asthma problem - which air cleaner is best

[country girl]

Just purchased a home on an acre, which we were lucky to find. Is located outside Queen Creek, Arizona and the dust out here from the dirt roads is much worse than I thought. The home is about three years old, two Goodman units (3 & 5 ton). Know they are not the best, but this is what it came with. Air cleaners are in the attic. Considering a Trane or Lennox air cleaning unit. I really need some advice, if can't get asthma under control, will have to move. Thank you so much. I did call a local contractor, he said I also need to put duct seal all over the air cleaners, which cost quite a lot of money to have done. Can we do that ourselves. Thank you so much!

[GREGHVACGUY]

The trane and lenox air cleaners are both very good unit. As to sealing the ducts yes you can seal them just make sure you seal ever joint not a fun job.
One more thing you can look in to is a hole house HEPA filter added to the furnace.
Me and my son have asthma and i found the dynamic filter and uv light works well.we are not dealing with dirt from dirt road and we dont live in Az. there will be someone on here that will fill you in as thay live around you and let you know what is best. Thanks and good luck

[country girl]

Thanks for the reply. We don't have furnaces out here that I know of. Just AC/heat pumps. The whole house filter was what I was trying to ask about. Would like to use Lennox if it is a good one, because you only have to have the filter replaced about every 9 to 12 months. Didn't know if these Goodman units could stand the extra pressure of pushing the air through the filter. We are in our late 60's and pretty sure we are coming to the end of being able to climb up in the attic every few months to clean out filters.

[dash]

" he said I also need to put duct seal all over the air cleaners, which cost quite a lot of money to have done. Can we do that ourselves. Thank you so much!

Duct seal over air cleaner? huh? Maybe seal the duct system?

Carrier Air Purifier is a fine one.

[RoBoTeq]

A whole house HEPA filter system that runs in tandem with your existing air system is the best way to go. Any system that operates in line with the existing air system may cause damage to the HVAC system. A self contained HEPA system that takes air from the return, cleans it up and puts it back into the same return further downstream, closer to the air handler will clean the air the best while not harming the HVAC system.

HVAC equiptment manufactures don't usually manufacture their own HEPA filter sytems, but rather just put their brand name on ones made by companies such as Five Seasons. So it doesnt' much matter the brand.

[t527ed]

if all you are trying to control is dust then the lennox merv16 media filter will be perfect for you.

if other issues need to be taken care of then stepping up to the pure-air would be a good move, just more $$$

[kls-ccc]

I didn't see where you posted the age of the house. What you need to remember the best air cleaner can only remove the particulate that gets to it. You may want to have a blower door test done on the house. This will identify leaks in the building envelope which is where part of the dust is getting into the house at. If you can seal up the leaks in the house {recessed lights are terrable about leakage} you can go a long way to get your dust problem under control. Then the air cleaner can pick up the rest.
BTW I recommend the Trane Clean Effects, it does a good job without a lot of extra resistance to air flow.

[firecontrol]

As your asthma is the concern and the information you gave is limited to only mentioning conditions outside, age of the house and the HVAC equipment the home has it is anyone's guess as to the best course of action.

As for the asthma: If your positive it's dust that is causing you the problems then make sure you first identify what kind of dust is the culprit. New homes sometimes tend to have tremendous amounts of construction dust and debris leftover that found it's way into your ductwork. It's not uncommon for the HVAC system to be ran the whole time finish construction is going on. This can lead to all sorts of nasty stuff being deposited in the ductwork and equipment.

If the road dust is what is causing your asthma to act up then how is it getting into the home's interior? Being in Arizona I'm going to assume that at a minimum all of the ductwork is in the attic. If it wasn't sealed properly, especially on the return side, then it surely can be pulling in anything that is in the attic including road dust. If the supply isn't sealed then it can potentially pull your whole home into a vacumn when the blower is on. This would cause the outside dust to be pulled in through any crack, leak or whatever in the entire building envelope.

A 3 year old home could also still be outgassing many contaminates from the materials used to construct it.

Basically what I'm saying is that the first step in solving any indoor health issues is to always know positively what it is that is causing them. What is the irritant. Once that is known for sure then the work of going about eliminating it can begin. Otherwise you can easily spend thousands of dollars with one "fix" after another until someone just happens to luck out and do the right thing for your specific condition and situation.

I say all of this because you could easily spend a lot of money having someone seal your home up like a glass bottle only to find that your asthma gets worse. This could happen if the true irritant is from something in the home and now you've sealed all of the leaks up that were in effect ventilating your home and keeping the inside air cleaner so to speak.

The good, better, best indoor air quality products are only effective on whole house applications when they are used and installed correctly and targeted at what each of them does best.

I say all of this because I've learned that applying the technology that we have available these days to improve indoor air quality without first knowing positively what it is that needs to be eliminated from the indoor air can first of all cost the homeowner a lot of money, secondly it can cause hard feelings when the job is done and little or no improvement was felt by the homeowner which leaves the contractor with suggesting more costs. But most of all it's all about getting it right the first time.

[RoBoTeq]

Originally Posted by firecontrol

As your asthma is the concern and the information you gave is limited to only mentioning conditions outside, age of the house and the HVAC equipment the home has it is anyone's guess as to the best course of action.

As for the asthma: If your positive it's dust that is causing you the problems then make sure you first identify what kind of dust is the culprit. New homes sometimes tend to have tremendous amounts of construction dust and debris leftover that found it's way into your ductwork. It's not uncommon for the HVAC system to be ran the whole time finish construction is going on. This can lead to all sorts of nasty stuff being deposited in the ductwork and equipment.

If the road dust is what is causing your asthma to act up then how is it getting into the home's interior? Being in Arizona I'm going to assume that at a minimum all of the ductwork is in the attic. If it wasn't sealed properly, especially on the return side, then it surely can be pulling in anything that is in the attic including road dust. If the supply isn't sealed then it can potentially pull your whole home into a vacumn when the blower is on. This would cause the outside dust to be pulled in through any crack, leak or whatever in the entire building envelope.

A 3 year old home could also still be outgassing many contaminates from the materials used to construct it.

Basically what I'm saying is that the first step in solving any indoor health issues is to always know positively what it is that is causing them. What is the irritant. Once that is known for sure then the work of going about eliminating it can begin. Otherwise you can easily spend thousands of dollars with one "fix" after another until someone just happens to luck out and do the right thing for your specific condition and situation.

I say all of this because you could easily spend a lot of money having someone seal your home up like a glass bottle only to find that your asthma gets worse. This could happen if the true irritant is from something in the home and now you've sealed all of the leaks up that were in effect ventilating your home and keeping the inside air cleaner so to speak.

The good, better, best indoor air quality products are only effective on whole house applications when they are used and installed correctly and targeted at what each of them does best.

I say all of this because I've learned that applying the technology that we have available these days to improve indoor air quality without first knowing positively what it is that needs to be eliminated from the indoor air can first of all cost the homeowner a lot of money, secondly it can cause hard feelings when the job is done and little or no improvement was felt by the homeowner which leaves the contractor with suggesting more costs. But most of all it's all about getting it right the first time.

Very good information, very well expressed. IAQ really is an individual thing.