Take a deep breath in….aaaaaand exhale out….
Now, think about the fact that you will do that approximately 22,000-25,000 times EACH DAY. That equates to 3,200 gallons of air you will breathe per day (about the same amount of gallons of water that’s in a 20’x40’ in-ground pool!).
Compare that to what you drink & eat.
- You drink an average of 3 ½ cups of liquid per day
- You eat an average of 5 ½ lbs. of food per day.
We put a lot of consideration in to the kinds of food & drink we put in our body, but do we do the same with the air we breathe?
The foods we eat come with Nutrition Information, or what I like to call, an “Ingredients Disclosure”. What if our house had the same thing? What would be listed in your home’s Ingredients Disclosure?
Studies show that the air in our homes are, at a minimum, 5 times more polluted than the air outside. And we are breathing 3,200 gallons of that air every day. What are you doing about that?
Some of the most common “solutions” actually make the indoor environment worse. Things like candles, plug in air fresheners & sprays actually add dangerous volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in to our home. Standard vacuums (without HEPA filtration), actually take the fine dirt particles & chemical compounds from the floor & introduce them in to the air. While you mean well, there’s a very good chance you are making the indoor environment less healthy.
According to the US EPA, improving IAQ involves a combination of Source Control & Ventilation. Source control means eliminating the source. Sometimes, this can be as simple as stop using and getting rid of the air fresheners, sprays, candles & plug ins.
Ventilation is a must. And, it is key to improving your indoor air quality. Installing a whole house ventilation system to flush out all that stagnant, polluted, unhealthy air will allow for fresher, cleaner air into the home. Removing indoor pollutants, such as asthma and allergy triggers, fumes from cleaning products, gases emitted from paint/carpet/etc. (VOCs), carbon dioxide, airborne particles, pet dander, smoke and odors from cooking, moisture from bathing, cooking, foundations etc. significantly improves the indoor air we breathe. We know enough to vent our bathrooms & kitchens with required exhaust ventilation systems.
The question is not whether to ventilate or not to ventilate. The question is, how much ventilation we need? A whole house mechanical ventilation system allows you to customize the amount of air exchanged in the home.
Our homes are not only our single biggest financial investment, but it is where we live, breathe, sleep & create memories. It’s time to give our homes the care & attention they need, our health depends on it.
We are a 2nd generation family owned and operated business that has been working in homes with basements and crawl spaces for over 35 years. We have been waterproofing and sealing about 500 foundations a month during that time as the largest Waterproofing contractor in the Midwest with 15 locations servicing 8 states.
20 years ago we would seal a foundation and recommend a standard dehumidifier to address the additional water vapor (humidity in the air) inherently found in below grade environments, such as basements and crawlspaces. Back then, dehumidifiers were the industry standard to help with this problem. However, many of our customers were looking to us as the “foundation expert”, asking…
“What else do you have? I really am not getting results with this messy, expensive dehumidifier. My foundation is dry, walls are dry, floor is dry, so why does it still smell and feel like a basement?”
We needed to find something better. Our company’s core values include offering world class customer service to every customer, every time. So, we challenged our Research and Development department to find a real solution for our customers to combat not only the moisture, but also the odors, pollutants and unhealthy environment our customers were concerned about. We found, tested and installed a ventilation product for a period of three years. We private labeled that product as the EZ Breathe Ventilation System. The feedback in those first three years from our customers, as well as our installation crews, did not live up to the standard of quality to be included in our waterproofing process that offered a life time warranty. Once again, we needed something better.
We valued not only the results, but what we were learning from our customers. So, we went back to the drawing board, took matters into our own hands and made quality improvements to that first generation ventilation unit.
Our own EZ Breathe Ventilation System was born…reengineered, redesigned and much improved! We quickly learned that our crews were thrilled with the quality improvements, ease of operation and installation, but more importantly, our waterproofing customers loved the new, improved EZ Breathe unit as well.
Their feedback told us the air in their basements and crawlspaces felt better, but their entire home was benefiting from their EZ Breathe as well. We received countless letters thanking us because their whole house felt different, less odors, fresher air upstairs too, family members were feeling better, needing less allergy medicine, husbands were no longer snoring, children were no longer coughing as much, the home and it’s family were living healthier lives!
It was time for us to move beyond simply offering this innovative technology to just our waterproofing customers. Our passion and commitment to helping people improve their indoor air environments is what drove us to incorporate EZ Breathe Ventilation Systems as an independent company in 2003. We strongly believe that homeowners everywhere deserve a healthy indoor air quality.
We have spent the last 15 years dedicated to learning about the relationship between our home and our health; indoor air quality, the home as a system, building science and how it relates to indoor air quality as well as the challenges our modern day practices pose to the quality of air we breathe in our homes.