Can A Broken Air Conditioner Contaminate The Air In Your Home?
As global warming continues to increase temperatures, the demand for air conditioners keeps going up. According to a report by Statistics Canada, around 70% of all households in Canada have central air conditioning.
Your air conditioner can be a solace during the hot and humid days of summer. But did you also know that they can filter the air inside your house?
The air filter in your air conditioner can help reduce the air pollution inside your home and improve your indoor air quality.
But if your air conditioner has become faulty, rather than filtering the air inside your house, it can contaminate indoor air by breeding toxic contaminants inside its unit. If you’ve been ignoring the regular maintenance of your air conditioner, this is entirely possible.
How an air conditioner cools down the temperature in your home
An air conditioner works by converting the hot air inside your house into the cold and fresh air that you get when you switch it on.
Different components of your air conditioner, such as the evaporator and the condenser, perform this conversion by sucking the warm air indoors through a vent and condensing it in the unit to form cold air.
How does a broken air conditioner contaminate the air in your home?
If you’re not cleaning and maintaining it properly, it may be contaminating the air inside your home by breeding dangerous organisms such as:
Bacteria and fungi
With the hot air that your air conditioner’s evaporator takes in, many dust particles present in the atmosphere also travel into the air conditioner ducts.
This dust then accumulates in the unit and reacts with moisture to form different harmful microorganisms such as fungi and bacteria.
These can then multiply rapidly in the dampness of your unit and can travel back into your home and ruin your indoor air quality.
To prevent this from happening, get your air conditioner regularly cleaned by the experts at George’s Plumbing and Heating. We’ll clear out the accumulated dust particles from your unit efficiently.
Mites and insects
Have you ever experienced headaches, allergies, or muscle aches while sitting in an air-conditioned room?
If so, bio-contaminants such as mites, insects, and nematodes may be living in your air conditioner. These are a product of the fungal growth breeding inside the unit.
The air inside your home can become toxic due to these contaminants. And this air toxicity can induce several harmful health effects such as headaches, respiratory irritation, nervous system problems, and memory lapses.
At George’s Plumbing and Heating, we have been repairing faulty air conditioners for more than 20 years in London, Ontario. Connect with us today at 519-851-2704 to get your air conditioner checked or visit our website to learn more.