News - Page 9 of 21 - Absolute Air

April 6, 2016

How Air Conditioning Can Help Improve Your Health.

Did you know that Texas cities rank among the worst in the nation for outdoor air pollution? In 2015, the American Lung Association ranked DFW #7 on the list of highest ozone levels, with Houston right nearby at #6. Ozone, for purposes of this report, is defined as smog and other air polluting particles.

No wonder why people with asthma and other respiratory ailments are required to spend so much time indoors during the cooling season. And why more and more are installing whole-house air filtration systems, especially when you consider that indoor air, on average, is twice as polluted as outdoor air across the nation.

blog On the brighter side of that same coin, a well-maintained air conditioning system and a companion whole-house air filter can provide more than relief. That combination can actually rid your home of the very pollutants that have caused or continue to aggravate whatever breathing problems you might have.

And yet that’s just one of the health benefits associated with air conditioning. Here are several others:

Reduced Stress – Excessively hot indoor temperatures also have a way of causing your blood pressure and stress levels to rise, and there’s no relaxation in that.

Helps Prevent Illness – With increased stress, your body’s immune system weakens over time, and that makes you more vulnerable to illness and infection.

Helps Fight Depression – Heat often leads to lethargy, boredom and loss of interest; these symptoms are closely related to depression.

You’ll Sleep Better – Sleep is a crucial part of our lives and trying to get any sleep when it’s warm and humid is next to impossible.

Of course, the key to enjoying the full measure of these several benefits is keeping your AC system in the best working condition possible. And the best way to accomplish that goal is with annual preventative maintenance. So if it’s been a year or longer since your system was last cleaned and inspected, contact Absolute Air to schedule service. That way, you can more fully experience all the benefits of whole-house air conditioning.

March 17, 2016

How to Clean Up Your Indoor Air.

What if someone were to offer you an opportunity to sit indoors and inhale a steady diet of indoor such airborne particles as smoke byproducts, formaldehyde, mold and mildew, radon, pesticides, dust and dust mites, glues and adhesives, carbon monoxide, and a host of other well-known and common indoor air pollutants?

Chances are you’d advise that person to schedule a check-up from the neck up. But not so fast. Because what that hypothetical person is suggesting in our little experiment here is something you’re probably doing anyway, and without realizing it.

The fact is that across this great nation of ours, indoor air (on average) is twice as polluted as outdoor air, and up to 100 times more polluted. As such, indoor air pollution is both a leading cause and aggravator of certain types of allergies, asthma, and other upper respiratory ailments. What’s a concerned home owner to do? Well, you can continue to sit around and take, or you can take matters into your own hands to kick those stinkin’ pollutants out on their ears.

Here are a few simply and practical ways how:

Wash your bed covers once a week, along with sheets and pillow cases, to keep your dust population to a bare minimum.

If you’re prone to dust allergies, purchase plastic covers for your mattress and box spring. Dust and dust mites just love the warm, nurturing atmosphere of unprotected bedding.

Not quite the “green thumb” type? You’d be amazed at how easy it is to learn, especially once you realize that certain types of house plants permanently remove bacteria and viruses from the air. This impressive list of natural air cleaners includes: Aloe, Spider plants, Gerber daisies, Weeping Fig, and many others.

Leave your shoes – along with all the bad stuff on their soles – at the door. That will prevent you from traipsing dirt and pollutants like pesticides and pollen all over your house.

Swap out your vacuum cleaner for one with a HEPA filter that traps dust, dirt, and other particles vs. releasing them back into the air.

Don’t let anyone smoke inside your house – PERIOD!

Start using green cleaning products made from all-natural ingredients.

For more far-reaching results, contact Absolute Air and ask about our indoor air quality solutions, starting with a whole-house air purifier that removes more than 99% of airborne particles during AC or heating system operation. We can install one inside your ductwork where the system’s filter will trip the particles before they can ever make their way into your living spaces.

Why not make today the day you declare: “No more poor indoor air quality for me!”

March 8, 2016

How to Reduce High Indoor Humidity

If high outdoor humidity seems to be following you indoors, then something is definitely wrong with your AC system. If so, here are two distinct possibilities.

You have an over-sized system. Let’s say, for example, that you have a 4 ton AC unit when a 3 ton unit would have been more than adequate. An oversized system will cool your home faster, but also shut itself off faster than a correctly sized system. That, in turn, means longer periods of time without the AC on, and thus higher than comfortable indoor relative humidity.

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Frozen evaporator coil. When a home AC system is operating efficiently, its evaporator coil – located inside the indoor half of the system – is doing its job by literally cooling off your indoor air. At the same time, it’s removing humidity from your indoor spaces, but that functionality is lost as soon as a coil freezes up.

If you have an older AC system and unbearable indoor humidity, you have a great reason to replace yours with a correctly sized system from Absolute Air. But what if your system is still relatively new and has a bunch of years left in it? Fear not: we have a very workable solution for you, too: a whole-house de-humidifier that we can install to work in conjunction with your AC system to cool and dehumidify your home at the same time. Plus, you can set the unit to generate the relative humidity level at which you feel most comfortable. For most people, that’s between 40% – 50%.

For more information on how to remove excess humidity from your home or any other AC problem at all, contact Absolute Air today.

February 15, 2016

5 Key Reasons to Clean or Replace Your Furnace Filter.

blog Life is full of instances where, among myriad solutions, the right one is the simplest and easiest to ignore.

Take, for example, when you’re working at your computer and suddenly it’s taking forever to open a new window. You try 20 different solutions when all of a sudden it dawns on you: “Why not just reboot?” You try it, and everything’s back to normal.

The same thing applies to your furnace, as in, there are so many problems that can be solved or, better yet, prevented by taking the simplest step of all: cleaning or replacing the filter.

Read on and learn – we promise you’ll be glad you did:

Clean or replace your filter regularly – Rule of thumb, your filter should be cleaned or replaced every 3 months. If you have smokers in your house, you should at least check it more often. If, on the other hand, you have a whole-house air filtration system, you can probably get away with cleaning or replacing it less often.

When should I replace vs. clean my filter? If you can’t see light through your filter, you should replace it. Also, if you have the inexpensive cardboard type of filter, you should replace it every time, or replace it with a MERV (minimum efficiency reporting value) that is manufactured to last and be cleaned regularly.

How exactly should I check my filter? Before checking your filter, make sure the furnace is turned off. Next, locate the service panel which you’ll typically find on the lower front or side. After gently popping off or sliding up the panel door, look for the filter. After removing it, common sense will dictate if cleaning it is enough or if it should be replaced. In any case, do not restart your furnace until you have re-inserted the fully cleaned old or replacement filter.

How do I choose one MERV filter over another? The higher the number on a scale from 1 to 12, the better capable it is of filtering out dirt, dust, and other airborne pollutants. Each of these is capable of limiting the efficiency of your furnace AND contributing to unhealthy indoor air quality.

Can a clogged filter start a fire? Absolutely, and here’s how. The dirtier the filter, the harder your furnace has to work to push warm air through. Over time, furnace parts can overheat and eventually lead to a fire.

What else can I do to prevent a furnace-related fire? To perform as efficiently and safely as possible, your furnace should have plenty of clearance around it between walls and the ceiling. And since internal combustion is taking place to convert oil or gas into warm air, you also should keep paper and any other flammable objects as far away from it as possible.

As complex as it might be, your car is useless without an ignition key. Such a simple device, wouldn’t you agree? When you think about your furnace, it’s equally important to think small first. As in, take good care of that little, inexpensive filter, and your furnace will take much better care of you.

At the same time, let’s say you’ve taken meticulous care of your filter and yet you still have a problem with your furnace. In that case, the solution is just as simple as filter maintenance: pick up the phone now and contact Absolute Air. We are your home heating specialists offering precision furnace troubleshooting and high quality repairs. Plus, with Absolute Air, you’ll receive a guaranteed upfront repair price along with our 100% customer satisfaction guarantee. For home heating at its best, contact Absolute Air today.

February 4, 2016

Ductless Air Systems Provide Cleaner Indoor Air

Before you settle on replacing your central air or heating system for another of its kind, we invite you first to consider a switch to something completely different: a combined ductless heating and cooling system.

Before talking about how a ductless air system can help clean up your indoor air and make your house easier to clean, let’s first remind you of a ductless system’s unique attributes:

Needs no ductwork. If you’re still using window air conditioners to cool your home because you don’t have ductwork and your home can’t support them, now you have a clear alternative. That’s because, just as the name suggests, ductless air systems don’t need or employ ductwork to cool or heat your home.

A combined heating and cooling system. Imagine that: only one system to maintain for your year-round heating and cooling needs.

Fast installation. Since there’s no ductwork to install or reconfigure, ductless systems can be installed on the double. Each outside condensing unit (also called a heat pump) can support up to 5 wall blowers. It’s the latter that deliver conditioned air to your living spaces.

Tremendous flexibility. Maybe you don’t need a completely new home comfort system but you’re thinking about turning your porch into a 4-season room and you’re wondering what the best way is to heat and cool it. The best way might just be a ductless air system, the perfect solution for one room, your whole house, or anything in between.

And now let’s get back to how ductless air systems help provide cleaner indoor air. With a ducted, central air conditioning system, it’s not just air flowing through your ducts and into your house. So are umpteen contaminants like bacteria, dust, pesticides, mold spores, and up to 2,000 more. If you want clean indoor air, you have to regularly clean or replace your filters, have your ducts cleaned periodically and, for best results, install and maintain a whole-house air purifier.

And yet life and indoor air cleaning are so much easier with a ductless air system. For starters, there are no ducts to clean. As for the filters, just lift up the grates on your wall units and vacuum them once a month. Plus, ductless systems are equipped with three filters: dust, anti-allergen, deodorizing filters. That’s triple the protection. Plus,

with less dust floating around your house, that means less dust to remove from your floors, furniture, and other sitting objects.

At Absolute Air, we’re pumped up about ductless air technology because we know how well it can serve people like you – people who value more than just comfortable indoor temperatures. For all the facts plus a free in-home quote, contact Absolute Air today.

January 15, 2016

8 Tips for Your Healthier Home

We all strive to make our homes as healthy and safe as possible. But knowing that, on average, indoor air is 2 to 5 times more polluted than outdoor air can take some of the air out of your sail. But don’t give up just yet. Here are 8 changes you can make today that will help control the pollen, mold, dust, and other contaminants that are trying to invade your home and body.

Keep a barrier between you and your bedding. Put zippered dust and dust mite proof cases on your pillows and mattress that prevent even the tiniest of particles from getting through.

Use a HEPA filtered vacuum cleaner. While vacuuming picks up dirt and dust, it can also send those tiny particles back into the air, unless you use a HEPA filter.

Change the vacuum filter. A vacuum filter is only good if it’s clean, so change it every 6 months or so or as soon as it starts showing wear and tear.

Replace your HVAC filters regularly. HVAC filters not only help keep your heating and air systems running efficiently, they help keep pollutants and contaminants out of the air. So replace those filters at least every 3 months.

Ventilate your bathroom properly. First, make sure your bathroom exhaust fan is vented to the outdoors. Then, run it anytime you take a bath or shower to help remove moisture from the room. Leave it running for a few minutes after you’re done, as well.

Keep your gutters clear. Clogged and leaky gutters can allow moisture to enter your home and lead to mold growth and structural damage. Inspect your gutters year round and clean as needed.

Purge textiles in your bedroom and living room. Area rugs, throws, blankets, and upholstered furniture all trap dust and are perfect breeding grounds for dust mites. Keep them to a minimum for a healthier home, and frequently clean the ones you have.

Follow your nose. If an area of your home smells musty, don’t ignore it. Get to the source of the problem to reduce the spread and damage that mold can cause.

Another key to maintaining a healthy home is having your heating and cooling systems professionally cleaned and inspected once a year by the home comfort professionals at Absolute Air. Your filters are part of the inspection process, but so is every other system component – places where dust, dirt, bacteria, mold, mildew and other pollutants frequently gather. We can also help keep your house pollutant free, all year long, by installing a whole-house air purifier. For more information or to request a free in-home consultation, call or click for Absolute Air today.

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