After a long summer of keeping your windows tightly shut, your home might smell a little musty as we move into autumn. Although you may be tempted to light some pumpkin spice or cinnamon apple scented candles, you should put down the lighter! Candles can hurt your home’s indoor air quality. Here’s how to keep your home’s air quality healthy this fall:
Open the Windows—While You Still Can!
Thankfully, fall comes a little more slowly here in Florida, so you should open your windows and let in the fresh air while you still can! Particularly on a breezy day, the fresh air can brush against your furniture and dissipate the cooped-up smell of summer.
Change Your AC Filter
The root of your home’s poor air quality is almost always a dirty AC filter. We’re not here to judge! It’s an easy thing to forget or overlook entirely. “Out of sight, out of mind,” right?
Typically, you’ll want to replace your AC filter between one and three months, but quarterly at the bare minimum. However, if you have pets—especially long-haired pets—you might consider changing your air filter every month. You’d be surprised how high pet hair and dander can float. It could be clogging your AC filter right now, and that’s what you’re breathing in.
Make Sure Your Vents Are Open
Another source of poor indoor air quality, especially in the fall, is poor air circulation throughout the home. Perhaps you have a member of your household who’s always cold, so they closed an air vent to a certain room—or a few rooms.
With the new season, you’ll want to go around and ensure that your vents are open, so your air can circulate freely throughout your home, improving your indoor air quality.
Clean Your Carpets and Upholstery
Speaking of pet dander, when was the last time you had your carpet cleaned? Or your sofa? Your bed? Not your bedding, but the mattress itself.
And it’s not just pet dander you have to worry about there, unfortunately. Dust, dead skin cells, bacteria—all these and more can be imperceptibly cluttered in fabrics and carpet bristles.
You can rent an upholstery/carpet cleaner from a supermarket or call a professional, but either way, cleaning the fabric materials in your home is vital for clean indoor air quality.
Call a Licensed HVAC Professional
If you’ve tried all of the above and your home still feels stuffy, then it’s time to call a professional. The HVAC technicians at American Air, Plumbing, and Electrical understand the struggle with indoor air quality and have been trained to take care of that problem for you. Our duct cleaning services can help eradicate dust, pollen, and other pollutants in your airflow, but this service can be especially helpful if there’s mold growth in your ducts, a pest infestation in your ducts, or debris clogging the duct passageways.
Call American Air, Plumbing, and Electrical to keep your home’s air quality healthy this fall!
