The fumes from your attached garage can erode your indoor air quality, especially if you use your garage to store chemicals or vehicles. Not all garages and doors are tightly sealed from the house, so fumes can and do enter, whether the door between the house and garage is open or not. Many people use their garages to store paints, solvents, stains and other chemical compounds that may emit toxic gases, reducing indoor air quality (IAQ) significantly.
You Can Improve Your Home’s IAQ by:
- Sealing the common wall between your home and the garage with caulk. Expanding foam works well for larger holes, but most of these products are highly flammable, so only do so when you can have the garage door fully open.
- Applying weatherstripping to the door frame will help stop fumes from entering your home.
- If your garage is unfinished, consider drywalling the walls and ceiling, and close the joints between the sheets with drywall tape. An unfinished garage will allow a variety of fumes to enter the home, including dangerous carbon monoxide. Not taping the drywall will allow noxious gases to enter your home.
- Opening the garage door before starting your car or gas-powered yard equipment. Pull out of the garage immediately and if you need to idle, do it in the driveway.
- Store all your pool and yard chemicals in tightly sealed containers. Those fumes from your attached garage can be the most toxic.
- If the ducts for your HVAC system run through the attic, make sure that they’re sealed tightly. When you have duct leaks, the difference in air pressure can pull fumes from the garage into your home.
- If you use your garage for activities that involve hazardous gases, install a ventilating fan, like a bathroom fan placed on an outside wall. When you’re using the garage, turn the fan on before you start, especially if you’re using flammable materials. Some finishes, like lacquer, are highly flammable and a small spark created by an electrical switch can ignite them.
Since fumes from your attached garage can seriously degrade your IAQ, please contact Hansberger Refrigeration & Electric Company to learn more. We’ve provided outstanding HVAC services for Yuma area homeowners since 1952. 3
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Yuma, Arizona about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about attached garages and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
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