How to improve your indoor air quality
The indoor air quality of the home can be an important factor in your overall health. Since people spend much of their time at home and indoors, poor home air quality can cause a variety of health problems. Over time and from a wide-range of sources, pollutants can build-up in the air. Without taking steps to try to control the indoor air quality of the home, the air can cause problems that range from minor discomforts to the nearly toxic. With that in mind, it is important for people to take steps toward improving the indoor air quality of the home.
VENTILATION
The level of ventilation that the home has will play a significant role in improving indoor air quality. For the most part, our homes are built to stop air from escaping. The reason that we build our houses this way is to provide effective climate control. However, while you are keeping the warm and cool air in, you are also trapping the build-up of potential contaminants.
Good home ventilation can be achieved very easily. Occasionally the homeowner needs to open the windows and turn on some of the fans. This will create a good amount of airflow while allowing the indoor air to escape and get replaced with some fresh outdoor air. Some homes even have built-in features that can assist the ventilation process even further. Exhaust fans and specially design home ventilation systems can be very effective when it comes to improving the indoor air quality of the home.
CONTROLLING CONTAMINANT SOURCES
Many of the sources of air pollutants are things that we willfully bring into our homes. Reducing some of these sources or attempting to mitigate some of the effects of them can make a significant improvement to the indoor air quality.
Common sources of indoor air pollution include chemical cleansers, pesticides, tobacco smoke and paint. If the homeowner can reduce the indoor usage of many of these products, they can help to improve the air quality. As a consumer, you can find replacement products for many of the things like cleansers and pesticides that will have less of an impact on indoor air quality. In some situations it might be necessary to use some of the harsher products, but you can at least reduce their impact by using them in a well ventilated area.
Source control will also mean maintaining a clean home. Having a regular cleaning schedule where you do things like vacuum, mop and scrub all of the home surfaces, will help the homeowner to remove many of the contaminants that can end-up in the air of the home.
MAINTAIN THE CLIMATE CONTROL SYSTEM
Over time, components of the home heating and cooling system can become dirty and filled with dust. Getting the system cleaned and inspected once a year can help to remove many of the contaminants that will continually circulate through the system. Regularly changing the filters in the furnace will also be a good step to take toward improving the air quality. If the homeowner wants to go one step further, they can also buy a furnace filter that is designed to remove particulate contamination from the air.
Improving the air quality in the home is an important step in protecting the health of you and your family. Living in an environment with unclean air can lead to a variety of chronic health problems. With little out of pocket expense and a little bit of effort a homeowner can make an investment in a better home and better health.