(ARA) - When winter sets in, homeowners rush to close up their homes -- the one thing they think will keep them comfortable during an uncomfortable season. Storm windows are hammered in place, drafts are sealed and the heating is cranked up. What homeowners don't realize is that this can affect the ventilation in your home and, as a result, send your family right to the doctor with sore throats, runny noses and breathing problems.

But help is at hand. With American Standard's 3 Cs of Comfort, you can quickly keep your energy costs and your health in the comfort zone all winter.

The 3 Cs of Comfort -- check, control and clean -- is an easy way to remember the critical steps needed to winterize your home for your health and your wallet. And by following these simple steps, you can ensure optimum comfort during the winter.

"Heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) is one of the most important components of a home," explains Paul Trotter, vice president of sales, American Standard. "But homeowners often do not realize that HVAC is the driving force in delivering home comfort and clean air. Now, with the 3 Cs of Comfort, consumers have the information they need to prepare their home and their family for a comfortable, healthy and money-saving winter."

Here is how to winterize your home using the 3 Cs of Comfort:

Check: Even if you think your HVAC unit is working fine, it is important to schedule proactive maintenance at least twice a year. Typically, it is a good idea to schedule an appointment for an HVAC professional to
perform system maintenance in the fall and then again in the spring. If you are shopping around for a new HVAC unit, ask the installer to conduct a heat-loss heat-gain calculation of your home before making a purchase. This will help ensure your new air conditioning and heating system is the proper size for you and your home.

It is easy for winter winds to creep inside your home and for heated air to leak out, so check for potential problem areas. Your windows and doors are prime suspects when it comes to infiltration and leakage. Check around every frame for cracks, gaps and poor-fitting fixtures to make sure they are sealed properly. If they are not, use caulking or weatherstripping to seal the cracks, gaps and poor-fitting fixtures. You can pick up both for just a few dollars at any hardware store.

Also make sure your home is adequately insulated. This will help keep the warm, comfortable air inside. American Standard suggests the following R-values, which represent the thickness of insulation: R-30 in the ceilings and R-13 in the exterior walls.

Control: During the winter months, when outdoor temperatures drop, moisture in the indoor air typically escapes through any crack or crevice in the outside wall of your home, especially around windows and doors. Moisture is also exhausted outdoors through bath and kitchen fans. This makes the humidity level of the indoor air increasingly low. If this is a problem in your home, you may notice static electric shocks and the drying of nasal passages as well as changes to your woodwork, furniture and plants. But you can control this issue by purchasing a whole-home humidifier with automatic control.

Do you feel like you are constantly adjusting the temperature of your home? Let the thermostat do all of the work for you. By programming your thermostat, you will be in control of your own comfort. A lot of today's better models can be programmed to run at different temperatures throughout the day, depending on your comfort needs over a 24-hour period. Most manufacturers recommend 70 degrees for cold winter climates. Also, if you have ceiling fans with reversible motors, the overall comfort of your home can be improved. When the fan blades are reversed in the winter, this pushes the comfortable, heated air down into the room.

In the winter, the temperature in the home changes rapidly because most furnaces heat the home with a single-stage heating system, which delivers a blast of warm air followed by an off cycle and then another full blast of warm air, causing very noticeable temperature swings. You can even out the temperature with an American Standard two-stage heating system. The first stage operates more than 80 percent of the time for continuous comfort and only switches to the second stage when more heat is needed.

Clean: Believe it or not, the air inside your home can sometimes be more polluted than what's outside, causing potential problems for your family's health. Changing the air filter in your HVAC unit is one of the easiest -- and often most overlooked -- steps you can take to improve the air quality inside your home. It is a good rule of thumb to change the air filter every 30 days. To help save on replacement filter costs, some manufacturers, such as American Standard, have cleanable filters that can be rinsed or vacuumed. The company also helps manage air quality with its Comfort-R technology, which is found in furnaces. With this technology, fan speeds are reduced, allowing more unwanted particles -- dust, pollen, pet dander and the like -- to cling to the filter so cleaner air can flow into your home.

For more information on winterizing your home or to find an American Standard dealer near you, visit www.americanstandardair.com. Consumers can also visit the Web site to order a free copy of American Standard's At Home With Comfort DVD guide.

Courtesy of ARA Content