How To Improve Indoor Air Quality

If you want to keep your family safe and healthy at home, it's essential to know how to improve indoor air quality. Most people focus on outdoor pollution, forgetting that indoor air quality can significantly impact their health.

Surprisingly, air pollution in the house can be as harmful as outdoor air pollution, or even worse. If you spend most of the time indoors, you need to be more concerned with your house's indoor air quality. Otherwise, you may suffer serious health hazards.

In this guide, we’ll look at some potential sources of indoor air pollution. Thankfully, you will also learn how to improve indoor air quality in your home.

Potential Sources of Indoor Air Pollution

So, what could be polluting air in your house? If the air quality in your home is low, it could be due to outdoor pollution, emissions from heating appliances, or lousy building materials. Here is the list of the common pollutants found indoors.

• Fumes from combustion devices
• Volatile chemicals from fragrances
• Gas and particulates from stoves, ovens, and space heaters
• Allergens from house dust mites and pets (pet dander)

If you don’t pay close attention to these pollutants, you may suffer health problems such as sore throat, chest tightness, coughing, or shortness of breath. Besides, people who have asthma tend to be more sensitive to indoor air pollutants.

6 Ways to Improve Indoor Air Quality

Making efforts to improve indoor air quality will protect your family from health hazards linked to air pollution. Although it can be quite challenging to remove all the pollutants in your house, you can minimize exposure.

Here are the best ways to improve indoor air quality.

1.     Install an Air Conditioner (AC) in Your Home

If you want to maintain a continuous flow of fresh air in your house, you’ll need to install an AC. The air conditioners play a significant role in regulating indoor temperatures, but they can also filter out some common air pollutants in your house.

However, the AC’s air filters fill up with time and may even wear down the AC system. If that happens, you’ll spend more money to repair the air conditioner. So, it’s essential to replace the air filters more often. To get more info about AC installation in Phoenix, Arizona, visit this site.

2.     Clean Your Carpets and Rugs

Besides increasing the comfort of your house, carpets and rugs also play a crucial role in trapping dust in their fibers. That’s why you need to clean them frequently, preferably twice a week. Thankfully, this will help to improve indoor air quality in the house.

Here are some of the ways to clean the carpets and rugs.

• Vacuum the Floor: A vacuum cleaner can reduce the amount of dirt and dust on your floor, especially when outfitted with a HEPA filter. It can also remove other pollutants such as pet dander, pollen, dust mites, and lead.

• Mop the Floor: After vacuuming the rugs and carpets, mop the floor to get rid of any dust remaining. You can use new microfiber mops that can remove a lot more dirt than the ordinary fiber mops.

• Place Door Mats: To reduce the amount of dust and dirt that enters your house, consider placing doormats at every doorstep. Any person entering the house will wipe their shoes on the doormat to keep dust out.

3.     Improve Ventilation in the House

Ventilation helps improve airflow in the house by replacing the polluted indoor air with fresh air. There is no doubt that the indoor air quality in your home will be high when it's well-ventilated.

One of the best ways to improve ventilation in your home is by leaving your windows and doors open. However, that will also depend on your neighborhood.

For instance, the outdoor air in a crowded town might contain pollutants. If you reside in such a place, you can open the windows and doors in late evenings or early mornings.

Alternatively, you can install trickle vents on your windows. The trickle vents will allow small amounts of air to pass through them without opening the windows or doors.

The good news is that most trickle vents have filters that can prevent dust from passing through them. Also, the devices work on a 24-hour basis to allow constant ventilation.

4.     Dehumidify Your House

Since molds tend to grow faster in moist areas, keeping moisture away from the house can improve indoor air quality. You can use a dehumidifier to eliminate excess moisture from the indoor air and to control allergens.

Other ways to dehumidify a house include turning on an exhaust fan when cooking and using the dishwasher. You shouldn't also overwater the indoor plants. Finally, remember to repair all the leaking plumbing to prevent molds from growing.

5.     Install Air Purifiers in the House

Air purifiers are among the most useful devices that can help get rid of pollutants in the indoor air. These purifiers can generally help capture a high percentage of airborne irritants and allergens that pass through their filters.

Here are the numerous health benefits of air purifiers for your family.

• Removes allergens, including pet odors and dust
• Eliminates triggers for asthmatic attacks
• Traps airborne asbestos particles
• Traps smoke from tobacco and cigarettes to protect lungs

6.     Avoid Smoking Indoors

Smoking in the house is one of the primary causes of indoor air pollution. Since the cigarette smoke has over 4,000 chemicals, it’s potentially hazardous to your family’s health. That’s why you should make your house a “no-smoking” zone.

If you have kids, cigarette smoke can expose them to health risks such as asthma, cancer, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), and other respiratory infections. In case you are an addict, you can seek help from various support groups.

Final Words

Now that you understand how to improve indoor air quality, you can get started. Make sure you clean your entire house frequently, including the floors and walls. If the house has no ventilation, consider installing trickle vents to improve air circulation. Generally, keeping the indoor air in your home clean requires discipline and self-responsibility.