What Does Clean Air Mean For Your Family?

You might be surprised by some of the information about the air you breathe inside your home. Here are some clean air facts you may not know.

• The EPA ranks indoor air pollution among the top five environmental risks to public health.
• EPA studies indicate that indoor levels of many pollutants may be 25 times, and occasionally more than 100 times, higher than outdoor levels. In general, indoor air is four to five times more polluted than outdoor air.
• More than 15 million Americans are estimated to have asthma, including one in 13 school age children.
• In the last 30 years, the number of people with asthma has gone up by almost 60%.
• Tobacco smoke actually contains over 4,000 compounds, many of which are strong irritants.
• According to a study by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, indoor air contaminants are responsible for half of all illness.

87% of American homeowners are not aware that pollution may be worse inside their homes than outdoors.

• The World Health Organization estimates that approximately 30% of newly constructed and remodeled facilities have indoor air quality problems.
• Because they breathe faster than adults, children inhale 50% more air per pound of body weight than adults and are especially sensitive to air quality problems.
• Most homes generate about 40 pounds of dust per year for every 1,500 square feet of space.
• About 40,000 dust mites, a common cause of household allergies, can be found in only one ounce of dust.

Click here to see How Trane CleanEffects™ Works

Features & Benefits:

• Breakthrough CADR (Clean Air Delivery Rate) Levels

– Up to 1,990 in 5-ton systems

• Very High Efficiency “Better than HEPA”

– Maintains remarkable efficiency over time

• Very Low Pressure Drop

– Remains very low after loading

Trane CleanEffects™ offers the highest Clean Air Delivery Rate (CADR) in the industry. Clean Air Delivery Rate (CADR) is the amount of clean air a system will deliver into your home. Two factors affect the CADR – the efficiency of the air cleaning device, and the amount of air it cleans.

Clean Air Delivery Rate is recognized by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a fair and objective measure of various air cleaner technologies.

Summary Of Influenza Virus Testing For Trane CleanEffects™

Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), in collaboration with scientists at Environmental Health and Engineering, Inc. (EH&E), evaluated the ability of Trane CleanEffects™ – a whole-house air cleaning system that attaches to your home’s central air conditioning system – to remove human influenza A virus, or common flu virus, from the filtered air. These tests involved releasing the common flu virus into the air inside of a test duct. The removal efficiency was calculated from the amount of the common flu virus measured in air samples collected before and after passing through the air cleaner.

The conclusion of the testing was that Trane CleanEffects™ removed more than 99 percent of the common flu virus (influenza A) from the filtered air. Because of the similarities among types of influenza virus, these results imply that the whole-house air cleaning system will remove greater than 99 percent of other forms of the virus including influenza B, influenza C, and avian influenza (also a strain of influenza A virus).

The Bottom Line

The exposure to fine particle air pollution is related to a number of serious health effects, such as early death, increased hospital admissions, asthma attacks, low birth weight, and indicators of both respiratory and heart disease. While it may not be possible to control your exposure to fine particles outdoors, ventilation systems or whole house cleaners with high clean air delivery rates can reduce indoor air pollutants and particles in the place where you spend a majority of your time: your home. In studies conducted by EH&E (Environmental Health & Engineering Inc.), the only research to compare different types of filtration systems in a full sized home, a high efficiency, whole-house system (Trane CleanEffects) performed the best at removing fine particles from indoor air. Use of an appropriately sized whole-house system with a clean air delivery rate of approximately .7 per square foot per foot of home is expected to reduce the levels of indoor fine particles of outdoor origin by 70 to 80% over conventional filtration and natural ventilation. A lower exposure to particles of outdoor origin is associated with a substantial reduction in the risk of particle-related morbidity for individuals, and meaningful decreases in the public health burden of air pollution.