Monthly Archives: March 2017

Family By Candles | Keith Air Conditioning

Do Candles Impact IAQ?

Burning candles is a popular way to create welcoming, clean scents within your Daphne, Alabama, home. The flickering flame of a candle helps boost a cozy ambience when you have company over, or when you want some alone time. Unfortunately, most candles contain IAQ-damaging chemicals you don’t want to be released into your home’s air.

Paraffin Is Dangerous

Candles seem pretty harmless: after all, they’ve been around for centuries and almost everyone burns candles once in a while. Unfortunately, candles aren’t harmless to your IAQ. Candles (even soy candles) contain paraffin wax. The paraffin wax is part of what gives a candle its consistency, but it also contains harmful chemicals you don’t want in your air.

In fact, paraffin has only been around since the mid-19th century. It can contain formaldehyde, dioxins, and other noxious chemicals that are bad for human health and can exacerbate allergies. Even candles that claim to be healthy or clean probably contain paraffin if you read the ingredients.

Better Home Scents

How your home smells gives you cues to your IAQ and can impact how you, your family, and your guests feel inside your house. Burning candles with pleasing scents certainly adds to your home’s positive ambience. If you love to burn candles, make sure you’re not burning them to cover up an unpleasant odor somewhere in the house. The root of that unpleasant odor could be something like mildew or pests, which negatively impact IAQ.

To get better scents inside the home, burn beeswax candles. Beeswax is a natural substance that will scent your home without injecting paraffin into the air. You can also create your own potpourri from dried flowers, cinnamon sticks, and cloves.

Burn candles sparingly, or not at all, to improve your IAQ. For other IAQ tips, including which air purifiers and air filters we recommend, contact Keith Air Conditioning, Inc. Reach us at 251-476-3610 so we can answer your IAQ questions and assist you with your IAQ needs.

Duct Cleaning | Keith Air Conditioning

How Does Duct Cleaning Work?

You’ve heard that HVAC technicians sometimes clean ducts, but how can we get your Mobile, Alabama, home’s ducts clean when they’re so hard to reach? Using a powerful vacuum and some great cleaning tools like brushes, we dislodge the dirt and remove it from your ducts.

Cameras Show Inside

To start a duct cleaning, we use mirrors and cameras to get a good look inside. This helps us identify any problem areas where dirt and other debris are accumulating. Getting a good look inside your ducts also gives us the chance to inspect for holes or damage where debris might be getting in. We can assess whether you need any duct repairs.

Small Holes Give Access

We seal up all your vents and returns using pressure-sensitive tape so nothing we dislodge can enter your home and damage your IAQ. Then we cut a small hole to give us access to your ducts for the cleaning process.

Powerful Air and Brushes Dislodge Dirt

Using a vacuum and powerful brushes, we dislodge all the debris from inside your ducts. The vacuum hooks up to the hole we cut near the air handler. The purpose of the vacuum is to both dislodge debris and create negative pressure within your ducts.

One by one, we uncover the registers and start cleaning. Using our special brushes and air tools, we agitate and dislodge anything within your ducts. The vacuum sucks everything up so it doesn’t end up in your house. We catch it in sealed containers within the vacuum. Once that’s done, we seal up the holes and remove the tape from your supply and return vents.

Finally, we clean the other components attached to your ducts, like the insides of your air handler.

Do you think your ducts need to be cleaned? Call Keith Air Conditioning, Inc. so we can examine the guts of your system. If we see debris built up, we can clean your ducts and improve your IAQ. Call us today at 251-476-3610.