Indoor Air Quality: Tips for a Healthy Home
Your home’s indoor air quality is crucial to your health and comfort, especially for individuals with allergies or asthma. By maintaining your home environment, you can keep the air free and clear, and fresh even when the weather is dreary and the pollen counts are high and temperate even when it’s damp outside or bone dry. Here are five of the most effective ways to improve or maintain your home’s indoor air quality.
Open Windows Daily
Indoor air quality can be several times worse than the air quality outside, even accounting for pollen, uncontrolled humidity, and other factors. This is because many contaminants can make it into your home even with windows closed, but won’t exit, such as dust and pet dander or chemical residue from household products. Letting the outdoor air cycle through so you’re starting with a fresh slate each day can help substantially.
Use a HEPA Filter Vacuum
Vacuuming is of course an important part of home hygiene, removing dust and other contaminants from your carpet, but you can go a step further toward a healthier home by using a vacuum outfitted with a HEPA filter. Many harmful contaminants are simply too small for traditional filters; mold spores and other small particles require the more thorough filtration that only comes with a HEPA system.
Use Nontoxic Cleaning Products
One of the most insidious sources of household air quality issues are the very products you trust to clean your home. Many compounds leave behind volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, which can linger in the air of your home and have varying effects on other organic substances — including the ones that make up your body. Prolonged exposure to VOCs can have serious consequences for your health.
Control Humidity Levels
Humidity levels are an important part of keeping your home comfortable and minimizing energy costs (because excessively humid or dry air can be difficult to get to a comfortable temperature), but that’s only a small part of why you should care. Outside of the “sweet spot” of 30% to 50% humidity, problems can quickly develop. Dry air can lead to dry skin, irritated eyes and lungs, and easy transmission of viruses and bacteria. Excessively moist air can lead to fungal growth and lung irritation.
Improve IAQ With Your HVAC System
Your HVAC system is a crucial component of your home’s indoor air quality. With the right upkeep and a few additions to your system, the air inside your home can be as pure and healthy as possible:
- Change or clean filters often: Your filter traps contaminants that pass through your ventilation, keeping dust and other debris from recycling into your home and keeping it from damaging your system. When you let filters get too dirty, air either stops flowing entirely or finds other gaps to pass through, bypassing the filter.
- Whole-home air purifiers: Filters can’t remove everything from the air, capturing only the larger particles of dust and dander. For smaller threats such as bacteria, mold spores, viruses, etc., you’ll need an air purifier or another solution to kill, neutralize, or attract the material.
- UV light filtration: In much the same way that exposure to it directly can be a health concern, UV light is a great way to neutralize, kill, or break down a wide variety of harmful substances in your home’s air. Tucked away in your HVAC system, a UV light system will purify your home’s air without exposing you to any risk — like fresh sunlight without the drawbacks.
Depend On Dominion for a Healthy Home
If you’re ready to take the next step toward healthier air in your home, let the experienced IAQ and HVAC technicians at Dominion Service Company help you find the right combination of habits and upgrades to ensure you can breathe easily.
Contact Dominion today to learn more about the indoor air quality services we offer or to schedule a visit.
