Keeping Your Indoor Air Clean

The quality of your indoor air may be affecting you more than you realize. Particularly if you have allergies or breathing issues, the air inside your home matters! Indoor air pollutants can negatively affect your health both immediately and long term, but you don’t have to live with compromised air.Common Indoor Air Quality Issues
Some estimates suggest that indoor air quality can be 2x, 5x, and even 100x as polluted as the air outside. Why? Fine particulates make their way into your home from outdoors including dust, dirt, bacteria, and pollen. Additionally, mold spores can also make their way into your home and directly affect your respiratory system. Homes with pets may also have an ongoing problem with pet dander and hair in the air. Irritants like these can be particularly worrisome for kids and those with preexisting health problems.
How to Prevent Poor Air Quality
There are a few easy steps you can take to ensure the air inside your home stays breathable. The first is to regularly change the air filters in your home; monthly is best, but at least once every three months is necessary to keep your HVAC system running smoothly. Dirty filters can encourage mold growth, release fine particulates into the air, and make your HVAC system work overtime to keep up! The kind of filter you choose matters, too. Pleated filters are useful, as are HEPA filters which remove a larger percentage of pollutants. Electrostatic air cleaners draw particles directly to them, removing them from the air.
If you live in an area with a lot of dust or pollen in the outdoor air, make an effort to keep your windows and doors closed as much as possible. Have pets? Be sure to regularly vacuum and dust to minimize particles in the atmosphere.
Treating Your Indoor Air
If you have persistent problems with the quality of your indoor air – allergies, breathing trouble, issues sleeping – it may be time to consult a comfort specialist about an air purification system. Installed in tandem with your existing HVAC, mechanical air purifiers can improve ventilation, aid with filtration, and some even control the humidity levels of the air inside your home. Purifiers can not only keep outdoor pollutants like mold and pollen out, they can minimize the effects of harmful pollutants inside your home like chemical vapors and toxic fumes emanating from your furniture. Over time, a holistic purification system can help you breathe better and improve your overall health.
MTB Mechanical installs, repairs, and maintains a variety of Indoor Air Quality solutions for the home. If you need help determining which system is right for you, give one of our experienced technicians a call today.