Poor indoor air quality in your Port St. Lucie, FL, home can cause breathing complications, nosebleeds and allergy symptoms. Poor indoor air quality can also reduce your HVAC system’s lifespan, so improving your IAQ is necessary. Here are some common causes of poor indoor air quality and how to prevent them.
1. Pet Dander
Animals like rabbits, cats and dogs regularly shed dead skin and hair that can stick on carpets, bedding and furniture. Pet dander and hair easily contaminate indoor air, causing symptoms like itchy eyes, asthma and a runny nose. Keep pets away from furniture and bedding, brush and clean them often and vacuum your home regularly to prevent the buildup of pet dander.
2. Pollen
Pollen can significantly affect your indoor air quality, especially if you have allergies. You can prevent pollen and allergic reactions by taking off shoes or changing clothes when coming home to avoid the spread of pollen. Fix issues like leaky ductwork or dirty condenser coils to prevent pollen from entering your indoor air.
3. Poor Ventilation
Your home could be at risk of poor indoor air quality if you have poor ventilation or your air conditioning system isn’t functioning effectively. Dust, dirt particles, pollen and other particles should circulate out of your home through air vents and air conditioners to prevent poor IAQ. Increase your home’s ventilation by hiring air conditioning services to help improve your IAQ.
4. Organic Growth
Organic growth can damage your home and cause allergic symptoms. You might notice organic growth behind walls, in carpeting, on paint or insulation. Organic growth thrives best near moisture, so it’s best to maintain low humidity levels during summer.
If there’s humidity or moisture in your indoor air, you are at risk of developing organic growth. Another effective way of preventing organic growth in your home is fixing plumbing issues like dripping faucets or leaky pipes. You can also invest in a UV air purifier to help kill organic growth that air filters might miss.
5. Volatile Organic Compounds
Many household cleaning products, pesticides, varnishes and paint have volatile organic compounds that evaporate at room temperature. The chemicals contaminate your indoor air quality and cause headaches and breathing complications. Some air fresheners and household cleaners contain air pollutants that easily contaminate your indoor air.
The chemicals in artificial fragrances can interact with other elements in the air and contaminate your indoor air. It’s best to use natural cleaning products and air fresheners to avoid contamination of indoor air quality. You can also plant some indoor plants to absorb volatile organic compounds or use ventilators to eliminate the compounds from your indoor air.
The pesticides you use to kill flies, rodents and mosquitoes can also cause indoor air contamination. Chemical traces in these pesticides cling on the floor, walls and furniture, contaminating IAQ.
6. Household Appliances
Some household appliances like stoves, gas ranges and water heaters can pollute your indoor air quality. Poor installation of these appliances can leak gas like carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide into indoor air. Failure to ventilate kitchens can exacerbate the issue, so it’s advisable to test indoor air quality or hire an expert for proper appliance installation.
Cooking fumes like wooden stoves and paraffin wax candles can also pollute indoor air. You can prevent poor indoor air quality from cooking fumes by ventilating the fuel-burning appliances.
7. Tobacco Smoke
Indoor cigarette smoking pollutes indoor air, and it can be challenging to get rid of the contamination. A single stick of cigarette contains several toxic substances. Cigarette smoke sticks on your furniture and carpet, and the buildup irritates allergic people due to indoor air pollution.
Secondary smoking can also harm your health. The solution is to avoid indoor smoking or use air purifiers in your home to reduce the amount of cigarette smoke.
Since you spend a lot of time indoors, it’s vital to improve air quality by avoiding the above contaminants. Talk to the experts for solutions to improve your IAQ. Call Grimes Heating & Air Conditioning today to learn about our HVAC services and how to improve indoor air quality.
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