Ideally, your home should be the healthiest place for you to be. One major factor in the health of your home is the air quality. You want the air quality in your home to be as high as possible, both for you and your family. How can you improve your indoor air quality?
At Neal’s Heating and Air, we know that your health is important to you, even more so than your comfort. Here is how you can get the best indoor air quality in 3 easy steps.
1. Limit Your Air Pollutants
Use closed storage for cleaning products and other chemicals. The most common storage place for these items is in a cabinet under a sink for easy access. However, the easier it is to access these chemicals, the more likely it is that they are emitting fumes into the air of your home. The best option would be to keep them away from children in a garage or work shed.
Be careful not to use combustibles without ventilation. When using your oven or stove, utilize your stove hood or an open window to ventilate the area. Also, make sure grandpa knows that smoking his pipe is not an option indoors.
Side note – while candles usually seem peaceful or charming, they can quickly decrease the air quality in your home. Candles slowly pollute the air as they burn the oxygen in the room, so take steps to ensure that the air is circulating in any room you choose to light candles.
2. Ventilate Your Home Properly
Properly ventilating your home is one of the best ways to limit air pollution and increase indoor air quality. Certain rooms like your bathroom, kitchen, and even crawlspaces should have vents to the outdoors. Appliances like laundry machines, exhaust fans, and stove hoods should vent directly outside as well.
Ventilation can be more difficult depending on the room or the season. Bathrooms are known to be more difficult to ventilate, and homeowners are less likely to open windows in the winter. It’s important to know that ventilated air is almost always better than stagnant air, even when it’s cold winter air. It’s often worth opening a window for a short time to cycle out the stale air, then your heating system will add to the ventilation when it kicks on.
Another key area to ventilate is your fireplace. Inspect your chimney each year to make sure that it’s in proper working condition. If there’s any obstruction in your chimney, you won’t have the level of ventilation that your fireplace requires. This leads to rising pollution levels in your home.
3. Remember to Filter Your Air
The more you filter your air, the less you’ll breathe dust and other air pollutants. It’s important to remember to clean or change your air filters. Otherwise, your purification system won’t work efficiently and the air quality of your home will suffer significantly. Make it a habit to replace your air filters, and your lungs will thank you.
To go along with air purification, clean dust, dirt, and grime out of your air vents. Since most of your breathing air comes through those vents, it’s worth it to keep them clean. For a deeper clean, call Neal’s Heating and Air. They can professionally clean larger portions of your ventilation system.
If you notice that your vents are clean, but you’re not getting much airflow, it’s possible that you have an issue with your air ducts. Neal’s can inspect your ductwork for free, and then complete any needed repairs.
Lastly, consider the benefits of investing in a high-quality air purification system. There are many purification systems that work in tandem with your existing HVAC system. Be sure to ask one of our experienced HVAC technicians to evaluate which air purification system would work best in your home.
We know you take your health seriously, so Neal’s Heating and Air does too. We offer to finance many ventilation products, including ductless mini splits, which have become the standard in home ventilation.
At Neal’s, we believe that clean air and comfort go hand in hand. When you need an inspection, repair, or equipment installation to increase the indoor air quality of your home, we’ll be there. Call Neal’s today, and we’ll help you get the best indoor air quality with these 3 easy steps.