How Indoor Air Quality Affects Your Allergies

August 03, 2017

While many people connect allergy symptoms with pollen, pollution and other irritants outside your home, your indoor air quality can have a huge impact on your symptoms. According to the EPA, “In the last several years, a increasing body of scientific evidence has specified that the air in homes and other buildings can be more dangerously polluted than the external air in even the biggest and most industrialized cities. Other research says that people fill approximately 90 percent of their time within a home or building. Therefore, for a lot of people, the dangers to health may be larger due to more exposure to air pollution indoors than outdoors.”

Our Rockford homes are full of outdoor allergens like pollen that make their way indoors, and by irritants like pet dander, dust mites, mold spores, chemicals from ordinary household cleansers and more. So, what can you do about it? The key is already in your home! It’s your HVAC system.

You should realize that your HVAC can be your best friend or your nemesis when it comes to managing your allergies. A dirty system can collect and circulate allergens throughout your home, so the answer is to keep your system well maintained. Above all, you need to keep your air filters clean. Place a reminder or indicate it on your calendar to look at them monthly and change them out when you see that they’re fairly dirty. They’ll typically need to be changed every two or three months, but this can vary considerably from household to house. You can buy filters that span from the most basic level of filtering to hospital-grade HEPA filters. The pros at Temperature Doctors Heating & Cooling, Inc can help you establish which form of filter will keep your home nourishing and keep your HVAC functioning efficiently.

It’s also vital to have your system routinely serviced by a pro to keep your interior air quality where it should be. As well as checking that critical filter, your service specialist will clean the internal workings of your system and guarantee that everything is working as it should. You can also ask your technician if a duct cleaning would be beneficial.

When it comes to your indoor air quality, you can rely on the professionals at Temperature Doctors Heating & Cooling, Inc to take good care of you. Besides helping you keep your HVAC system maintained, we can help you make sure you have the tools you need to take on poor indoor air quality and allergens—like humidifiers and whole home air purifiers. Just give us a call at (815)914-6197 to ensure your home’s air is healthy and pure.