Allergies And Air Quality: A Summer Guide

Whether you suffer from allergies or simply have concerns about your indoor air quality, it’s always the perfect time to address the issue. Although you can prevent some allergens from entering your home by keeping your doors and windows closed and making sure your home is sealed properly, the reality is that indoor air is often more polluted than the air outdoors. It’s not just because of outside allergens—some pollutants originate inside your Chandler house. Fortunately, we have several ways to improve indoor air quality and reduce allergies!

Signs of an Indoor Air Quality Issue

If you have any of the following symptoms, it’s quite possible that your indoor air quality is poor:

Headache
Fatigue
Persistent cough
Dizziness
Nausea
Asthma symptoms
Dry or irritated skin
Eye irritation

Rather than continue to battle these symptoms, it’s in your best interests to take steps to eliminate the issue altogether. After all, living long-term with poor indoor air quality can take a toll on your overall health, including contributing to:

Cardiovascular disease
Long-term respiratory illness
Decreased cognitive functioning
Inadequate lung development

Keep your family safe from these potentially devastating health risks. An experienced HVAC technician can help by assessing indoor air quality and suggesting helpful changes. Doing something as simple as installing an air purifier may mitigate most or all of your air quality issues. Other ways to improve your family’s health include keeping your air ducts clean, replacing your air filter regularly, and sealing leaky air ducts.

Installing an Air Purifier Can Help

The purpose of an air purifier is to remove contaminants and airborne allergens from your Chandler home. HVAC systems have filters to remove some particulates, but their primary focus is preventing matter from making it into the system itself. Air quality concerns are secondary, which is where air purifiers come in. An air purifier will target dirt, dust, and even odors, making breathing easier and avoiding allergies. An air purifier can be especially useful during wildfire season when heavy metals such as mercury can be released from the soil.

It is important to make sure you get an air purifier that is properly sized for your home if you get a whole-home solution. Otherwise, it may be unable to stay on top of the pollutants in your home and overheat. The good news is that this is where an HVAC company can help! Our experts can easily determine the correct size for you by knowing your house’s square footage. From there, we can select and install an appropriate Carrier air purifier for you.

Cleaning Your Ducts is Imperative

If you’re not getting your ducts cleaned on a regular basis, then you’ve probably experienced problems with allergies inside your home. That’s because contaminants, pollen, and dirt build up inside your air ducts, which are then blown throughout your home by your HVAC system.

Unfortunately, homeowners don’t have the ability to give their ducts the deep cleaning that they require to prevent this from happening. Therefore, even if you use your vacuum attachments to clean your vents, they will eventually introduce pollen and other contaminants into your Phoenix Metro Area home. You’ll need a professional HVAC company instead with access to state-of-the-art equipment and a strict duct cleaning process.

It’s necessary to disinfect your ducts during the cleaning process, along with extracting dirt and debris through specialized tools. Additionally, HEPA filtration when cleaning is a must, as it traps impurities to prevent them from being redistributed.

Always Keep Your Air Filter in Good Shape

Everyone knows it’s critical to keep their air filter in good shape. Changing your air filter on a regular basis is the best way to ensure proper HVAC operation. However, many people fall behind in this important task. Sadly, this allows dirty air to continue circulating through their home, and it can also cause their utility bills to increase.

You may need to set a reminder for yourself, but you should check your filter once a month. Chances are you’ll need to replace it every couple of months, not monthly, but this can vary with the season and what makes its way into your home. This will help keep your indoor air quality in good shape, which can reduce the occurrence of allergies. It’ll also ensure that your family enjoys better overall health.

Get Your Ducts Sealed to Prevent Leakage

Did you know that up to 30% of your conditioned air can be lost due to leaks, improperly connected air ducts, or holes in your ducts? This can present a major problem for homeowners on a tight budget. Not only will your energy bill go up, but you’ll also have a harder time keeping your entire home comfortable. It can also cause contaminants to leak into your house, which is a recipe for an allergic disaster.

You can easily prevent the issues listed above by having an HVAC expert check and seal your ducts. Additionally, this is a fantastic way to find out if you have any poor ductwork that needs to be repaired or replaced. Always seek to have the best ductwork possible so you can reduce allergies, improve energy efficiency, and make your home more comfortable.

Assessing Your Indoor Air Quality

You can have your indoor air quality tested by an air quality specialist. The most common method is to set up monitors that can collect particles from your air. Furthermore, those monitors also have the ability to detect the presence of certain toxins, including carbon monoxide. Testing your home’s indoor temperature and humidity levels is also possible. Having high humidity indoors is an easy way to allow dust mites and other biological allergens to thrive.

Are Dust Mites a Problem in Your Home?

Dust mites naturally occur and live in approximately 80% of all U.S. homes. They can be found in a number of different places, including upholstered furniture, mattresses, bedding, curtains, or carpeting. These insidious pests can make life extremely difficult for people with allergies, particularly if the people also have asthma or eczema.

Issues you may experience because of dust mites include:

Coughing
Wheezing
Tight feeling in your chest
Breathlessness
Itchy nose
Runny nose
Itchy skin
Watery, itchy eyes
Skin rash