solutions may be addressed by installing an air purification system, a ventilation system, such as an HRV (Heat Recovery Ventilator) and/or by tempering humidity in the house. And as you guessed it, we do install these items.

Call me at 613-292-9573 for your free indoor air quality assessment.

John Chapin

www.climateworks.ca

Please leave me a comment and let me know if you found this content helpful. I strive to educate people so that they can make informed decisions. I enjoy writing this stuff, and enjoy the feedback even more. Cheers!

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