Indoor air quality (IAQ) refers to the air quality within and around buildings and structures, especially as it relates to the health and comfort of building occupants (EPA). Poor indoor air quality has been linked to continued sickness, reduced productivity, and impaired learning and thought processes. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rates poor indoor air quality as an area of major concern, noting that common contaminants, endlessly redistributed by a central air system, can contribute to allergy symptoms and sickness.
Your home’s indoor air quality is important, because it can directly impact the health and well-being of the people who are in your home. There can be short-term and long-term effects. Immediate effects typically are similar to those of colds and other viral infections, while some long-term effects may include respiratory diseases, heart disease, cancer, and more.
There’s a lot of maintenance that’s required to keep your home running smoothly. Your HVAC and plumbing systems need some attention to ensure best performance for all the seasons to come. This is why we’ve created a Comfort Club Service Plan, so we can do all the prepping for you!
Step one to better IAQ is maintaining clean and unobstructed air filters. An unchanged and dirty or soiled air filter means that the blower is spreading unclean, airborne particles throughout your North Bay Area home.
A largely shared good habit is simply to open your windows a few minutes every day to let in fresh air. This helps to lower concentrations of toxic chemicals as well as carbon dioxide (CO2).
If there are smokers in your home, have them do so outdoors. Exhaled air, after taking a drag on a cigarette, contains more than 4,000 different chemicals.
maintain humidity level
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommends that you keep the humidity in your home between 30 and 50%. This will limit the growth of mold and the presence of dust mites that pollute the air.
Everything turns to dust one day. Keeping your home dust free and tidying and cleaning the place where you live is an effective action to improve air quality. If you have pets in your home, their pet dander and activity can create more dust in the air, so you may need to dust and vacuum more regularly.
Synthetic fragrances are all around us. Did you know that many gases evaporating from these products are actually harmful volatile organic compounds? You can arrange slices of lemon on a plate to delicately perfume the air in a room or use baking soda in a small bowl to eliminate odors.
add plants
Place an air filtering plant in your home. While plants pollutant removal rate is small, which means there is no way they could capture all of the pollution, they still help to clean the air.
When it comes to indoor air purification, you have options. We recommend the I-Wave or Air Scrubber which uses a revolutionary technology that provides your home with cleaner, healthier air. It removes up to 99.98% of airborne particles as small as .1 micron in diameter.
