Tips To Keep Your Indoor Air Clean

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) causes an array of respiratory diseases such as infection of the lungs and breathing passages. These affect people of all ages from children to adults and old. RSV is mainly found n houses with highly polluted indoor air. Dirty indoor air can cause other diseases such as bronchitis, strep, flu. Adults with RSV might have the symptoms of a common cold, such as a stuffy or runny nose, fever, mild headache, sore throat, cough, and a general feeling of being sick. According to a study, RSV causes an average of 57,527 hospitalizations of kids below 5 years in USA. The American College of Allergists reports that polluted indoor air acts as an instrument for aggravating other illnesses. It has been found that indoor air of the houses is more polluted than the outdoor air. The sources of pollution are - cleaning solutions, poorly maintained or unclean heating and cooling or humidification units, smoke, etc. and poor ventilation

Get your indoor air filtered

Today there is an array of filtration devices available in the market to clean the indoor air. Some of these can be installed in the duct work of the central air to filter the air of the whole house. Portable room air cleaners are also available to clean the air of individual rooms.

Contaminants in the indoor air are of various types. They are dust mites, molds, bacteria and viruses. Air filters are of two types in the house - mechanical air filters and electronic air cleaners. The former screens the air by trapping the contaminants on the mesh of the filters. HEPA filters can be classified as a mechanical filter. Electronic air cleaners make the air flow through an ionization section to charge the particles in air. They make use of electrostatic precipitators to trap charged particles through a process called electrostatic attraction. The charged particles stick to flat plates called a collector that is oppositely charged. Gas-phase air filters use sorbent, such as activated carbon to eliminate odor and gases from the air. However any single types of gas filter cannot remove all gaseous pollutants.

Besides these there are cleaners that use ultraviolet (UV) light technology to destroy pollutants in indoor air. They are called ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) cleaners and photocatalytic oxidation (PCO) cleaners. You also get ozone generators which generate ozone gas to destroy pollutants. Ozone gas is a lung irritant.

Maintain appropriate humidity level

A house should have the correct level of moisture in the air. Too much moisture in the air not only makes you feel clammy but also helps bacteria, germs to breed inside. Mold-growth which is very common in ducts and parts of HVAC needs moisture and dirt to breed and thrive. Therefore you should have a dehumidifier in the house that pulls out the excess moisture in the summer seasons. Winters are very dry. Excess dryness causes drying of the mucous membrane in the nasal tract, dry and itchy eyes and skin. They also make your furniture and paint to crack. Therefore there should be a humidifier in the house to have moisture at the correct level.

Clean the ducts

Ducts are long pies in the house that bring the cool or hot air from the central unit to various rooms. These pipes over time become leaky. Dust and debris trickles in through the leaks along with moisture and make the ducts infested with gunk. Microbes can also grow in the ducts. The contaminants loosen from the duct surface and enter your living space. Get you ducts cleaned from time to time professionally.

Ventilate the house

Ventilation is one of the important parameters of healthy house. On one hand you should have insulated and air tight house so that air coming out of the central air do not leak into the atmosphere. But on the other hand fresh air from outside should get inside. Otherwise the indoor air becomes static and contaminated. An air ventilation system monitors indoor and outdoor temperatures and humidity. It enables the replacement of indoor air with fresh air from outside. It adds 5% to 10% more fresh air each hour. This brings down the concentration of airborne contaminants.

Get a Home Health Report

During your precision tune-up, request a complete indoor air quality report from your air conditioning contractor.