During the winter months in Belgrade, MT, temperatures can drop very low, and snow will fall. This is when homeowners head inside to stay warm and safe. Keeping windows and doors closed can boost the efficiency of your heating equipment, but this can also degrade the quality of your indoor air. Let’s look at the importance of your indoor air quality and what you can do to improve it this winter.
What Affects Indoor Air Quality in the Winter?
There isn’t much of an exchange of air between the outdoors and the inside of your home during the winter months. This allows particulate matter and other contaminants to build up inside your home, leading to unhealthy concentrations. The most common indoor air quality culprits include things like pet dander, dust and dust mites, mold spores, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
While your heating equipment uses a filter to remove some of the larger particles that circulate through your HVAC system, a lot of the smaller ones can still make their way through. You can use several methods of filtration and purification to remove more of these particulates.
Issues With Humidity
It can be difficult to achieve the perfect balance of relative humidity in your home during the winter months. Running your heating equipment frequently to keep your residence warm can lead to the air feeling very dry. Also, dry air has the potential to trap more contaminants. However, keeping your doors and windows closed during the winter can cause moisture to accumulate in the air when you’re cooking, cleaning, or bathing.
You can utilize a whole-house dehumidifier or whole-house humidifier to better control the humidity levels in your home. This equipment doesn’t need to be moved from one location to another like a portable model does, and it requires minimal maintenance. By communicating with your thermostat, you can easily control this equipment to better manage your indoor air quality.
Improving Indoor Air Quality
There are several ways that you can improve the quality of the air inside your home. You may want to consider having an indoor air quality assessment performed in order to determine what kind of contaminants you’re dealing with. That information can be used to determine what improvements you need to make moving forward.
Whole-house air purification and filtration equipment can be installed onto your HVAC system. This equipment will use enhanced filtration to remove up to 99.97% of the particulate matter in your indoor air. Some filtration methods such as activated carbon can remove odors and chemicals from the air you breathe.
You can also consider having an ultraviolet (UV) light installed as part of your filtration setup. While this light will not be able to remove physical particulates from your indoor air, it can do a great job of reducing the number of bacteria, viruses, mold spores, and microbes in your air. This is accomplished using UV-C light, which damages the DNA of these culprits, rendering them harmless. UV lights are easy to maintain. All you need to do is keep the light clean to maximize its effectiveness. The light itself should be changed professionally once a year. We don’t recommend doing this yourself, as you would risk exposure to radiation.
There are likely exhaust fans in your bathroom and kitchen that can be used to remove stale air from your home. It’s best to use these fans when you’re cooking and bathing. However, whatever you’re doing, it’s beneficial to run them for at least 15 minutes a day to help circulate the air in your home and support proper ventilation. You can also have ventilation equipment installed in areas like your attic or basement to promote better indoor air quality.
We’re Here to Help
If you would like assistance with your indoor air quality needs in Belgrade, reach out to our team here at PJ's Plumbing & Heating. We also offer the installation, repair, and maintenance of heating and cooling equipment. We install and repair tank-based and tankless water heater systems. We also offer a full variety of plumbing services, including drain cleaning, pipe installation, leak detection services, trenchless pipelining, and sump pump assistance.
Contact PJ's Plumbing & Heating today to schedule indoor air quality services.
