When you walk back into your home after your morning exercise, you may smell the garlic from last night’s spaghetti dinner. While this may make your tastebuds water, it could also make your eyes water and your nose itch and your breath ragged. A noticeable odor in your home – whether fair or foul – is a sign of poor indoor ventilation and ultimately poor indoor air quality.
With COVID-19 keeping us indoors more than ever, our winter indoor air quality becomes a real concern. While smells in your home can be a noticeable sign that your air is not as clean and healthy as it should be, other signs of poor air quality may be less obvious. If you experience these symptoms in your home, you may have an indoor air quality issue:
- Dry and irritated eyes, nose, throat or skin
- Frequent nosebleeds
- Headache
- Fatigue
- Shortness of breath
- Allergies and rashes
- Sinus congestion
- Coughing and sneezing
- Dizziness
- Nausea
Why does winter weather make air quality worse?
In the fall, homeowners typically zip up their homes, adding weatherstripping and insulation. We also keep our windows shut tight. There is much less coming and going through doors, lessening outside air flow. All of this concentrates the bad stuff – allergens, pollutants and chemical fumes – inside your home.
Heated air is dry air, which dries your nose, throat, eyes, skin and hair. Dry air contributes to the spread of respiratory infections like COVID-19 and the flu. It also makes your house dustier, which in turn further aggravates noses and eyes, causing coughing and sneezing. It also cause static electricity.
Because it’s cold outside and warm inside, the powerful pressure inside your home pulls colder air from the bottom of your home up to the top. That means that the mold, mildew, dust and fumes that usually lurk in your basement are sucked into up your living space and then rise to your upstairs bedrooms. This is especially the time of year when radon* can seep through your foundation and be trapped inside your home.
Where do all these pollutants come from?
We’re surrounded! Your stove, your fireplace, aerosol products like hairspray or air freshener, cleaning products, tobacco or vaping, perfumes, candles, cooking and frying and DIY projects like sanding, staining, gluing, painting or varnishing – anything that has a fume or an aerosol, no matter how teeny tiny the particles, can pollute your home. Dust mites, fumes from construction materials, carpets and furniture, and ozone from electric motors all play a part. Dirty furnace filters are also a big barrier to clean winter indoor air.
What can I do to improve my indoor air quality?
- Switch furnace filters to a higher MERV rating, change monthly
- Install a HEPA filter in your vacuum cleaner
- Open the bathroom door when showering to help distribute humidity throughout your home
- Whenever you cook, run your kitchen exhaust fan
- Switch to all-natural cleaning products, like diluted white vinegar
- On warmer days, open the windows to air out rooms for an hour or so
I need more than that, as my family is still not feeling healthy – and I can still smell garlic in the morning.
Maertin Heating & Cooling can help! We will make sure your outdoor air intake is unobstructed, clear and working properly to bring fresh outdoor air into your furnace to be warmed. We can install a whole house humidifier to increase moisture in the air throughout your home, which will also help control dust mites, molds and mildews – and get rid of those nosebleeds! We can install a whole home ventilation system. We will also recommend the correct size of air purifiers and air scrubbers for the square footage and layout of your home and then install them properly for years of reliable service.
*CAUTION – No amount of air cleaning, scrubbing or filtering can mitigate radon, a cancer-causing naturally-occurring invisible and odorless gas. We highly recommend testing your home for radon several times a year, especially during cold weather when there is snow on the ground. Can 1-800-55-RADON immediately for advice if your home tests positive.
When you’re concerned about the quality of your indoor air, Maertin Heating & Cooling is here to help! Call 708-479-9350 or click here to make an appointment. Our friendly, experienced professional technicians will come to your home – properly masked and sanitized – and provide the service to give your family cleaner, fresher and healthier indoor air.
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