How healthy of an environment the home is should be an important concern for everybody. We spend a significant amount of time in our homes and the environment in this structure will play a major role in our health and the health of other occupants. One of the key factors in maintaining a healthy home is to ensure that the building has good indoor air quality. You may think that your home has good air quality, but studies have shown that the air in the home is often filled with a variety of different contaminants.
The reason that many people do not realize that their home has low air quality is because many of the pollutants in the air can be hard to detect. The air may seem fresh and may smell fine, but that does not mean that that the air is of a good quality. While this may be an issue that is easy to ignore, it is important to take steps to improve the indoor air quality of the home because it can have a serious impact on the health of you and your family.
One of the most important things to know about indoor air quality is that many of the causes of poor air quality are things that are very common in the average home. The air in the home can become contaminated in range of different ways. Everything from the appliances in your home to cleansers, pets and even the furniture can impact the quality of the air.
This problem then gets compounded by the fact that many homes are poorly ventilated. When a home is poorly ventilated, the air pollutants are trapped in the home and this makes for a greater concentration of particulates. While there can be contamination in the outside air, it tends to be in a lower concentration than there is on the inside of most homes. Occasionally, we need to open windows and run ventilation systems in order to allow the contaminants that are in the indoor air to escape.
It is important for homeowners to recognize the signs of poor indoor air quality. While many of the contaminants may be hard to detect with your senses, there are signs that can indicate that there is an air quality problem. When people in the home commonly suffer from respiratory issues like sinus or chest congestion, these issues may indicate that the air quality is low. Some contaminants may also result in people suffering from headaches, dizziness or nausea.
If your home has a problem with indoor air pollution, it is important that you take steps in order to protect the occupants from the potentially harmful effects. The most important keys to improving the indoor air quality of a home are to reduce contaminant sources, allow for regular ventilation of the home and to have a clean and well maintained home heating and air conditioning system. These three simple factors can go a long way toward improving the air quality in the home.