What is the importance of breathing healthy, clean air? Pretty important, wouldn’t you say, especially if you care about the health of your family. And doubly important if someone in your home has breathing difficulties, such as allergies or asthma.
According to Wikipedia:
Indoor air quality (IAQ) is the air quality within and around buildings. IAQ is known to affect the health, comfort and well-being of building occupants. Poor indoor air quality has been linked to sick building syndrome, reduced productivity and impaired learning in schools.
IAQ can be affected by a number of factors present in or around your home, such as carbon monoxide, radon gas, mold and bacteria, dust particles, using an outdoor fire pit, cooking smells, pets, and more.
As you might have guessed, your home’s HVAC system can have a huge impact on indoor air quality. Here we cover some relatively easy ways to improve your home’s IAQ, many which you can do yourself.
1. Reduce or Eliminate Excess Dust in Your Home
Factors like animal dander, dust mites, pollen, active construction, and even how well your home is sealed from outside air all affect the amount of dust in your home.
Fortunately, dusting your home on a regular basis helps reduce the level of dust particles in your home. Don’t just dust furniture surfaces; instead, we recommend you use a cleaning cloth or tool that actually grabs the dust and removes it, like Swiffer brand products. Vacuuming to remove dust is also better than just moving it around with a dusting cloth. Lighter curtains and blind help reduce the amount of dust collected by window treatments, but you have to balance that with the energy saved by using heavier curtains.
2. Ensure Your Home is Properly Sealed and Waterproofed
Unwanted moisture collecting is a big factor in creating fungal growth in your home. Mold can create spores that are potentially toxic when left unchecked.
Waterproofing your home includes checking roofs, gutters, water supply and drains, and basement walls for proper functionality. Inspect these areas of your home for signs of moisture collecting and get them eliminated as quickly as possible.
Proper ventilation from your furnace and AC, cooking appliances, bathrooms/showers and other areas of high moisture content is important to keep unwanted moisture in check.
3. Keep Your HVAC System Filtered
The heating, ventilation and air conditioning(HVAC) system of your home is responsible for exchanging indoor air with outside air. If the filters in your furnace are clogged, dirty or missing, the fresh air intake in your home will bring in unwanted outside particulates. This is especially important during Spring and Fall, when pollen is at its worst, or if there is active construction in your area churning up dust and dirt into the air. The filter plays an important role in keeping those particulates from entering your furnace and your home. Excess dust and dirt entering your furnace can vastly shorten the life of your home’s heating and cooling system.
4. Have Your Home’s Ducting Cleaned
You have to balance good filtration with allowing the proper amount of air to flow through your ventilation system. Too restrictive of a filter, and the blower motor has to work overtime and will fail earlier in its lifecycle. Not enough filtration, and your home (and especially your home’s ducting system) will fill with too much dust and dirt. Over time, those particulates can get trapped within your ductwork and should be removed by a thorough, professional duct cleaning.
5. Keep Your HVAC System Properly Maintained
Your home’s heating and cooling system will be able to best do its job if it’s maintained on a regular basis. Dust and fine particulates can have an adverse on the function of that system, causing excess wear and tear and early failure. We already discussed the value in duct cleaning, but what we are suggesting is that you have semi-annual maintenance performed on your HVAC system. We recommend a visit from a certified HVAC professional once in the Spring to get ready for the cooling season, and once in the fall to get ready for the heating season. That will ensure any issues with the operation of the equipment are handled before they’re under extreme load during the hottest and coldest parts of the year.
How We Can Help
Our team offers a wide array of routine maintenance services for your heating and cooling system, allowing your family to breathe safe, clean air year-round. We also offer a number of add-ons to your HVAC equipment that can improve your home’s IAQ, such as electrostatic air filters, whole-house humidifiers, duct cleaning, and more.
Schedule an appointment for your routine HVAC system maintenance with us today by using our online contact form, or call one of our seven neighborhood offices listed below. We pride ourselves on our customer-focused service, and our reviews show it.
NEWARK 740.345.6639 • COLUMBUS 614.238.6689 • DUBLIN 614.545.8939 • REYNOLDSBURG 614.365.1579 • WESTERVILLE 614.381.1540 • GROVE CITY 614.595.3098 • ZANESVILLE 740.454.2420
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