Every homeowner wants their house to be as comfortable as possible. Improving the indoor air quality of your home can go a long way toward making a more comfortable living space. Improved air quality will not only make your home more comfortable, but it can also help to relieve and prevent health problems. Any homeowner can take steps to improve indoor air quality and many of the measures can be achieved with little effort or expense.
Maintain home cleanliness
Keeping your home clean is a major part of improving and maintaining the air quality of your home. Many pollutants and impurities are just part of everyday life and they can build-up rather quickly. Having a regular cleaning schedule and making sure that the procedures are thorough will help to reduce the amount of dust and impurities that can potentially reduce the air quality of your home. It can also help to take steps to reduce the amount of impurities that enter the home.
Vacuum the carpets and furniture, clean the bedding, mop tile floors and wipe down most of the surfaces. Use a vacuum with a filter that is designed to catch most of the common household pollutants and try to use an antibacterial cleanser for most surfaces.
To keep impurities and pollutants from entering the home there are a few simple steps that can help. The first is to have a mat by every door for people to wipe their feet when they enter. You could also consider buying a shoe rack to keep people from wearing their shoes in the home at all. When you buy new furniture, try not to buy pieces that have parts that are held together with adhesives. Many of these glues degrade over time and can release chemicals into the air.
Improve ventilation
Adequate ventilation is a significant factor in the overall air quality in your home. Having a home that is well ventilated will help to reduce the concentration of pollutants in the indoor air. Making use of exhaust fans that vent the air outside of the home can be a very effective method for improving indoor air quality as well.
The heating and cooling system in your home may also be doing its part to lower the indoor air quality. Most climate control systems do not actually introduce any air from the outside into the system. This can keep the same stale air continually circulating through the home. On days where the weather permits, open the windows and let some of the air that is trapped in your home vent to the outdoors. Homeowners can also help to mitigate the effect that their home heating and cooling system will have on the indoor air quality by switching the filters in their furnace to ones that are designed to trap air pollutants.
Invest in an air purifier
When it comes to cleaning the air, there are a variety of air purifiers on the market that can help to reduce the amount of pollutants in the air. Some are rather inexpensive units intended to work in one room and others are designed to clean the air in the entire house. A quality air purifier can significantly reduce the amount of dust, pollen and other airborne particles within your home.
Taking steps to improve the indoor air quality of your home will not only improve the comfort and quality of your living space, but in many ways it can also protect you and your family from health issues that can be related to poor air quality. Increasing the air quality in your home requires little to no adjustment to your lifestyle and it will pay-off in the long run.