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Indoor Air Quality Solutions to Prepare for Cold and Flu Season

This winter more than ever, it’s important to take precautions to keep your family healthier throughout the cold and flu season. Many homeowners focus on extra cleaning of surfaces inside the house but fail to consider the impact of germs, viruses, and bacteria that may travel through the home via the air. Whole house air purifiers and humidifiers are key indoor air quality solutions that help Redlands homeowners keep winter pathogens at bay.

During the fall, take action, and put these protective measures in place inside your home. Sanborn’s Air Conditioning & Heating is available to assist you by lending our expert knowledge as you research equipment options. Our technicians perform skilled installations of whole house air purifiers, humidifiers, and other indoor air quality equipment inside your home.

Poor Indoor Air Quality – a Driver of Winter Illness

Wintertime brings about conditions that create a perfect storm for illness inside your home. Winter air is naturally dry, and research has linked low relative humidity levels to longer virus survival rates and increased transmission. Your nasal passages dry out, leaving the body more susceptible to infection. With homes closed up tight to keep warmth inside, the indoor air becomes more polluted as there is no fresh air replacement.

More time spent indoors with dry air and growing airborne contaminant concentrations can cause illness among many California residents during winter months. Addressing common wintertime indoor air quality challenges with air purifiers and humidifiers creates a healthier environment and keeps your loved ones feeling more comfortable.

Media Air Cleaners

Whole home air cleaners work to rid the home of airborne contaminants in the circulating air supply. Unlike portable air cleaners, which clean the air in just a specific room or area of a home, whole house air cleaners service the entire home because the system is attached to your HVAC system.

Media air cleaners use high-efficiency filters to trap more and finer contaminants. Filters that are MERV 13 to MERV 16 have varying degrees of efficacy for the removal of germs and bacteria from the air supply, depending on particle size. HEPA (high efficiency particulate air) filters are used in some air cleaners and offer up to 99.98% efficiency for the removal of particles down to 0.3 microns in size – most sneeze particles are between 0.3 to 0.499 microns.

A quick word of caution – not every home HVAC system is capable of working with such high-efficiency filters. While they offer enhanced filtration of pollutants, these filters may restrict airflow through the heating system, which can cause higher energy costs as well as damage to your HVAC unit. Sanborn’s Air Conditioning & Heating offers a great selection of Daikin media air cleaners installed by our factory-trained HVAC technicians. We also represent Carrier and Honeywell air quality products. Talk to your HVAC technician to determine which solutions are appropriate for use with your heating system to help prevent the cold and flu.

UV Air Cleaners

UV light air cleaners have been used for years to kill viruses and other pathogens in hospital environments. Now, this same technology can work in the home. Whole house UV light air cleaners are installed within the duct system to treat air cycling through for heating. UVC energy exposure destroys viral particles along with mold and bacteria, preventing their reproduction.

Humidifiers

Because dry air offers prime conditions for viral spread and transmission, it is important to use IAQ solutions to balance relative humidity in addition to air purifiers that help control contaminant concentrations. A whole home humidifier humidifies all air moving through the system to deliver added moisture across the entire home. 

More moisture in the air prevents viral particles from moving throughout the air as easily as they can when conditions are dry. Exposure to balanced humidity indoors helps your nasal passages and lungs stay moist so your body is better prepared to fight off flu viruses and other illnesses.

Prepare for Cold and Flu Season Now

Sanborn’s is ready to help our Redlands neighbors equip their homes with the indoor air quality solutions needed for better health this flu season. Contact us today to schedule a consultation and learn more about installation of these solutions and other indoor air quality products.