Indoor Air Quality Part 1: UV Lamps

Zack Hammonds is starting a five part series on indoor air quality. Maintaining a healthy home is critical, and something that can be overlooked in many HVAC installations.

The primary thing to take away from this series is this: indoor air quality components all do different things. They are not mutually exclusive. Each component we talk about has a specific purpose that cannot be replaced with another IAQ product.

Indoor Air Quality Part I: UV Lamps

To start this series, we are discussing UV lamps. A homeowner one time, at the mention of a UV lamp said, "I heard those things don't work". Why did he have that perception? Because he wanted a UV lamp to filter air, or do some other indoor air quality task that it was never meant to do. A UV lamp has one purpose: to kill mold in your evaporator coil.

What is an evaporator coil? When running your air conditioner (or heat pump) in the summer, chilled refrigerant is pumped from the air conditioner outside via copper tubing to the evaporator coil inside. The fan in your furnace then pulls air from inside your home, and pushes the air through the chilled copper tubing. The air is cooled and dehumidified as water condenses on the coil. (homes that do not have a furnace typically have a "fan coil" which in a basic sense is a combination of the evaporator coil and the fan from a furnace). More information on this process is available at: Heating & Air Conditioning 101

Now that you understand what an evaporator coil is, let's move back to the UV Lamp. The dark, damp interior of an evaporator coil is a breeding ground for mold. Once mold begins to grow in the coil, air conditioning efficiency drops, and mold spores can be released into your indoor air. A UV lamp mounts inside the coil, and kills mold that tries to grow. This protects your air from mold spores, and helps the indoor cole run efficiently to keep air conditioning bills (and heating bills when using a heat pump) at a minimum.

Thanks for reading the Zack Hammonds blog. Visit Atlanta Heating for more information. The next IAQ topic: Indoor Air Quality Part II: Advanced Air Cleaners.