Will Your HVAC System Spread or Get Rid of Coronavirus?

By now, we’re all weeks into living with the coronavirus. We’ve stayed-in-place for several weeks. We’ve read story after story about what’s happening in the world.

The CDC continues to refine its recommendations for things you can do. They include:

• Washing your hands often
• Avoiding close contact
• Covering your mouth and nose when around others
• Cover coughs and sneezes
• Clean and disinfect on a regular basis

But what about your indoor air quality?

The EPA has shown that Americans spend as much as 90 percent of their time indoors. That was split between a variety of places, including work, gyms, restaurants, as well as residential locations. For the past few weeks, that’s changed a bit. Now it’s almost entirely inside your home.

You might be cleaning with bleach wipes, and washing your hands more frequently. But how safe is your air supply? Does your HVAC have anything to do with how safe you are inside your own home?

What we do know about the coronavirus is that when a person sneezes or coughs, tiny droplets are expelled into the air. They quickly fall and land on whatever is nearby. Unless someone is standing next to a vent or register, it has a greater risk of falling on other items in your home, rather than making it into your ventilation system. That said, it can happen.

When was the last time you changed out your air filter? Air filters are designed to pick up tiny particles and capture them, so they don’t move around the ventilation system. Air filters come with a MERV rating – the higher the rating, the better it is at filtering out particles.

Yes, you should change out your air filter regularly and replace it with a high quality one. We recommend MERV 13 or higher. Pay attention to what your HVAC system requires. Each system is designed differently, and if you try and shove the wrong filter into the slot, albeit one with a higher rating, it can impact your system in ways that will make your HVAC system operate less efficiently.

If you want to do something good in your cleaning process this week, change out the air filter. It’s an instant boost to helping your HVAC system be more efficient.