Posted by Janet Harriett on Jan.26, 2010

©iStockphoto.com - Aprad Nagy-Bagoly

When frost comes nipping and the snow falls, the days of popping open a window to get fresh air in are over for another few months. Even when you can get fresh air in periodically, indoor air quality can be questionable, and dust and pollutants build up in homes hunkered down against the cold.  In energy-efficient houses with tight envelopes to reduce energy loss, the lack of air exchange affects indoor air quality even more quickly. With these five steps, you can keep your indoor air quality up all winter.

1. Clean

Keeping a proper cleaning regimen is an overlooked component of indoor air quality in winter. Vacuuming and dusting regularly reduces the amount of particulates that can potentially go airborne. When you’re cleaning hard surfaces, use low-VOC cleaning solutions to limit pollutant buildup. Microfiber mops allow you to clean hard floors with only water, without using floor cleansers.

Filter

Choosing the best furnace filter helps get the gunk out of the air. Furnace filters come in several grades. Green Diva Mom likes the Filtrete Ultra Allergen Reduction filters because they are readily available at major retailers, are reasonably priced, and trap all but the smallest airborne particles.

Although most disposable furnace filters claim to be good for 90 days, they loose effectiveness much sooner. Change your furnace filter monthly to get the best filtration power. As a bonus, your furnace blower will be more efficient with less dirt clogging up the filter.

Reusable furnace filters create less waste for the environment than a monthly change of a disposable pleated filter. However, cleaning a reusable furnace filter may put some of the same filtered-out particles back into circulation in the home, and the reusable filters can’t trap particles as small as the disposable furnace filters.

Drop-in register filters add another layer of filtration to keep dust and allergens out of the air. These are small sheets of filter material that slip under the floor registers of your forced-air system.

Purify

Filtering removes particulate matter like dust from the air. Purifying the air, on the other hand, removes odor-causing molecules to get rid of the winter gamey smell in homes. Air purification can also be used to remove airborne contaminants like volatile organic compounds which, in warmer weather, can be vented out through an open window.

Electronic air purifiers can work through by killing germs with ultraviolet light, either in a freestanding unit or a system built into the duct work, or through ionization to attract the contaminants to a collection grid that is wiped clean. Ionizing purifiers tend to produce ozone that can accumulate indoors when ventilation is limited.

Porous materials like zeolite and activated carbon absorb airborne contaminants. Zeolite is a volcanic mineral often sold in mesh bags for odor elimination. The pores in zeolite expand in heat, so it can be reused indefinitely by leaving the zeolite outside in the warm sun every few months to release the trapped contaminants outdoors.

Plants provide natural air purification by exchanging carbon dioxide for oxygen to keep indoor air fresh. Greenery also keep spirits up in winter. Check out Three Plants to Grow Your Own Air and Plants the Clean the Air for which plants are best for freshening air.

Humidify

Cold air is dry air, and in winter, air can get painfully dry. The human body is about 70% water, and when the air gets very dry, the atmosphere sucks moisture out of you, causing cracked lips, nosebleeds, dry skin and brittle hair. Static builds up more in dry conditions, too, causing clothes to cling and any touch to risk shock–a particular problem in homes with a lot of green tech that can be damaged by the static discharge. Some germs and viruses thrive in the lower humidity, too.

A humidifier can keep the moisture level in the air at a comfortable level, with is usually around 40%-60%. Excess moisture can cause mold and mildew problems, so some trial and error is necessary to find a comfortable, healthy humidity level. Inexpensive hygrometers can help you determine the humidity level in a room; the on-board hygrometers in humidifiers are unreliable, since they are necessarily near the source of the humidity.

Even at a healthy humidity level, some condensation on windows is almost unavoidable, especially on north-facing windows.

Ventilate

Nature is the best air freshener, so whenever the weather warms up enough, open doors and windows to bring new air in.

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Posted under Green Clean Air, Home Environment.