Your home should be somewhere you feel safe and secure. While most people think of locks and alarms when home safety is mentioned, air quality is just as important. Unfortunately, depending on where you live, the air quality in your home can be worse than it is outside.
A range of airborne particles and gases can cause indoor air quality to deteriorate. Thankfully, there are five things you can do to improve the situation.
1. Keep your floors clean
The air quality in most houses is heavily influenced by the cleanliness of floors. The easiest way to keep on top of things is by vacuuming regularly — using a vacuum cleaner with a HEPA filter. This can take potentially harmful chemicals and allergens out of carpets and stop them from being redistributed into the air. Among the unwanted substances you should be removing include pollen, pet dander, dust mites and brominated fire-retardant chemicals.
Where you have hard floors, regular mopping is essential. And contrary to popular belief, the most effective way of removing allergens is with water. Microfibre steam mops capture more dust and dirt particles than ever before, and all they use is the power of superheated steam.
Taking preventative measures is also important. Place a large mat at every door to capture particles from shoes before they enter your home. Get people to wipe their shoes every time they enter. Or better still, ask people to take their shoes off before they come inside.
2. Maintain a healthy humidity level
Dust mites and mould absolutely love moisture, so it’s important to keep the humidity in your home at between 30 percent and 50 percent. During the summer months, a combination of air conditioning and a dehumidifier should help you to control humidity levels with a reasonable amount of accuracy.
However, keeping humidity levels under control doesn’t have to be expensive. Among the low-tech options available to you include opening windows when cooking or having showers, fixing leaky plumbing quickly, not keeping real plants indoors and venting your tumble dryer to the outdoors.
3. Ban smoking
Second-hand smoke is a major source of air pollution in homes. Just one cigarette can contain more than 4,000 chemicals, many of which can cause serious illnesses such as cancer, asthma, respiratory diseases, heart attacks, stroke and sudden infant death syndrome. Create a smoking area outside, but make sure it’s several metres from your doors.
4. Check radon levels
It doesn’t matter whether you live in a new-build home or something that’s been around for years, your home might be exposed to radon. Unfortunately, some areas of Europe are at an increased risk of exposure than other, including Cornwall in England. Radon is thought to be a major contributing factor to cancer in both North America and Europe.
Radon is a radioactive gas that occurs when uranium in the earth decays. It slowly moves upwards through the earth — often finding its way into homes through floorboards and foundations. Thankfully, testing for radon is easy and relatively inexpensive. If you find the presence of radon, don’t panic, as the risks it poses are relatively low. However, you can reduce exposure by making some structural changes to your property.
5. Freshen your home naturally
There is no doubt that those expensive air fresheners sold at supermarkets smell fantastic. Some can be plugged into an electrical outlet and set to emit a blast of fragrance at regular intervals. However, what you’re doing, in effect, is spraying potentially harmful chemicals into the air. Some products contain volatile organic compounds, which have been shown to pose a significant risk to health.
Instead of relying on store-bought air fresheners, you can make your own. For instance, simply open a window and let a beautiful summer breeze flow into your home. Alternatively, slice some lemon, and put it into a bowl with some bicarbonate of soda. If you don’t like lemon, you can use orange, lime or your favourite essential oil.
The air quality in most people’s homes doesn’t pose a health risk. However, if you’re at all concerned, these five tips should help you to improve the quality of air in your property.