Ductless ACs Improve Indoor Air Quality and Control Humidity
Your home’s Indoor air quality is often two to five times more polluted than outdoor air, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). These pollutants contribute to many diseases as well as respiratory conditions like asthma and allergies.
It Might Be Time to Split
Installing a ductless air conditioner or heat pump system, also known as a mini split, in your Ohio home has quite a few benefits over a traditionally ducted air conditioner. Two of these benefits are helping to improve your home’s indoor air quality (IAQ) and to control your home’s humidity.
Wm Price Heating Co. is an expert in installing ductless air conditioner or heat pump systems. Our professional team has the expertise in design and installation for Girard area customers looking to improve the comfort and indoor air quality of a room or whole house.
How a Ductless System Can Improve Your Indoor Air Quality
In traditional heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, your ductwork or air ducts are the means of travel for your conditioned air. Ductwork often times runs through attics or unconditioned spaces. This can lead to inefficiency, more maintenance, reduced air flow, along with indoor air quality issues.
Most Girard homes were originally designed for heating only systems. This can lead to the need to alter or redesign a duct system to maximize the comfort and efficiency of an air conditioning or heat pump system. Not all ductwork is always accessible in a home which can raise the cost of installation when ductwork modifications need to made.
Ductwork loss or inefficiency can definitely aggravate existing respiratory conditions like asthma and allergies. The American Lung Association (ALA) reports poor indoor air quality can cause or contribute to the development of infections, lung cancer, and chronic lung diseases.
A ductless air conditioner or heat pump, as its name states, has no ducts. With the indoor unit’s compact design, it contains a blower to circulate the air, a heat exchanger (coil), and the controls. The only connections between the outdoor and the indoor unit, are the refrigerant lines and communication wiring. There are no ducts involved and no loss of air flow or efficiency.
Ductless Air Conditioners & Heat Pumps Help to Control Humidity
With a ductless air conditioner or heat pump, your home’s comfort and humidity will be in control. An air conditioner works by absorbing the heat and humidity in your home by means of mechanical refrigerant transfer, thereby cooling and removing the moisture in your home. With a ductless air conditioner, the absorbed moisture is transferred to the unit’s condensate, controlling and reducing your home’s humidity. Less humidity in your home’s air means less pathogens can exist in it, which can contribute to illness and allergies. Controlling your home’s humidity is actually yet another avenue to improving its indoor air quality.
Likewise in heating, humidity control is a necessity to help manage healthy indoor air. During the heating season, your home needs to maintain a safe humidity level to prevent respiratory conditions, such as airborne pathogens and allergies. Using a fuel burning furnace will cause a decrease in relative humidity as it requires indoor air for combustion. As the furnace draws the air in your home through the burners for combustion and exhausts it out the chimney or vent pipe, the air in your home will need to be replaced. That air comes from the cold air outside. As that cold air enters your home, much like an air conditioner works, it will absorb the moisture in your home and lower the relative humidity. Since ductless heat pumps do not rely on combustion of fuel to heat, they have less of an effect on relative humidity during the heating season as less air changes take place, leading to improved efficiency, comfort, and healthier indoor air quality.
Improving Indoor Air Quality Is the Answer
While our homes are becoming increasingly airtight due to better construction methods, humidity needs to be controlled more precisely to help increase overall wellness. The most direct response to this issue is properly conditioned air.
A ductless air conditioner or heat pump can be a wonderful way to support indoor air quality’s improvement simply by not having ductwork involved in the process and controlling your home’s humidity.
Wm Price Heating Co. Is Your Indoor Air Quality Expert
Contact any one of our highly trained Wm Price Heating Co. professionals if you are considering installing a ductless air conditioner or heat pump—or even if you currently have a ductless system—in your Girard, OH, home. Call us at 330-545-3722 or request service online to talk about your home’s indoor air quality and humidity control with one of these units.