Indoor Air Quality. It's Simple
Exhaust... Ventilate... Filter

The Basics

• Exhaust odors and excess humidity.
• Ventilate your house with fresh air to dilute any pollutants.
• Filter out allergens using a high MERV or HEPA filter.
• Use HRV and ERV's to ventilate, while recovering exhaust heat or cool.
• Have your house checked for radon gas and mitigate with radon fans as required.

COVID-19 has made us all rethink the safety of indoor spaces. Although the scientific research is not complete, consensus is that a large component in viral transmission involves breathing in airborne micro-droplets.

One of our most popular categories in the last couple of years has been inline filter boxes. They range from basic MERV-6 boxes like our house brand IFBA series or the S&P FB series to MERV 13/15/16 available in the CFB and SFB series boxes.  

Our Main Office IAQ

• Measured in parts per million (PPM) You can expect about 400-450 PPM outdoors
• Anything above 1000 PPM for extended periods may lead to drowsiness and loss of cognitive abilities (as in you get mentally slower)
• Higher levels of CO2 may also indicate that other pollutants (harder to measure) are also present in higher concentrations
• See these links for more details:
  • https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2014-08/documents/base_3c2o2.pdf
  • https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412018312807
  • https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10943933/

• We are measuring PM2.5 which in our case is the weight (micrograms) of particles less than 2.5 microns per cubic meter
• These small particles (from diesel, smoke, etc) are particularly bad for us because they make their way into our lungs and are hard to expel
• Kitchen activity (frying, searing, burning fuel) are also big contributors to indoor particulates
• If you have low levels of particulates, you’re probably cleaning the air of aerosols. Aerosols are the primary vector for air borne viruses (think influenza, colds, covid) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8721651/
• How we fixed our particulate problems
  • MERV13 filters on all outside air coming into ERVs and HRVs
  • MERV13 filters on all air handlers
  • CR style filter boxes situated throughout the building
  • HEPA filtration units
  • Make sure that you have good kitchen exhaust to reduce particulates from cooking

What can you do?

• We stock and sell many brands of ERVs, HRVs: https://hvacquick.com/products/residential/HRVs-and-ERVs
• CR boxes – a great and inexpensive filtration concept: https://hvacquick.com/products/residential/Indoor-Air-Quality/Inline-Filter-Boxes/HVACQuick-CRFB-Box
• We stock many brands, as well as manufacturing our own line of filter boxes https://hvacquick.com/products/residential/Air-Filters
• Exhausting kitchen produced particulates: https://hvacquick.com/products/residential/Kitchen-Exhaust

Footnote on ERVs and HRVs:

• The smart way to fix CO2 problems is to use Energy Recovery Ventilators (ERVs) or Heat Recovery Ventilators (HRVs) 
• You can also just open a window, but this will lead to loss of conditioned air
• ERVs and HRVs minimize loss of conditioned air by recovering the heat or cool, while still bringing in fresh and filtered air

Note on our measurements:

We measure particulates and carbon dioxide levels (inside and outdoors). A thorough analysis of air would include volatile organics (VOC’s) and other pollutants, which is beyond the scope of our measurements. If you have good values for CO2 and particulates, and you don’t live next to an airport or other concentrated pollution source, your other IAQ values will most likely be just fine.