Why Indoor Air Quality is Worse in the Winter
Clearing the air inside your home is extremely important. Unfortunately, in winter months, it can become more difficult to do for a variety of reasons. These are just a few reasons why indoor air quality in homes and businesses tends to be worse in winter months.
Better Insulation in Homes and Businesses
Homes and businesses today are insulated better than at any other time in history. While this offers outstanding energy conserving benefits that help you save money on utilities, it does come at a cost. Not only does it prevent heated air from escaping your home, but it also keeps moisture, germs, and bacteria trapped inside, too.
These things are brought into your home every day on the soles of your shoes, when you’re exposed to colds and viruses, and when you do ordinary things like showering or cooking. They can lead to harmful viruses, infections, and infestations of mold and mildew. With nowhere to escape, they linger in the air inside your home until spring comes when you throw open the window and let fresh air into your home.
Chemicals Introduced Into Your Home
The other problem associated with indoor air quality in winter is that you’re doing more things inside your home than in warmer seasons of the year. This can include things like painting, staining wood, etc. Even smokers who are more likely to step outside to smoke during warmer months are more likely to sneak a puff or two inside the house rather than brave the cold to indulge. This leads to greatly diminished air quality inside your home that has nowhere to go.
What Can You do About Indoor Air Pollution?
There are several moves you can make to improve air quality in your home. From purchasing sophisticated (not to mention costly) air particle cleaners for your home to eliminate common pollutants from your house like gas stoves outputs, smoked tobacco products, etc.
One thing the EPA recommends is to increase the amount of outdoor air coming into your home. You can do this by installing a whole house fan, like the QuietCool QC CL-2250 Whole House Fan, that brings in large amounts of fresh, cleaner air into your home, while pushing out dirty, polluted air through vents in your roof.
Exposure to toxic indoor air can lead to a variety of health problems, including allergies, asthma attacks, upper respiratory illnesses, and, in extreme instances death – many of which are preventable by cleaning up the air quality inside today’s homes.