A well-ventilated home means better indoor air quality. But ventilating doesn’t mean simply opening up your windows on nice days. It encompasses a wide range of actions you can take to ensure that the air coming into your home is free from irritants, contaminants, and pollutants—and that it remains clean. When your home is well-ventilated every day, your family stays healthier, feels better, sleeps better, has more energy, and enjoys life more.
In this post, learn 10 key ways you can begin to improve the ventilation in your home right away.
Tip #1: Bring some green inside
Houseplants are a great way to improve the air quality inside your home. In fact, plants act as their own self-contained ventilation system wherever you put them. They take toxins and carbon dioxide out of the environment and produce fresh, clean oxygenated air in return.
What to do: Check out this list of 10 great houseplants to bring into your home.
Tip #2: Add a heat recovery ventilator
Heat recovery ventilators ensure the air coming into your home is clean and temperate. The ventilator system absorbs exhaust-based heat and toxins plus stale air and pollution and delivers only clean air into your home.
What to do: Learn more about heat recovery ventilators HERE.
Tip #3: Pick your indoor furnishings with care
Did you know that natural plant-based furnishings such as wicker and bamboo contribute to better air quality in your home? Plant-based materials retain little heat and conduct air quite well. Not only will you have better ventilation through air movement, but you will have less trouble keeping the rooms in your home at a pleasing temperature.
What to do: If you are thinking about replacing or redesigning any of your interior spaces, consider rugs, furniture, and furnishings made from plant-based sources such as bamboo, wicker, and hemp. Bonus: these are all sustainable, earth-friendly choices, as well!
Tip #4: Add water features
Like plants and plant-based furnishings, water is a natural temperature balance and equalizer. You can add a water feature in warmer areas and the water will naturally act to cool and purify the air as it passes through. The key here, however, is to clean the water feature regularly so it can do its job well!
What to do: Even a small fountain or pool can add both ambience and cleanliness to your indoor air.
Tip #5: Don’t forget about your outdoor spaces
How you choose to landscape and cultivate your outdoor areas can have a direct influence on the cleanliness and quality of the air passing into your home. Just as plants can act as purifiers for your indoor air, so too can a healthy lawn and garden purify the air immediately surrounding your home. Another perk is that grass, shrubs, flowering plants, and other vegetation don’t hold onto the heat, so the surrounding grounds stays cool.
What to do: Be sure to consult your local hardiness zone guides and learn about your soil type to find out what types of plant life will thrive where you live.
Tip #6: Choose your cleaning products carefully
The cleaning products you bring into your home can have a great influence on how clean your air and how much ventilation you need. If you are continually spraying and spritzing and pouring and sudsing with toxic commercial cleaners, those particles will end up in the air, the fabric, the carpeting, the blinds and curtains, the bedsheets, and more. Not even the highest efficiency ventilation system can keep up with that level of constant toxic output.
What to do: Check out this great blog post as a guide to choosing all-natural home cleaners that promote good air quality.
Tip #7: Remember to turn on your exhaust fans
If your kitchen is like most, you probably have an over-the-stove exhaust fan. Many bathrooms also come with a venting fan installed to suck out humid, moist air after showers and baths. Be sure to use these exhaust and ventilation fans as needed to remove carcinogens and water vapor that can lead to mold, mildew, and the accumulation of indoor airborne toxins.
What to do: Turn on those fans!
Tip #8: Use natural cross-ventilation whenever possible
While you may not want to (or even be able to) keep your windows and doors open all year round, you can definitely benefit from some fresh outdoor air circulating in and through the rooms in your home as weather permits.
What to do: Set up small portable fans to assist the air movement through each room and from room to room. But be sure to dust off those fan blades before turning your fans on!
Tip #9: Replace your filters regularly
It can be amazingly easy to forget simple home maintenance and air quality improvement tasks like replacing your air filters. But a dirty versus a clean air filter represents the difference between indoor air filled with dust, pollen, pet dander, and toxins and clean, healthy, breathable indoor air.
What to do: If you have trouble remembering to change your filters regularly, set up alerts in your phone calendar to make it easier.
Tip #10: Contact Clean Air Solutions for help!
Here at Clean Air Solutions, we are passionate about providing you with tips, ideas, guidance, and solutions to create a healthy home full of wonderful, clean, breathable air. From indoor-air-quality testing to filtration, purification, ventilation, and humidifier solutions, we are here to help.
What to do: Contact us at 905-544-2470 or online to schedule your free, no-obligation home air quality and ventilation consultation.
