Whenever you’re researching how to make your home more efficient or optimizing the performance of your HVAC system, one term that you’ll likely come across is negative air pressure. Your home’s air pressure can have a significant impact on its overall efficiency. Below, we’ll address what negative air pressure is and how you can effectively treat it in your home to improve your home’s efficiency.
What Is Negative Air Pressure?
A home is said to have negative air pressure if the air pressure inside the house is lower than the air pressure outdoors. When your home has negative air pressure, it will try to compensate by pulling outside air in from any available spaces. These are typically through your attic, crawl space, garage, or air leaks in your exterior walls. This not only allows more outdoor contaminants to penetrate your home, but it also significantly reduces the efficiency of your HVAC system.
How Does Negative Air Pressure Happen?
Your home can develop negative air pressure through several methods. If you constantly run your exhaust fans in your bathrooms and kitchen, they can be pulling out too much air without enough fresh air to replace it. If you have leaks in your ductwork that runs through your attic or crawl space, it could essentially be pulling the clean, treated air out of your living space.
Appliances that use combustion, like your water heater, furnace, and even your fireplace, will use up your indoor air through burning and venting and won’t replace it with any fresh air. Additionally, if your home has a poor ventilation design, it can allow more air to escape outdoors than it lets in.
Key Indicators of Poor Household Ventilation
As a homeowner, various signs will indicate that you have negative pressure air in your home. One of the most obvious is that your doors are tough to pull open, especially your exterior doors. You may experience drafts coming in from electrical outlets, baseboards, and window frames on your exterior walls.
If you have a fireplace that you use regularly, you may notice that the smoke is being pulled back into the room instead of properly venting out your chimney. Experiencing condensation on your windows in the winter can be a key indicator of negative air pressure. Additionally, an increase in dust and odors inside your home can indicate an issue with air pressure.
Problems With Negative Home Air Pressure
Having negative air pressure in your home comes with many issues. One of the most obvious is a reduced level of comfort during the peaks of the winter and summer seasons. You’ll notice more drafts that will affect your indoor temperature. Your HVAC system may struggle to keep up with your temperature demands as it’s fighting this constant intrusion of outside air. This can lead to an unwanted increase in your home’s energy bills.
When your home is constantly pulling in air from the outdoors, it’s bringing a ton of contaminants with it. This will starkly decrease your indoor air quality level, leading to more allergy and asthma flare-ups. Many even experience headaches, fatigue, sinus irritation, and other negative symptoms when consistently exposed to poor air quality.
Negative household air pressure not only makes it uncomfortable for you and your family but can also be a safety hazard. Whenever there are appliances that use the combustion process, like your HVAC system or your stove, negative air pressure can pull toxic gases vented outside back into your home.
How to Fix Negative Pressure Issues With Your Home
If you suspect that you have negative air pressure inside your home, it’s important to consult one of our professionals. We can perform a blower door test that will help identify key areas that are contributing to the negative pressure in your home. This can provide you with a basic foundation of areas to address to fix your negative air pressure issue. Some common ones include exhaust fans, poor ventilation, leaky ductwork, and unsealed doors and windows.
Fixing Leaky Ductwork
If you have leaky ductwork in your home, one of the best ways to fix it is with professional cleaning and sealing services. This is where one of our professionals comes out and thoroughly cleans all the inside of your air ducting and then applies a specialized resin that hardens to create an airtight seal. This will significantly boost the efficiency of your HVAC system and prevent unwanted air from entering through your ducts from your attic or crawlspace.
Sealing Air Leaks
Another easy way to help deal with some of your negative air pressure issues is to seal up air leaks on your exterior walls. These are most common at your electrical outlets, light switches, door frames, and window frames. You can use different materials, like weather stripping or spray foam, to seal up these locations to prevent outside air from penetrating your home.
Be Mindful of Exhaust Fan Habits
There’s no doubt that exhaust fans play a crucial role in removing excess humidity from your home. However, you must use them properly for optimal performance. Aim only to run them long enough to remove the steam from your bathroom or kitchen and then shut them off. Avoid running them unnecessarily, as they’ll remove air pressure from your home. You may want to consider investing in exhaust fans with built-in humidity sensors or timers. This can ensure they only run when necessary.
ERV and HRV Systems
Another significant investment for better balancing household air pressure is with an ERV or HRV system. ERV stands for energy recovery ventilator, while HRV stands for heat recovery ventilator. These systems actively work to bring in fresh outside air while conditioning it to ensure a consistent indoor air temperature.
Fix HVAC Balance Issues
A properly balanced HVAC system will help keep your indoor air pressure balanced instead of creating a negative pressure. It’s best to consult one of our helpful HVAC technicians to do a pressure balance test on your HVAC system. We can actively adjust dampers and fan speeds to equalize air pressure better. We can also install a dedicated makeup air duct on the return side of your ducts if necessary to better address negative home air pressure issues.
Add Passive Air Vents
Another potential option for balancing out internal household air pressure is adding passive air vents. These can be added to your walls or soffits. They come with backdraft dampers to let more fresh air enter your home. Even adding trickle vents to your windows can provide a necessary steady supply of fresh air for your home.
Expert Negative Air Testing Service
Southport Home Services offers expert negative air testing services in Wausau, WI. We can also help with all your indoor air quality, electrical, heating, and cooling needs. We are happy to answer questions about how testing can improve your situation. Call us today to schedule your next service appointment.
