Best Ways to Get Rid of Stale Air in My Home

by George Karonis

Ever come back from a weekend trip just a visit to the grocery store and noticed that the air in your home is stale? When it feels old, musty, thick, and a little bit smelly, it’s probably stale.

Stale air is old air that hasn’t been ventilated. Air becomes stale over time when it isn’t circulated, causing pollutants to accumulate and creating that unpleasant smell and feeling of the air.

When air is a little bit stale it may just make you feel uncomfortable or a bit dirty, but at higher levels, it can actually have negative impacts on your health, due to the exposure of air pollutants. So how do you get rid of it and prevent stale air from happening in the home in the first place?

Causes of Stale Air

  • Carbon dioxide: As we breathe, we exhale this gas which contributes to carbon dioxide. Unfortunately, there’s little we can do about carbon dioxide besides improving ventilation, but more on that later.
  • Dust: Dust naturally builds up in the home. When there’s enough of it, it will hang in the air, reducing air quality and creating stale air.
  • Allergens: Allergens come in a variety of forms and can include dust, pollen, pet dander, pet hair, and many other things that can begin to cause allergic reactions as they build up in the stale air.
  • Volatile Organic Compounds: Sometimes in our attempts to keep a clean home, we can actually create poor air quality. Many cleaning products and other toxic products release volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, which add to air pollution in the home.
  • Smoke: Incense, cooking, and candle burning all generate smoke and cause stale air in insulated, unventilated homes.

Getting Rid of Stale Air

There are two main ways to get rid of stale air in the home, ventilation and air filtration.

  • Air purifiers: Air purifiers pull in air and filter out particulate matter, bacteria, and allergens in the air, exhausting clean air. Air purifiers can improve air quality inside rooms, but to purify an entire house you would require an air purifier in each room. However, they’re a good option for a bedroom.
  • Replace your air filter: Your air filters need to be replaced regularly to maintain a healthy HVAC system and a healthy home.
  • Open your windows: Opening the windows in your home will allow passive ventilation to occur and the air to slowly circulate in your home. This isn’t the best way to ventilate your home, but it’s the easiest and is certainly better than nothing.
  • Air ventilators: Air ventilators allow stale air to naturally flow out of the home from areas of high pressure to low pressure.
  • Whole house fans: Whole house fans are the most effective way to ventilate your home and eliminate stale air. They actively exhaust all of the stale air trapped in your home and replace it with fresh air.

Questions about whole house fans? Contact us  at 1-661-775-5979 M-F 7 am – 5 pm PST or via Email: info@wholehousefan.com.

 

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