Electric Heating Safety? Apartment Safety?

[flightfeather]

Hello! I'm hoping that someone might be able to lend some insight on whether or not electric house heating (as opposed to natural gas) is safe for parrots. I understand many small space heaters have PTFE and PFOA in them and therefore unsafe, and was wondering if the larger electric heating systems would be made somewhat similarly.
Another question is if you can keep parrots in an apartment or other similar housing, considering the possible toxicity of PTFE and PFOA products. Could the fumes travel around enough to be harmful?

Thank you so much!

 

[painesgrey]

Hi! Welcome to the Avenue!

I've had electric heating in all three homes I've lived in with my birds. There is some smell when the heat kicks on in the beginning, as the dust that's accumulated over the year heats up, but I've not had any problems with this distressing my birds.

I'm currently living in a house that has independently-controlled electric wall heaters in each room. I keep the bird room slightly warmer than the rest of the house, so theirs is on daily. I haven't had any problems.

As for apartments, it really depends on the apartment building. Most apartment buildings do not have shared air systems between units, but that doesn't mean that toxic fumes can't travel between them. Good ventilation will be key in this situation, such as cracking a window and turning bathroom/kitchen vents on.

 

[Kodigirl210]

I live in an apartment that was built in the early 80’s. We have a HVAC unit. The intake is outside air and our exhaust fan are all hooked to ventilate to the outside. That would actually be the real key.

Make sure to ask the landlord/check to see if the ventilation is hooked up properly. I have been in a couple of apartments where the kitchen ventilation was hooked up to nothing. When we turned it on the air just flooded back into the kitchen. We’ve also had issues with the bathroom fan also not being ventilated to the outside.

Luckily the one we live in now is fully hooked up correctly so we get fresh air in & exhaust air goes out. We only occasionally have issues with the neighbors but it’s only when we leave our patio doors or windows open & the stench rolls in. Depending on the age & floorplan of the apartment, there really shouldn’t be any issues.

The best advice I can give you is just to double check the exhaust and HVAC set ups.

 

[flightfeather]

Thank you so much for the help!