Since you spend a significant part of your time indoors, it’s essential that you consider the air quality inside your home. It’s because the air within your home can be as polluted as the air you breathe outdoors. So, even if you’re mostly spending your time indoors, there are still health risks due to your exposure to pollutants and allergens in it.
Therefore, improving the air quality in your household is advisable. So if you’re looking for ways how to achieve it, here are some practical tips that you can follow to make better the air you breathe indoors.
Check the Furniture
It’s not a secret knowledge that some of the furniture pieces nowadays contain toxic chemicals. Take, for instance, the glue, varnish, and lacquers to make furniture. These things contain flame retardants and formaldehyde that can put your health at risk, especially if you have asthma and allergy problems.
So, as far as possible, don’t choose furniture that has been treated with toxic chemicals. Instead, opt for furniture pieces that are Green guard-certified because they only use natural substances and have low toxicity.
Display Air-Filtering Indoor Plants
Indoor plants won’t only beautify your home, but they’ll also purify it. Yes, you heard it right, plants can do a great job as natural air purifiers. There are plant varieties such as peace lily and English ivy that can help get rid of toxic agents like formaldehyde, benzene, and trichloroethylene.
These plants don’t need too much sunlight, and they are low maintenance, so they’re perfect to display indoors not only to add color your home but also to provide fresh and clear air in it.
Don’t Smoke Inside Your Home
Smoking cigarettes indoors is an obvious factor that can contribute to the low air quality in your home. When you inhale the smoke from cigarettes, the respiratory diseases that it brings can be risky and fatal to your health.
Therefore, for you to improve the air quality indoors and avoid getting respiratory diseases, you should see to it that you turn your home into a no-smoking zone. If you have visitors who are smokers, you should tell them to light their cigarettes outside.
Avoid Using Aerosol Sprays
Aerosol sprays are one of the culprits that can pollute the air in your home because they give off toxic chemicals into the air that can trigger asthma and allergy attack. So, if you’re using an aerosol version of products such as air fresheners, deodorants, body perfumes, and furniture polishes, it will do you good to stop using them now!
Fix Leaks
Water pipe and appliance leaks can bring a variety of issues in your household. It’s because the water dripping from leaky pipes and appliances can contribute to the proliferation of mold that can have adverse effects to indoor air quality.
If there are areas in your home that are full of mold, chances are they can cause skin and respiratory diseases. Thus, you should fix right away if you notice water leaks in your home to avoid the proliferation of mold in your household.
Clean Pet Fur around Your House
Fallen fur from your lovely pets is one of the culprits of having a low indoor air quality in your household. In fact, if you accidentally inhale fallen fur that surrounds your house, it can cause allergy and asthma attacks that I’m sure you wouldn’t want to happen.
Thus, for you to prevent it from happening, sweeping and running a vacuum on the floor and the carpet is advisable for you to clean those fallen pet fur in it. It’s also important that you bathe your pets regularly and apply shampoo that would treat hair loss so that you can minimize fallen furs in particular areas of your home.
Test Your Household for Radon
In every home, it’s likely that there’s a high presence of radon in its surroundings. Radon is an odorless gas that can increase the risk of lung cancer to humans. You can find this odorless, toxic gas in almost all types of soil and can seep through the foundation cracks and enter your household.
Thus, it’s essential that you test your house for radon and look for ways to reduce its presence in the surroundings. For radon reduction, you can seal cracks in the foundation or increase natural ventilation in the house.
Control Humidity Levels in Your House
If there are moldy areas in your house, there’s a high probability that fungi, microbes, and mites will proliferate. Therefore, you should make sure that the humidity level in your household is set between 30 to 50 percent to prevent molds and improve indoor air quality. You can install a dehumidifier for you to control the humidity level in your household.
Change the HVAC Filters Regularly
It’s a must that you do a regular changing of filters on your HVAC system if you’re hell-bent on improving the quality of air that you breathe inside your household. If you fail to change the old filters on your HVAC system, it’s a guarantee that dirt and dust can accumulate in it over time.
Aside from ruining the air quality in your room, dirty and dusty air filters will also increase your electricity bills as it causes the HVAC unit to work harder in air conditioning your home. If you want to replace old filters on your HVAC system, you can consult HVAC service firms for that purpose.
Use Pure Beeswax Candles
Candles help create the mood and ambiance in your home. However, most candles contain paraffin that can ruin the air quality indoors. Thus, if you love candles, you can try using pure beeswax candles not only to make your home aesthetically appealing but also to improve the air quality in it.
Pure beeswax candles give off negative ions into the air that can do an excellent job of making better the air quality indoors. Beeswax candles also don’t harm people who have asthma and allergies since they emit no smoke.
Takeaway
Improving the air quality in your home is essential to prevent health diseases brought by airborne allergens and microbes. The good thing is that there are a lot of ways to make better the quality of air that you breathe indoors. If you want to make the air in your home clean and fresh, the list of tips above will help you big-time for that purpose.