The Benefits of Air Cleaners

Home should be the place where you can kick off your shoes and breathe easier. However, if your home’s indoor air quality is subpar, it may not be any safer than if you were outside.

Indoor air has the potential to be worse than outdoor air. There’s a long list of things in your home that contribute to poor indoor air quality. Then there are the pollutants that enter your home from the outside and get trapped inside. Combined, these things add up quickly, creating an unhealthy atmosphere within your home.

Understanding the basics of air cleaners and their benefits is the first step toward creating a healthier environment in your Oakland Park, FL, home.

Indoor Air Pollutants 

Where do these pollutants that detract from the quality of the air in your home come from? There are plenty of sources, including some you might not have ever thought about.

Mold

Mold is a fungus that thrives in dark, damp places. Microscopic mold spores travel through the air and attach themselves to any location that boasts a suitable environment. Lack of ventilation and airflow throughout the home facilitate mold growth, which typically forms wherever water is present.

Mold is often found in:

• Bathrooms
• Kitchens
• Windowsills
• AC vents
• Attics
• Basements

Mold produces a musty smell and can create serious problems for those who suffer from respiratory conditions such as asthma.

Pet Dander

Your fuzzy friends are part of the family. Unfortunately, they may also contribute to the worsening indoor air quality within your home.

Many people associate pet allergies with pet fur, but it’s actually the dander, not the hair, that wreaks havoc on allergy sufferers.

Pet dander is made up of microscopic flakes of dead skin an animal sheds, which means even your hairless pets can contribute to the problem.

Carpet

Have you recently had new carpeting installed? You’ve just introduced a VOC (volatile organic compound) to your home, which is actively working against the clean, quality air inside.

That “new carpet smell” might be pleasant as you bask in the newness of the fresh, soft, carpet pile, but it’s actually the result of the chemicals used to manufacture the carpet.

Chemical compounds such as benzene, formaldehyde, and acetone — just to name a few — can cause headaches, irritation to the eyes and throat, and take a big toll on allergy sufferers.

Cleaning Supplies

It may seem counterintuitive that the things used to clean are the very things sullying the air quality in your home. A large number of household cleaning products contain VOCs that evaporate quickly and become part of the air you breathe in your home.

Some of the biggest offenders are fragrance sprays like air fresheners, bleach, and spray cleaners.

The Benefits of Clean Indoor Air

The ill-effects of poor indoor air quality are well known, with health issues being the most serious factor.

But did you know that just by cleaning up your home’s air quality, you could reap a number of surprising benefits?

Here are some of the top reasons improving your home’s indoor air quality is important:

You’ll Sleep Better

The air you breathe while you sleep plays a big role in the quality of your sleep. Over time, poor air quality can lead to breathing issues and sleep disorders.

Reduced Allergies

Without a filtration system to filter out the pollen, dander, and other airborne particulates that get trapped inside your home, an allergen-rich environment is created inside that’s often no better than being outside for those with allergies.

Air cleaners help to dramatically decrease the allergens in your home’s air.

Elimination of Odors

When your house lacks ventilation and proper airflow, every smell or odor produced in your home stays put with nowhere to go. As these smells linger and eventually commingle, your home will start to smell less than fresh.

Unpleasant odors, such as litter box smells and other pet odors, lingering cooking smells, cigarette smoke, and musty smells from damp clothes are just some of the most common odors you may contend with from time to time.

Dealing with constant bad smells in the home is distracting. They can make it hard to relax, which is what your home should be all about.

Air cleaners help to wipe out these odors before they have a chance to linger in your home.

Lower Humidity Levels 

Air cleaners such as AC and air purifiers keep the humidity in your home lower, which is a great asset all by itself in the Sunshine State. Humidity exacerbates poor air quality by attracting mold spores, dust mites, and pests.

Excess humidity in the home makes it feel warmer and stuffier, creating an overall uncomfortable environment indoors.

Shortened Illnesses

Everyone gets sick from time to time, but if you’re recuperating in a home with poor air quality, you have the air you breathe working against you.

This could potentially lead to a long sickness.

Air cleaners eliminate the allergens and bacteria in the air, so you can get back on your feet a little faster.

Cleaner Air Through Your HVAC System

Your HVAC system plays a major role in maintaining your home’s indoor air quality. Here’s a quick look at how:

Ventilation 

The fan in your HVAC system forces the air through your home, preventing it from becoming stale and stagnant. It also prohibits mold growth.

Filtration

Your HVAC system’s filter traps many of the dust, pollen, and other allergens that have found their way into your home. As the air circulates, the filters trap these things in, pushing clean air back out of the system and into your house.

Humidity Control

The AC portion of your home’s HVAC system is responsible for eliminating the excess moisture in the air, which causes humidity. Humidity makes your home feel warmer than it is.

In addition to improving the air quality, eliminating the humidity helps your home to feel more comfortable, even at higher temperatures. This helps to save you money on your electric bills.

How Air Purifiers Clean the Air

While your HVAC system’s air filtration system is good, adding an air purifier helps to optimize the process for the highest quality air you can have in your home.

Like your home’s HVAC system, air purifiers draw in air, clean it, and send the clean air back out into your home. Some of the best options are:

Ionizing Purifiers

These air purifiers work by charging up molecules to create ions. It does this through the “corona discharge,” a process that creates a small electric field to charge up many molecules at once as they pass through it.

These charged ions attract particulates in the air that carry the opposite charge as them, weighing them down and forcing them to the ground.

UV Light

Ultraviolet radiation sterilizes bacteria in the air, rendering it harmless.

Filter

Filter air purifiers work similarly to the filtration in your HVAC system by drawing in air and filtering it before forcing clean air back into your home. 

These purifiers can be equipped with paper, mesh, or fiber filters. Some of the most effective filters for clean air within your home are HEPA filters, which only allow a penetration of 0.3 micrometers. An HVAC specialist can help you choose the best filter for your specific home’s needs.

HVAC Technician Near Me

Looking to improve the air quality in your home? The expert HVAC technicians at Abraham AC are your local air cleaner experts. We offer a multitude of solutions to maintaining your home’s air quality in addition to a wide range of services designed to keep your Oakland Park, FL, home safe and comfortable.

Call us today to find out how we can help.