Unfortunately, your central Florida household is more likely to experience poor indoor air quality as compared to the outdoors. When contaminants get trapped inside your home with no ventilation to remove them, they can lead to unwanted health problems for your entire family. If you want to improve the quality of air inside your home, then you may want to consider investing in a whole-home air scrubber for your HVAC system.
What Is an Air Scrubber?
An air scrubber is considered an indoor air quality control device that gets installed directly in your ducting. It will work to remove airborne contaminants to improve the quality of air inside your home. These contaminants can include pet dander, odors, air pollution, VOCs, dust, and much more. This low maintenance air quality booster can be a great investment for those looking to remove these unfavorable contaminants from their indoor air.
How Does an Air Scrubber Work?
Also known as negative air machines, air scrubbers work by using UV germicidal light waves. These waves specifically interrupt the DNA of negative airborne contaminants. This interruption effectively scrambles the DNA to the point where the contaminants die off.
Additionally, the air scrubber will release negatively charged ions known as oxidizers into the air. These substances travel throughout your entire home and connect with positively charged pollutants, like smoke, viruses, VOCs, smoke, and odor-causing bacteria. When positive and negative ions attract, the entire unit is destroyed. This helps to ensure that all the pollutants throughout your home can be effectively removed alongside the pollutants that travel through your ducting.
The main difference between an air scrubber and an air purifier is how they work. With an air purifier, air is pushed through a series of filters that trap unwanted particles. For your air purifier to remain actively effective, it will need to undergo regular filter cleaning or replacement, depending on the specific purifier. On the other hand, an air scrubber is effective at killing the contaminants instead of trapping them.
What Is the Installation Process Like?
Your air scrubber should be installed by a licensed HVAC technician to ensure that it’s done correctly and to maintain the manufacturer’s warranty coverage. This unit is installed inside your existing ductwork for maximum effectiveness. It’s placed in the supply plenum, which is the section of ducting right after the air handler, where treated air gets forced back into the rooms throughout your home.
For the air scrubber to be installed, your HVAC technician will need to cut a section of your ducting to insert the new air scrubber. With the use of mounting brackets, they’ll install your air scrubber permanently. Then, your HVAC technician will run wiring to your HVAC system’s power supply so that your scrubber has power to run effectively.
What Maintenance Does It Require?
Your air scrubber will need to undergo professional maintenance service every year, and its UV light will need to be replaced by a licensed HVAC professional. While you may want to try and replace the light on your own, it isn’t recommended. This is because you can’t touch the new light with your skin or you could potentially damage it.
What Is Its Expected Lifespan?
The overall lifespan of your air scrubber is going to vary widely based on a number of different factors. These include things like the amount of maintenance it receives, how often it gets used, the type of model it is, and so forth. However, most air scrubber manufacturers offer an estimated lifespan of between 10 and 20 years.
Are Air Scrubbers Loud?
While the improved indoor air quality of an air scrubber can be great, you likely don’t want to sacrifice your quiet, peaceful home environment to run it. Fortunately, air scrubbers have a fairly low noise level of around 20 decibels. This decibel range is similar to the sound of a quiet whisper, leaves rustling, or a ticking watch.
Reduce Indoor Contaminants
While you may not want to think about it, every single day, you and your family are bringing contaminants into your home. An air scrubber is the perfect solution to help remove these contaminants from your indoor air. This way, your family can breathe easier and you can have more peace of mind about the quality of your indoor air.
Get Rid of Nasty Odors
One of the most frustrating issues you may deal with in your home is lingering odors created by activities like cooking. An air scrubber can easily work to remove them. Furthermore, it will work to remove the airborne contaminants that are causing the odors to begin with.
Minimize Allergens
If you or another member of your household suffers from allergies or a respiratory condition, you know just how bad allergens can make you feel. Symptoms like sneezing, coughing, sinus pressure, headaches, and even fatigue can all be made worse when you’re in an environment with these airborne allergens. An air scrubber will help to minimize the common allergens like mold, pollen, and dust that can worsen your allergy or asthma symptoms.
Extend Your HVAC System’s Lifespan
While you may be more focused on the fact that your family is breathing in nasty airborne pollutants, it’s also important to realize that those same pollutants are being forced through your HVAC system. Particles like dust and pet dander can get trapped inside your system’s components and shorten their overall lifespan. An air scrubber is a great way to help get rid of those harmful airborne pollutants and help extend the overall lifespan of your HVAC system. This translates to you getting more bang for your buck in regard to your HVAC investment.
Protect Your Ducting
Your ductwork can be an unfortunate breeding ground for mold and mildew growth. When these growths develop, it can lead to mold spores in the air that can affect your family’s health. An air scrubber will work to reduce the amount of buildup inside your ducting and prevent mold and mildew growth from occurring in the first place.
Reduce Household Dust
One of the more frustrating jobs of keeping your home a clean environment for your family is dusting. One thing that you’ll notice when you invest in an air scrubber is that you’ll have less dust on the surfaces throughout your home. You’ll enjoy spending less time having to dust and more time doing the things that you love.
Minimize Wintertime Colds
In the wintertime, cold and flu viruses seem to spread quickly throughout households. No matter how much you try to avoid giving other members of your family a cold, it can seem like your efforts don’t work. With an air scrubber, those unfortunate viruses and bacteria can be destroyed, which will go a long way in minimizing your family’s risk of spreading illnesses.
Reliable Indoor Air Quality Service
American Air, Plumbing, and Electrical offers reliable indoor air quality service to the entire Sanford, Florida region. We can also assist with all your heating, cooling, plumbing, electrical, ductless mini-split, generator, ductwork, duct cleaning, and heat pump needs. Contact our office today to schedule your next service appointment.
