If you live with allergies or certain respiratory conditions, keeping the air clean and healthy is important to you. You want to breathe easily inside of your home, the one place in the world where you should feel the most comfortable. Fortunately, keeping and maintaining a less polluted atmosphere inside your home doesn’t have to require special devices or the intervention of professionals. There are a lot that you can do on your own at little or no cost of time or cash.
- Take control of the humidity. The humidity level in your home should be somewhere between 30% and 50% to ensure adequate airflow in rooms that are prone to dampness, like bathrooms.
- Use fragrance-free cleaners and ditch air freshener sprays. The components of these two everyday items can sure make everything smell good, but they also introduce unhealthy elements into the air you breathe.
- Keep smoking of any kind outside of the home. This is a no-brainer, as smoke is never good for the air that you breathe. The best thing to do for overall wellness, however, is to quit smoking altogether.
- Get your HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) systems checked regularly. Keep them maintained with seasonal visits from a trusted HVAC expert in your area. You can also check your own HVAC filters and clean them, in many cases. This is a must, as these filters trap unwanted particles that could go into your lungs. In some cases you need to change the furnace filters and you need to check whether it is a 10x10x1 furnace filter or 10x20x1 furnace filter etc. You need to find the right one and this will keep pollutants at bay.
- Switch to hardwood floors. Carpeting looks nice and is certainly cozy, but it can trap everything that you bring into your home from the outside. Dirt, dust, pollen, pet dander and more irritants can live inside the fabric of pretty much any carpet. Hardwood floors, however, are less hospitable to airborne irritants and are easier to keep clean.
- Use a dehumidifier to cut down on moisture. Excess moisture in the air can breed all kinds of problems, and even produce mold inside your home.
- Wash all used bedding once a week. All kinds of nasty stuff can live inside the folds of your bedsheets and comforters, especially if you have pets that like to sleep where you do. A hot-water spin through the washing machine and drier will take care of most of these concerns with ease.
- Use carbon monoxide detectors. Carbon monoxide is an often-lethal compound found in the air. Detecting it early can prevent serious illnesses and even death.
- Elect for wide, open spaces. Clutter accumulates dust like nothing else, and when it gets moved as you finally get around to putting stuff away, what happens? That dust is suddenly in the air, where it can get into your airways. Minimizing clutter also makes it easier to detect visible signs of mold and other damage to the interior of your home.
- Kick your shoes off at the door. A lot of respiratory conditions and allergies are aggravated by the traces of the outdoors that come indoors on the soles of your shoes. Use a welcome mat outside of your door, and make sure that shoes are left by the door when people come inside.