Winter Home Air Quality - And What You Can Do

It is difficult enough to keep the house clean during the rest of the year, but winter comes and it gets really hard. Home air quality is affected during winter as well. The air quality in your house affects everyone living there, and if you have anyone in the home that has asthma, the symptoms usually get worse when winter comes.

There are some things you can do to reduce the dust and dirt that is floating in your home air. The things detailed here are just a beginning, to get you thinking about how important home air quality really is.

The first thing you should do is increase the humidity in the air. Central heating during the winter drives the moisture out of the air and this has a great affect on the quality. This warm air dries out dust, pet dander and other small particles that reside on your floors, causing these particles to release into the air. In return, you breathe these particles, which is not healthy. Using a humidifier during the winter will keeps these particles out of the air.

Opening your windows periodically during the winter will also help to improve the air quality in your home. Granted you will not want to keep them open, but for a few minutes every few days would allow some fresh air to circulate through the home. Some studies suggest that our homes are much too airtight. The quality of the air suffers for this. By opening your windows for a few minutes periodically, you can let in fresh oxygen and let out radon. Of course, you want to hope that you do not have radon, but that is another subject entirely.

The best thing you can do to improve your home air quality is to get a good home air purifier. Air purifiers have come a long way from the days of the loud, blowers that seem to do nothing but move the dust around. With the invention of the HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Filter), home air purifiers can dramatically reduce the levels of airborne particles in your house. If you have a pet, then there is all the more reason to get a home air cleaner and allow it run a significant portion of the day. These cleaners can remove particles down to the .3 Micron size. This is well below the size of most viruses and bacteria that could be in your air.

Winter can add a lot to the cleaning chores around the home, and home air quality can suffer. Be advised that you can do some things to improve it, though. Open the windows and let fresh air in, humidify the the dry air, and use a home air purifier to filter the air.

Rob Airman writes extensively about house air quality. Find out more about house air filters at BlueAir Purifiers. Also, find out why house air filters may be the best investment for your house.