This may come as a surprise to you, but closing your windows doesn’t necessarily keep your home free from pollutants. In fact, you may be trapping pollutants in your home that a light, fresh breeze could well reduce.

Surprisingly, it is many of the things we use in in our home to make it smell and look clean and fresh that end up polluting the air.  Here at A&E Air Conditioning, we have compiled a list of our TOP 5 culprits, and these may well surprise you:

1. Many of the cleaning products we use in our home come with an included ‘odor’ such as “sea breeze” or “fresh lilies”. However, those scents pollute the air in the form of minute particles, often too small to be caught by air filters in HVAC units.
2. Aerosol scented sprays rely totally on airborne particles that we can smell, so each time you use an aerosol, you are polluting the air in your home as you are including the propellent as well as the scent into your room.
3. Candles are a prime culprit, whether scented or not. You have to check the packet carefully these days as many candles give off harmful formaldehyde when they burn, so ideally you want to look out for candles made from natural beeswax, or soy.
4. Air fresheners have become increasingly popular, especially the ones you plug into a socket and which release a constant stream of scented particles when the liquid is warmed up.
5. Vacuum cleaners. Now we must make it clear that we are talking about those older vacuum cleaners that do not have a HEPA filter. HEPA stands for high-efficiency particulate absorbing, which is just fancy talk to say that the filter will trap even the most minute of particles. Vacuums without such a filter will collect larger dust particles and household dirt, but simply circulate extremely small dust particles throughout your home.

One of the best ways to keep your home pollution free, especially if you or anyone in your family suffers from respiratory problems, is to install an air purification system, and to generally improve the quality of the air in your home, you could install a whole-house dehumidifier or have your HVAC ducting thoroughly cleaned.

To find out more about improving the quality of the air in your home, why not give us a call and we will be more than happy to share or expert knowledge on the subject with you.