The holiday season brings joyful gatherings of family and friends, but extra cooking and baking often come at a cost to your indoor air quality. Kitchen pollutants like smoke, steam, odors, and excess moisture build up rapidly from holiday meals and goodies. At GMC Heating & Cooling Inc., we’re passionate about preventative HVAC maintenance, and in this article, you’ll learn why it’s important to keep a close eye on your HVAC system after the holiday season.
Heavy frying, broiling, boiling, and baking that happens over the holidays release plenty of air contaminants like carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and particulate matter into your home. These can irritate eyes and lungs, while moisture from steam can enable mold growth. Kitchen ventilation systems simply can’t keep up with the increase of most holiday cooking demands.
Lingering odors, smoke, and moisture also damage surfaces and ventilation ducts over time. Grease deposits can lead to an increased probability of cooking fires. With indoor air 2 to 5 times more polluted than outdoor air, it only takes a few hours of intensive holiday cooking to seriously degrade indoor air quality for days afterward.
While a delicious spread is central to many holiday celebrations, balance is key. Follow recommended tips like opening doors/windows, turning on kitchen and bathroom fans, and running your HVAC system during and after cooking. Checking your HVAC filter more often throughout the holiday season is also recommended, as it may need to be replaced sooner than you anticipate.
Be especially vigilant when frying foods or cooking recipe items like steaks in a cast-iron skillet, turkey, ham, and hot wings, as these items pose extra demands on kitchen ventilation. It’s also critical to ensure your existing HVAC system provides enough balanced ventilation to handle intensive kitchen activities during gatherings. If not, harmful contaminants will continue to circulate, and family members may experience prolonged eye, nose, and lung irritation.
Get confident about your indoor air quality after this holiday season by having your existing HVAC equipment inspected by our certified technicians. We can assess your system’s cleanliness, make sure that your ventilation system isn’t spreading pollutants across your home, and replace filters if need be.
