The Importance of Maintaining Healthy Indoor Air During Winter

The cold season is commonly associated with illnesses such as allergies, asthma, and other respiratory diseases. Also, since your furnace is working round the clock, there’s a chance your home’s air is compromised due to excessive heating.

Four Seasons Air Specialists is your leading HVAC company in Vadnais Heights MN that offers you an absolute solution to your indoor air quality problems.

The Problem of Energy-Efficiency

These days, more and more homes are built “tight” to achieve greater energy-efficiency levels. Some construction methods such as improved insulation, weather-stripping, enhanced windows, and exterior doors are some of the ways used to tighten up a home. Sadly, more energy-efficient homes aren’t all good news. Due to the absence of proper ventilation, they suffer from poor indoor air quality. Airborne particles are stuck inside the home and can collect to a harmful level, causing a number of health issues.

The Quality of Indoor Air During Winter


Because of the cold nature of the weather, it’s fairly normal to keep your home as airtight as possible. Total insulation and sealing around the doors, windows, and other airways is important to avoid heat from leaving your home. You would do your best to keep all of the heated air inside to keep you and your family not only to make you comfortable but also safe from the negative effects of exposure to sub-zero temperatures. The right insulation also helps you to minimize your furnace usage.

Nonetheless, keeping your home as tight as possible inhibits the essential swapping of fresh outdoor air and stale indoor air. Considering the fact that indoor air can be up to 2-5 times more polluted than the air outside, you and your family are at risk of developing respiratory diseases due to exposure to polluted indoor air.

Household items such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) found in soap, shampoo, detergent, cleaning agents, and similar items can contaminate your indoor air. In addition, dust mites, formaldehyde, pet dander, dirt, and debris are also instrumental in lowering the quality of your indoor air. When these contaminants remain trapped inside the home, they can pose serious danger to you and your family.

Poor Indoor Air Quality and Your Health

Repeated exposure to indoor pollutants such as asbestos and radon, which are common in any home, can have serious effects, including cancer. According to research, 17 percent of annual premature lung cancer deaths can be associated with exposure to carcinogens from indoor air pollution caused by heating with solid fuels like wood, charcoal, and coal.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, indoor air pollution is one of the top five environmental risks to public health. Nearly anyone can be at risk, depending on their preexisting health conditions and the homes they live in, especially because most Americans spend up to 90 of their time indoors.

Children, in particular, are more susceptible to this risk as their bodies are still developing, and it is physically more challenging for children to process toxins compared to adults. Also, children are more fragile to exposures. That’s because they breathe, eat, and drink more relative to their size than adults do, and they play closer to the ground, manifest more hand-to-mouth activities, and are not capable enough to identify and protect themselves from potential hazards.

How to Protect Yourself from Indoor Air Pollution

Regular home cleaning is a step toward having cleaner indoor air. However, it isn’t enough to thoroughly purge airborne contaminants. For optimum cleaning, consider using an air purification system, which is an effective way to eliminate household pollutants. It cleans the air by passing air through filters, which capture small particles and remove them from your indoor air. Air purifiers can be helpful with allergies, unpleasant smells, snoring and more.

Certain air purifiers use high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters that effectively catch 99.97 percent of airborne particles larger than 0.3 microns. These highly efficient filters take away smaller allergens like dust, smoke, chemicals, asbestos, pollen, and pet dander.

Questions? Call Four Seasons Air Specialists

If you need help evaluating your indoor air quality and making your home a safer abode, give us a call. We are your trusted Woodbury heating and air conditioning company.