A decision to install a mini-split air conditioner produces many benefits that improve the owner’s quality of life. The New York Times regards the design as an efficient way to cool or heat a house room by room with wall-mounted indoor units. Without the hassle of installing a central system or an inefficient window unit, homeowners can supplement existing equipment with a faster response. The low profile makes the units much less visible, and the minimal sound they produce appeals to many homeowners. However, none of a mini-split’s attributes may matter as much as its ability to remove pollutants from indoor air.
Considering Your Exposure to Indoor Air Pollutants
An article in the Ottawa Times may give you something to think about when you consider the quality of your indoor air. The health issues that may result from poor indoor air quality can contribute to allergies, eye irritation, headaches, lethargy, respiratory problems and even some kinds of cancer. While you cannot see air pollutants, they exert a considerable influence on your health. With the hours you spend indoors because of lockdowns, working from home and occasional curfews, you may experience unhealthy air.
Identifying the Dangers and What They Do
While unpleasant to consider, the presence of biological particles in your indoor air may include bacteria, microorganisms and fungal spores. They can enter your home in ways that you cannot prevent, and you cannot stop them from entering on friends and family or pets. Fungal spores tend to grow on moist indoor surfaces. Of particular concern, they can flourish inside your central heating, ventilating and air conditioning system. The cooling coils, insulation material and drain pans in your HVAC system provide an environment that encourages them to grow.
Biological Contaminants
Pollutants in indoor air that come from life forms include animal dander, bacteria, insect parts and excrement, dust mites, fungal spores, pollen and viruses. Harvard’s School of Public Health cites biological pollutants as a common contributor to asthma. When the contaminants affect allergies and cause runny noses and stuffiness in the head, discomfort and health issues can occur. As a serious health concern for asthmatics, the pollutants can cause the tubes that provide incoming air to constrict and make breathing difficult or nearly impossible without medication.
Smoke
Data from the Canadian government cites the damage that wood smoke from a fireplace can cause. It can produce consequences for anyone, but it affects children and people who have lung or heart problems especially. The undeveloped condition of young lungs and the active life of children makes them more susceptible.
Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)
Exposure over time to the gases that emit from paint, carpet, building materials and some chemicals in your home can produce significant side effects. Symptoms may include nausea, dizziness, skin reactions and damage to the central nervous system, liver and kidney.
Mold
Moist areas in your indoor environment offer ideal conditions for mold to form. Its capacity for spreading and dispersing spores into the air can create unhealthy conditions in your home, causing allergic reactions and respiratory illnesses.
Particulate Matter (PM)
Solid or liquid particles so small that you cannot see them can produce serious threats to health. Some microscopic droplets or solids can get into your lungs or bloodstream when you inhale them. Indoor PM can come from dust, tobacco smoke, open fireplaces, space heaters without venting, lit candles and cooking. You cannot see most PMs, but you can clearly see particles in the air when you dust your furniture.
Seeking a Solution
While you may improve indoor air quality to some degree with ventilation and avoiding pollution-related activities indoors, your efforts cannot handle everything. Technology can offer effective control of indoor air quality, and mini-split air conditioners may provide the best alternative. You may think that a central air conditioning system can do the same thing, but its centrality gives it the opposite effect. It can heat and cool your home, but it depends on ductwork to distribute the treated air. Therein lies the problem.
The negative aspects of a central system start with the circulation throughout your home. With pollutants going into each room, they can affect family members who may have vulnerabilities. Also, ductwork often contains dust, dirt, pollen and pet dander that come from indoor and outdoor sources. While you can get someone to clean your ductwork, the idea often does not occur until your family starts reacting to pollutants. Located in the attic and hard to reach, the ductwork remains unnoticed.
Choosing Mini-splits as a Superior Alternative to HVAC
With the miracle of technology, mini-split systems can treat and distribute air without ductwork. An effective, affordable and flexible option, ductless systems offer many advantages.
Improved Air Quality
As opposed to the collection and distribution of air with an HVAC system, ductless systems serve only the room you occupy. The likelihood of gathering pollutants from cooking in the kitchen or the fireplace in the living room diminishes. Areas where pets sleep contain dander that a central air system picks up and distributes throughout the house. Other air pollutants that damage air quality circulates everywhere as well.
With a ductless mini-split, the unit treats the air you breathe in a specific room. The lack of ductwork provides better quality air. When you want to prevent common particulates from affecting the air quality in your home, a ductless system delivers it. Advanced technology provides access to HEPA filters that can collect fine particle contaminants. Electrostatic precipitators can cause pollutants to cling to the energy they generate.
Performance
A mini-split system distributes air where you need it without first sending it into the attic and then to each room. Without ductwork, the units mount on the wall of the areas you want to treat with cool or warm air. The great simplicity of the mini-split system allows minimal disruption for installation and saves space at the same time. You never run the risk of damaged ductwork in the attic that leaks conditioned air without your knowing it. Separated or leaking ductwork can allow pollutants in the attic to enter the central distribution system.
Flexibility
When you want to enjoy either warm or cool air, you probably want it immediately. Mini-split ductless systems can deliver it almost anywhere. Our professional installers can mount them high up on a wall or near the bottom, or they work just as well on the ceiling. Without ductwork, the system flexibility gives you the freedom to control the air temperature.
Addressing the Issue
A mini ductless system can address the concerns that common indoor air pollutants create. We offer a complete line of ductless heating and cooling solutions that provide an alternative to portable, inefficient equipment. When you look at the simple and efficient mini ductless systems, you can see the advantages they offer for improving the air quality in your home