If you’re like most homeowners, you want to do everything possible to keep your home safe for your family and all your guests that come over. One area of concern that always seems to arise during the winter months is indoor air quality. Understanding how the weather affects the quality inside of your home can allow you to better determine what method you need to utilize to increase it.
Human Habits During Winter
To understand how indoor air quality changes during the winter months, it’s first important to look at how your habits change. During the wintertime, you’re not going to be opening your doors and windows to let in the fresh air. In fact, you’re likely trying to seal them up with weather stripping and other material to keep all the cold air out. This creates a poor ventilation environment for your entire home.
Any particles and debris that are brought into your home via your clothing or your pets will stay stuck inside. All of these trapped particles play a role in reducing the quality of the air inside your home. When you add in a lot more people coming into your home during the holiday season, your indoor air quality can get even worse with the accumulation of more harmful airborne particles.
Apart from just entering and exiting your home to allow these particles in, other household activities can contribute drastically to the number of indoor pollutants you have in your home. For example, cooking with oil on your stovetop can release toxic exhaust into the air in your home. In addition, harsh cleaning products can emit harmful fumes that can deteriorate the quality of the air inside your home.
Top Signs of Poor Indoor Air Quality
Unfortunately, when you have a poor level of air inside your home, it can lead to numerous health issues for your family. Those who have existing allergies and respiratory conditions are going to be the ones that notice these symptoms first, as they’re more susceptible to them. Most individuals will notice that their allergies will flare up, and they’ll experience sinus congestion.
Since air quality affects the lungs first, people will notice that they’re coughing more often while at home and may even experience some difficulty breathing. Having really dry skin that becomes reddish and irritated can also indicate that there’s a high concentration of pollutants present in the air inside your home. In addition, some patients will experience headaches, nausea, and extreme fatigue.
What to Do About Poor Indoor Air Quality?
If you’ve determined that the air quality inside your home is less than ideal, there are a multitude of things that you can do to help to make it better. One of the easiest methods is to install a high-efficiency particulate air filter in your HVAC system. Since air naturally circulates throughout your forced air system, you can add this filter to help trap particles in the air. Make sure that you’re checking your filter every couple of months and replace it when necessary to get optimal indoor air quality.
Apart from regular filter changes, you want to be careful with known habits that can contribute to poor indoor air quality. For example, when you’re cooking dinner on the stove, utilize an exhaust fan. This will help to divert the steam and harmful airborne toxins to the outdoors instead of retaining them inside of your home. When it comes to buying cleaning products, read the label and invest in products that don’t emit harmful toxins into the air.
During the winter months, it’s important that you increase the frequency of cleaning throughout your home. You should be vacuuming multiple times a week and wiping off surfaces at least once a week. The idea is to try and remove as much dust and similar particles from the various surfaces throughout your home so that they cannot enter the air. Another great option is to invest in professional duct cleaning. This will help to get rid of any particles that are stuck inside your ductwork and are constantly being recirculated throughout the air in your home.
Helpful Indoor Air Quality Services
Pinnacle Group offers indoor air quality services for the entire Brampton, ON and surrounding regions. We can also help with all of your heating, cooling, zoning, fireplace, tankless water heater, and HVAC rental needs. Simply contact us today to get the professional help that you need with your home.