Air Conditioners and Allergies

Dr. Beth Eve Corn, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, says, “Air conditioning is extremely important for patients with allergy and asthma. We recommend that everyone with allergy and asthma keep their window shut during the pollen season and use air conditioning so that pollens are not coming into someone’s bedroom or into the car we definitely recommend closing the window and using the air conditioner.”

The problem is when the air conditioner isn’t clean.

“You can imagine that an air conditioner the filter is filtering air that is coming into the home, what you’re breathing. So if you have dirty filters are you basically breathing air that is contaminated,” says Dr. Corn.

Now, provided you keep it clean, continuously running the air conditioner can lower the moisture enough to prevent the growth of mold, a common allergen.

But running an air conditioner without proper cleaning can contaminate it with mold--another reason why filters on air conditioners should be scrubbed regularly.

Harold Wissner, an Air-Wave air conditioning expert, says “Changing the filter periodically, having the unit checked once a year, to see what condition it is, and when necessary have the machine brought in for cleaning and overhaul, get everything working efficiently again. Otherwise if you don’t do it, the machine looks like this. This is all pollutants and germs which you’re breathing into the system,” says Wissner.

“In my opinion people should be cleaning out their air conditioners meticulously. They should be changing their filters at least once or twice a year to make sure they aren’t exposed to any of the dirt and other things that might accumulate in the filtering system,” adds Dr. Corn.