Sheboygan County · Filtration, humidity, fresh air
Indoor air quality in a house built for Wisconsin winters.
We build tight here, and for good reason. The side effect is that everything you generate indoors stays indoors from November to April.
- Carrier Factory Authorized Dealer
- NATE-certified technicians
- Locally-owned since 2008
- We measure before we recommend
Three pillars
Almost every indoor air complaint is one of three things
Particulate, humidity, or ventilation. They have different symptoms, different fixes and very different prices, and buying the wrong one is how people end up with a $900 machine that changed nothing.
Pillar one: filtration
Taking the particulate out of the air that is already in the house. Dust, pollen, dander, smoke. This is the cheapest pillar to improve and the one most houses get wrong, usually by trying to force a high-rated 1-inch filter through a blower that cannot pull it.
Filters & air cleaners
Pillar two: humidity
Wisconsin runs both extremes in one year. Indoor humidity here sits at 15 to 25 percent in January when the comfortable, healthy band is 35 to 50, and basements sit well above that band in July. One house, two opposite problems, two different machines.
Humidifiers & dehumidifiers
Pillar three: fresh air
Filtration cannot remove a gas and a humidifier cannot dilute one. Cooking fumes, cleaning products, off-gassing from new flooring and the carbon dioxide from the people in the house all need outdoor air to go away. In a tight house that has to be mechanical.
HRVs & ERVs
First: find out which one it is
We read relative humidity in the living space and the basement, static pressure across your filter and coil, and what your current filtration is actually rated for. A few minutes of measuring usually points at one pillar, not three.
Get it measuredHow we approach it
Six rules we work to on air quality
Measure first, quote second
A hygrometer and a manometer answer most of this. If your basement reads 68 percent in July, you have a dehumidification problem and no amount of filtration will touch it.
The filter has to match the blower
Filtration only works on air that moves through it. A restrictive filter in a slot that was never designed for it starves the blower, drops airflow, ices the coil in summer and trips the limit in winter. We check static pressure before we recommend a rating.
We do not install ozone generators
Devices sold as ozone or activated-oxygen air purifiers work by producing a respiratory irritant. Ozone inflames airways and makes asthma worse. We will not put one in your house, and we will tell you plainly if you already have one.
Source control beats equipment
A gas range with no vented hood, a damp crawlspace, or new carpet off-gassing will beat any air cleaner you can buy. Sometimes the right recommendation costs nothing and is not something we sell.
Humidity has an upper limit set by your windows
The healthy band is 35 to 50 percent, but at 10 below zero a house held at 45 percent will run condensation down the glass and into the sills. We set humidifiers on an outdoor reset so the target drops as it gets colder.
One change at a time
If we fit filtration, humidity control and ventilation in the same week and the house feels better, nobody learns anything. We start with the pillar the readings point at and check the result.
Symptom to cause
What you notice, and what it usually means
This is roughly how the conversation goes on an assessment. The middle column is the part worth knowing, because it tells you which of the three pillars you are actually shopping for.
| What you notice | Usually means | What fixes it |
|---|---|---|
| Shocks off every doorknob, December to March | Indoor humidity down at 15 to 20 percent | Whole-home humidifier on the furnace |
| Dust is back a day after you clean | A 1-inch filter passing most of the fine particulate | AprilAire media cabinet & MERV 11 Filters |
| Nosebleeds, cracked lips, static in the bedding | Same dry air as the shocks | Humidifier, set on outdoor reset |
| Basement smells musty all July | Basement relative humidity above 60 percent | Whole-home dehumidifier, ducted |
| Stuffy and headachy in a closed-up house | No mechanical fresh air in a tight envelope | HRV or ERV, running at low speed with a percent timer |
| Cooking and bathroom smells hang around for hours | Air is being recirculated, not exchanged | Ventilation, plus a properly vented range hood |
| Allergy symptoms worse indoors than outdoors | Fine particulate recirculating through the ducts | Higher-rated media filtration, and find the source |
| Slime and smell at the indoor coil each summer | Biological growth on a permanently wet surface | UV lamp aimed at the coil, not at the air |
None of this is a substitute for a carbon monoxide alarm on every level of the house, or for radon testing. Radon is common in this part of Wisconsin and no air cleaner or ventilator is a radon mitigation system.
Straight answers
Indoor air quality questions we get asked
Why is my house so dry in the winter?
Because cold outdoor air holds almost no moisture, and when your furnace heats it the relative humidity falls through the floor. Outdoor air at 10 degrees and 70 percent relative humidity becomes roughly 8 percent relative humidity once it is warmed to 70 indoors. Every house leaks some air, so that dry air keeps arriving all winter. It is not your furnace drying the air out, it is physics, and the fix is adding moisture back.
What humidity should I keep my house at in a Wisconsin winter?
Aim for 35 to 45 percent in mild winter weather and let it fall as it gets colder. The healthy range is 35 to 50 percent, but your windows set the real ceiling. A rough working rule: around 40 percent when it is 20 outside, 30 to 35 percent around zero, and 25 percent when it is 10 below. If you see condensation running down the glass, you are above your house's limit and should turn it down.
Isn't a tight, well-insulated house a good thing?
Yes, for your energy bill, and it is the right way to build in this climate. The trade-off is that a tight house does not flush itself. Older drafty houses got roughly half an air change an hour for free through gaps you were paying to heat. A modern tight house may get a fraction of that, so moisture, odors, carbon dioxide and anything off-gassing inside simply accumulate. That is why mechanical ventilation went from optional to standard in new construction.
Do ozone air purifiers work?
No, and we will not install them. Ozone is a respiratory irritant, not a filter. At concentrations low enough to be safe to breathe it does not meaningfully remove contaminants, and at concentrations high enough to do something it inflames the airways and makes asthma and COPD worse. Devices sold as ozone generators, activated oxygen or energised oxygen all fall in this category. Here is what we do install.
Will a better furnace filter fix my allergies?
It helps with the particulate part, and that is a real part. Moving from a 1-inch fibreglass filter to a 4-inch media cabinet at MERV 11 to 13 catches a great deal more pollen, dander and dust. What it cannot do is remove gases and odors, or filter the air in a room the system is not moving air through. And the upgrade has to be matched to your blower, because a restrictive filter that starves airflow makes the whole system worse.
Do UV lights in a furnace actually do anything?
A UV lamp aimed at the evaporator coil does one job well: it keeps biological growth off a surface that is wet all summer. That is worth doing, and it is why the coil in an older system smells the way it does. What UV does not do is sterilise the air passing by at 1,000 feet per minute, because the exposure time is a fraction of a second. Anyone selling a coil lamp as whole-house air disinfection is overselling it.
Where should I start if I only want to change one thing?
Get the humidity read first, because in this climate it is the most common answer and the most comfortable fix. If the house is at 20 percent in January, a whole-home humidifier changes how the place feels within a day. If humidity is fine and dust is the complaint, upgrade the filtration. If the house is newer than about 2010 and feels stale, it is probably ventilation.
Do you charge for an air quality assessment?
Call (920) 564-2333 and we will tell you what the visit costs before we book it. If you are already on a maintenance plan we take most of these readings during the seasonal visits anyway, so ask your technician.
Start with readings, not a catalog.
Tell us what the house is doing and when. Dry in January, musty in July, dusty all year. The symptom usually tells us which pillar to measure first.
Or call us directly
(920) 564-2333Mon–Fri 7am–3pm. After hours, the same number reaches our on-call technician.