How to Improve Indoor Air Quality in Your Home
Air quality is something that we interact with every day. When we walk the streets, go to restaurants, bars, grocery stores, the beach, the air is everywhere. Air quality is easily affected by just about anything: car emissions, rotting food, trash, dust, pet hair, and more. So when we get home, we want to be able to walk into an oasis that smells good and is actually clean.
Today we’re going to break down some ways you can improve your home's air quality. So let’s not waste any more time, and let’s begin answering the question of how to improve indoor air quality in your home.
How to Improve Indoor Air Quality in Your Home
#1 - Cleaning The Air Ducts
When it’s too hot or cold, we turn to our air ducts for the distribution of cold and hot air throughout our homes. However, there are a few reasons why your air ducts might be contributing to the lackluster air quality in your home.
For starters, there’s always the risk of an animal finding its way into the air ducts and dying in the vents. This, unfortunately, means that your home is receiving contaminated air. Secondly, there’s the risk of mold, mildew, dust, and dander accumulating in your air vents and finding their way into every room of your home, which is damaging to your overall air quality. So how do you improve indoor air quality in your home when it comes to air ducts? Well, for starters, you attempt to clean them. Still, in the event they’re incorrectly installed or outdated, the best method is calling the pros.
We’ve got a whole blog post about removing odors from your air ducts and a guide that you can check out on our website.
#2 - Clean Your Furnace
It’s so important that you regularly check and clean your furnace to avoid circulating dirty air. When furnaces go unused for a while, then dirt builds up, which is distributed throughout your home in the vents, and this is obviously going to negatively affect the air quality of your home.
Want to know how to clean your furnace? Check out our blog post all about it!
#3 - Control Humidity
With humidity comes mold and mildew, which are contaminants that diminish the quality of air in your home. This is only compounded when they’re transported around the house through your HVAC systems. There are multiple solutions to the issue, such as removing mold or mildew and maintaining good thermostat habits across the four seasons.
If you live in Utah or a state with similar weather conditions, we’ve got a handy guide to thermostat settings for all four seasons.
#4 - Changing AC FIlters
AC filters are designed to keep the air that the HVAC system pumps throughout your home clean. However, they can’t do this job forever, and eventually, a filter reaches the end of its lifecycle. Leaving it and ignoring the need for change means they become ineffective at doing their job. So changing AC filters is an important key for how to improve indoor air quality in your home, and something that shouldn’t be ignored.
We’ve got a whole article on how often you should be changing your air filters on our website so check it out!
#5 - Be Wary of The Household Cleaning Products You Use
Everyone wants a clean home, but when a clean home is achieved with harmful chemicals that linger and affect home air quality, is that really worth it? There are so many alternatives available that can get the job done without causing you and your family any harm.
This doesn't just end at cleaning products; this can be just about anything. Here are some of the things we’ve discovered can cause a degradation of air quality in your home:
Paint
Cleaning products
Air fresheners
Personal and beauty products
Gas stoves
Humidifiers
Wood in the fireplace
E-cigarette vapor and cigarette smoke
We talk about all these things in-depth in our article on household items polluting air quality on our website. We also have a great article on interesting everyday objects that absorb bad odors!
Okay, don’t think the question of how to improve indoor air quality in your home just became impossible to answer. There are always alternatives and ways to mitigate serious offenders to reduce their risks. No solution is a perfect solution, but enough solutions can significantly alleviate the adverse air quality conditions you’re experiencing.
#6 - Clean The Carpets & Rugs Regularly
Carpets and rugs add a level of comfort to your home, but they also act as traps for dust. So the best option you have to answer how to improve indoor air quality in your home when you have carpets and rugs is simply cleaning them every week or two. After that, you’ll begin noticing a difference in combination with the other methods of improving air quality in your home as less dust is being circulated in your ventilation system.
#7 - Create a Smoke-Free Environment
It seems almost self-explanatory why cigarette smoke is something to avoid in the home. This smoke, which contains harmful chemicals, sticks to just about everything and exists in your home long after it’s been put out. If you want to know how to improve indoor air quality in your home, start with smoking outside.
We have a whole blog post dedicated to removing the smell of smoke from your home on our website.
#8 - Use The Cooking Vents
So much happens in the kitchen, and this mix of aromas can negatively affect the indoor air quality of your home. Choosing to use the cooking vents in your home, if you have them, is an excellent answer to how to improve indoor air quality in your home.
If you use a gas stove, this is even more important, considering you’re releasing nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide into the air at more significant rates than that of an electric stove. If you don’t have cooking vents, opening your windows is the next best solution.
#9 - Introduce Plants To Your Home
A great way to add to your home's overall air quality improvements is by adding some indoor plants. Considering plants act as natural air filters, it makes sense to consider getting some green friends around the house to help with air quality and add a little life to your home. Some of the best plants to consider are lilies, ferns, and palm trees. They are excellent at pulling contaminants from the air.
Conclusion
If you’re unsure about the indoor air quality of your home, take a look at this checklist we made to help identify indoor air pollution.
Our team at Crystal Clean Vents is well equipped to help you on your mission of answering how to improve the air quality in your home. We know air ducts, vents, and HVAC’s inside out and are well-positioned to make positive changes. So contact us today, and let’s make your home that clean air oasis you’ve been dreaming about!