Indoor Air Quality is important to me, especially since I spend a lot of time in my home working. Having a new furnace has made me go through and seal things up more, clean dust out of my shop (I just bought an air cleaner for the shop), and make sure that my vents are working properly. This is a good time of year to review your house and take step to make the Indoor Air Quality better.
Getting a new high efficient furnace has taught me a lot about fine tuning it for the needs of my house. The longer run times and higher MERV filters are doing a great job cleaning up the air in my home. Installing an air cleaner in my shop has also improved the indoor air quality significantly, I wish I had done both sooner. I still need to install my humidifier on the new furnace (the HVAC guys did not) so in the cold winter months it is more comfortable. I keep my windows open when possible, so it is not a completely controlled environment.
Another part of Indoor air quality is ventilation. Making sure the bath vent is working well, the dryer vent is clear of debris, and the kitchen hood works as it should. I will be installing a new bath fan as I am doing some work in the attic (wired smoke alarms for another post) so this is a good time to get that up to date. I went trough the dryer vent and cleaned out all of the lint. Even with a smooth vent pipe it still gathers lint which is one of the most common cause of house fires. The kitchen vent needs some work that will try to address before winter.
On newer homes IAQ is addressed during construction. On older houses, like mine, it is addressing issues as identified and when time permits. Indoor Air Quality is often overlooked and one can go to extremes eliminating every VOC, odor, and contaminant. I tend to approach it as an ongoing project and try to be aware of what I bring into the home. Eliminating toxic cleaners will be another posting soon so please come again soon.
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