As your family prepares to spend more time indoors during the winter months, consider the state of your air. Poor indoor air quality (IAQ) can lead to numerous health problems and symptoms. Fortunately, there are many ways to enhance the quality of air inside your home.
What Is Poor Indoor Air Quality?
Air quality can be measured by testing the concentration of various well-known airborne contaminants. When concentration levels meet a certain predetermined threshold, the air is classified as poor quality.
Poor IAQ can lead to numerous health problems for your household members. Common symptoms include fatigue, nausea, headaches and shortness of breath. Those who are diagnosed with asthma, severe allergies, or a respiratory condition could feel their symptoms worsening when in an environment with poor-quality air.
1. Upgrade Your HVAC Filter
Your HVAC system has an internal filter that traps airborne particles. These filters are given a rating from 1 to 20 on the minimum efficiency reporting value (MERV) scale. The higher the rating, the more effective the filter is at trapping different sizes of airborne particles. Consider investing in a MERV filter with a rating between 10 and 13. It’s important to note that going any higher than 13 isn’t recommended for residential HVAC systems. Rather, the higher ratings are designed for more powerful commercial systems.
2. Consider UV Sanitizing Lights
UV-C light is a specific type of light that’s been used for decades due to its germicidal properties. This light will penetrate the DNA of airborne contaminants and render them unable to reproduce. This causes it to die off. Coil-sanitizing UV lights are by far the most popular for homeowners. They are placed right over the evaporator coil in your cooling system and are also effective at preventing mold and mildew growth in this overly moist environment.
3. Use Exhaust Fans Regularly
Whether you’re taking a hot shower in the bathroom or cooking on the kitchen stove, be sure to run an exhaust fan. This will divert all that hot steam directly out of your home. If you don’t use the fan, that steam and all its contents will be trapped inside your home and lower the air quality level.
This is also true if you have a gas-powered stove or fireplace. When burned, both propane and natural gas have byproducts that can enter your air. If your gas fireplace is not vented behind a wall of gas, then make sure to have an exhaust fan running. Do the same whenever you turn on your gas-powered stove.
4. Have Ducts Sealed and Cleaned
Ductwork is at the basis of most all effective HVAC systems. Unfortunately, over time it can develop a buildup of debris that can routinely reduce the quality of air inside your home. To add to the problem, expansion and contraction can open up joints in the ductwork and allow dust and other debris from your wall and floor cavities to enter your ducting.
One of the best ways to deal with this issue is to call a duct sealing service. Professionals can evaluate all your ductwork and seal any leaks or gaps they find. Investing in duct cleaning service at the same time can remove harmful airborne contaminants inside your ducting.
5. Install a Whole-Home Dehumidifier
Excess moisture in the air can be a big contributor to poor indoor air quality. Moisture acts as a pathway to transfer harmful toxins into the air. It can create the perfect conditions for mold and mildew to grow. A whole-home dehumidifier can be a great way to eliminate this excess moisture so that you don’t have to worry about it damaging the quality of air inside your home.
6. Avoid Creating Smoke in Your Home
Smoke is full of harmful toxins that aren’t safe for humans to breathe. Whether it’s the smoke from a cigarette or the smoke from a burning candle, it’s toxic and can easily contribute to lowering the quality of air inside your home. One of the best things that you can do is to avoid creating any smoke in your home. Instead of burning candles, switch to LED lighting and make it a rule to never smoke inside your home.
7. Follow a Regular Cleaning Routine
One of the best ways to keep your indoor air quality in check is to have a regular cleaning schedule that you follow. For example, sweeping every other day and washing bedsheets and linens once a week can be helpful. This will work to get rid of contaminants like dust mites and other allergens. The more airborne contaminants you can eliminate through washing, the fewer contaminants your HVAC air filter will have to remove.
8. Invest in a HEPA Vacuum Cleaner
A high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter is one of the best on the market today, offering superior filtering capability for many different sizes of airborne toxins. Investing in a vacuum cleaner that has a HEPA filter is a great way to ensure you can trap unwanted airborne particles from your rugs and carpeting. By trapping more airborne toxins with your vacuum cleaner, you reduce the dust agitated by your vacuum.
9. Use All-Natural Chemicals
Many household products have volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that can be introduced into your air. This includes cleaning products. Instead of having your HVAC system constantly working to combat these airborne toxins, it’s best to switch to all-natural cleaning products. These are commonly marketed as eco-friendly and green cleaning products.
Other home chemicals that can affect air quality include perfumes, laundry scent boosters and plug-in air fresheners. Items made with glues, foams, resins or plastics can also off-gas volatile organic chemicals (VOCs). This includes furniture, mattresses and paint. Some products display low VOC labels that you can watch for. You can also consider how long an item will off-gas. Some furniture will mainly emit VOCs during its first few months. Paint can off-gas for 6 months to a year. Other things like particleboard can emit VOCs for 20 years.
A Note on Proper Air Quality Testing
One of the best ways to deal with poor indoor air quality is to call an HVAC professional to perform air quality testing. One of our technicians will test the concentration of known contaminants in the air throughout the various areas of your home. This can give you key information about the toxins that are most prominent, and we can even help you to determine the likely sources of these high concentrations. Once you implement the tactics that we went over above, it’s a good idea to have your IAQ retested to verify that you’re actively enhancing your IAQ level.
Reliable IAQ Service
George’s Air Conditioning offers reliable indoor air quality service to Galveston, TX and the surrounding area. We can help with all your heating, cooling, commercial, duct cleaning, heat pump, and ductless mini-split needs.
Call our team at George’s Air Conditioning today to schedule your next service appointment.
