How Can You Improve Indoor Air Quality in Your Home?
How can you improve indoor air quality in your home? It does not take a bunch of fancy equipment. Here is a guide to doing it simply.
Coughing, sneezing, and headaches are just some of the signs that your home has poor air quality. If you’re suffering from allergy symptoms year-round, your home’s air quality may be to blame. In fact, indoor air quality is at its worst during the winter months, when your heater is working overtime, and it’s too cold to open the windows.
Left untreated, prolonged exposure to poor air quality can cause several health conditions, such as cancer and respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.
But how can you improve indoor air quality at home? Testing and regulating air quality is easier than you might think. By following these simple tips, you can keep your family and home as healthy as possible.
Poor indoor air quality can have a negative effect on your health, comfort, and productivity. That’s why it’s important to take steps to improve the air quality in your home. One of the best ways to do this is by replacing your condo’s fan coil unit. This type of unit helps to filter and clean the air, reducing the amount of dust, pollen, and other allergens in your home. It also helps to reduce humidity levels which can cause mold growth and other health problems. Replacing a condo’s fan coil unit is an easy way to improve indoor air quality in your home without breaking the bank.
How to Test Air Quality in Your Home
Since most airborne contaminants are odorless, it’s in your best interest to test the air quality in your home. Air quality meters are a cheap expense that can be found at most home improvement stores. These devices give you a quick look at the contaminants buzzing around your home.
Most air quality meters will test for common pollutants and allergy triggers, but you might want to consider a device that also measures humidity, radon, and formaldehyde.
Without an air quality meter, search for signs of bad air quality, such as mold, a dirty HVAC system, and allergy symptoms.
How Can You Improve Indoor Air Quality?
Maintaining healthy air quality in your home requires a comprehensive approach. While each method will improve air quality, you need to use all five for maximum wellness.
1. Keep Your Home Clean
A dirty home means dirty air. When was the last time you dusted, vacuumed, or mopped? When you see dust or dirt accumulating on your furniture or on the floors, this is a sure sign that these particles are also floating through the air.
Don’t let them. By thoroughly cleaning your home, you’ll reduce allergens, dust, and dirt that would otherwise be blown into the air you breathe. Keep your furniture dusted to a shine.
Vacuuming is a must, especially in carpeted homes where dust and dirt have more surface area to hide. Using a vacuum with a HEPA filter guarantees that you’ll catch all the small dust particles and not just blow them around.
Where you have tiles or hardwood floors, use a mop instead. If you’re really concerned about air quality, skimp on using soaps and just stick to water.
2. Use an Air Purifier
There are several benefits of an air purifier. But it can’t do the job alone. When you’re shopping for an air purifier, there are a lot of factors to consider.
An effective air purifier will have a high circulation rate and be effective at removing most particles. Keep in mind that the size of the model determines how much air it can clean at once. A small air purifier meant for a desk won’t be able to keep up with the rate of pollutants infiltrating your home.
If you have a large home or property, small air purifiers won’t get the job done. Larger buildings use more comprehensive air filtration systems to improve indoor air quality.
Do not rely on houseplants to purify your air. This is a myth at best. In fact, watering your plants, often introduce mold, dirt, and other allergens.
3. Improve Ventilation
Increasing the ventilation in your home is an effective way to diffuse airborne pollutants. This is as simple as opening windows and doors. A breeze will naturally clean polluted air by blowing it out of the house.
Take advantage of warmer days during winter months, when ventilation is more limited. Exhaust fans are in most kitchens and bathrooms and will remove contaminated air from these rooms. Constantly running exhaust fans isn’t economical, but it’s a good practice if you plan on doing an activity such as painting or cleaning.
4. Maintain Safe Humidity
Humidity has a big impact on air quality. Too much moisture and you’ll invite mold and dust mites into your home. Not enough and germs will thrive and put you at risk of colds and infections.
The ideal humidity range is 30% to 50%. Is your home too dry? A vaporizer can get the job done. If you don’t have one, boil a pot of water to add moisture to the air.
When your home is too humid, a dehumidifier can reduce humidity. Opening the windows can help unless it’s rained recently or you live in a tropical biome.
5. Change the Air Filter
Every home comes with its own air filter. These are built into the heating and cooling systems. Although the primary purpose of a filter is to protect the HVAC system, it also regulates the quality of indoor air.
An air filter should be changed once every three months, at the latest. They come in several different performance ratings. More effective filters are more expensive, but they will dramatically improve air quality in your home.
Improve Your Life With Better Air
Most of our lives are spent in the comfort of our own homes. But there’s nothing comfortable about the effects of bad air. When you or the kids are suffering from allergies, it might just be time to open the windows and pull out the vacuum.
How can you improve indoor air quality without wanting to improve more? There are so many dangers to our health, they can be hard to keep up with. Stay in the loop by following the house and home section of my blog!
