The winter is finally here, which means that odds are pretty good you’ll be keeping your windows and doors shut in order to keep the cold air out and your home’s warm air trapped inside. However, doing so is also going to lead to more particle pollution within your home. You’ll want to keep a closer eye on your indoor air quality because of this if you are concerned with reducing allergens in your home.
Particle pollution is a term designated to the microscopic particles in the air that can occur throughout the year. These particles can cause health problems when breathed in, especially for those who have respiratory issues or have asthma. While low levels or particle pollution can be expected, it’s higher levels that you’ll want to prevent. Unfortunately, when you keep your home closed off during the winter season, there is more of a risk for high levels of particle pollution inside of your home. This is because you are not allowing fresh air to circulate throughout the house. This leads to stale air circulating over and over throughout your home, picking up dust, debris and other particles that are tracked inside and spreading them throughout your indoor air.
A key factor to reducing allergens in your home, especially during the winter time, is to check your air filters on a monthly basis and to clean or replace them when needed. Your air filters help trap dust and other particles to keep your air clean. However, they won’t work as efficiently – and neither will your heating system – if you don’t replace or clean them regularly. You should also have your ducts professionally cleaned in order to reduce the amount of particle pollution in your home. You can tell if you need to clean your ducts by checking your registers. If they are dusty, then it means that dust particles are being spread throughout your home.
Be sure to keep your ducts clean, clean or change your air filters and allow fresh air to come in once in a while to help lower indoor particle pollution.
