According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, 15 percent of our nation’s kids, tweens and teens are living with chronic asthma.
Every year, children are hospitalized due more to asthma symptoms than almost any other health condition. Children aged four and under are hospitalized most frequently.
If you are a parent or are expecting, these are some scary statistics!
What can you do to make your home safer and healthier for your child and family? Read on to find out!
Indoor Air Toxins Linked to Asthma Symptoms
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has now released a comprehensive analysis of the household toxins most closely linked to the onset and symptoms of childhood asthma.
Many of these toxins below are also linked to other serious lifelong health conditions ranging from lung cancer to heart disease and COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder).
- Carbon monoxide
- Formaldehyde
- Methylene chloride
- Tetrachloroethylene
- Chlorpyrifos
- Mercury and methylmercury
- Vinyl chloride
- Lead
- Nitrogen oxides
- Ozone (ground level)
- Sulphur oxides
- Particulates (ground level)
- Acrolein
- Asbestos
- Benzene
- Carbon Disulfide
- Creosote
- Fuel oil (e.g., kerosene)
- PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons)
- SVFs (synthetic vitreous fibres)
- TPHs (total petroleum hydrocarbons)
Many of these toxins are a mouthful to pronounce and even harder to identify. How can you keep track of so many indoor toxins all at once?
The good news here is, you don’t have to.
You don’t need to know how to say a single name you just read or even what each one can do to your health. You just need to know they are common, pervasive and very likely present in your indoor air, and you need to know they are all linked to childhood asthma.
This is enough information for you to take the necessary next steps to clean up your indoor air.
How Does Toxic Indoor Air Get Cleaned Up?
If you are like many of our customers, you are aware there are a number of new indoor air quality products on the market. Each one claims to work a miracle with the press of a button.
You probably see advertisements for these gizmos every day on television and social media. But which ones actually work? How can you know your investment will really help protect your family?
To date, two inventions have consistently outperformed all others when it comes to cleaning up even the most toxic indoor air: HEPA filtration and ultraviolet light purification.
The basic technology can be adjusted as needed for small, medium and large spaces. But underneath, the methods themselves have changed little over the past several decades.
HEPA filtration
HEPA stands for “high-efficiency particulate air.” A HEPA filter is a very advanced air filter with dense, complex fibres that can trap airborne particulates (solids) as small as 1/100th the width of a single human hair.
HEPA filtration technology was first developed during World War II. Its original use was to filter out radioactive particulates in a laboratory. It performed so well it was later modified for use in clinics, labs, workplaces and homes around the world.
HEPA is still the gold standard today. But what many homeowners don’t realize is that HEPA filters rarely work well with residential HVAC systems. They are just too dense and can easily overheat the blower and cause a system shutdown.
Instead, HEPA filtration systems can be added via retrofitting. Standalone HEPA filtration systems can integrate with ducted (central) HVAC systems to do the heavy lifting without overtaxing the blower motor.
For non-ducted spaces, portable models are also available to do the same job.
Ultraviolet purification
HEPA filters take care of the particulate solids that can damage sensitive lung tissue and lead to chronic asthma, COPD and lung disease.
But what about gaseous and liquid particles? The best performer for removing these potent toxins from indoor air is ultraviolet light. Our sun emits three types of ultraviolet light bands: A, B and C.
UV-C is the strongest band and is used in residential and commercial ultraviolet air purification systems. Synthetic ultraviolet C changes gaseous and liquid toxins on contact, rendering them harmless at the cellular level.
As with HEPA filtration systems, ultraviolet air purifiers can be retrofitted to work with any ducted (central) HVAC system. For non-ducted spaces, portable models do the same job.
What to Do to Clean Up Your Indoor Air
We always recommend starting your indoor air cleanup project with a professional indoor air duct cleaning and sanitizing service.
We recommend this for two main reasons:
- Most air duct systems have never been cleaned since the day they were installed. This means they are clogged with dust and debris and are likely leaking this matter.
- Removing trapped toxins in your air ducts ensures they exit your indoor air for good and this gives you a fresh start on air quality.
An air duct cleaning and sanitizing service can be done in less than a day’s time and you can have your HEPA filter and ultraviolet air purifier installed that same day.
What this means is that you will start out the morning with toxic indoor air and finish the day with clean, pure, breathable indoor air. The majority of our customers tell us they can literally smell the difference in their air quality at the end of the day!
How to Know Your Air Quality Controls Are Working
The easiest way to verify that your indoor air quality upgrades are doing their jobs is to witness the decline in symptoms of illness, doctor visits, sick days and sleepless nights.
Get in Touch
Are you ready to make indoor air quality a priority for 2020? We can help!
Contact us online or give us a call at 905-544-2470.
