Indoor Air Quality Services in Oakland County

The three levers: filter the air, control the humidity, bring in fresh air

Strip away the product names and there are only three things you can do to the air in a house. You can filter it, you can change how much moisture it holds, and you can swap some of it for outdoor air. Every piece of air quality equipment does one of those jobs. None does all three, which is why the right choice depends on the problem you actually have.

For dust, pollen, pet dander and smoke, the lever is filtration: a better furnace filter or a whole house air purifier fitted in the return duct. For dry winter air it is a whole house humidifier. For a damp basement or sticky rooms in summer it is a whole house dehumidifier. For stuffy rooms and smells that hang around, it is home ventilation with an ERV or HRV.

There is a step that comes before all of them: deal with the source. A dryer vent that has come apart, a wet basement wall or a bath fan that empties into the attic can undo the work of any equipment we could install. Fixing the source usually costs less too, so that is where we look first.

Why Michigan homes swing from too dry to too damp

Humidity here runs to both extremes. A typical January night here drops well below freezing, and outdoor air at that temperature carries almost no moisture. Heat it to room temperature and it turns very dry. By July the outdoor air is warm and heavy with moisture, and any part of the house that stays cool, the basement above all, turns damp.

The EPA's guidance is to keep indoor humidity below 60 percent, and ideally between 30 and 50 percent. So the same house can need moisture added in winter and taken out in summer. A small humidity gauge from a hardware store will tell you where you stand in each season, and it is worth having one before you spend money on anything else.

Start with the furnace filter

The least costly improvement is nearly always the filter. Check it every month while the system is running hard and change it at least every three months, sooner with pets or during a remodel. Make sure it fits snugly and that the arrow on the frame points toward the furnace.

Filters are graded on the MERV scale, and a higher number catches smaller particles. Higher is not automatically better, though. A dense one-inch filter can choke the airflow on an older blower, and that causes problems of its own. The filter has to suit the fan and the slot it sits in, which is something we check before suggesting an upgrade.

What air quality equipment can and cannot promise

A good filter can reduce the dust, pollen and dander floating in your air. Proper humidity makes a house more comfortable and is easier on wood floors and trim. Fresh air makes rooms less stuffy. Those are honest claims. No product can honestly promise to cure allergies or asthma or keep your family from getting sick, and we will not say one does.

The same goes for duct cleaning. The EPA does not recommend it as a routine job, only when there is a real reason: visible mold inside the ducts, pests, or ducts so clogged that debris blows out of the registers. Leaky or poorly built ducts are a different matter, and fixing them is part of our ductwork service.