Fire Damages Your Home in More Ways Than One

January 12th, 2014 by Lisa Pixley

Nobody wants to think about the catastrophic effects of a home fire. The devastation and loss can cause immense trauma for any family. So people rarely want to think about the job of fire restoration, but this is a way to start to reclaim your home from the damage the fire inflicted.

At Alpha Air Corporation, we offer insurance-mandated fire restoration services that will remove the deposits throughout your ventilation system to help you get your home back as soon as possible. We have experience with residential and commercial fire restoration in St. Paul, MN, and we bring our years of experience to the job of restoring your home’s ventilation.

People are often unaware that the damage a fire inflicts on a home is not of a single type. Fire restoration experts must deal with more than one kind of damage when on the job. Here are the types of smoke and fire deposits that we deal with:

Wet residue

This is a side-effect of the dousing of the fire, either from the fire department or a sprinkler system. The water may stop the damage and danger from the fire, but it leaves behind a webby and smeary residue that is extremely hard to clean. The residue has a powerful and musty odor, which is often the most noticeable smell in the air after a fire.

Dry residue

Different materials burn at different rates and temperatures: wood, for example, has a high combustion rate and burns fast and at high temperatures. Burning highly combustible material leaves behind a dry smoke residue that is powdery and sooty. This is usually the easiest residue for fire restorationists to remove, although it requires a special dry-cleaning process and must be done before any wet cleaning begins.

Oily residue

This occurs because of grease fires, a burning oil furnace, or burning plastic. Oily residue resembles a smeary soot that is resistant to water-based cleaning. Not all home fires will have this kind of damage, fortunately.

Protein residue

The burning of some organic material—specifically meat and eggs—leaves behind this almost invisible residue. Even though you can’t see it, it can enter surfaces throughout your home and result in an extremely noxious odor and damage to paint and wood. This residue can only be eliminated through special cleaning.

Fire restoration is a specialized skill; you don’t want to try to clean up damage from a major fire on your own, since most of the byproducts of the fire resist standard cleaning. Contact St. Paul, MN fire restoration experts before you make any further clean-up attempts. Alpha Air Corporation can help you with our safe sanitizing agent that will leave no extra chemical residue behind after we’ve gotten rid of all the other residues from the fire.

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New Year’s Traditions Explained

December 31st, 2013 by Lisa Pixley

2014 is almost upon us, and with the coming of the New Year, we thought we’d take a brief look at some of the more popular traditions associated with this holiday. It’s been around for at least 4,000 years: as long as we’ve figured out how long it takes for the seasons to come and go. Here’s a quick discussion about some of our more modern traditions and where they started:

  • Auld Lang Syne. The famous song began in Scotland, where it was published by Robert Burns in 1796.  He claims he initially heard it sung by an elderly resident of his hometown, which suggests it has traditional folk origins even before that. It became even more popular when big band leader, Guy Lombardo, started playing it every New Year’s Eve, starting in 1929 at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City.
  • The Dropping of the Ball in Times Square. The tradition of dropping the ball in Times Square started in 1907. It was made out of iron and wood with light bulbs located on the surface, and the ball originally “dropped” over the offices of the New York Times at One Times Square. Dick Clark famously broadcast the event every year from 1972, until his death in 2012.
  • The Rose Parade. The Tournament of Roses Parade has been held in Pasadena every year since 1890; taking advantage of California’s warm weather to present a parade of floats, bands and horses. A football game was eventually added to the festivities in 1902, when Michigan dominated Stanford’s team by a score of 49-0
  • Baby New Year. The use of a baby to signify the New Year dates back to Ancient Greece, where it symbolized the rebirth of Dionysus (the god of wine and parties). Early Christians initially resisted the pagan elements of the story, but soon came to adopt it since it matched the traditional Christmas symbol of baby Jesus in the manger. Today, people of all faiths and traditions refer to the New Year as a baby, representing new beginnings.

Whatever traditions you choose to celebrate, we here at Alpha Air Corporation wish you the very safest and happiest of New Years. May 2014 bring you nothing but the best!

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Wishing You a Happy and Safe Holiday Season!

December 25th, 2013 by Lisa Pixley

It’s the holiday season once again, and everyone at Alpha Air Corporation wishes the very best for you, your family, and your friends. We hope that whatever brings you joy fills these last days of the year.

We’d like to thank all of our customers for giving us the opportunity to provide you with services that improve your lives and help you better enjoy this time with your loved ones. You are the reason that we exist as a company, and that’s something we always keep that in mind. We are eager to work with you in the coming year.

Here’s something to remember for the season: many companies in our industry are very busy on service calls during December—it’s one of the most crowded times of the year. If you need service, make sure you schedule it as soon as possible so you can continue to enjoy the pleasures of this time of year.

Lastly, we at Alpha Air Corporation want to conclude with a thought from the late Earl Nightingale to help remind us all that we do not need to wait for a holiday to have a reason to enjoy or celebrate ourselves, our lives or our family:

“Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Be happy now. Don’t wait for something outside of yourself to make you happy in the future. Think how really precious is the time you have to spend, whether it’s at work or with your family. Every minute should be enjoyed and savored.”

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What Can I Expect to Find in My Ductwork?

December 15th, 2013 by Lisa Pixley

The ducts connected to your air conditioning (and your heater, if you use a furnace) are not only important for delivering comfort to your home; they are vital for maintaining your indoor air quality. If they stay clean, you should have few troubles with the quality of your air. But as the ducts gradually pick up contaminations—which they will—it will lead to pollutants infiltrating your home, not only threatening the air you breathe, but making your house dirtier. You should schedule regular air duct cleaning in Minneapolis, MN so you have the healthiest and cleanest house possible.

Alpha Air Corporation handles duct cleaning jobs both large and small, from major corporate buildings to your cozy home.

If you have contaminants in your ducts, we can get rid of them and give you pristine, safe ductwork again.

Pollutants you might find in your ducts

  • Dust and dirt: It’s almost impossible to avoid having dust settle inside ducts. It will enter through the vents, and without any other escape along the sealed ductwork, it starts to gather and build up. If the filter on your AC becomes clogged (you should change it once a month) the infestation of dirt will worsen. Almost all ducts benefit from a yearly cleaning just to eliminate dirt.
  • Mold and other microbacteria: When humid weather strikes in Minnesota, mold and other biological growths can turn into a problem inside hidden, dark places like ducts. Professionals use special sanitizers to safely remediate mold and prevent its return.
  • Other allergens: Pollen, dander, and animal hair are among the many other contaminants that can enter your ducts and cause allergic reactions in people inside the house. Sawdust from other construction projects are often trapped inside ducts as well.
  • Animals and animal byproducts: Small animals sometimes enter ducts and use them as nests and lairs. They can leave behind carcasses, leaves and sticks, and waste products. This can create terrible odors inside your home and lead to health problems. Because you have limited access to your ducts, it requires professionals to get rid of these pests and anything they may have left behind.

Duct cleaning specialists have you covered

Professionals like those at Alpha Air Corporation use numerous tools to give you the cleanest ducts possible: camera inspections, sanitizers, deodorizers, power vacuums, rotary brushes. These will clean your ducts without damaging them—and without leaving harmful chemicals behind. Our technicians are NADCA-certified to assure you of their skill and training. We promise 100% satisfaction with our residential air duct cleaning in Minneapolis.

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The History of the Presidential Turkey Pardon

November 28th, 2013 by Lisa Pixley

Thanksgiving began in 1621, but didn’t become a national tradition until 1863, when Abraham Lincoln declared it as such in hopes of bringing a divided nation together. We have many Thanksgiving traditions in this country, from turkey as the meal to the annual Cowboys and Lions games on television. But one of the most beloved is the annual Presidential turkey pardon, in which the U.S. President “pardons” a turkey, allowing them to live the remainder of their live freely roaming on farmland. As we celebrate this Thanksgiving, we thought you’d like to know a little more about the history of this fascinating tradition.

Farmers have sent turkeys to the White House as far back as the 1800s, hoping to have the honor of providing the President’s annual meal. There have been scattered stories of individual turkeys being “pardoned” throughout that time, including one in which President Lincoln’s son Tad successfully convinced the president to spare a bird intended for the family’s Christmas dinner.

Starting in 1947, the National Turkey Federation became the official supplier of the President’s Thanksgiving birds. The White House arranged for an annual photo op that year with the President receiving the turkey in the Rose Garden. Sadly, there was no pardon as yet; those birds all ended up on the Presidential table.

The push for an official pardon picked up steam in 1963, when President Kennedy asked that the bird be spared, just a few days before his assassination. President Nixon opted to send each of the birds he received to a nearby petting zoo after the photo op, though there was no formal pardon attached.

But it wasn’t until 1989 that the pardon became official. On November 14 of that year, President George H. W. Bush made the announcement, and sent the bird to a Virginia game preserve to live the rest of its life out in cranberry-and-stuffing-free bliss. Since then, every President has held an annual pardoning ceremony, with the lucky turkey spared the axe and sent off to live in peace. Since 2005, the pardoned birds have gone to Disneyland in Anaheim, California, where they have lived as part of a petting zoo exhibit in Frontierland.

No matter what traditions you enjoy this holiday, or who you enjoy them with, all of us here wish you a peaceful and happy Thanksgiving weekend.

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How a Professional Cleans Ducts

November 22nd, 2013 by Lisa Pixley

You should schedule duct cleaning in Minnesota annually. It only takes a year for dust, dirt, debris, and even less welcome contaminants to build up inside your home’s ductwork. If you leave the ducts without regular cleaning, it will lead to a negative impact on your indoor air quality, spread dust across your furnishings, and cause your HVAC system to work harder and wear down faster.

Duct cleaning should stay in the domain of professionals. You don’t have the tools or the access to your ducts that will allow you to clean them effectively—and neither will any amateur who offers to do the job for “a bargain” (it won’t be a bargain if your ducts receive damage and they get even dirtier because of it). Contact experienced duct cleaners like those at Alpha Air Corporation.

The professional way to clean your ducts

The contamination inside ductwork is both harder to reach and more difficult to cleanse than the dirt you encounter in places like your kitchen or bathroom. Professionals use a variety of special equipment to access the interior of the ducts and remove pollutants.

Two important pieces of equipment duct cleaners use are power vacuum systems and rotary brushes. The power vacuums are much more effective at drawing in dust and debris than any commercial system, and they use long hoses that can snake safely through your ducts. The vacuums place large sections of the air ducts under negative pressure, which helps dislodge contaminants. Rotary brushes connected to air compressors remove caked-in dirt from the walls of the ducts without damaging the ductwork itself. The brushes also run along lengthy cables to reach deep inside the ductwork system.

To make sure the ducts receive complete cleansing, professional duct cleaners use powerful deodorizers and sanitizers to eliminate bacteria and other growth. These special sanitizers take care of the pollutants without posing any danger to you or the rest of your household.

For serious cases of mold in the ducts—unfortunately a common problem in Minnesota—professionals will use UV germidical lights to eliminate the problem. These lamps destroy the cellular structure of bacteria using ultraviolet light. This also discourages the microbacteria from returning.

Leave it to Alpha Air Corporation

At Alpha Air Corporation, we are concerned about your indoor air quality. When you hire us to perform your annual duct cleaning, you can trust that we won’t use chemicals that will leave toxic hazards in your home. We use a special sanitizing agent with a low toxicity rating from the EPA (Category III) that contains no active chemical residue or volatile chemical to leave behind.

We take the same level of care with all parts of your duct cleaning. When you’re ready for cleaner living through cleaner ducts, contact Alpha Air Corporation today.

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Why Are My Heater’s Ducts So Dirty?

November 8th, 2013 by Lisa Pixley

Ducts help to distribute hot or cool air from a central HVAC system throughout your home. Once the heater creates the warn air, a blower sends it into your ducts, which move it throughout the home safely and efficiently. We see their use every day during our cold Minnesota winters, and in towns like Woodbury MN, heater duct cleaning becomes as much a part of home maintenance as vacuuming and changing the light bulbs. Ducts get dirty, after all, and if you don’t clean them then the very system that distributes heat throughout your home can spread dust and debris as well. “How do my ducts get dirty?” you ask. The answers say a lot about the need to keep them clean.

Dust gathers on any appliance, especially when it sits unused for a significant portion of the year. Minnesota summers are often hot and muggy, and we have little use for our heaters during that time. It’s easy for dust and debris to accrue in the system itself, as well as in the duct system. As air circulates throughout your home, it pulls dust along with it, distributing it throughout the ducts. Eventually, the build-up is so great it can affect your health: irritating your nose and throat, and triggering allergy attacks in those susceptible to them.

Dust and dirt build-up gets worse if you don’t change your heater’s air filters. They keep contaminants out of the system and reduce the frequency which you need a maintenance session for your heater. The frequency with which you should replace your filters varies – anywhere from once a month to twice a year – but should go up if you have a lot of pets or a family member who suffers from allergies.

For answers to questions like “how do my heaters ducts get dirt?” and for other Woodbury, MN duct cleaning services, contact the experts at Alpha Air Corporation. We understand the needs of most heating systems and provide high-quality repair services as well as maintenance sessions to clean every inch of your ducts. Pick up the phone and give us a call today.

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Why Do I Need Duct Cleaning?

November 1st, 2013 by Lisa Pixley

The ducts in your home or business do their job mostly out of your sight, hidden in walls, floors, and ceilings. Because you can’t see them, you probably won’t know when they become dirty… until the contamination begins to cause you difficulties. What problems can you run into because of dirty ductwork, and why should you schedule cleaning? We’ll go over the three main reasons to have your ducts regularly cleaned, starting with the most serious problem.

Duct cleaning requires professionals to handle, especially for commercial ductwork. If you think you need duct cleaning in MN, contact Alpha Air Corporation today.

Protect your indoor air quality

The EPA lists poor indoor air quality as one of the primary threats to health in the U.S. According to the EPA’s website, low quality indoor air can lead to “irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat, headaches, dizziness, and fatigue” after only short-term exposure. More serious illnesses can result from continued exposure.

Contamination inside vents is a major source of reduction in a home’s air quality: dander, pollens, dust, and animal hair that gather in ducts are all allergens that will affect people in your home, regardless of whether they have allergies or not. One of the most worrisome of contaminants that can get into your ducts is mold. Microbacterial infestations are difficult to remove, and require professional assistance to remediate.

Improve the performance of your HVAC system

The furnace/heat pump/air conditioner hooked up to your ducts can suffer a reduction in effectiveness because of dirty ducts. A buildup of dust will clog up the filter, reducing the air flow and possibly leading to damage inside the unit. The dirtier an HVAC system becomes, the harder it will have to work, which will cause an increase in your power bills.

A cleaner home

Ducts that are filled with dusty contamination will continually blow those irritants around your home or workplace. Aside from polluting the air that you breathe, this dust will settle around the house or office. You’ll find that even the most thorough cleaning job will only keep the dust away for a few days. If you’ve noticed that the standard broom and vacuum aren’t doing the job, then it’s probably time for professional duct cleaning.

You need to take the cleanliness of your ductwork seriously; don’t take your ducts for granted just because you can’t see them most of the time. Alpha Air Corporation has provided Minnesota with duct cleaning for over 30 years, so when it’s time to cleanse out your home or business’ ducts, just give us a call.

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What Are the Benefits of Cleaning Your Furnace Ducts?

October 10th, 2013 by Lisa Pixley

When it comes to furnace duct cleaning, Minneapolis residents aren’t usually in a rush to spend a lot of money. Few things are less interesting to purchase than a duct cleaning service, and since your furnace ducts are usually out of sight, it can be very easy to simply write them off in favor of more prominent problems. This can be a mistake; dirty ducts not only cost you money in increased heating bills, but can decrease the quality of your air in the bargain. Dirt is created through a lack of maintenance, though it can sometimes appear when a leak or fissure develops in your ducts.

What are the benefits of cleaning your furnace ducts?

Two of the most important answers can be found below:

  • Better indoor air quality. Dust in the ducts is primarily a concern because it can spread all over your home. When the furnace blows hot air through the ducts to warm your home, it takes that dust along with it. The quality of your air goes down, and your house becomes less comfortable as a result. The air can be drier and harder to breathe. Family members with allergies may find themselves experiencing more frequent attacks. Sensitive people might experience increased irritation in the nose or throat. Cleaning the ducts will eliminate these problems and raise the level of indoor air quality for your whole house.
  • Better heating. Dust and dirt can cause problems when they get caked on heater components. In extreme circumstances, they can also block the flow of air through the ducts, forcing your furnace to work harder and raising your heating bills as a result. None of that is conducive to your heater’s long-term capacity. Duct cleaning can help prevent that, lowering your bills and helping your heater last longer in the bargain.

In the realm of furnace duct cleaning, Minneapolis has an answer: the experts at Alpha Air Corporation. We can explain the benefits of cleaning your ducts, then set up an appointment with courtesy and professionalism. We are dedicated to your complete satisfaction, so don’t hesitate to give us a call today.

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How Do My Ducts Get Dirty?

October 1st, 2013 by Lisa Pixley

In Minnesota, going without a heater is not an option—our winters are legendary. Going without a clean and efficient heater shouldn’t be an option either, but many people settle for this. We don’t want you to be one of those homeowners who have a furnace that strains just to blow around low quality air filled with dust and other pollutants. We’ll explain why ductwork gets dirty in the first place to help you better understand why they need cleaning.

Alpha Air Corporation has NADCA certified technicians on staff—that’s the National Air Duct Cleaners Association—so when it comes to St. Paul heater duct cleaning, we should be on the top of your list of contractors to hire.

So how why are my ducts getting dirty?

The most likely culprit for duct contamination is a clogged air filter. Furnaces and heat pumps use filters to trap debris that might damage the internal mechanisms. But filters also prevent those foreign particles from spreading through your ducts. If a filter is not changed regularly, it will get congested with dust and other debris, and dirt will start to build-up in the ducts. Make sure you change the filter once a month during the height of the heating season. If you don’t know how to, you can always hire us to change your filter.

If you’ve recently had construction projects done in your home, pieces of wood and plaster will probably get inside the ducts. It’s a good idea to have a check done on the ductwork after any major construction work to make sure this kind of debris hasn’t infiltrated your heater.

Now to a slightly unpleasant topic: mold and other bacterial contaminants. This is the sort of “dirty” you really don’t want to affect your ducts. Unfortunately, the warm and dark spaces of your ductwork make for a prime breeding growing for this kind of pollution if the ducts aren’t regularly maintained. The good news is that professional duct cleaners have methods that not only get rid of these pests, but keep them from returning.

If you have concerns about dust and dirt and anything else unwanted contaminating your ducts, you should schedule a cleaning before the winter starts. Alpha Air Corporation can do it for you: we not only clean ducts, we also sanitize and deodorize them. If you need mold remediation, we can get that done as well. Contact us now—we’re available 24/7—for your St. Paul heater duct cleaning.

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