This summer has gotten off to a hot start, meaning the temperatures are often too high to consider opening the screen door or windows to let the summer breeze in—which can serve as a natural air cleaner.
Instead, we’ve been sentenced to staying indoors and running the air conditioner full blast. While this isn’t so great for our utility bills, it is even worse for your indoor air quality. Find out how you can make your indoor air cleaner this summer with these five tips.
5 Top Tips for Keeping Your Home’s Air Cleaner
- Do Your Chores: Removing one the of the worst culprits—dirt—is an efficient way to begin making the air cleaner in your home. Start by dusting with a damp cloth to collect irritants or table tops, counters, knick knacks and often-forgotten about places like ceiling fans and the top of your refrigerator. Next, use a vacuum cleaner with a HEPA filter. Finally, toss out old candles, ashtrays and bags of trash that may cause your family to suffer unnecessarily.
- Get the Air Ventilating: While you may not want to keep windows and doors open in the scorching heat, you can generate cleaner air by finding other ways to improve ventilation in your home. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), “operating window or attic fans, when the weather permits, or running a window air conditioner with the vent control open increases the outdoor ventilation” The agency also suggests utilizing bathroom and kitchen exhaust fans to send contaminants directly from the room to the outdoors.
- Check Up on Your Basement or Utility Room: If you’ve got your air conditioner running full blast, you will definitely want to ensure your filters are clean—otherwise you will spreading contaminants throughout your home and clean air will be the last thing you achieve. Take the opportunity to check the filters in your heater, too. And while you’re at it, make sure the humidity level in your house is below 50 percent. A dehumidifier can help you establish proper ventilation in damp areas such as basements, which can prevent mold and dust mites.
- Remember the Other Living Beings in Your Home: Want to make the air cleaner in your home? Don’t overlook your pets and plants! Bathe and groom pets regularly and wash their bedding in hot water to keep fur and dander at bay. Then keep your green plants thriving to help release some fresh oxygen into the air you breathe. Missing the green-thumb gene? Opt for a peace lily or Chinese evergreen plant, which are easy to keep alive.
- Get High-Tech Help: Air purifiers have the ability to eliminate smoke odors, control pet dander, eliminate germs and other airborne pollutants. By enlisting the help of air purifiers, especially those with a high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter, can drastically make your indoor air cleaner by settling dust, removing and eliminating odors, and improving the overall quality of your indoor air.
Making your indoor air cleaner doesn’t have to be difficult. Use your common sense to limit contaminants like dust, pollen and cigarette smoke, and don’t rely on commercial air fresheners, which are often full of chemicals, to cover up dirty air.
Instead, make your home’s air cleaner by spending just a few minutes keeping your house in tip-top shape and finding the right air purifier for you. Get started here.
