Your air conditioner keeps you cool on hot summer days, and your heater keeps you warm on frosty winter nights. As long as you’re cool when you want to be cool and warm when you want to be warm, all is well with your unit, right? Well, not exactly. Because that’s not all your unit is doing. It’s also contributing to the quality of the air you’re breathing every moment you spend inside your home. And we fill our home with pollutants constantly by cleaning, disinfecting, degreasing, walking in from outside, using cosmetics, painting our walls, waxing our furniture, and treating for pests. Pretty much everything we do does a little more damage to our air quality.
Finding a Solution to Your Air Quality Concerns
So what are we supposed to do? Live outdoors, be filthy, and make friends with the bugs? Well, maybe occasionally, if you’re into camping. But the solution to dealing with these ongoing problems on an everyday basis is to increase your IAQ IQ.
What’s IAQ?
IAQ is just a shorthand way to talk about indoor air quality. Because most adults spend 90% of their time indoors, making sure the air is clean can do wonders for your health and longevity. You’ll literally breathe easier. And WebMD points out that those who suffer from allergies can find a great deal of relief from symptoms by addressing the pollutants indoors with the right air filters.
What Kinds of Air Pollutants Are Found in Homes?
The Environmental Protection Agency has identified three types of air pollutants found in homes: particles, gases, and what are referred to as biologicals. Particle matter is solid, but it can be so small that you can’t see it with the naked eye. In fact, these particles can be small enough to enter the bloodstream through our lungs like oxygen does. Gases, on the other hand, aren’t solid at all. A tell-tale sign of their presence can be smell, although some are odorless. Finger nail polish, for example, has a strong smell. That’s a gas you’re smelling. Cleaners that put off a strong smell are also releasing gases. Biologicals, on the other hand, are things like fungus, molds, bacteria and viruses. Knowing what kinds of pollutants are found in your home will depend, in part, on the products you use, the region you live in and the activities you engage in. You can use that information to determine the best MERV rated filter designed to remove those specific things from the air.
How to Remove the Air Pollutants from Your Home
The first line of action in the fight for cleaner indoor air is to use air filters that are capable of trapping the free-floating particles in your home. You’re probably not going to stop using cleaning products or the occasional pesticide. But what you can—and should do—is start making sure that your air filtration is sufficient for removing these contaminants from your circulating air.
There’s no need to drastically change your lifestyle to increase your indoor air quality. Instead, you just need to be aware of the contaminants in your home and the right products for removing them, including using high-quality air filters that have the MERV rating suitable for collecting the contaminants specific to your living environment. We make that easy by offering a wide range of MERV- rated products and providing the convenience of having them delivered right to your door.