Natural Home Ventilation and Its Benefits

It can get unbearably hot inside your Cincinnati, OH, home, especially during the summer months. And while most choose to crank up their air conditioning (AC) system to get some much-needed relief, there’s a simpler, more efficient way to keep your home cool: increasing access to natural ventilation. 

• It helps keep your cooling expenses down. Natural ventilation allows for cooler and more comfortable living spaces on hotter days. And what’s great about this is that it doesn’t require using a mechanical system like an AC. Instead, natural ventilation relies on air movement to draw fresh, cooling breezes into your home while pushing warm, stale air out. Since you won’t be relying on your air conditioner to ensure your home’s indoor comfort, you can save a fair amount on your cooling costs.

• It improves indoor air quality. You probably already know that indoor air is actually twice as polluted as outdoor air. That’s because the contaminants present in the air inside your home tend to linger, which in turn, increases your exposure to them. These pollutants may include dust, pollen, pet dander and other particles, along with mold spores, airborne bacteria, fumes and volatile organic compounds emitted by furniture, household items and building materials. 

There’s no getting around it – constant exposure to these not only triggers allergy symptoms, but also puts your health at risk. Natural home ventilation can help you avoid this. Simply opening your casement windows – and leaving them open for about a quarter of an hour every day – to let in fresh air can make a notable difference to your home’s indoor air quality. 

• It eliminates the potential of mold and mildew. When your home has poor natural ventilation, excess heat and moisture becomes trapped inside your living spaces. Heat and moisture buildup is a notable problem in rooms that generate considerable water vapor like the kitchen, bathroom, and laundry area. Over time, the accumulation will cause mold and mildew to develop in these spaces.

This not only leaves unsightly stains on surface materials, but breaks them down as well. Don’t let your walls, floors and ceilings succumb to the damage caused by mold and mildew. You can expel heat and moisture from your home to a certain extent just by opening your double hung windows.

• It lowers maintenance costs. Natural home ventilation lowers your reliance on your air conditioning system to keep your home cool and comfortable. Aside from helping you cut back on cooling bills, this also reduces unnecessary strain on the AC unit. Since there’s less wearing and tearing on the AC, the likelihood of a breakdown becomes less of a worry, allowing you to save money on expensive cooling repair and maintenance costs.

Ensuring Effective Natural Home Ventilation

There are few things you’ll need to consider when using windows to facilitate natural home ventilation. To get better results, make sure to choose the right window styles. Some windows are just plain better than others at increasing your Cincinnati home’s access to natural ventilation. The two best options are double hung and casement windows. 

Double hung windows come with two operable sashes, which you can open at the same time to let cool air into your home via the bottom sash, while expelling trapped hot and moist air via the top sash. Casement windows have hinged sashes that you can swing out, creating a wide opening that allows fresh breezes inside your home. You can also angle the sashes of your casement unit a few degrees to better direct air into your living spaces.

The double hung and casement windows offered by trusted window installation expert, Renewal by Andersen® of Cincinnati, are a cut above the standard options you’ll find in today’s market. For one thing, our options use revolutionary Fibrex® composite. It perfectly blends the best features of wood and vinyl, but none of their weaknesses. This allows us to craft windows that offer superior durability, excellent insulating value, and long-lasting, low-maintenance performance. When paired with our advanced High-Performance™ Low-E4® SmartSun™ glass, our Fibrex units check all the boxes in what energy-saving windows should be.

Other great ways to promote better natural home ventilation? You should try to do the following:

• Open south and east-facing windows early in the day because they’re better at letting in cool air around this time. 
• Keep the air moving by opening the north- and west-facing windows on the upper levels of your home and allowing warm air to escape.
• Have windows installed on opposite walls so that air can move freely through one and go out through the other. This placement ensures that there’s continuous airflow in the room.

Window Installation Services Like No Other

Keeping your home well-ventilated using casement or double hung windows is easy when you turn to Renewal by Andersen of Cincinnati. To deliver exceptional window services that leave no room for mistakes: this is what we aim for and continue to achieve. Request a window quote by calling us today at (513) 283-8996 or filling out this contact form. Our service areas include Cincinnati, West Chester and Loveland, OH.