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Effective ventilation
is a process that keeps the air circulating and exchanges
the over-heated and moisture-laden air in your house
with cooler air from outside. Most homes built today
are sealed tight during the construction process and
allow almost no air infiltration. This is efficient
for heating and air-conditioning a home (heating and
air-conditioning systems recirculate the same old, inside
air over and over again) but makes it all the more necessary
to ventilate. Without ventilation, moisture, cooking
odors, tobacco smoke, and other foul-smelling odors
are locked into the house and cannot escape.
Moisture in the air comes from everyday activities
such as cooking, bathing, laundering, and even breathing.
Moisture that is allowed to remain in a closed house
can create many problems for the homeowner. The most
serious is mold growth, which can seriously threaten
the health of all the people in the house. Mildew is
another problem, which is usually encountered around
showers and laundry facilities. The moisture in these
areas generally causes problems with peeling paint and
wallpaper, but under the surface, structural damage
may be taking place. Moisture can also be present in
the attic and this dampness can deteriorate the insulation
and also cause structural damage.
| Did
You Know? |
- Doctors are now recognizing that “sick”
homes can damage people’s health
and vitality, decrease their productivity,
increase their health costs, and reduce
home values.
- Today’s homes contain over 1,500
hazardous compounds from approximately
3,000 man-made products. Even low levels
of pollutants emitted by these products
will affect human health over a period
of months or even years.
- The EPA recently rated indoor air pollution
as one of the five most urgent environmental
issues, accounting for over $1 billion
annually in direct health care costs and
up to $60 billion annually in lost productivity.
- A 1999 Mayo Clinic study associated
nearly all of the chronic sinus infections
afflicting 37 million Americans with molds.
Recent studies also have linked toxic
molds to the tripling of the asthma rate
over the past 20 years.
- The EPA has stated that 50%of all illnesses
are caused or aggravated by indoor air
pollution.
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A whole house fan is by far the best method of providing
ventilation for the whole house.
Every time a whole house fan is operated, it draws
the foul air within the house up into the attic and
then forces it out of the attic through the attic vents
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