Indoor Air Quality During the Winter: How to Keep Your Home’s Air Fresh and Clean, Even With the Windows Shut

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During the warm months, it’s relatively easy to have fresh air flowing through your house—just open the windows and enjoy. But, as you know, here in Northern Colorado it can get mighty cold, and during the cold months of the year, leaving a window or two open is totally out of the question.

Air quality is important: without it, airborne allergens, unregulated humidity levels, and other undesirable traits can cause harm to your happiness and to your health. Wintertime is when we need our immune systems to be at their best, so it’s especially important to have good air quality this time of year.

Let’s discuss a few ways you can improve your indoor air quality during winter:

Regular Readers Knew This One Was Coming: Change Your Air Filters!

If you’ve been following the Best Buy Heating and Air blog for any length of time, you know that one of our most commonly recommended DIY home maintenance tasks is to regularly change out your HVAC system’s air filters.

It’s cheap, easy, and makes a whole world of difference, not only in energy savings, but also the quality of your air—especially during the winter months when you’re less likely to have the windows open on any kind of regular basis. Plus, if you suffer from seasonal allergies, the air filters will help to improve your air quality and thus reduce your symptoms.

If you want to learn more about how to replace your air filters and some other helpful tips, check out our post, DIY Spring Cleaning Tips to Prepare Your HVAC System For Colorado’s Summer Heat offers plenty of tips that are just as helpful during winter!

Establish Control Over The Humidity Levels in Your Home

The humidity levels in your home have a surprisingly large degree of influence over your air quality—particularly if you’re prone to the dry skin and chapped lips that are so common during the cold and oftentimes quite dry Northern Colorado winters. Generally speaking, residents in our area of the country need to add humidity to the home, rather than to take it out with a dehumidifier.

Depending on how large your home is and how much humidity you need to add, you have several great options available. If you want targeted control over which areas of the home are humidified and how much, affordable, plug-in humidifiers available at most department stores will do a fine job.

If, however, you want a humidifying solution that works throughout your entire home, you may want to consider a whole-house humidification system. Read our post How a Whole House Humidifier Can Ward Away Colorado’s Dry Air to learn more about these excellent solutions.

Make Sure Your Carbon Monoxide Detection System is Working Properly

There’s little doubt that you already know how important it is to have a well-functioning carbon monoxide detection system in your home—it’s vital to not only your air quality but also to your health and safety—but when was the last time you actually made sure it was working properly?

During the winter, when there’s less ventilation, confined spaces such as the basement and some kitchens are more susceptible to carbon monoxide buildup as a result of the byproducts released by your gas powered furnace, water heater, or stove. Go through your house and confirm that each carbon monoxide detector is powered on and functioning. If you need carbon monoxide detectors, they can be almost always purchased for less than $50 each from any hardware store.

Get Your Furnace Inspected By a Professional

While there are many ways the DIY-loving homeowner can maintain his or her own furnace—in fact we discuss some of the most common problems in detail in our post Is Your Furnace Making Strange Sounds? How to Troubleshoot & Fix Furnace Clicking, Humming, or Whistling—professionals are often able to find more complex problems that require the attention of an experienced eye.

Finding furnace problems early can prevent your air quality from going any lower than necessary, and, equally important, will often end up saving you quite a bit of money in the long run. Annual maintenance for your furnace and the other components of your HVAC system can save you thousands.

Let Us Help You Prepare Your HVAC System for a Cold Colorado Winter

Please feel free to give us a ring at (970) 218-0414 or request a service appointment online if you’d like to have our team of experts come out to your home or business and maintain, repair, or replace any part of your Northern Colorado HVAC system. We look forward to serving you!

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