With the spread of COVID-19 and the sad and regrettable news of first death in the United States you may be asking yourself how can you protect yourself and your family.
As with any disease there are numerous preventative measures. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have recommendations in these links respectively CDC COVID-19, WHO COVID-19. Some questions that you could be asking yourself, can you do more? are you doing enough? when is too soon? when is too late?
Given the accelerated pace at which this disease is spreading, the reported long time that symptoms take to show, and the limited knowledge about this disease it is almost impossible to answer the questions above; however, we wanted to send this note as an awareness on your house IAQ and air purification.
Many hospitals, healthcare facilities, and responsible public locations (offices, businesses, other) have long used UV (ultra-violet) technology to sterilize, eliminate or reduce bacteria, viruses, and pathogens; depending how and where this technology is used. In HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning) it has been used in the air handling units -inside the duct- to achieve similar objectives. The benefit of this technology is discussed in many documented studies.
This technology has also been used in residential applications, and in the last few years has become very common. Many companies manufacture products for this purpose, some have conducted research that sustain the claims of their specific products. This is a step ahead in achieving a good IAQ and protection for the air inside homes.
The future is unpredictable, especially when there are things out of our control; however, we can focus on things within our control. We believe that the use of UV-based devices and similar technologies is an action that we can take not only for regular IAQ improvement, but as a preventive measure if the unthinkable happens (exposure to COVID-19?). While there are no assurances that any one single action will protect ourselves, a combination of them may be the best we can do to prevent and protect.
If you currently don’t have a whole-house purification system we encourage you to consider installing one. If you have one we encourage you to confirm that it is working (UV lights have limited life). In the last few days we have noticed how certain products are increasing in price, becoming scarce, or fully out of stock for months. It is possible that if COVID-19 continues to spread in the US the IAQ purification systems will also become significantly more expensive or worse, unavailable; therefore, if you plan on taking action now may be the best time to proceed.
As of today February 02/29/2020 we have access to limited inventory of two technologies that we believe are reputable and trustworthy, the REME-HALO whole-house purifier and the Honeywell UV100A1059 and UV100E1043 UV lights. We believe that the REME-HALO is one of the most complete forms of whole-house purification (see their test results); the Honeywell UV100 series represents two alternatives at a lower price point.
If you would like to install any of these technologies, subject to inventory availability, you can explore our product offering and inventory by following this link.
A note of caution. A number of options exist online that may or may not deliver on what is offered, many of which have no independent tests, offer no guarantee, and could possibly include re-manufactured or counterfeit products. Also, this type of UV light is extremely powerful and very harmful to the skin and sight; if you decide to take action with a different provider we encourage you to work with a professional, licensed expert that will stand by not only the product integrity and origin but also the workmanship.
While no one can make any absolute representations or guarantees on the outcome of taking this action we believe that having these solutions are better protection than having none; we so much believe in them that we have them in our own homes. It will be ultimately your decision though, if we can help feel free to contact us.
