Indoor air quality plays an important role in your overall respiratory health. Maintaining indoor air quality can even help reduce or eliminate unnecessary expenses that could otherwise arise from medical conditions related to breathing in low quality air, which can hep you avoid medical expenses. Considering the average person spends almost 90% of their time indoors, and the fact that indoor air can contain some pollutants many times higher than outdoor air, it’s worth ensuring you’re breathing in clean air.
What is Indoor Air Quality?
Indoor air quality refers to how clean or polluted the air is in and around a building or structure. The measure of quality air is through the air quality index, in which case a value less than a hundred is considered good quality air.
The use of air conditioners and ventilation systems can go a long way when it comes to keeping the air circulating, which helps improve air quality. However, a standard HVAC system may not be enough, and you may need an air purification system to better clean the air you breathe.
Here are some reasons why it is essential to maintain your indoor air quality.
Better Health
The air outside can be full of allergens such as pollen, dust, molds, and pollutants that can make the air unsafe–especially for individuals who are hypersensitive to these allergens. Whether at work or home, buildings are supposed to protect us from allergens, but that’s not always the case.
Indoor air may be contaminated with any number of pollutants and contaminants. Some of the most common offenders include dust (particles like dirt and animal dander), smoke (including tobacco smoke to smoke created in the kitchen), radon (occurs naturally everywhere, but can build up indoors and cause illness), and other harmful chemicals, gasses, and particles.
Without proper air purification to remove these contaminants, you may start to experience symptoms such as sneezing, coughing, headaches, dizziness, nausea, fatigue, insomnia, mucus-filled sinuses and lungs, and even lung cancer.
Enhanced Comfort
Even if the pollutants in your home’s air aren’t a major threat to your health, they can still impact your overall comfort. During seasons when allergen counts are at their highest, you may find yourself walking around with itchy eyes, a runny nose, or a scratchy throat.
Spending hours in a house or working space that does not have clean air may be very uncomfortable, and can even affect your productivity and ability to focus. During more humid months, a dehumidifier can help reduce moisture levels throughout your home or commercial building, and a an air purification system can help maintain good indoor air quality, which can improve overall comfort.
Preserving the Value of Your Building
In homes and buildings that are too humid, mold and fungus can start to grow and spread, which cause issues with the integrity of your building. Even activities such as cooking can cause vapors that can collect and condensate, providing a breeding ground for damaging specimens. If there is no proper routine indoor air quality maintenance, the moisture may settle on walls, ceiling, and wood. If the materials are not moisture resistant, they may rot and corrode. Excessive condensation may also cause chipping and peeling on wall surfaces.
In addition to verifying you have proper ventilation throughout your building, it may be a good idea to consider adding an air purification system to help prevent these issues before they start – which can help save you money on costly repairs in the long run.
Conclusion
Not only can improving and maintaining your indoor air quality improve your comfort, it can actually help keep you healthier. When you’re healthier, you have less medical bills to deal with, and you can focus on what you need to around the home or at work. Plus, high quality air won’t cause long-term damage in the same way that untreated air can.