Mitsubishi Mini Split Air Conditioning. IAQ & Basement!

Mitsubishi Mini Split Air Conditioning. Moisture Control Issues.

Before beginning any conversion of basement space into living space, check the basement for leaks or other signs of moisture problems. Because damp basements promote biological growth, including molds, they are not healthy places to live in. Thus, any moisture problems should be corrected before you proceed.

 

Correcting moisture problems may be as simple as redirecting downspout runoff away from the foundation. It may involve re-grading the ground around the house so that it slopes down away from foundation, or venting the dryer to the outside (something that should be done in all homes). Sometimes, however, there are more extensive problems which can be expensive to correct. In any event, the problems should be addressed before you begin other work.  Read more about moisture control.

Ductless Air Conditioning Cost. You should test your home for radon.

Because EPA recommends testing for radon on the lowest lived-in level of a home, even if you've previously tested, if you have not tested in the basement, you should test again. Because fixing a radon problem will usually be easier and less expensive before the basement is finished, you should test before you begin your remodeling project.

Mitsubishi Air Conditioning Prices. Ventilation and Combustion Appliances.

Good ventilation protects both your health and your home.  The basement should be included your home's ventilation strategy. If your home currently has no mechanical ventilation this may be an opportunity to install a system. Read more about ventilation.

 

General recommendation for combustion safety should be followed. Because you are changing the basement and effecting how air moves in the home, you should have a professional check how any combustion equipment, pre-existing as well as new, operates after you have finished work in the basement to make sure that it isn't backdrafting.

Mitsubishi Ductless Air Conditioning. Flooring.

Flooring must not only be resistant to harm by water, but should also prevent water which does get on the floor from penetrating to the area immediately below the surface (e.g., the padding beneath a carpet) where it can be difficult to dry and can lead to mold problems or cause damage.

 

Do not install carpet near water sources or areas where there is a chronic moisture problem such as around sinks, tubs, showers, and toilets. Basements may require special attention in this regard. There are two potential problems with installing carpet on a concrete slab. The first is the possibility that water in the form of liquid water and/or water vapor will come up through the slab, causing chronic dampness in the carpet leading to mold growth. This problem is not unique to carpets, and it highlights the need to address moisture up front.

 

The second is that concrete slabs, especially those without insulation underneath, are often colder than the air in the basement. In fact this is a situation which may be more likely with carpet which insulates the slab making it even colder. In this situation, moisture in the air can condense on the cooler slab, exposing the carpet to moisture and promoting mold growth.

Comfort Air Mini Split. Help to Ensure Good Indoor Air Quality.

Comfort Air Mini Split. Use Energy Efficient Construction and Control Water and Moisture.

Building tight, well-insulated homes reduces heating and cooling costs. When combined with mechanical ventilation and pollutant source control, tight, energy- efficient homes are comfortable, economical, and promote good health. Indoor air quality and energy efficiency walk hand-in-hand.

 

Controlling moisture in a home can help reduce mold, mildew, and other biological growth which are linked to a variety of health effects. Methods to control moisture include building an energy-efficient home with proper air-sealing, proper use of vapor barriers and vapor diffusion strategies. The entire building envelope, from the foundation to the roof, should be designed to not only prevent moisture entry, but also to allow any moisture which does enter a means to escape. Proper ventilation can help ensure that indoor humidity levels remain at acceptable levels.

Comfort Aire Ductless Mini Split.  Eliminate, reduce, or control pollutant sources.

Eliminating or controlling individual sources of pollution are important steps in providing good indoor air quality. By using appropriate materials, isolating materials which may cause problems, and providing adequate ventilation, the levels of pollutants indoors can be greatly reduced. Included among these pollutants is radon, for example. If you live in a high radon area, you should consider using techniques to reduce radon entry when building your addition.

Split Systems HVAC. Provide mechanical ventilation and Use combustion equipment wisely.

Proper ventilation removes or dilutes stale air from your home, and provides cleaner air from outdoors. There are many approaches to ventilation which achieve these goals. So, "build it tight, and ventilate right."

 

The selection, installation, and integration of combustion equipment with other systems is an important part of building a home with healthy indoor air. If combustion appliances are not installed, maintained, and operated properly these appliances can produce combustion pollutants that can damage your health, or even kill you. In addition, improperly vented appliances can add large amounts of moisture to the air, potentially resulting in both biological growth, and damage to the house. Fortunately, builders can take steps to reduce the risks for combustion equipment.

Comfort Star Mini Split. Understand how to Properly Operate and Maintain the Home.

How a house is operated, maintained, and lived in is one of the most important factors affecting indoor air quality. Planning for this maintenance during the construction process, and learning what's important will not only promote good indoor air quality, but will also decrease problems with the physical structure of the house over time.

Ramsond Mini Split - Types of Pollution in Home!!!

Ramsond Mini Split - Asbestos.

Asbestos is the name of a group of naturally-occurring minerals that separate into strong, very fine fibers. The fibers are heat-resistant and extremely durable, and, because of these qualities, asbestos became useful in construction and industry. In the home it may or may not pose a health hazard to the occupants, depending on its condition. When it can be crushed by hand pressure or the surface is not sealed, to prevent small pieces from escaping, the material is considered FRIABLE. In this condition fibers can be released and pose a health risk, such as lung cancer from inhaling the fibers. However, as long as the surface is stable, not damaged, and well-sealed against the release of its fibers and not damaged, the material is considered safe until damaged in some way.

Ramsond Mini Split Heat Pump - Combustion Appliances.

Combustion appliances are those which burn fuels for warmth, cooking, or decorative purposes. Typical fuels are gas, both natural and liquefied petroleum (LP); kerosene; oil; coal; and wood. Examples of combustion appliances include space heaters, ranges, furnaces, fireplaces, water heaters, and clothes dryers. These appliances are usually safe. However, under certain conditions, these appliances can produce, and release into the home, combustion pollutants that can damage health or even kill. In addition, unvented or improperly vented appliances can add large amounts of moisture to the air, potentially resulting in both biological growth, and damage to the house. Proper sizing, installation, inspection, and maintenance of combustion appliances are extremely important. Providing good ventilation can also reduce exposure to combustion pollutants. 

Ramsond Corporation. Air Ducts.

Ducts should be tightly sealed to reduce air leakage. This is achieved by carefully sealing all duct seams and joints. (Note that standard cloth duct tape is not a suitable duct sealant material.) This can save energy and prevent contaminants from entering ductwork and circulating through the home. Air-sealing of ductwork also helps to balance the pressure of airflow through the ducts, preventing unplanned negative or positive pressures in the house that can lead to other problems. For example, leaky return ducts can create negative pressures which may lead to radon problems or combustion equipment backdrafting (see information on radon and combustion safety). Remodeling may present an opportunity to seal ducts that would otherwise be difficult to access.

 

During the actual renovation work, air duct registers in the area being renovated should be sealed during activities that will generate a lot of dust or debris. This can be done by taping plastic over the registers. Before the project is started, you should decide on a ventilation strategy to remove pollutants from the work area and prevent them from moving to other areas of the home.

Ramsond Mini Split Reviews. Energy Efficiency Improvements.

Tight energy-efficient homes save energy and money. And with proper mechanical ventilation, they can have better indoor air quality than a leaky home. One reason is reduced condensation which could lead to mold growth. Another reason is control. In a leaky home, outdoor air enters the house — through cracks, unsealed joints, and penetrations, for example — intermittently, depending largely on the weather. Some times there will be too much leakage, resulting in a drafty house. Other times there won't be enough, resulting in a stuffy house. Mechanical ventilation in a well-insulated, well-sealed house, however, can exhaust pollutants and bring in outdoor air in a planned way. This makes a house both comfortable and energy efficient. 

Best Mini Split System - TIPS FOR SEALING AIR LEAKS.

 

Best Mini Split System -Waste a Lot of your Energy Dollars.

Test your home for air tightness. On a windy day, carefully hold a lit incense stick or a smoke pen next to your windows, doors, electrical boxes, plumbing fixtures, electrical outlets, ceiling fixtures, attic hatches, and other places where air may leak. If the smoke stream travels horizontally, you have located an air leak that may need caulking, sealing, or weatherstripping. Caulk and weatherstrip doors and windows that leak air. Caulk and seal air leaks where plumbing, ducting, or electrical wiring comes through walls, floors, ceilings, and soffits over cabinets.

 Fujitsu Mini Split -Sea LeakS.

Install foam gaskets behind outlet and switch plates on walls. Inspect dirty spots in your insulation for air leaks and mold. Seal leaks with low-expansion spray foam made for this purpose and install house flashing if needed. Look for dirty spots on your ceiling paint and carpet, which may indicate air leaks at interior wall/ceiling joints and wall/floor joists, and caulk them.

Mitsubishi Mini Split Systems - Foam Sealant. 

Cover single-pane windows with storm windows or replace them with more efficient double-pane low- emissivity windows. See the Windows section for more information. Use foam sealant on larger gaps around windows, baseboards, and other places where air may leak out. Cover your kitchen exhaust fan to stop air leaks when not in use. Check your dryer vent to be sure it is not blocked. This will save energy and may prevent a fire.

 

Replace door bottoms and thresholds with ones that have pliable sealing gaskets. Keep the fireplace flue damper tightly closed when not in use. Seal air leaks around fireplace chimneys, furnaces, and gas-fired water heater vents with fire-resistant materials such as sheet metal or sheetrock and furnace cement caulk.

Fujitsu Mini Split System -Inflatable Chimney Balloons. 

Fireplace flues are made from metal, and over time repeated heating and cooling can cause the metal to warp or break, creating a channel for air loss. To seal your flue when not in use, consider an inflatable chimney balloon. Inflatable chimney balloons fit beneath your fireplace flue when not in use, are made from durable plastic, and can be removed easily and reused hundreds of times. If you forget to remove the balloon before making a fire, the balloon will automatically deflate within seconds of coming into contact with heat.

Comfort Aire Mini Split. Have You Considered Indoor Air Quality?

Comfort Aire Mini Split. Ventilation for Homes.

If too little outdoor air enters a home, pollutants can sometimes accumulate to levels that can pose health and comfort problems. Likewise, one approach to lowering the concentrations of indoor air pollutants in your home is to increase the amount of outdoor air coming in.

 

Outdoor air enters and leaves a house by: infiltration, natural ventilation, and mechanical ventilation. In a process known as infiltration, outdoor air flows into the house through openings, joints, and cracks in walls, floors, and ceilings, and around windows and doors (air may also move out of the house in this manner — this is called exfiltration).

Comfort Aire Mini Split Parts. Natural Ventilation.

In natural ventilation, air moves through opened windows and doors. Air movement associated with infiltration and natural ventilation is caused by air temperature differences between indoors and outdoors and by wind. Finally, there are a number of mechanical ventilation devices, from exhaust (vented outdoors) fans that intermittently remove air from a single room, such as bathrooms and the kitchen, to air handling systems that use fans and duct work to continuously remove indoor air and distribute filtered and conditioned outdoor air to strategic points throughout the house. The rate at which outdoor air replaces indoor air is described as the air exchange rate. When there is little infiltration, natural ventilation, or mechanical ventilation, the air exchange rate is low and pollutant levels can increase.

Comfort Aire Mini Split Error Codes. Pollutants.

Unless they are built with means of mechanical ventilation, homes that are designed and constructed to minimize the amount of outdoor air that can "leak" into and out of the home may have higher pollutant levels than other homes. However, because some weather conditions can drastically reduce the amount of outdoor air that enters a home, pollutants can build up even in homes that are normally considered "leaky."

 

Most home heating and cooling systems, including forced air heating systems, do not mechanically bring fresh air into the house. Opening windows and doors, operating window or attic fans, when the weather permits, or running a window air-conditioner with the vent control open increases the ventilation rate. Local bathroom or kitchen fans that exhaust outdoors remove contaminants, including moisture, directly from the room where the fan is located and also increase the outdoor air ventilation rate.

Comfort Aire Mini Split Reviews. Mechanical Ventilation System. 

Ideally, new homes will be built to minimize leakage to control energy loss, improve comfort, and minimize the transport of moisture and pollutants through the building shell. These homes should then also have mechanical ventilation to remove pollutants generated in the home and provide outdoor air in a controlled manner. Whether a mechanical ventilation system makes sense in your existing homes depends on the house, your existing heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) system, and the changes you have planned. You should discuss this with your HVAC contractor. A local Weatherization office, or building performance contractor, might also be able to help you with this decision or point you to local experts.

Mitsubishi Mini Split Heat Pumps. Air Conditioning!

Mitsubishi Mini Split Heat Pumps. Operating Principles.

Two-thirds of all homes in the United States have air conditioners. Air conditioners use about 5% of all the electricity produced in the United States, at an annual cost of more than $11 billion to homeowners. As a result, roughly 100 million tons of carbon dioxide are released into the air each year -- an average of about two tons for each home with an air conditioner.

 

Air conditioners employ the same operating principles and basic components as your home refrigerator. Refrigerators use energy (usually electricity) to transfer heat from the cool interior of the refrigerator to the relatively warm surroundings of your home; likewise, an air conditioner uses energy to transfer heat from the interior of your home to the relatively warm outside environment.

Mitsubishi Mr. Slim Ductless Air Conditioner. The Evaporator. The Condenser.

An air conditioner cools your home with a cold indoor coil called the evaporator. The condenser, a hot outdoor coil, releases the collected heat outside. The evaporator and condenser coils are serpentine tubing surrounded by aluminum fins. This tubing is usually made of copper.

 

A pump, called the compressor, moves a heat transfer fluid (or refrigerant) between the evaporator and the condenser. The pump forces the refrigerant through the circuit of tubing and fins in the coils.

Mitsubishi Air Conditioner Heater. The Refrigerant.

  

The liquid refrigerant evaporates in the indoor evaporator coil, pulling heat out of indoor air and cooling your home. The hot refrigerant gas is pumped outdoors into the condenser where it reverts back to a liquid, giving up its heat to the outside air flowing over the condenser's metal tubing and fins.

 

Throughout the second half of the 20th century, nearly all air conditioners used chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) as their refrigerant, but because these chemicals are damaging to Earth's ozone layer, CFC production stopped in the United States in 1995. Nearly all air conditioning systems now employ halogenated chlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) as a refrigerant, but these are also being gradually phased out, with most production and importing stopped by 2020 and all production and importing stopped by 2030.

Mitsubishi Cooling and Heating Prices. Alternative Refrigerants.

Production and importing of today's main refrigerant for home air conditioners, HCFC-22 (also called R-22), began to be phased out in 2010 and will stop entirely by 2020. However, HCFC-22 is expected to be available for many years as it is recovered from old systems that are taken out of service. As these refrigerants are phased out, ozone-safe hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) are expected to dominate the market, as well as alternative refrigerants such as ammonia.

 

Switching to high-efficiency air conditioners and taking other actions to keep your home cool could reduce energy use for air conditioning by 20% to 50%.

Lg Mini Split System. The Comfort Zone. Tips: Air Ducts.

Lg Mini Split System. Contributing to Higher Energy Bills.

Your air ducts are one of the most important systems in your home, and if the ducts are poorly sealed or insulated they are likely contributing to higher energy bills.

 

Your home's duct system is a branching network of tubes in the walls, floors, and ceilings; it carries the air from your home's furnace and central air conditioner to each room. Ducts are made of sheet metal, fiberglass, or other materials.

 

Ducts that leak heated air into unheated spaces can add hundreds of dollars a year to your heating and cooling bills. Insulating ducts in unconditioned spaces is usually very cost-effective. If you are installing a new duct system, make sure it comes with insulation. Sealing your ducts to prevent leaks is even more important if the ducts are located in an unconditioned area such as an attic or vented crawlspace. If the supply ducts are leaking, heated or cooled air can be forced out of unsealed joints and lost. In addition, unconditioned air can be drawn into return ducts through unsealed joints.

 

Although minor duct repairs are easy to make, qualified professionals should seal and insulate ducts in unconditioned spaces to ensure the use of appropriate sealing materials.

Lg Ductless Mini Split. MINOR DUCT REPAIR TIPS.

Check your ducts for air leaks. First, look for sections that should be joined but have separated and then look for obvious holes. If you use tape to seal your ducts, avoid cloth-backed, rubber adhesive duct tape -- it tends to fail quickly. Instead, use mastic, butyl tape, foil tape, or other heat-approved tapes. Look for tape with the Underwriters Laboratories (UL) logo.

 

Remember that insulating ducts in the basement will make the basement colder. If both the ducts and the basement walls are not insulated, consider insulating both. Water pipes and drains in unconditioned spaces could freeze and burst if the heat ducts are fully insulated be-cause there would be no heat source to prevent the space from freezing in cold weather. However, using an electric heating tape wrap on the pipes can prevent this. 

Lg Mini Split Reviews. Check with a professional contractor.

Hire a professional to install both supply and return registers in the basement rooms after converting your basement to a living area. Be sure a well-sealed vapor barrier exists on the outside of the insulation on cooling ducts to prevent moisture condensation. If you have a fuel-burning furnace, stove, or other appliance or an attached garage, install a carbon monoxide (CO) monitor to alert you to harmful CO levels. Be sure to get professional help when doing ductwork. A qualified professional should always perform changes and repairs to a duct system.

Mini Split AC System. INSTALL A CARBON MONOXIDE DETECTOR.

Carbon monoxide (CO) detectors are required in new buildings in many states. They are highly recommended in homes with fuel-burning appliances such as natural gas furnaces, stoves, ovens, water heaters, and space heaters. An alarm signals if CO reaches potentially dangerous levels.