LESLIE: Gary in Missouri is dealing with a dusty heating system. What can we help you with?
GARY: We are trying to put in an air purification system …
TOM: OK.
GARY: … in reference to maybe 3,000 square foot: upstairs, 1,800; bottom stairs of course – the bottom would be 1,200.
TOM: OK.
GARY: Our furnace is in a corner of the house. Do we put one on the furnace or do we just go with the ones that are for individual rooms?
TOM: Oh, no question about it, you go for the furnace. Because you’ve got a built-in distribution system there. It doesn’t matter that it’s in the corner of the house. It’s connected by a duct system to the entire house. So you never want to use a space – a portable air cleaner. You want to put one that’s centrally installed that works for the entire house.
Now, do you have one heating system for the entire house or do you have two zones?
GARY: We have one heating system, propane; and then we heat with wood – wood stove outside.
TOM: OK. So do you have a forced air system?
GARY: Yes.
TOM: So it’s a wood furnace, then?
GARY: Uh-huh…
TOM: OK.
GARY: No, the furnace is propane. I’m sorry.
TOM: The furnace is propane. So do you use the propane for your heat or do you use the wood stove for your heat or both?
GARY: We can use both if we choose but we …
TOM: OK. Well, the best thing here is to use the propane furnace; install the electronic air cleaner into that; and then, when you want to – you know, make sure you run the furnace when you want to run the air cleaner or just run the fan.
LESLIE: Mm-hmm. Yeah, you don’t have to have the heat on to run the air purifier. You can run the fan. This way it works all year round, you can put it on – I know Aprilaire has the Model 5000 and I think their fancy thermostat, if you will, or the gauge that’ll be on your wall has even a setting where if you’re having a party it’ll cycle on for a couple of hours beforehand; you know, extra to make sure that it’s really doing a good job of cleaning out the air.
And what’s so important – you know, the difference between the portable and the one that’s installed into your furnace is the portable one, imagine all the air in that room has to sort of circulate past that unit to actually get cleaned. And you know what? It’s not going to. You’re not going to get the air from the other side of the room all the way over to that unit. You would essentially need four; you know, one in each corner and one in the center to do the job that the whole-house air cleaner would.
TOM: It’s much more efficient to use a whole-house system. OK, Gary?
GARY: That’s great to know.
TOM: Alright?
GARY: I appreciate that very much.
TOM: You’re very welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
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