Barron Heating AC Electrical & Plumbing Blog: Archive for the ‘Dust’ Category

4 Steps to Reduce Spring Allergens in Your Home

Thursday, March 16th, 2017

It’s not called “allergy season” for nothing.

Spring is finally in the air! And with the arrival of birds, blue sky and warmer weather  comes pesky allergens that can aggravate you and your family and negatively impact health. Keep the pollen, dust mites, and pet dander at bay by regularly maintaining your HVAC system. The better it runs, the happier and healthier your home will be.

Change Your Filters

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: pay attention to your filters! Check your filters every month, and replace every 3 months or so depending on wear. You want to make sure your unit is working efficiently to keep particles and allergens out of your family’s space, especially when any members are particularly susceptible (like asthma sufferers).

Check for Mold

Mold is an unfriendly guest no matter where you find it. It can be especially irritating when it takes up in your HVAC system, worsening allergies and overall health. If you see mold or notice a musty smell coming from your vents, it may be time to schedule a duct cleaning.

Seal it up

To prevent excess pollen and other particulates from making their way inside your home, one DIY approach is to weatherstrip, caulk or spray foam around windows, doors, and other problem areas. Taking these measures can help your air conditioner or heating system run to its fullest efficiency (and save you money).

Call in a Professional

After you’ve made the rounds yourself, it’s never a bad idea to get a full system checkup from a trained professional. Much like your family’s health, your HVAC system is an investment; it needs to be treated with care and attention to be at its best.

Don’t wait until your whole family is sneezing and miserable, contact Barron Heating & Air Conditioning to schedule a maintenance appointment today!

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Is Aeroseal Right for You?

Monday, November 21st, 2016

Do you have uncomfortable hot or cold rooms in your house, dusty or musty air that aggravates allergies, or high utility bills that leave something to be desired month after month? The bad news: You may have leaky ducts.

The good news: Aeroseal’s duct work sealing technology has helped improve home comfort, overall air quality, and energy savings in homes across the country. When 30 cents of every $1 spent on heating/cooling leaks before making it to your living space, properly sealed ducts make a big difference in savings.

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What is in your home dust?

Wednesday, January 6th, 2016

Have you ever noticed all of the “icky” debris from your vacuum when you empty the canister or change the bag?


Have you ever broken your vacuum cleaner bag as you were disposing it or looked at canister of debris before dumping it? This should provide an accurate picture of what type of air the typical homeowner is breathing in their homes.

Every home’s duct work leaks! Every time your furnace runs more things are sucked into your duct work. Things like dust, pet hair, cooking grease, cigarette smoke, and other debris that will stay in your duct work – until they eventually break down and are released back into the air stream for you and your family to breathe.

“Most homeowners simply have no idea of how much dust, dirt, and debris the duct system harbors, according to Brendan Reid, Founder of Comfort Institute and Senior Success Coach . Since the air ducts are out of sight they are often out of mind”. As a reminder, about 50 percent of household dust is from dead skins cells which we constantly are shedding.

Sealing your ductwork not only improves indoor air quality by reducing dust and allergens, but can make you more comfortable in your home by reducing hot and cold spots, rooms, and floors in your house. We suggest using the Aeroseal process, but other forms of duct sealing can be effective.

A few recommendations for breathing healthier air in your home are sealing your duct work before you purchase a new heating and cooling system, clean your duct work every 3-5 years, and have a good air filter that you change according to manufacturer’s recommendations. This combination will help reduce household dust and keep the system running efficiently.



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Got Dust? You can do something about it.

Wednesday, December 9th, 2015

Don’t let the dust bunny be an issue during the holidays.

With the holiday season in full swing, it’s time to start preparing the house for guests. Finding dust in your home is no fun, and no matter how much you clean it always seems to come back.

Dust is made up of all kinds of particles including plant pollen, dead skin cells, pet dander, insulation and fibers from clothing and paper. When it accumulates, it’s annoying and can wreak havoc on asthma and allergy sufferers. To make matters worse, with dust come dust mites. Grossed out yet?

While it’s impossible to completely rid your home of dust, here are some easy tips for keeping it at bay.

Clean Smart.

Using feather dusters will push the dust around and cause it to settle somewhere else. Use a damp cloth or microfiber or electrostatic cloth to capture dust. Always start cleaning a room from the top and work your way down. Change your bedding once a week and de-clutter. Don’t forget to shake out dirt and dust from your area rugs and pillows. Sweep and vacuum a few times a week to keep dust build up minimal.

Use Doormats.

Dirt and dust can be carried through the front, back or garage doors on the soles of your shoes or feet. Using heavy duty doormats will help cut down on the dirt and dust tracked into your home.

Change Your Filter.

A dirty filter will not only reduce the quality of the air in your home, they also lose their ability to to trap dust. Clean them regularly to maintain a healthy airflow. We recommend changing your filter once a month.

Set an Appointment with Your HVAC Contractor.

It’s important to have humidity levels between 40% – 50% to reduce static. Static attracts dust and makes in harder to remove. A Comfort Adviser will check the humidity levels in your home to ensure a healthy, comfortable and static free environment. It’s also very important to have your ducts tested and inspected for leaks. A Comfort Adviser will be able to identify sources like duct leaks which allows dirt, insulation particles and dust to circulate in your duct system and make way into your home. The decision to have your ducts sealed or cleaned may be the solution to minimizing dust in your home.

It’s important to remember that no matter what you do, you will still end up having some dust in your home. It is our goal to help you minimize the dust in your home. Have a trained Comfort Adviser do a thorough inspection of your ducts and living environment.

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Annual Furnace Service (Part I of our Annual Maintenance Series!)

Wednesday, December 31st, 2014

Most of us are pinching pennies after the holidays. This means that home maintenance services that aren’t absolutely necessary often get pushed to the back burner. I’ve heard many folks (myself included!) wonder things like “Is annual maintenance really necessary for my furnace,” or “couldn’t I do that myself and save some money?”

These are great questions! Let’s demystify annual HVAC maintenance by going over: 1. Why an annual service might be important 2. Whether or not all HVAC maintenance is performed equally 3. What, exactly, your service tech (or, what a good one, anyway) should be accomplishing during their visit, and 4. Could annual maintenance be a DIY project?

Is annual maintenance important for your furnace or heating system?

The short answer is yes. But let’s not leave it at that.

Houses are like cars in many ways (except if you’re lucky, you don’t spend nearly as much time in your car as you do your home). So, why is it that most people agree regular car maintenance is critical, whereas it still seems up for debate that your home also needs scheduled care from a professional? Like a car, home heating systems are composed of many intricate parts that all have to work together to deliver healthy, warm, efficient, and cost-effective heat. And, like an inspection and oil change for your car, a regular inspection and maintenance for your furnace can undoubtedly extend the life of your heating system, and the overall health of your home.

Most people know what happens to a car without the routine recommended maintenance. But what happens to your home without an annual furnace maintenance?

A neglected furnace or heating system could result in:

  1. Utility bills going up. No one wants to spend more money on monthly heat bills than they need to. No one. A high heat bill is one major indicator that your furnace needs attention.
  2. Your furnace could need replacing sooner. ALL furnace manufacturers recommend a yearly service. Having to buy a new furnace could mean prematurely shelling out thousands of dollars to keep your family comfortable. If you can extend the life of your current system with under $150 per year, you probably should.
  3. A furnace that hasn’t been properly cleaned can overheat, become clogged, start a fire, release carbon monoxide into your home (cracked heat exchanger), or simply make your furnace shut off. I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer a yearly maintenance to breathing carbon monoxide, yikes!
  4. Illnesses and allergies can be (and often are) caused or exacerbated by faulty or dirty heating systems. This is the air your family breathes, after all.

Are all Annual Maintenance calls performed equally?

Will these items listed above be addressed when you schedule a service call? Unfortunately, the answer is maybe. The service you receive can vary drastically depending on who you call and what you pay. One company can give your furnace or boiler a clean bill of health; whereas another company could come in a week later and find that a multitude of things were not properly taken care of.

There seems to be no industry standard for what is included in an annual maintenance appointment. Many companies offer a “basic tune-up,” a “comprehensive maintenance,” or something by a different name or somewhere in between.  Your best bet is to ask the technician what they will be doing exactly. He or she should be able to quickly give a complete list of items they’ll be cleaning or checking; it should look something like the list below.

What exactly needs to be done annually?

This checklist is the minimum of what should be performed at a comprehensive service appointment. A good HVAC company will also take note of the home performance implications that arise. Technicians who are trained to identify home performance issues will recognize things like duct leakage, house leakage, excessive dust in the home or ducts, rodent issues, and other problems that won’t necessarily be resolved by routine furnace maintenance. Finding and addressing these home performance gaps will lead to a much more efficient, healthy, and warm home.

Basic Annual Furnace Maintenance:

  1. Test temperature rise through furnace
  2. Test all furnace safety controls for proper operation
  3. Test thermostat for proper operation
  4. Test and adjust furnace gas pressure if applicable
  5. Check furnace electrical connections and wiring condition
  6. Test furnace sequence of operation
  7. Clean furnace blower compartment
  8. Check and clean furnace burner compartment
  9. Check furnace blower wheel
  10. Check and clean furnace burners if applicable
  11. Inspect venting for rust and/or corrosion
  12. Check and clean flame sensor and pilot assembly if applicable
  13. Lubricate all moving parts if applicable
  14. Replace furnace filter
  15. For all fossil-fuel burning equipment: Carbon Monoxide Detection test performed in living area

Could the homeowner do all of this herself?

The homeowner could in fact do all of these things, but only if they know how to perform all or most of the items on the list above. I for one, don’t know anyone who isn’t an HVAC professional who can adequately execute all of these checks and cleanings. A heating professional should be able to complete and explain to you everything on the list above; which is what makes them worth the 100 to 150 bucks it costs to do it right!

Hopefully this post has helped to take some of the complexity and mystery out of the annual furnace maintenance. Keeping your annual appointment is all about preventative measures. Following recommended maintenance will likely keep you warm and healthy longer, and keep unexpected furnace shut-downs at bay!

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Dateline Report- Duct Cleaning Scams Revealed!

Wednesday, October 8th, 2014

Our team at MHPE encourages all folks interested in duct cleaning to watch these videos before hiring a contractor.
These scammers are the worst kind of morons you could meet. Similar schemes have been found nationwide being used by dozens of seemingly reputable businesses.

Chris Hanson Files – Air Duct Cleaning Scams Part 1

Chris Hanson Files – Air Duct Cleaning Scams Part 2

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Where’s the Dust Buster?

Tuesday, January 21st, 2014

It’s hard to get too worked up about dust. Yes, it’s a nuisance, but it’s hardly one that causes us much anxiety — and our language itself suggests as much. We call those clumps of the stuff under the bed dust bunnies after all, not, say, dust vermin.

But there’s a higher ick factor to dust than you might think. And there’s a science to how it gets around — a science that David Layton and Paloma Beamer, professors of environmental policy at the University of Arizona, are exploring.

Layton and Beamer, whose latest study has been accepted for fall publication in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, knew a lot about their subject even before they set to work. Historically, everyone from chemists to homemakers has tried to figure out just what dust is made of, and the Arizona researchers drew their preliminary data mostly from two studies of household dust conducted in the Netherlands and the U.S. The American survey in particular was a big one, covering six Midwestern states. Layton and Beamer also included a localized study in Sacramento, Calif., that focused particularly on lead contamination. What all those surveys showed was decidedly unappetizing.

The specific dust mix in any household differs according to climate, age of the house and the number of people who live in it — not to mention the occupants’ cooking, cleaning and smoking habits. But nearly everywhere, dust consists of some combination of shed bits of human skin, animal fur, decomposing insects, food debris, lint and organic fibers from clothes, bedding and other fabrics, tracked-in soil, soot, particulate matter from smoking and cooking, and, disturbingly, lead, arsenic and even DDT.

“There are more [components],” Beamer says. “Dust is a hodgepodge of all sorts of things. It would probably be impossible to make a list of all the possible items.”

But dust’s ingredient label is not the whole story, since all of those flecks and bits behave differently and present different levels of health risk. To investigate those factors more closely, Layton and Beamer developed a computer algorithm that looked at the size, source and toxicity of dust particles as well as how easily they enter the house, if they ever exit and, if so, by what route. That information, by extension, can provide at least a rough sense of the dust load in your own home.

As a general rule, the majority of household dust — about 60% — comes from outside, through windows, doors, vents and, significantly, on the soles of your shoes. Smaller dust particles — from 28 to 49 microns, or thousandths of a millimeter — tend to stay on your shoes. The rest is shaken off inside. A higher share of the dust that floats in the air gets deposited, but again, there’s a lot that determines how much any one home will get.

“Here in Arizona,” says Beamer, “where we leave our windows open most of the year and have an arid climate, we would probably have a higher ratio.” Industrial centers or sooty cities have plenty of dust too, though for different reasons.

There’s not much to fret about in simple particles of dirt or organic materials such as pollen (though they can trigger allergies), but lead, arsenic and DDT can be a more serious matter. About one-third of the arsenic in the atmosphere comes from natural sources — volcanoes principally. The rest comes from mining, smelting, burning fossil fuels and other industrial processes. Even in relatively low concentrations, arsenic is not without risk, especially to small children who play on the floor and routinely transfer things from their hands to their mouths. The same is true for lead, which comes less from wall paint — the source most people would expect — than from auto exhaust, smelting and soil deposits. “Lead loading on floors is a key determinant of blood-lead levels in children,” Layton and Beamer wrote in their paper.

The fact that DDT is still in house dust is a surprise to most people, since the pesticide was banned in the U.S. in 1972. But a house is a little like a living organism: once it absorbs a contaminant, it may never purge it completely. “Dust in our homes,” says Beamer, “especially deep dust in our carpets and furniture, is a conglomerate of substances over the life of the home and can provide a historical record of chemicals that have entered it.”

The mess that originates within the home is a lot easier to measure and control. The more people who live there, the more skin that’s going to be shed, the more pets, the more animal fur. And, as Mom always warned, the more you walk around the house while eating, the more food debris you’ll drop on the floor — which also attracts more insects that will die, decompose and add their own special zest to your dust. Cooking smoke and tobacco smoke, which are the most obvious contributors when they’re being produced, actually make only a small contribution to what winds up on floors and surfaces. The tiny size of the particles makes them likelier to rise and adhere to other surfaces or simply remain in the air than to settle.

It goes without saying that your home will never be dust-free, but there are ways to reduce your own dust loading — and it’s important that you try. Dust mites, which feed on shed skin, produce allergens that are known triggers for people suffering from asthma. Same goes for cockroach dust, especially in cities. No one needs much convincing about the wisdom of getting rid of arsenic, and the good news is that about 80% of it can be removed simply by cleaning floor dust regularly.

None of this means that dust poses a clear and present danger or that you need to take any extraordinary measures. Just clean regularly, don’t smoke, eat at the table — and try not to freak out. Dust bunnies are still only bunnies; you may just want fewer of them.

content courtesy of Time.com

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AeroSeal Infographic

Monday, November 25th, 2013

AeroSeal is the fastest growing method to improve the duct system in your home. Recently highlighted on the Today Show and This Old House, it’s fast becoming a ‘standard’ improvement on any home performance project.  Visit www.BarronHeating.com/AeroSeal to watch an educational video on its use and function

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