Forced-air HVAC installations filter air as it’s recirculated, but standard filters can’t significantly reduce levels of chemical contamination in the air, if it exists as a gas or a vapor. This is a concern here in the Twin Cities Metro Area, where airborne chemicals are common. Fortunately, homeowners have an easy remedy available, an activated carbon filter.
Indoor Air Quality
Indoor air quality, or IAQ, is a term used to describe the relative cleanliness of air inside an occupied building. It’s typically used with reference to the health and well-being of those building occupants.
Common Forms of Filtration
Many of the filter types commonly used in domestic HVAC installations are particulate filters. They act to remove solids, even extremely small particulates. Gasses and vapors, of course, are not solid, so particulate filters alone cannot inhibit their recirculation through the home in the stream of treated air.
Activated Carbon Filter
Activated carbon is the single most effective chemical absorbent available in conventional slide-in filter format. The material is highly effective in removing chemical pollutants, which – for most homeowners – appear in the form of smoke and gasses.
Activated carbon absorbs chemical gasses and vapors, preventing their recirculation. Versions of this technology are used, for instance, to “scrub” the air in nuclear submarines and in spacecraft.
Example Targets
Benzene is an organic compound that encourages the metastasis of benign tumors, being particularly linked to bone marrow failure, leukemia and anemia. Benzene is released when gas is transferred from the pump hose to the tank, but around half of all the benzene we’re exposed to is contained in tobacco smoke.
Naphthalene, another organic compound, targets our red blood cells. It also may cause cataracts and cancers. Naphthalene is given off by coal tar, some flowers, some strains of fungus, even termites and worms.
An activated carbon filter is effective at removing both benzene and naphthalene.
Learn More
Clearly, it’s important that homeowners do all they can to remove chemical pollutants from the air their families breath. Residents in the Minneapolis-St Paul area should contact us at Marsh Heating & Air Conditioning to learn more, or to schedule a free in-home consultation.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about carbon filters and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
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