Proper ventilation is critical for your home’s indoor air quality. It ensures the air your family breathes is fresh, protecting everyone’s health. Some rooms in your home might require additional air circulation and ventilation. While it might not be something you think about often, here are some reasons why your home’s ventilation is important from our HVAC professionals at Brian’s Heating & Cooling Inc. in Madera, CA.
What is Ventilation?
Ventilation is the process of exchanging stale air inside of a room or your home with clean air. You can ventilate a room by opening exterior windows, turning on ceiling fans, or using an exhaust fan. Some rooms need more ventilation than others. For example, well-used kitchens need significant ventilation to remove grease and other cooking byproducts from the air. Your bathroom requires additional ventilation to reduce the humidity and prevent mold and mildew buildup. Finally, a well-ventilated attic helps to maintain a consistent interior temperature by replacing hot, stale air with fresh air.
Why Ventilation is Important
- Reduced air pollutants
- Fewer respiratory issues
- Reduced moisture
- Reduction in mold and mildew buildup
Types of Ventilation
Homeowners have three choices for ventilating their homes: natural, spot, or whole-house ventilation systems. Here’s an overview of each type.
Natural Ventilation
Natural ventilation involves air moving in and out of small holes and cracks in your home. While cracks and small holes were common in homes in the past, modern homes have them sealed to increase energy efficiency. Once a home is sealed, you must ventilate your home to keep the indoor air healthy and comfortable. You can do so by opening windows and doors. However, this isn’t a good option if you use central HVAC in your home because open windows and doors will interfere with your system’s ability to maintain consistent indoor air temperatures. It’s also not a good option during high pollen season, when there’s wildfire smoke, or when other pollutants are present in the outdoor air.
You also can’t rely on natural ventilation to uniformly ventilate your house. It depends on multiple factors, including wind, outdoor temperatures, and how tightly your home is sealed. When the weather is mild, your home might not have enough natural ventilation to remove pollutants. In inclement or windy weather, a home that hasn’t been sealed will be drafty and expensive to cool and heat.
Spot Ventilation
Spot ventilation involves removing air pollutants and moisture at their source and can improve your home’s whole-house ventilation. This is achieved by using local exhaust fans in your bathrooms and above your kitchen range. By removing excess moisture in your bathroom and concentrated grease and food particles in your kitchen, spot ventilation allows your whole-house ventilation system to work more efficiently.
Whole-House Ventilation
People install whole-house ventilation systems because natural ventilation is not enough to provide uniformly good indoor air quality. Whole-house systems uniformly ventilate your home in every room by using ducts and fans to remove stale air and replace it with fresh air. Most of these systems filter the air before it enters your home.
- Exhaust ventilation
- Supply ventilation
- Balanced ventilation
- Energy recovery ventilation
Exhaust systems pull air from inside the home and expel it outside with fans. They are fairly simple to install. Supply systems draw air inside from outdoors, and balanced ventilation systems equally exhaust contaminated indoor air and pull in fresh air from outside. Energy recovery systems offer controlled ventilation and reduced energy loss to lower the cost of heating or cooling.
Ventilation can help cool homes in dryer climates, but it isn’t as effective in areas with excessive levels of heat and humidity. Attic ventilation helps reduce the costs of cooling homes and keeps costs lower.
Talk to Our Experienced HVAC Professionals
If you want to learn how to properly ventilate your home or have other heating and cooling needs you want addressed, talk to our HVAC professionals at Brian’s Heating and Cooling. We have nearly two decades of experience helping homeowners with their HVAC needs, including heating and cooling repair, installation, and maintenance, indoor air quality services, heat pumps, tankless water heaters, and more.
For more information about our services, contact Brian’s Heating and Cooling, Inc. in Madera, CA today!
