Indoor air quality is something that a lot of homeowners tend to overlook. If your house gets dirtier faster than you can clean it, or if you’re always getting sick for seemingly no reason, the air quality inside your home might be the furthest thing from your mind. However, it can be exactly the reason for your predicaments.
Indoor air quality involves a lot of factors, including your HVAC system, ventilation, indoor pollutants, your pets, and even the cleaning products that you use. Improving the air quality in your home has a lot to do with minimizing the number of pollutants in your home, but sometimes, it’s best to get rid of the sources completely.
Here are certain things inside your home that you can remove to reduce the number of air pollutants:
- Carpets
In an average home, the carpet is a hotspot for dust mites, pet dander, mold spores, and all sorts of germs, including pathogens. Even with regular vacuuming, the carpet can still trap many of these pollutants and contribute to the pollution inside your home, more so if you don’t vacuum and shampoo your carpeted floors regularly.
Therefore, it is a good idea to get rid of your carpets entirely, especially if you find it difficult to stick to a regular cleaning schedule. Bare wooden floors are easier to clean, and more importantly, they do not trap as many pollutants as carpets do.
- Excess clutter
There are a lot of problems that excess clutter brings. In the case of indoor air pollution, they contribute to the amount of dust in your home; the more clutter you have in your home, the more dust there tends to be in the air. The dust buildup will eventually pile up in your air ducts and circulate inside your home, and the only way to get rid of it is to call an air duct cleaning service.
With that in mind, get rid of as much clutter as you can or store it in an enclosed space. Similarly, aim to have fewer items out in the open to prevent them from collecting dust.
- Scented candles
Scented candles make for nice decorative pieces and emit pleasant aromas. However, they also release volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into the air like alcohol, esters, formaldehyde, and petroleum distillates, among others, that can negatively impact your health.
However, if you still want to burn scented candles in your home, choose soy candles instead of paraffin candles. Soy candles emit less soot and toxic chemicals than paraffin candles. Nevertheless, inhaling too much of any smoke can be harmful to your health. Burn your candles in well-ventilated areas and try to limit the burning time to less than an hour every time.
Alternatively, you can use other methods to release pleasant smells in your home, such as:
- Create potpourri and place the bags around your home
- Simmer spices like cinnamon or nutmeg in a pot
- Use a scent diffuser with essential oils
- Microwave citrus peels in water
- Place aromatic plants around your home
- Ashtrays
Get rid of ashtrays to discourage anyone from smoking inside the house. If you must smoke, do so outside and at a good distance away from the house. Better yet, quit smoking to decrease your risk of smoking-related diseases and prevent secondhand smoke from affecting your loved ones.
- Chemical cleaners
Many commercial cleaning products emit VOCs such as toluene, limonene, tetrachloroethylene, and many more. These compounds can cause all sorts of health disorders, primarily respiratory problems and eye, nose, and throat irritation—especially with prolonged exposure. If you use chemical cleaners, consider switching to more natural products like baking soda, vinegar, or vodka to improve your indoor air quality and limit exposure to toxic compounds.
Furthermore, do not mix any kind of cleaning products, especially those that contain ammonia and bleach. Combining these two ingredients releases toxic chloramine gas, which can be deadly.
- Excess plants
Adding plants to your home can help improve indoor air quality by removing VOCs, but the difference they make is not that significant. Furthermore, having too many plants can increase the humidity levels in your home. And if your indoor humidity is high enough, you don’t need any more plants to contribute to it and increase your risk of mold.
Conclusion
One of the best ways to improve your home’s indoor air quality is to eliminate the things that negatively affect it in the first place. Starting with these common contributors to air pollution, you can significantly improve your indoor air quality and, at the same time, make your HVAC system more efficient.
Meta title:Remove These 6 Things From Your Home for Better Air Quality
meta desc: Good indoor air quality is essential to keep your family healthy. Oftentimes, the best way to improve the air quality inside your home is to get rid of the things that cause it to deteriorate in the first place.
