Ways To Improve Indoor Air Quality During Winter

Clean indoor air is an essential need for everyone, not just a luxury. After all, it’s vital for you and your family members’ health and wellbeing. In the autumn and winter period, air quality in our homes drops drastically. Coal combustions contribute significantly to air pollutant mass during the winter heating season. For many people, winter means trouble sleeping, trouble breathing and even relapses of allergies. So how should you take care of the air in your home to improve its quality?

Dry Air: What Is It and What Problems Does It Cause

The optimal temperature indoors is about 65 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit, and the best air humidity level ranges from 40 to 60%. Meanwhile, your home’s heating system mercilessly dehumidifies the air inside. Humidity can drop to even below 20% and such a level may cause insomnia, fatigue, coughing, pain and scratching in the throat and dry out the mucosa. In addition, it can cause a lot of problems for allergy sufferers.

How to Check the Air Quality at Home?

Your indoor air quality should be monitored with the help of special equipment. The specialized air sensor carefully analyzes the air condition in the room. You can buy an air quality meter for a reasonable price – more expensive weather stations cost several hundred dollars. Some models of air purifiers are equipped with sensors that measure air quality – this option will work when you don’t want to buy two separate devices. Remember that they may not be as accurate as professional air quality sensors.

Before you buy this type of device, a good way to check the air condition in your home is to perform a simple test with a vacuum cleaner. Just attach (preferably with tape) a clean cotton ball to the vacuum cleaner suction tube and turn it on for a few minutes. Next, check what the cotton pad looks like – you will notice a dark deposit. After you see what you breathe in every day, you will definitely take appropriate steps to improve the air quality in your home.

What Can You Do To Improve Your Indoor Air Quality?

Your heat pump works non-stop throughout the late fall and winter months. In the fight to maintain an optimal temperature indoors, we seal windows and doors to trap warm air inside. On one hand, the air in the apartment is too dry, and on the other – the possibility of moisture accumulation in some places drastically rises. Here are some ways that can help you control air quality at your home.

Let Fresh Air In

In order to protect the household members from health problems and at the same time to get rid of excess moisture in rooms, air the entire house once in a while. How to do it without losing heat and yet leading to air exchange? Windows should be opened wide for a fairly short amount of time. It’s important to do it at least twice a day – in the morning and in the evening (about 30 minutes before going to sleep).

Proper air circulation can also be achieved by installing diffusers in the windows. Air exchange is then not as unpleasant as in the case of opening windows during cold temperatures, but its effectiveness is just as high. This solution can be especially recommended in buildings with gravity ventilation.

Are Air Humidifiers Worth It?

In order to maintain the humidity level in rooms at the optimal level (from 40% to 60%), it’s worth checking the offer of air humidifiers to choose the best model for you. Most products are equipped with a sensor that activates the device at the right moment. New generation humidifiers can be configured with the delayed start option – so that the device starts working at a set time. Air humidifiers are equipped with water containers of different capacities. Most of them can work for up to several hours.

Many manufacturers offer both small and simple models as well as quite large and advanced versions. What matters is the size of the rooms, your needed standard humidity level, and your budget. You can easily find simple models for $20 to $80, as well as professional humidifiers, which cost several or several hundred dollars. Think about your needs first, set a budget and check what basic and advanced functions specific manufacturers offer.

Cleaning Air Ducts Will Significantly Improve Your Air Quality

Dust, dirt and other contaminants build up in your ductwork. Metal pipes rust and sometimes moisture gets into them, which promotes the growth of bacteria and mold. Unfortunately, all this along with the air goes into the lungs of the people inside. As a professional air duct cleaning company, we specialize in duct cleaning and have special equipment with micro cameras, which can move inside the channels and provide an image of what is happening inside them.

How Are Air Ducts Cleaned?

The homeowner or the residential building manager is responsible for inspecting and servicing the HVAC system and all of the air ducts that go with it. As the property owner, you are obliged to take care of the proper condition of ventilation by legal regulations, which are becoming more strict. If you need help with air duct cleaning, call PT Duct Cleaning and we’ll send one of our experienced air duct cleaning technicians to inspect and perform a deep clean of your air ducts.

He or she will first assess the condition of the ducts. Once they know what’s going on in them, they choose the right cleaning method. This is most often done using the dry scrub method. Pipes and ducts are cleaned with a hard-bristled brush. It will literally scrape whatever it finds in its path. It’s very effective. Sometimes pipes are cleaned with compressed air or a special vacuum cleaner. Sometimes ventilation systems are wet-cleaned. The pipes can also be disinfected.

PT Duct Cleaning – Your Professional Air Duct Cleaners in Chicago

Regular air duct cleaning has a significant impact on the health of you and your family. Breathing dirty air is very painful for asthmatics and allergy sufferers. Thorough cleaning of the house won’t be that effective if the contaminants are gathered in the air duct system and enter the air on an ongoing basis. PT Duct Cleaning will improve the air quality of your home, which will have a positive effect on the well-being and health of all household members. Call us at 773-517-5350 and talk to one of our English or Polish speaking customer service representatives.