A new year is seen as a fresh start, and one of the most common resolutions involves taking care of our physical health. You may think this ends at eating healthy and working out, but it’s important to make your home a healthy environment.
Before we know it, the time for spring cleaning will be right around the corner, but there are other ways to clean your home and provide a healthy environment. Let’s take a look at tips for creating a healthier home in 2023.
Routinely Change Air Filters
As is in the name, the point of air filters is to filter out debris and allergens from the air, so naturally the filters are going to need to be replaced. The length between replacements depends on a few factors, including:
- The location of the home (living in a dry environment, for example)
- Whether pets are in the house, especially multiple pets
- If anyone in the home has allergies
- The age of your filtration system
In general, your air filter should be changed every 90 days (3 months). Having pets in the home reduces that to replacing filters every 60 days (2 months). To accommodate for someone with allergies, you should replace the filters about every 30 days (1 month).
Of course, these are simply recommendations; your filters should be changed whenever you see fit.
Declutter and Organize
It’s common knowledge by now that clutter and mess can negatively affect our mental health. Clutter and messes can also negatively affect our physical health with dust.
Other risks are tripping over objects, fire hazards with excess flammable items, and blocking exits and paths. Even aside from cultivating a healthy home environment, organizing your home will be a refreshing start to your new year.
Organizing the home can be overwhelming, but there are some strategies you can use to make the process easier. The “10 Minute Tidy” is a popular technique. With this life hack, you will simply just set a 10 minute timer and clean as much as you can during that time. (This is also a great strategy to use when maintaining the cleanliness of your home!)
It may also be helpful to focus on one specific room (or portion of a room) for each cleaning session.
Replace Batteries In Carbon Monoxide and Smoke Detectors
According to the Ready campaign, it can take only 30 seconds for a small flame to turn into a major blaze. With this in mind, it’s very important that you have functioning smoke detectors on every level of your home, including the basement. The batteries in your smoke alarm should be replaced twice a year (using 10-year lithium batteries is the exception).
Another danger to avoid is carbon monoxide, which is known as the silent killer. This is because carbon monoxide is odorless and colorless, so it can only be detected with the proper equipment. The batteries of carbon monoxide detectors should be replaced once a year (once again unless you are using 10-year lithium batteries).
Hire a Professional For an Air Quality Test
Many HVAC contractors (including us!) can test the quality of the air in your home. Doing such a test with a professional can help you pin point problem areas in your home, as well as provide resources on how to resolve them.
Our indoor air testing in extensive yet short–within 30 minutes we will check your air quality and give you a thorough report with the information we’ve gathered.
Final Thoughts
We hope we have encouraged you to add some of these tasks to your resolutions. It may seem like a bother to do cleaning, but your health will thank you!
If you need any assistance with purifying the air in your home, we’d love to help. Contact us today!