If you would like to know how to test air quality in your home, this article is just for you. Whether you are indoors or outdoors, bad air quality is inevitable, but it becomes worse if you aren’t doing anything to clean it up.
Air pollution can come from different sources, such as industrial factories, pollution from vehicles, smoking, cooking odors, pet dander, pollen season, unclean homes, and the like. Air pollution can spread throughout communities and could possibly have hazardous effects on one’s health.
By studying the air quality you have at home, you can potentially prevent diseases of the respiratory system and you can also keep your family healthy and safe. There are many ways you can help improve your indoor air quality.
How do you clean the air in your home?
Helping your air reach a clean state can sound a bit intimidating, but it can be done with the following ways:
- Let air circulate properly by opening windows. You can try opening your windows at about 5 minutes a day – just enough to help circulate air. Leaving it open all the time could potentially make it more polluted inside your home.
- Try adding houseplants. You can use them for decor and you can also make them absorb VOCs from the air so you can naturally improve your indoor air quality.
- Use essential oil. When you use a diffuser to spread out essential oils, they can help to keep airborne bacteria at bay. They also smell good and could help freshen the air.
- Use an air purifier. They can clean the air using their air filters, also called HEPA filters. They also tend to run quietly so they won’t disturb you while you sleep.
- Run your A/C unit. In coordination with your air purifier and/or aromatherapy diffuser, you can also run the A/C so you can easily circulate air indoors for the air purifier to clean it more efficiently.
- Groom your pets regularly. Cleaning and/or bathing Fido or Tom could potentially lessen the pet dander that could make your indoor air quality unclean.
Can you test the air for mold?
Yes, you can! Mold test kits are available in the market but they all differ in terms of procedure. Most of them will contain some Petri dishes and all you need to do is to collect samples.
When you do the testing, make sure the room is untouched. Usually, the samples are sent to a laboratory along with your payment. You can wait about 8 weeks for your results to turn up.
What are the symptoms of bad air quality in the home?
Don’t know where to start? Here are common symptoms of bad indoor air quality:
- You get respiratory problems more often. This may include allergies, sneezing, fever, flu, colds, chills, difficulty in breathing, and the like.
- Your area is near a construction site. Construction dust could potentially harm air quality due to the debris and that’s going to impact your indoor air as well if you live near one.
- You might get a bad headache. Due to the ill quality of the air indoors, you may feel a bit stuffy or lightheaded. Some may even experience fatigue and dizziness.
What do you do when air quality is unhealthy?
When the air quality inside your home or space is on unhealthy levels, here are countermeasures that you can do:
- Try an air purifier. An air purifier can help to reduce the dust and allergens in the air. You can try to look for the best large room air purifier if you have a spacious home.
Air purifiers can absorb allergens and debris from the air. They use a HEPA filter along with a carbon filter so they not only take out the pollutants but they could also potentially neutralize the bad smells and the chemicals that could make your indoor air smell bad.
- Lessen the use of cleaners with potential VOCs. The problem with most household cleaners is that they have VOCs or volatile organic compounds. While most air purifiers can get rid of them, it’s best to avoid them from the start so you can keep your air quality healthy.
- Clean up the house more often. If you aren’t very enthusiastic about mopping and sweeping, now is probably the time to start doing it. Cleaning the house more often helps to get rid of most of the pollutants that could potentially make your indoor air dirty and unhealthy.
- Impose a no-shoe policy at home. Shoes could leech out dirt and debris from the outside world. Therefore, if you get frequent guests at home, having a no-shoe policy can help lessen the dirt, which means cleaner air indoors. Of course, don’t forget to put up a shoe rack outside your door just for that.
- Find ways to reduce mold. Having tons of mold at home could also contribute to feeling lightheaded due to the smell and the toxicity of mold that goes around your house, especially mold spores in the air.
You can help reduce mold by keeping certain areas dry since damp areas are what mold usually stick onto. Do the dishes more often so that mold doesn’t grow onto them quickly (and overnight, usually). Consider having a dehumidifier as well if you live in an area with a terrible amount of humidity.
- If possible, move away from construction sites. At first, if you live in an industrial landscape, you can also check out the best air purifier for construction dust. But if it doesn’t work as much, you can try to move away or at the very least keep your windows closed during the daytime when they are starting to work.
Conclusion
To wrap it up, air quality can be improved if you have the right tools and knowledge. By testing, if your air quality isn’t so good, you can work out a solution so that your healthy lifestyle will not be compromised by an airborne disease. We hope you learned something from this article!
