Take These 10 Steps, And You'll Breathe Easier In Your Home

The quality of your indoor air has a major impact on the comfort and health of you and your family. Here are ten simple steps you can take to breathe easier in your home. 

1. If the fans you have in rooms like your bathroom or kitchen do not vent directly outdoors, replace them with ones that do. This will prevent harmful pollutants from simply recirculating through your home.
2. Complement your air filters with UV lights in your air system. These germicidal tools use low levels of UV radiation to target and kill dangerous microorganisms in your air, such as mold, viruses and bacteria.
3. Replace your air filters on a regular basis. If you allow too much debris to build up on them, they become less effective. It also causes your air system to have to use more energy to push air through, which causes a rise in your heating costs.
4. Vent your clothes dryer and central vacuum system to the outside of your home.
5. Eliminate any sources of unvented combustion like candles or cigarettes. If they are unavoidable, at least try to minimize their use in your home.
6. If you are using potentially dangerous chemicals indoors, such as paint, be certain that you do so in a well ventilated area so that these pollutants can circulate out.
7. Make sure your heating equipment is properly vented so that the pollutants it is supposed to dispose of don’t end up in your house.
8. Store paints, pesticides and other similar volatile compounds away from your home.
9. Vent additional heating sources, such as wood stoves or fireplaces.
10. Don’t keep your A/C, furnace or ductwork in parts of your house where dangerous contaminants could get it. For example, none of this equipment should be in your garage. If it is absolutely unavoidable, be sure to seal your garage as best you can using weatherstripping and other insulating materials.

For more information about boosting your indoor air quality so you can breathe easy, contact Air-Tro Inc.  We have served the greater Los Angeles area since 1969.

Our goal is to help educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).  For more information about boosting indoor air quality and other HVAC topics, visit our website.

Air-Tro Inc. services the greater Los Angeles area as well as the metro areas of Riverside and San Bernardino County.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.