Reduce Wildfire Smoke With Your Home Comfort System

As Puget Sound residents were ending their Labor Day weekend, the Easterly winds carrying wildfire smoke from Eastern and Central Washington made for miserable overnight air quality that will continue throughout the rest of the week.

One of the most important things a person can do when air quality becomes unhealthy or hazardous is to limit exposure to the dirty air.  The notion being, when the air gets bad outside, button down the hatches inside doesn’t necessarily apply when you have record high temperatures outside.  Given most homeowners in the Puget Sound do not have air conditioning, they must decide between stifling indoor temperatures or opening windows for airflow relief with worse air quality.

When one has air conditioning or heat pump, it is critical to keep all windows and doors closed so the AC and heat pump can do its magic and keep the home comfortable.  This has a double-positive effect on the air quality of the home.  First, it allows the home to have a consistent barrier between outside and inside with all windows and doors closed.  But, just as importantly, when your home comfort system is running, you are also cleaning your indoor air as it cycles through the filtration system connected to the ductwork.  This removes particulates and cleans the air whenever the system blower fan is on.  More advanced filters and cleaners can even eliminate harmful indoor air quality problems like VOC’s, mold and finer particulates.

Don’t panic if you do not have an AC or Heat Pump as there are options, as you can consider running the furnace fan during the next few days to circulate the air inside the home.  If you suffer from allergies, asthma or other respiratory conditions, it may be wise to invest in enhanced filtering systems like HEPA filters or UV ionizers.  Along with wildfire smoke, the Pacific Northwest is seeing steady annual increases in total pollen production from plants making our allergy season reliably worse.  We are seeing a trend in homeowners electing to add more robust air cleaning to their home comfort systems for these very reasons and more.

No matter what, it is wise to have a plan for poor air quality periods during the spring and summer months. We recommend having a strategy for high smoke days, high pollen days and high heat days all of which can trigger poor indoor air quality conditions.