8 Ways You’re Making Your Seasonal Allergies Worse

Posted on March 3, 2021 by mgoins - Blog

8 Ways You’re Making Your Seasonal Allergies Worse

Seasonal allergies can be miserable, but with a change to your daily routine and your HVAC filter, you can relieve those symptoms.
Relieving the symptoms of seasonal allergies is just one of the benefits of regularly changing your HVAC filters.

The changing seasons are often pleasant to experience, but it can be miserable for someone with seasonal allergies. Whether you feel the suffering has been getting worse each year, or it has just gotten worse as the season progressed this year, there are eight ways you may be making your seasonal allergies worse.

Neglecting Your Filters

Some homeowners use the wrong HVAC filters, and others fail to change their filters regularly. Either way, neglecting your filters is one of the worst things you can do for allergies. Your air filters are only going to filter the air in your home and rid it of pollen if you have installed them correctly and changed them often. Crockett Filter Club allows you the convenience of filter delivery, so you have a regular reminder and are always sure to get the right air filters for allergies.

Forgetting To Take Medication

You have to be consistent with allergy medication if you want it to work correctly. Some individuals fail to pick up their prescriptions on time, and others wait too long before the next dose. If you think about this before allergy season, you can be one step ahead of those miserable symptoms.

Having Poor Hygiene

Most people don’t realize it, but having poor hygiene could result in increased allergy symptoms. When you are out and about during the day, your hair and clothing collect pollen and other allergens. If you don’t change your clothes and shower at night, you’re taking the allergens to bed with you, so throw in a load of laundry and take a quick shower before you settle in for the night.

Avoiding Cleaning Your Home

If you’re worried your allergies are going to flare up when you start cleaning, you might want to put it off, but that could make the problem worse. If you need to, hire a cleaning service to deep clean your home a few times a year. Aside from regular dusting, the cleaning professionals can make sure other allergens, such as pet dander and dust mites, are out of your home. If you’re not worried about a flare-up, you can handle the cleaning on your own, but just be sure it gets done.

Drying Your Laundry on a Line

It’s great to have that fresh air-dried smell that comes with line-dried clothes, but hanging your laundry to dry outdoors is going to encourage a collection of pollen and other allergens. Using your dryer indoors would be a better solution during allergy season.

Opening the Windows

Understandably, you want fresh air in your home, but opening the windows during spring is only going to invite the pollen in. Instead of opening the windows, make sure your filters are clean and turn on the air conditioner.

Spending Time Outdoors

Everyone loves spending time outside during fresh spring days, but allergies can ruin all the fun. Especially on windy days, there are going to be unseen allergens flying all over the place. If you want to spend time outdoors, consider waiting until after a cleansing rain, so there’s no pollen in the air, and always wait until the wind has let up.

Sleeping With Pets

You’re not the only one with allergens collecting in your hair and on your clothing. Your pets are carrying it in their fur and hair as well. If you let your furry family members sleep in your bed, you’re going to be exposed to those allergens all night long. Keep your pets washed and groomed, and try to keep them in their own spaces, which should rarely be your bed.

Order Your Filters Today

As you can see, most of these negative habits are easy to change. If you’re ready to make a change with things to help with allergies, contact Crockett Filter Club today at 844-401-4604 to order your filters.

How to Improve your Home’s Indoor Air Quality

Posted on February 5, 2021 by mgoins - Blog

How To Improve Your Home’s Indoor Air Quality

Poor indoor air quality comes from a variety of places like cleaning supplies, paint, mildew, pollen, and smoke, but there are some easy measures to combat the problem.
Regularly changing out your HVAC filters is one way to ensure the air quality in your home is as good as possible.

How To Improve Your Home’s Indoor Air Quality

The air quality inside your home needs to be as good as possible if you want to keep everyone healthy. While you may know there are plenty of allergens outside, you should also know there are plenty indoors as well. Improving indoor air quality takes into account understanding the causes, what the negative effects are and what you can do to make an improvement.

What Causes Poor Indoor Air Quality?

You may be able to walk around and see things that are causing your indoor air quality to be poor, but not everything is that obvious. Some things that you may not realize cause poor indoor air quality are:

Smoke – We’re not just talking about cigarette smoke, although that is a huge contributing factor. We’re also talking about smoke from cooking on the stovetop, spilling something in the oven, burning a candle, or having a fire in the fireplace.
Cleaning Supplies – There are probably chemicals in the cleaning supplies you use throughout your home. As soon as you give that cleaner a spray, it starts to circulate.
Mildew – When mold and mildew form in your home, they let off microscopic spores that circulate in the air in your home. This may be due to a natural disaster, a leaky pipe, or just having a high level of humidity in the home.
Pollen – Although pollen grows outdoors, it gets tracked in on just about everything, such as your shoes, your pets, and your hair. If you ever leave the doors or windows open for fresh air, the pollen can fly in that way as well.

What Are Some Negative Effects of Poor Indoor Air Quality?

Each of the causes of poor indoor air quality poses a different negative effect, though most are related to the health of your family. Individuals with respiratory illnesses may suffer greatly because the pollen, smoke, chemicals, and spores could get into their lungs. Different types of volatile organic compounds found in paint and some chemical cleaners have been linked to cancer. You also run the risk of a weakened immune system and becoming more susceptible to the common cold, flu, and other viruses.

What Can I Do To Improve Indoor Air Quality?

Improving indoor air quality isn’t hard, but you need to know how to get it done properly. The following are some suggestions:

Regularly change your HVAC filters. An HVAC filter collects all of the dangerous debris that circulates throughout your home. If you don’t change your filters on a regular basis, you run the risk of releasing the pollen, chemicals, and other allergens back into your home.
Look for VOC-free products. When you shop for cleaning products, air fresheners, paint, floor polish, dishwashing detergent, and other “chemical” products, search for items that are VOC-free.
Strive to keep the pollen outside. While it’s great for your health to spend time outdoors, do your best to keep the pollen out there when you and your family move indoors. Take your shoes off at the door, wipe your pets down when they reenter the house, wear a hat when you’re out and take it off when coming back in, and keep your windows shut.

Ordering HVAC Filters

As you can see, there are some simple solutions to keeping your indoor air quality as good as possible. Contact Crockett Filter Club at 1-844-401-4604 to order your HVAC filters today.

Featured Image: Kira_Yan / Shutterstock

What Type of Air Filter Do I Need to Order?

Posted on January 4, 2021 by mgoins - Blog, Filters

What Type of Air Filter Do I Need to Order?

When you set out to purchase air filters for your home HVAC system, you’ll realize there are a lot of air filter types out there. With different levels of quality and filtration, it could get confusing knowing which to choose. At Crockett Filter Club, we’ve done all the research for you, making it easy to get the high-quality filters you need, right when you need them.

Understanding a MERV Rating As you consider different types of air filters, you’ll notice they have something called a MERV rating. “Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value” is the technical term, but it basically refers to how effective the air filter is. These ratings begin at one and go through 16. The higher the rating, the better it is at preventing contaminants from passing through it. Most of the filters made for homes will rate between 7 and 12, while hospitals and other sanitary settings will have filters with a 13 to 16 MERV rating.

Considering Three Grades

Crockett Filter Club only offers the best types of air filters for your home. All homes are full of dust, bacteria, pollen, mold, and other allergens. Even if you clean on a regular basis, there are contaminants floating around that come in on your pets, your food, visitors’ feet, and just through the air. Depending on the severity of health issues and allergies the people of your household have, there’s a filter that can help. Our three grades are:

Good – Our good filters have a MERV 8 rating. They filter out dust, pollen, mold, dust mites, and pet dander. If you have a rental, our good filters are of perfect quality. They’re also effective for families with common allergies and one or two non-shedding pets.

Better – Our better filters have a MERV 11 rating. They filter everything the good filters do, in addition to more severe allergens. If you have multiple pets or more serious allergies, these filters will work just fine.

Best – Our best filters have a MERV 13 rating. They filter everything our better filters do, with the addition of smoke, smog, and cooking oil smoke. Some of the microscopic filters that unknowingly affect allergy sufferers or those with respiratory problems are also filtered out. If someone who lives in your home has asthma or severe allergies or smokes in the home, these filters would be most effective.

Keep in mind, the better the grade, the denser the filter, and the less airflow it will allow. Because of this, the best grade will need to be changed more frequently than the better, and the better more frequently than the good.

Choosing a Delivery Frequency

After you know the grade you’re going with, you’ll need to determine the frequency at which to have your filters delivered. Crockett Filter Club delivers once per month, once every other month, or once every three months. Your schedule will depend on a few things:

How many people are living in your home? The more people, the more dust and debris that will be created and sent through the filters. You might need more frequent delivery.

How good are you at remembering to change the filters? If you have three filters delivered every three months, you can change them each month if you remember. If you don’t have a good memory or haven’t put changing filters at the top of your maintenance list, it might be a good reminder to have the filters delivered each month.

What additional contaminants are in your home? If you have multiple pets and someone who smokes lives in the home, you’d probably go with the best filters, but you should also have them delivered more frequently because of their dense makeup. Any additional contaminants you add mean added frequency.

Getting Your Order Placed

Once you know which air filter types you want and how often you want them delivered, it’ll be time to place your order. Contact Crockett Filter Club today to start giving your home the love it needs with our convenient air filter subscription service.

Image Credit: Serenethos/Shutterstock

How Will Dirty Air Filters Impact my HVAC?

Posted on December 9, 2020 by mgoins - Uncategorized

How Will Dirty Air Filters Impact my HVAC?

Turning on the HVAC system should be like taking a breath of fresh air, but if the filters are dirty, that’s not going to be your experience at all. HVAC air filters need to be changed regularly, especially if someone in the home has allergies, breathing issues, or is susceptible to other toxins and bacteria. You can see how dirty air filters can affect your physical health, but there are some negative impacts a dirty filter could have on your HVAC system as well.

System Failure

When a dirty air filter restricts the airflow of your HVAC system, it often causes system failure. This is because the air handler doesn’t get the air it needs to function correctly. Additional strains are placed on the fan motor, which often overheats and fails the system. When you replace your filter, you’re only spending a small amount of time and money when compared to the high expenses and extended time it could cost you to repair or replace your HVAC system.

Energy Consumption

Any time a motor has to work harder, it’s going to consume more energy. A clogged air filter is inevitably going to make the system work harder because of the restricted airflow. This means you have to pay more in energy bills, your system gets more and more worn out every time it is on, and your carbon footprint isn’t getting reduced as it could.

Dirty Ducts

The air that flows through your filters is going to pick up some of the dirt and dust contained in them. Especially if they’re dirty and clogged, the air is going to take some of that dirt and dust and deposit it inside your ductwork. As you may have guessed, it’s eventually going to blow into your home as well. When your ducts are dirty, the other components of your HVAC system are going to also be dirty. Dirt and dust may lead to more repairs, if not an early replacement of the entire system.

If you have dirty ducts, you’ll also need to spend some money on getting your ductwork cleaned out. This is something that’s recommended every three to five years to begin with, but if they’re particularly dirty because you haven’t changed your filters, you may have to do it more frequently.

Freezing or Burning

If your air filter is dirty and unable to collect any more particles, all that dirt and other debris are going to settle on the heating and cooling coils. When this happens, they begin to work overtime. Heating and cooling coils that work overtime typically end up burning out or freezing over. Your HVAC system won’t work at that point, and you’ll end up spending more money on repairs.

What You Can Do To Save Your HVAC System

As you can see, your air filters are an essential part of your HVAC system. With a dirty air filter, there are a host of issues that can result. These issues not only impact your health but impact your finances, your comfort level, and your time.

Your best solution to this problem? Give your home a little more love with Crockett Filter Club’s subscription service for air filters. With three options, you can decide which will be the best products for your home. Simply pick the filter you wish to use, schedule delivery service frequency, choose the quantity and size, and you’re ready for a convenient service that will keep your HVAC system in good condition. Contact Crockett Filter Club today at 1-844-401-4604 to get started.

Featured Image: Steve Heap / Shutterstock

How to Reduce Pet Dander and Pet Odor

Posted on November 9, 2020 by mgoins - Uncategorized

How to Reduce Pet Dander and Pet Odor

Your pet is probably your best friend, but no friends come without those little things that just seem to irritate you no matter what. As you’ve gotten to know little Fluffy, you may have realized she puts off a lot of strange odors, and there’s pet dander all around the house. Fortunately, there are some things you can do to reduce and eliminate the dander and the odors, so your home smells like a home, not the zoo.

Keep It Clean

You most likely already have a cleaning schedule and like to keep up on it because it’s just more comfortable, but it becomes an essential step in your daily routine as a pet owner. If you let your dog or cat use your bed or couch, you’re going to need to clean those furniture items on a regular basis. Keep them vacuumed, so no pet hair or dander hangs around. If they begin to smell, you’ll need to work on getting rid of that as well. You should wipe down hard surfaces, vacuum your carpets every day, and even clean the curtains and other linens in rooms where your pet is allowed.

Minimize the Smells

You can minimize pet smells by sprinkling baking soda on the areas where you can smell your pet the most. Baking soda is excellent at neutralizing odors, even if pet urine is something you’re dealing with. Simply sprinkle it on, wait a few minutes to absorb the smell, and vacuum the baking soda back up.

Clean the Pet Products

If you’re hoping to reduce cat dander or dog dander, you’ll need to keep your pet’s items clean as well. Many owners forget about the dog or cat toys because they seem to get dirty so fast. They may forget to clean the dog bed because it’s tucked into the corner, but it’s important you don’t forget. Throw your dog’s or cat’s toy in the wash every few days. If there’s a leash and harness that gets regular use, keep it clean as well. Your doggy beds, blankets, and other comfort items should be thrown in the wash at least a couple of times per week.

Not only should you clean soft items your pet regularly uses, but you should also clean the hard items. This includes hard toys, but also includes food and water dishes. Toss them in the dishwasher to ensure they are sterilized. If you don’t have a dishwasher, you should still wash them by hand using the hottest water you can stand.

Brush Your Pets

To reduce dog dander, especially, brush your pet regularly. Many dogs need to be brushed daily, depending on the type of fur they have. If your dog only has medium-length fur, you can wait about a week between brushes, and short-haired dogs only need to be brushed every few weeks.

Change Your Filters

The filters in your HVAC system are created to collect the allergens, dirt, and dander you don’t want hanging around your home. Unfortunately, they also trap smells, so if you don’t keep a fresh filter in your system, it’s going to get full and start emitting the allergens, dander, and smells back into your home. If you have filters delivered to your home regularly, you won’t have to even think about it, but will still benefit from the filter’s efficiency in reducing pet dander and odors.

Schedule Your Filter Delivery Today

While there are many things you can do on your own to reduce pet dander and smells, you can’t change your filters without the help of a filter professional. Contact Crockett Filter Club today at 844-401-4604 to get your questions answered, learn about filters, and get your deliveries scheduled.

Featured Image: Shutterstock / Prystai