With autumn weather and temperatures in full swing, the desire to establish a warm, cozy aesthetic in your home is rampant! A seemingly harmless addition, a burning candle is the perfect final touch to set the ambiance in the eyes of many homeowners.
As the enticing aroma dances around your nose, you don’t immediately think about its effects on your air filters. In this blog, we’ll delve into the unexpected and discover what scented candles can do to your air filters, how it affects air quality, and a few better courses of action.
Covers Filters in Soot
While scented candles produce appealing fragrances and light, they also produce soot and wax upon burning. These particles travel through the air, making their way into furnace filters. While components do their best to trap the soot, the substance can coat filters.
Clogs Filters and Decreases Efficiency
As soot and wax travel through your system’s air filters, more material will accumulate. The combination of contaminants produces a dark, waxy residue that clogs a furnace filter’s fibers, ultimately decreasing its efficiency over time.
How It Affects Indoor Air Quality
Given its clogged state, your HVAC system’s filter can no longer operate as intended. It can no longer treat and condition incoming air, allowing other pollutants to enter your home and affect indoor air quality.
In addition to pollutants, scented candles can directly irritate occupants in the home by causing headaches, eye and sinus irritations, and respiratory issues.
Healthier Alternatives To Try
Fortunately, you can still enjoy the pleasing fragrance of a scented candle while not worrying about its effects on your HVAC equipment or well-being. Consider opting for healthier alternatives like beeswax and soy candles void of toxins that paraffin candles have.
It also helps to maintain adequate ventilation practices and turn on exhaust fans to prevent burning emissions from circulating around a space.
As a common habit for most, burning candles doesn’t appear to pose much threat at first glance. Given the emissions, it can affect your space more than you know! What scented candles do to your air filters is unfortunate, which is why opting for safer alternatives like soy or beeswax candles can help your HVAC system and your household.
Replacing your filters regularly prevents contamination and volatile compounds from accumulating on the material, affecting efficiency. Consider Remember the Filter as your one-stop-shop for filtering components. If you’re searching for an uncommon size, we’ve got you covered with our custom furnace filters to suit your needs.
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