How Does My Furnace Affect My Home’s Indoor Air Quality?

When the temperatures drop in Altoona, nothing feels as comfy as turning up the heat and cozying up indoors.

Your furnace works hard to keep your Pennsylvania home toasty, but continuous heating also dries indoor air.

Our customers at Link Service Heating & Cooling often ask why their indoor air quality suffers during the winter. Unfortunately, your furnace can make your indoor air feel excessively dry and can circulate dust and allergens. The good news is you don’t have to choose between heat and healthy air.

We’ve got you covered at Link Service Heating & Cooling with this handy guide to indoor comfort and winter air quality. With a few simple do-it-yourself steps and solid HVAC solutions, you can feel warm and breathe clean air all season.

How Heating Affects Your Indoor Air

When your furnace heats cold winter air, it doesn’t actually add moisture. It just raises the temperature. As the air warms up, it feels drier because the relative humidity drops.

The warm air can pull moisture from everything around it, including your sinuses, skin, wood floors, and even furniture. That’s why indoor air can feel uncomfortably dry in winter, even though the furnace isn’t removing moisture. It changes how the air behaves.

The Downside of Dry Indoor Air

Ultra-dry air with relative humidity below the recommended 30 to 50 percent can negatively affect your health and home.

In an arid environment, the mucous membranes in your nose and throat dry out, becoming less effective at trapping germs and making you more susceptible to colds, flu, and other respiratory infections. Viruses also tend to stay airborne longer in dry air and travel farther.

You might also experience dry, itchy skin and chapped lips. If your nasal passages become too dry, your nose might even bleed.

If that weren’t bad enough, static electricity is more prevalent in dry air. You are more likely to feel a static electricity shock when you touch a metal object or a person.

Besides drying out your skin, low-humidity air can also remove moisture from your home’s structure and furnishings, leading to cracked wood floors and furniture.

HVAC Solutions to Dry Indoor Air

Improving filtration and humidification can eliminate the drying effect of your furnace and improve your overall indoor air quality.

Optimize Your Furnace Filter: Your furnace’s air filter is its first line of defense against pollutants. A dirty filter restricts airflow, causing your system to work harder and become less effective at trapping particles.

Inspect your filter every month and replace it as recommended by your system’s manufacturer.

Use filters with a higher Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value (MERV) rating, ideally between 8 and 13. Filters with higher ratings trap small particles, such as dust, pollen, pet dander, and even some bacteria. Check your furnace’s manual for guidance on MERV ratings. Some high-efficiency filters may be too dense for older furnaces.

Install a Whole-Home Humidifier: At Link Service Heating & Cooling, we integrate the humidifier directly into your HVAC system. It works by introducing water vapor into the warm air before it heads through your ductwork and out through your air vents.

A whole-house unit is the most effective solution for dry winter air. Unlike portable humidifiers that only add moisture to the air one room at a time, a whole-home unit balances humidity evenly throughout your entire house, ensuring you maintain perfect humidity levels.

This consistent moisture not only brings immediate relief to dry skin and nasal passages but also helps protect your wood floors and furniture.

Say Goodbye to Contaminants

Besides humidifying your living space, you can improve its IAQ by reducing the pollutant level. Feel more comfortable in your Altoona, home with these easy steps:

Keep it Clean: Vacuum your carpets and rugs regularly and dust with a damp cloth to capture particles. Use a vacuum with a High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filter.

Install an Air Purifier: Your furnace filter cleans the air moving through your ducts, but an air cleaner or whole-house air purifier can capture even smaller particles, allergens, and airborne pathogens that your standard filter might miss. Some advanced systems even use UV light to sterilize biological contaminants.

Clean Vents and Ductwork: Over time, contaminants can accumulate in your ductwork and adhere to the return and supply vent grilles and registers. Clean the vent covers in warm, soapy water and vacuum the duct opening. Consider professional duct cleaning every few years to remove dust buildup from your ductwork.

Improve Indoor Air This Winter

Take a proactive approach to your IAQ this winter by upgrading your filtration, investing in a whole-house humidifier, and cleaning dust before it builds up.

Let Link Service Heating & Cooling, recommend a whole-home air cleaner or humidifier for your Altoona, PA, home, so you can enjoy a warm, comfortable, and healthy indoor environment all season. Call us at 814-204-3079 or request-service-online.