It’s that time of year again — time to get your house ready for summer and all of the weather that comes with it in Connecticut. Which means it is also time for the ongoing battle: pollen versus your air conditioner.
How Your Air Conditioner Affects Your Allergies
All the pollen flying around outside gets inside your home when you open the windows and front door. Allergy sufferers benefit from keeping the windows closed on days when the pollen count is high and using their air conditioner instead.
The air conditioner keeps the interior of the house cool so you don’t have to open windows, and it also helps filter out pollen. The pollen-filled air is sucked into the intake vents, and the air passes through the filter. The air that is sent out from the air conditioner has substantially less pollen in it. If your filter is in great shape, then it should have little to no pollen.
That cleans out your home’s air, allowing you to breathe in less pollen. In turn, that leads to fewer problems with allergies inside your home.
How Pollen Affects Your Air Conditioner
You can’t let your air conditioning system just sit for months and assume it will keep working well. As more pollen gets filtered out when the air goes into the intake vents, the pollen ends up sitting on the filters. As more pollen builds up, along with dust, pet hair, dead skin cells, and other airborne debris, the filters become clogged. They no longer filter as well, and the air conditioning system works harder than it should have to and your home is warmer than it needs to be.
That makes the air less allergy-friendly, and it also increases your bills. So a vital part of controlling your allergies through the use of your air conditioner is to keep changing that filter as often as it needs to be changed. If you see a layer of dust and lint all over the filter and you can’t see the filter mesh, then you need to change the filter. Luckily, that’s an easy job, and filters aren’t that expensive.
How You Can Help Your Air Conditioner and Your Allergies
First of all, don’t stop using your air conditioner. It is a vital part of combating allergens within your home. What you want to do is control the allergens that do make it inside and help your air conditioning function without becoming clogged with pollen.
You should change the filter at each intake vent on a frequent basis, and you should also vacuum and dust your home often. Additionally, brush pets to gather up loose hair before it flies off on its own. Wash floors and keep your outdoor clothes as just that and change when you come home. In fact, it’s best to shower when you get home to wash pollen out of your hair.
If you’d like help in evaluating your air conditioning system, be it for a general checkup or to figure out why it’s not working at peak capacity, call Total Mechanical Systems. Don’t assume you just have to live with allergies and pollen. Get experienced technicians to look at your system and get it working properly again.
Source: https://www.a1finchum.com/the-return-of-the-springtime-foe-pollen-and-your-air-conditioner
