Inside Your Home With Shanklin Heating - Episode 4: Indoor Air Quality Solutions

Our experts in home systems and indoor air quality discuss different solutions that we can provide for homeowners! Tune in to hear about the options you have regarding your indoor air quality from Shanklin Heating, Air Conditioning, and Electric!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You could spend the money on putting a fancy air filter on there, you know, a great air cleaner, but it only can do as much as the duckwork can handle.

SPEAKER_01 0:07

I've got the call twice just in the last week. I have a lot of dust in my home. Welcome to Inside Your Home with Shanklin Heating and Air Conditioning Electric, where we talk about and help you out with the systems that operate in your home and give you some answers to maybe those questions that you have. Welcome everyone. Today we've got Matt with us here today. Super excited. Thanks, Matt, for helping me out. We're both going to talk about indoor air quality today. I know that's a big buzzword going around, maybe the industry. So we're going to talk about indoor air quality. I appreciate you being here and helping us out. Yeah, good to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Honestly, you know, with indoor air quality, there's a lot of um questions and mysteries around a lot of things that a lot of homeowners don't realize that they're having problems, but they're there.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

And now indoor air quality is about what is in the air and what what can we do about it. And it's it's uh you know, coming out of COVID and everything, and it's people, it's a big buzz of how do we can clean it up. So we we just like to take a look at, you know, we've got our systems, but is it dust, dirt, allergies, etc. We've got all that stuff to deal with.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Yeah, and the the with after coming out of COVID, you ran into more of a situation where uh they they put a more of a laser focus on on the things that we breathe and do, and we don't realize what all makes up that stuff that we breathe in. You know, you think dust, oh, a little dirt here, a little dirt there, but you don't realize there's pet dander, dead skin cells, bacteria. I mean, that all plays a factor in it. And it's just amazing to think of what all goes in to dust.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Yeah, and and I think dust is a bit, you know, you bring up dust, and we hear that a lot is you know, oh, I what what can I do? I have dust in my house, you know, I have dust in my home. And and some of it is, you know, outside dust coming in, and some of it is the dust that's in your house that's gonna stay in your house because these homes are built tighter, things of that nature. So we've got to we've got to really take a look at it, and I think what it starts with is, and we'll get to some of the cleaning we do here in a minute, but you know, we want to take a look at your filtering, uh, the filter set up in your home, and and what are we doing about it? Because filters used to be there just to protect the furnace, you know, the HVC equipment. So now a filter is like, hey, we're trying to pull this dust out of the air. Oh, for sure. Um, so when it comes to filters, uh, you know, the filters in general way back used to be just to protect the furnace. You know, we've got to keep the dirt out of the furnace and blowing around, but now it's like we've got to collect the dust. Uh, how can we breathe easier in the home? So just kind of walk us through a little bit about the different filter types and what that looks like in a system.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Yeah. So, you know, you there's so many different varieties out there. You've got your standard one-inch pleated filters, you have high efficiency one-inch filters, you have media air cleaners.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Um, I'm back in the day, these are those one-inch filters seem to be, you know, you go through like the home store or something like that, or even those filters that we supply, like, you know, most of the shelf space in there is is just oh, your one-inch filters, and they're all over the place.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

Yeah, and that was an industry standard for the longest time. Yeah, you know, a lot of us in the trades, we called them rock catchers because that's about all they were good for, is just slowing down the big chunks of dust.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

And now I'm seeing a lot of our crews and what we're putting in, and I know I like to recommend to homeowners is the four-inch media filter. You know, it's it's sometimes it comes in a box, sometimes it's expandable. Yeah, I mean, it just seems to be if just by looking at it, you know, everything your your your common sense says like that's got to be a better filter.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

Oh yeah. And you look at the the way they there's a lot more that just goes into a uh an air cleaner versus just a one-inch standard filter. Yeah. Um, not only do you you gotta make sure it's installed properly, but you also have to make sure you have the proper airflow to get through it. Um, one of the things you run into is with these one-inch filters is they restrict your airflow. You don't realize that they're actually suffocating the furnace versus actually helping your system. Yeah, it does more damage than good.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

Some of those one-inch filters, they actually have, you know, we were looking at this earlier, they actually have some of the same, you know, on by numbers, oh, it could have the same filtering characteristics as maybe the four-inch or the media filters, but they just can't handle the airflow capacity. And they're gonna do just like what you said, restrict it. We see it on the service calls. It's hot out right now. Uh, we see it even when, you know, it's cold in the wintertime. We can't get the airflow through it. So we're taking a look at those media filters. They can handle the air, they can handle the the dust, dirt, allergens, things like that coming up against them. They're able to handle that capacity. I think that's it's that's really crucial as we're talking about indoor air quality because that filter is is everything to the furnace. The the one thing I'd like to ask you about is from it comes down to the installation, it's not just something that we can just go buy a media filter. We've got to have this installed properly. We gotta have the ductwork to accommodate it, things like that.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Yeah, and that's the one of the things. Yeah, they're a bigger filter, but they also require a little more space and they need a little bit more uh larger ductwork to help deliver the air properly to the furnace. Um when you install something like that, we like to look at your not just your furnace, but also what your ductwork is capable of to make sure you could spend the money on putting a fancy air filter on there, you know, a great air cleaner, but it only can do as much as the ductwork can handle.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

So just looking at the whole thing is is a big thing.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

And that's one thing that we get the luxury of doing when we install a new furnace because we got everything taken apart. We're we're taking a look at that whole air distribution system, but you know, even it's so if you're looking to have that put onto an existing system, yeah, you're gonna have to accommodate the whole return air setup and make sure we you you're allowing that system to breathe. And Matt, you're talking about ductwork. So we're on indoor air quality. We talked about air filters, yeah. Air filters are huge. Um, but let's talk about so the air filter is going to be catching the dust, uh, catching the dirt, the pollen, things of that nature that gets to it. But in order for any dirt at all, or dust, we say, you know, back to that original question because I have dust in my house. In order for that dust to ever even reach the filter, it's got to go through your return air or your duct system. So we're gonna talk about duct cleaning. Duct cleaning gets thrown around a lot, the term gets thrown around a lot, even more so than indoor air quality. But duct cleaning is um, you know, I've seen different types of equipment out there, I've seen different rigs, different companies do it. But uh walk us through a little bit uh about the system you've developed on you in your area and just maybe like what it looks like when we do a duct cleaning, a quick snapshot of that.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

Uh what it looks like is you know, we have a very advanced piece of equipment. It's not just a guy with a shot vac and a broom making. Because it was that for a while. It was just a glorified shot vac going down the register events, oh yeah, turning some stuff around. You just knock things loose and hope you get everything. Um with our new equipment, you know, it's based on not just cleaning each individual heat round, but it's also cleaning the main trunk line and getting every scrap and bit of dust we can out of there.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

So you're talking about from the floor registers or wall or even ceiling registers, which would be the those supply runs or those individual return runs, walking that dirt back all the way through. Uh another thing that I've seen you guys do, and I've been on the jobs as well, is when we have, you know, we're drawing a large negative pressure. So we're we're we're hooking a monster vacuum, if you will, which is outside. We're not bringing this rig in the basement. So we've got a large 20 horsepower vacuum that I've seen you guys do in the basement. We're drawing a large negative pressure on the ductwork because that's another thing we get sometimes. It's gonna make a mess. It's gonna be dust is gonna be blowing out of the vents because we're blowing the dust out, but we're actually doing the opposite of that. Correct. Drawing that negative pressure. So, like you talked about agitating that dust, drawing into the negative pressure. You're doing it from each register location.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Yeah. So what we'll do is we'll set up the red machine, which we affectionately call the red machine. Yeah, um, it pulls about uh roughly 8,000 CFM negative pressures. It sucks all that, puts that negative pressure through the ductwork. Then when we'll go around with high pressure, remove the registers and use specific tools, agitators and such, that help break that dust up and force it back down into the main trunk line. So nothing comes back out into your home. You don't have to deal with dust coming out of your registers or anything like that. It all gets pulled negatively back towards the red machine. So there's hoses that go from the ductwork all the way outside, and the dust is collected in bags outside. So that stuff doesn't get a chance to just go everywhere. Yeah, it gets pulled back into the machine.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

So any dust, dirt, debris, or any of that. And also one of your other processes that I've seen you guys do is you think like, oh, we're drawing this negative pressure on the ductwork down towards the furnace, but we're actually isolating the furnace, so we're actually protecting the furnace or air handler, whatever type of air distribution that we have, to where we're not allowing that dirt to fall into the unit. Because I see that happen. I've been on service calls, we go there, no cooling. I just had us, I just had a duct cleaning done by whoever, and now my air conditioner doesn't work, or or even I have drain issues now because all that dirt just settled right into the furnace. So we've got to be careful with that. Just like sweeping the floor or something. If you don't sweep it all to one specific area and clean it up properly, you still got all the dirt there, right? Just move it around. Yeah, we're just moving around. So it does pull the pull the stuff out, and it uh that machine being outside is fantastic because in my mind is like, okay, where's it going? Is the shop, you know, is the the where's the filter at? Where's the thing? But pulling everything outside, walking it down from when I say walking it down, getting the getting the dirt from the each register location down to the main trunk line, and then that's pulling it outside. So yeah. I mean, how so something like that. So that large machine is outside, we've got a what you said, about an eight or a 10-inch hose going to the basement. Yeah, that's got to go through either a basement window or a doorway or some sort to get into your basement, or or to a crawl space or attic, wherever the unit's at. And so something like that, obviously the unit's got to be shut off. Like, how long, you know, let's just say, hey, man, I've got a ranch home, yeah, three-bedroom, you know, your typical home. Like, how long do you think that take a crew to do?

SPEAKER_00 11:06

Um, it could take approximately three hours for smaller homes, up to six hours for larger homes. It all depends on the ductwork and the process of which we need to do to get that out.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

So we're being thorough, going through every register location, removing registers where necessary. And also, I've seen uh what we've been able to do uh is let's say we can't get a register off. Some of the old houses, cast iron style, wall-mounted. Yep. Uh, we're actually I I saw some of the air whips that you have. You're actually able to get down around some of those through the louvers in some of those registers.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

Yeah, we we have some really good agitation tools and some techniques that we use to sneak in there and some hard-to-reach places. I mean, there's uh corner hutches, things like that, that people have all these breakable stuff in there. We just no one wants to move them, which I we completely understand. Um, so our techs will find ways to uh get up in there. Like I said, we have we uh have attachments that not only push but also pull uh that stuff back.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

So you could actually do a some you could actually do some of this ductwork from the basement even if you can't get to there. You can actually so and we we uh I've seen the guys drill holes in the ductwork about what about an inch hole, something like that. Yeah, and you guys have your sealed rubber plugs that go in there. I watched that standard operating process that that you do. Um I think that's great. I love the machine outside. It does take, like you said, what, two, three, maybe even four hours sometimes. You're saying. Yep. So removing all that out of there, I feel that's the best way. Uh what we've seen in our customers like the best way to start the indoor air quality process. Let's start with clean ductwork, take a look at our filtering system, yeah, and then we can start removing all those particulates. Like you said, it's the dust, the dirt, things of that nature. Uh some of the other things that we've you know has been thrown around out there. What can we do is, you know, UV lights, different things like that, trying to kill some bacteria. You know, typically, I think you know, do we recommend doing that like probably after a duck cleaning, get that duct work as clean as we can?

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Yep. Uh so you you know, you go through um and you take and remove everything you remove. It's like breathing with a stuffed up nose. Once you get that all cleared out that you can breathe free again, we want to keep that from building back up again. So one of the things we can definitely look at is uh a UV light. Um some models have carbon filters that help with that, help with smells, not only do that, but they also keep the coils clean. Um allergies and and that is a big issue that we're having. And one of the things is mold. You get mold buildup in those dark, damp places. Yeah, and these these UV lights really shed a really good beam of light, a UV light actually, yeah, that just kills all that off of those coils. And then we don't have to worry about that coming back. Coming back because it's taken care of it.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

I like that to where you get clean ductwork, UV light when applicable, especially in the air conditioning mode, like you said, over the air conditioning coil, even in an attic, especially 140, 150 degree attic, as soon as your unit shuts off, the inside of your ductwork becomes that same temperature. So it's good to have that on there. So definitely look into the the UV light to where and there's various different types and styles, like you said, carbon filters on them for odors and just things to keep your equipment clean too. Yeah. And I really like that you know, when we talk about the equipment, because the equipment is what's moving your air, what's heating your air, what's cooling your air. Yeah. So to go back through the process again, I'm just kind of thinking about how I would process indoor air quality. We want to clean the ductwork that we have, properly maintain it, take a look at our air filter. If we need to upgrade our air filter, we can do it. Go to a four-inch filter, which would need an installation, which we do all the time. Possibly a UV light to protect any type of mold or dander or things like that inside, especially the coil, those damp coils in the summertime when your air conditioning is running. And then protecting your blower, your blower housing, things of that nature, because you can do all the cleaning you want. If you don't have the right filter in there again, you're gonna go back to moving the same with the back to square one. One other thing I'd like to we're so we talked about the system, how we can work on it, how we can maintain it. Maybe another piece of this, Matt, is what I'd like to just talk about for just a minute or two is about how tight homes are. And and this could mean you know, we think about oh, that that house is is really tight or it's really sealed up, and then you hear the other, oh, I have a really drafty home, you know. So the newer homes, anything built within maybe the last 15 years or so is going to be considered a more sealed up home. You know, building standards have changed. Yeah. So that dust, dirt, things that you start to talk about when you pull out doing duck cleaning, we love a nice sealed up home, but what's that also allowed to do? Anything that's inside the home stays in the house, right? For a long time. For a long time. Because we don't get a lot of air infiltration on homes, especially maybe people that stay in their home for extended periods of time. They don't have a lot of kids coming in and out. So the doors aren't opening and closing quite as much. We don't get a lot of air exchange. Yeah. Um, those are things we really like to just keep an eye out for when it's talking about indoor air quality. It's not just a hey, clean my ductwork and fix it, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Oh, yeah. And you're looking at um recirculating stale air over and over and over and over and over again. Yeah. And when you do that, it it can cause a slew of other health issues that people don't really realize. Um, you you run into that and you need that fresh air. Everybody needs fresh air, right? Yeah, so your home needs to breathe a little bit. Um, you get rid of the stale air, you bring in the the uh good air, and you know, they have several different machines now that are available. Um they call them ERVs. Um, they really do a good job of taking your air from outside, cleaning up, bringing inside for you to breathe, and taking the sterile air and getting it.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

So it's basically exchanging the air without you even have to think about it. You're pulling air from outside, exhausting the old air out, you're literally swapping it out, kind of like they would on maybe a commercial building or something, which they're done.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

In older homes, you never really thought about that because you had draft spots, things like that. So it was never really an issue, and it's starting to rear its head when people are are having some health issues and they're finding out that they're actually just breathing still air in all winter long. These homes are super tight. Yeah, people get these new homes and that they're they don't really travel much or do anything, they stay at home all winter long because they don't like being outside.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

Well, we need to change the air out. Yeah, absolutely. And I love it. And I love you know, we're in the HVAC business, obviously, in electrical. We do uh, but in the indoor air quality side of the HVAC, it's it's we always love to talk about the equipment. Yeah, so what we've done today is we've gone back through, talked about the dust, the duct cleaning, UV lights where necessary, air filtration, uh, air infiltration. You mentioned about bringing fresh air in. Those are all things that we love to have conversations with to homeowners, to customers, because that's the thing. I've that's the first call we get. I've got the call twice just in the last week. I have a lot of dust in my home. I have a lot of dust in my home. It really just takes us to get our eyes on it because you don't know if it's a filtering system, an air infiltration system, or they just need a fresh duck cleaning because we've got to get the dirt out of the air distribution system to where the filter can do its job, the furnace and/or air conditioner can do its job to really help everybody out. Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

So it's that holistic approach if we're allowed to use that for the home, right? Yeah, for sure. Um, just getting that thing clean from top to bottom and starting off fresh is really a key thing. It is.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

It is. Even if a brand new home, a brand new home. I we see it a lot with construction dust, things like that, or a remodel. Oh, yeah. I remodeled the laundry room in my home, and it's it was, you know, I tried to seal off everything best I could. We still had a lot of construction debris go down in the vents.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

You look at these new allotments, right? So you've got all these new homes going up. People are moving into these homes and they're still building the allotments. What you don't see is all the road dust that comes in on your clothes, your shoes, all that breaks loose, gets in the air, and then gets right into a brand new duck system. And there you are, you're starting over. You think, oh, it's a new home. I shouldn't have to do anything.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

Yeah. There's stuff out there. Yep. Yeah. And we love helping out with that. It's good just to stay educated. And I think that's a primary thing. If you're thinking indoor air quality, whether it is a health thing, like you mentioned, or just like I'm tired of the dirt in here and the dust, let's educate yourself. And uh, we love to be able to do that with people. Definitely. So just to recap a little bit about our indoor air quality, some common mistakes that could be out there is we've got a too restrictive of a filter, which you told us about. Yep. Duck cleaning can fix everything, does a great job, but may not fix everything because of those other other issues that we talked about. And then making sure your system is maintained. So in system, that HVAC system maintained, we take a look at that ductwalk. All of those really go together, and we want to make sure we're not just trying to, you know, like you said, the duct cleaning fixes everything. Duct cleaning is fantastic, but there's other things that go with it. There's a lot of factors that get into it, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And and I love being in the HVAC business. We're able to do our own indoor air quality stuff. Yeah. And it just makes it awesome that we don't have to call someone else to do our duct cleaning. It's super fun to be able to and we polish our system that way too. We see what works and what needs to become better. So uh it's just great to educate ourselves even a little bit more about it. I hope that helps everyone out. Thanks for listening to Inside Your Home with Shanklin Heating. We'll see you next time right here inside your home. Our family is always here for you at Shanklin Heating and Air Conditioning. Give us a call or visit shanklinheating.com.