PITTSBURGH — The thick smoke blanketing Pittsburgh this week has prompted many questions from homeowners who are wondering how to keep the air inside their homes clean.
The smoke comes as homeowners are still sweltering under unusually high summer temperatures. Since opening the windows is a non-starter, air conditioning units are being relied on to keep families comfortable.
WPXI spoke to technicians at Pittsburgh-based Wade Heating & Cooling and Jacob Heating & Cooling, who provided suggestions and advice to keep your indoor air and your AC system healthy.
Circulate your air
AC systems don’t pull in air from outside the home to cool your interior, so you should not be afraid to run your system, the technicians said.
On the contrary, they advised you to run your fan setting more to help circulate and clean the air inside your home.
“That’s the only time you’re cleaning the air,” Wade’s Lonnie Auten said.
However, owners of newer, higher-end units may have a “fresh air” setting that does pull in air from outside. That should be shut off.
Check your filters (often)
The technicians’ number one piece of advice was to check and replace your filters more frequently than usual. While most filters need to be replaced every three months (or longer, for thicker filters), the smoke will wear them out more rapidly.
“The smell of that smoke from the outside will start to capture in your filters, and it’ll start to dissipate that through your home,” Wade’s president, Steve Woodring, said. “So, you want to change your filters more frequently.”
Woodring advised checking them every few days until the smoke dissipates.
Choose the right filter
Not all filters are created equal. Jacob’s Alex Navarro said consumers need to look for pleated filters labeled MERV 13, which filter out many small particles from the air.
Additionally, he advised homeowners to check around the edges of their window units, doors and windows to make sure all were properly sealed.
Hose down your condenser
Navarro, Woodring and Auten agreed that hosing down your AC condenser outside your home (while it is powered off) is a good idea after the smoke clears.
That’s because smoke particles interact with the coils in the condenser, which makes the unit less efficient.
“You get your hose and just hose it down, like nothing strong,” Navarro explained. “Just on a shower or just like a really like weak setting… you don’t want to bend the fins that are inside that air conditioner out there.”
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