Homeowners across the country work hard to ensure the interior of their home is clean and clear of dirt and dust. Even so, one crucial issue is often overlooked: air quality. The air quality inside your home is essential to both your health and comfort and directly impacts how at-home you feel in your home day in and day out. Whether you have an asthmatic in the family, you or a family member has allergies, or you’re simply tired of breathing air that’s not exactly clean, there are, fortunately, many ways you can work to improve the air quality within your home in natural, easy ways. Follow these tips to improve the air quality in your house.
Key Takeaways:
- Changes to your daily routine are necessary to improve the air quality within your home.
- Taking simple steps such as using fragrance-free cleaners and cleaning floors regularly goes a long way.
- Professionals at The Weather Changers can help you purify the air inside your home and keep it clean.
Clean Your Floors Regularly
One significant way to improve the air quality inside your home is regularly cleaning your floors. This is especially important if you have carpet in your home or use rugs throughout a room. Allergens such as pollen, hair, pet dander, and dust accumulate in these spaces and enter the air when people walk over them. Using a standard vacuum will help you make some progress, but ideally, you should use one with a HEPA filter installed to remove as many harmful pollutants as possible from your home with each pass. If you have hardwood, vinyl, or tile floors, you should still ensure you’re cleaning them regularly to get rid of dirt and dust that accumulates in corners and under furniture. For floors like these, mop thoroughly after performing a pass with a broom or vacuum cleaner.
Leave Your Shoes at the Door
The best way to keep your floors clean is to keep dirt off of them in the first place. Tracking in the dirt with your shoes or boots might just be the most common way in which pollutants enter your home and get trapped in your carpets and rugs. Take off your shoes at the door and use a shoe rack or similar product to prevent pollutants from being tracked deep into your house.
Be Aware of the Products You’re Buying
Air pollution comes in many shapes and forms, but a couple that you probably least expect is your furniture and the paint on your walls. Products such as paint, lacquers, and varnishes commonly used to finish furniture and paint walls may contain chemical pollutants such as formaldehyde, which may impact certain people with asthma, allergies, or other respiratory issues. Before you paint your walls or get new furniture for your house, do your due diligence and research what chemicals are used in the product before bringing it into your home. When dealing with paints, labels that read “Low VOC” or “Zero VOC” indicate paints with a reduced number of harmful chemical pollutants. This is a crucial form of source control that will pay off in the long run.
Don’t Smoke
This seems like an obvious point, but lasting air pollution isn’t necessarily something all smokers think about smoking. Secondhand smoke is a potent pollutant that’s known to cause a range of health issues, a fact that many smokers know. However, often overlooked is the fact that air pollution from smoking continues long after the smoke has cleared. Nicotine, tar, and other chemicals adhere to furniture, walls, and long after you smoke. If you’re looking for better air quality, never smoke inside.
Turn Up the Humidity
Having a bit of humidity in your home can help you keep pollutants under control. Use a humidifier to keep the humidity levels within your home between 30 and 50 percent. However, keep a close eye to ensure you adhere to the upper limit. Too much humidity in your house causes a whole new set of issues, such as water damage to your walls and ceiling or even mold growth, which actually makes air quality worse. If you find the humidity in your indoor air climbing too high during the summer months, use a dehumidifier to remove some of the moisture from the air and bring levels back down to a safe range.
No More Aerosols
From air fresheners to hair sprays and spray-on deodorants, households worldwide have become reliant on cheap and easy-to-use aerosol products to accomplish simple everyday tasks. Aerosols can release harmful chemicals into the air during use, which, of course, decreases your indoor air quality. Fortunately, cutting out aerosols doesn’t mean cutting out products from your everyday life entirely. Non-aerosol versions of products like hair spray, air fresheners, and deodorants exist and are readily available when you know to look for them.
Remove Artificial Fragrances
Products containing fragrances are a common trigger for those with allergies or asthma, and removing them entirely from your house is a great way to improve air quality. Many cleaning products have these chemical scents included, but making the change to fragrance-free versions is affordable and straightforward, with more and more brands turning their focus to create more eco-friendly natural products. If you want to get away from chemical pollutants and improve your indoor air quality, use natural products such as distilled white vinegar, lemon, or baking soda to clean key areas of your house instead of reaching for the disinfectant.
Add Some Greenery
Plants are a must-have for anyone looking to add a little life and color to a room, and they also act as natural air purifiers over time. Incorporate low-light plants into your design scheme with proper lighting to clean your air day by day and improve your air quality in a truly natural way. Look for low-maintenance, easy-to-care-for plants to make this change as easy as possible – especially if you don’t exactly have a green thumb. If you have indoor pets, ensure the plants you purchase aren’t toxic to your furry friends before deciding which ones to buy.
Take On Mold and Mildew
Mold and mildew can lead to breathing problems even for those without previous respiratory issues. If you discover mold in your space, don’t wait to fix the issue. Call in a team of professionals that specializes in mold cleaning and removal. In the meantime, work with trusted local plumbers to fix any leaks you find throughout your house and ensure your plumbing is in proper order. By doing so, you can prevent mold and mildew from becoming issues in the first place, and prevention is often the best medicine when looking to improve indoor air quality.
Test for Radon
Radon gas is a naturally occurring byproduct of the breakdown of radioactive soil and stones. It’s an odorless gas and can contribute to breathing problems and even the development of lung cancer over time. Unfortunately, this gas can move up through the soil and into your home over time. Any home can have high radon levels, and the only way to uncover the issue is with proper testing. Have a team of professionals perform a proper radon test on your home, and then work with them to reduce the levels if it’s deemed necessary.
Why Excellent Air Quality Is Essential for Your Family
Making sure your home has the best air quality offers incredible benefits for every member of your family. Here are several reasons why IAQ is important:
1. Home Comfort
Great air quality is a treat for many different senses. The same way clean sheets make it easier to fall asleep at night, clean air helps you relax. A home that smells amazing is a real delight, and it lets you breathe comfortably all night long.
2. Family Health
IAQ systems filter out tons of contaminants. This can protect your family from many respiratory problems and keep the lungs in excellent health. The best air filters, called HEPA filters, can remove almost 98% of viruses from the air. That can give your immune system a major helping hand.
Polarization acts the same way as a magnetic field surrounding a magnet. Individual strands of the special fiberglass filter media accept a very strong negative charge making each strand a contaminant collection cell. 98% of airborne particulate are measured below one micron. Standard cheap furnace filters have the capability of collecting a certain percentage of larger particles, but have very little, if any, capability of arresting the submicronic particles which just pass right through the pores of the filters. The special media collects and electroplates even the smallest submicronic particle. 97% of particulate at 0.3 microns can be collected with multiple passes.
3. Toxin Removal
There are a lot of contaminants that can get inside the home, such as radon, carbon monoxide, chemical particles, and pesticides. Homes with moisture problems can experience mold or mildew growth.
This list isn’t meant to scare you. After all, it’s possible to prevent or fix all of these issues. However, before you can take the necessary steps to safeguard your home’s air quality, first you need to be aware of any problems that are present.
4. Design style
Forget about musty odors or stuffy air. With air purification, you get the style benefits of fresh air. Whether you have a country home or an industrial loft, clean air makes every space more attractive.
5. Allergy Prevention
IAQ systems can remove pet dander, pollen, dust particles, mold spores, and other common allergens from the air. This provides real relief for people with allergies, including seasonal allergies.
6. Time Savings
Last but not least is the amount of time you save with less dust in the air. Simply put, you don’t have to clean as often when your floors and furniture stay dust-free.
Small children, teens, adults, and older loved ones can all feel happier and healthier with clean air. How can you give your family the gift of the best indoor air quality possible?
Learn About How the Professionals Can Help
You can take all of these steps on your own to improve your indoor air quality, but if you’re looking for even more ways to handle the job, contact The Weather Changers today. We use advanced methods and tools like UV air cleaning systems to remove air pollutants and health hazards from your home. If you’re looking to improve indoor air quality in your house, we’re here to have your back and give recommendations on how you can change your daily routine to get the job done right.
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