While winter weather can give us beautiful snowy sceneries and give us the holiday spirits, it also gives us pesky dry air inside our homes. This dry air causes various problems for us, like dry skin and a dry nose. The winter weather does even more to the air inside our homes. Let’s take a look at how to keep your home’s air quality healthy this winter.
The Importance of Fresh Air
The cold winter temperatures make us want to seal up our house so that no drafts get in and ruin the warmth in our homes. However, closing off fresh air circulation like this is causing us more harm than good.
Our homes can be compared to lungs; fresh air needs to come in and the stale air needs to come out. There are various pollutants that come into your indoor air. Moisture, gases, odor, and dust are just some of these pollutants. Therefore, fresh outdoor air needs to mix in with these pollutants to dilute them.
When our homes are sealed off for the winter, we are preventing this crucial fresh air from circulating. This is why it’s important to open your windows for a few hours a day. Investing in a high quality air purifier is another way to clear your air of these pollutants.
Balancing Humidity Levels
While we’ve already established that you want to prevent your indoor air from being too dry, you also want to ensure it’s not too humid. Humidity exposes your home to mold and mildew, which causes its own kind of problems.
Certain rooms in our home are more at risk for higher humidity levels than others. Bathrooms, kitchens, and laundry rooms can all benefit from some kind of humidity control, whether you use an exhaust fan or a dehumidifier.
Keep the humidity sweet spot of 40 to 60% in mind and the moisture levels in your home should be perfect.
Reducing Pet Dander and Dust
Maintaining a clean home can be exhausting, especially if you’re a busy person, but it is important for our health and air quality. Dust, dander, and allergens building up in our homes can bother those with allergies. It’s especially important to clean carpets and other fabrics, where the dust and dander likes to really stick.
If you are a pet owner, it can feel hopeless to deal with the pet hair, but this post from The Spruce Pets can give advice on how to deal with pet hair and other allergens that come from them.
Maintaining Your HVAC Units
The ducts, filters, and vents that make up your HVAC systems can have a build up of dust and debris that not only can ruin how your HVAC functions, but also can ruin the air quality of your home.
Hiring a professional to inspect and maintain your ducts at least once a year will likely assure that you won’t run into major problems.
Testing Your Home For Carbon Monoxide
Some of the additional heat sources that many families use, such as wood stoves, can cause dangerous pollutants to enter the air. This includes carbon monoxide. It’s very important for the safety of your household to have a functioning carbon monoxide detector, especially if you use a furnace or water heater.
Conclusion
Purchasing an air purifier is a great way to clean the indoor air of your home, but you can’t just let your air purifier do all the hard work. You should still regularly check your air ducts and filters, vacuum carpets and other fabric surfaces, and utilize humidifiers where necessary.
If you aren’t sure about the quality of the air in your home, we offer indoor air testing that lasts only 30 minutes. Contact us today to learn more.