For a Comfortable Holiday, Clean the Air Before Things Get Busy

Air quality may not be at the top of most people’s concerns during the holiday season, but maybe it should be. If you’re having guests visiting your Utah home for the holidays or if you’re concerned about your family’s health, Triple T offers a few tips to help the people in your home breathe cleaner air as you celebrate.

7 Tips to Improve Indoor Air Quality

• Before Displaying, Clean Your Decorations. – After a year packed away in a box, there’s a good chance that your baubles on the tree and other things you set out this time of year to brighten your home may have gotten a little dusty. Wiping them down before you display them not only brightens your decorations, but it also eliminates some of the contaminants that can cause sneezing and other respiratory issues.
• Reconsider Your Candles. – If you love to decorate with candles, you might want to swap out traditional fire-lit candles with those that operate with battery power instead of the regular flame. This is helpful because it reduces the number of contaminants in the air, but can also reduce the potential fire danger.
• Leave Shoes Outside. – Like the previous tip, this one can do double duty. When guests leave their shoes outside, you reduce the entry of things like pollen, dirt, and other allergens into your home. It also helps to keep your home cleaner and to reduce the amount of vacuuming and mopping you might otherwise have to do.
• Choose Your Tree Carefully. – To reduce the potential for asthma and allergy issues and to limit the introduction of allergens into your home, you might want to consider a fake tree. These don’t bring dirt in from the outdoors, they don’t spread pollen, and they don’t drop pine needles everywhere as the season progresses. If you do opt for a live tree, be sure to keep it watered to prevent drying out, and to vacuum often to get the shed pine needles off the floor and out of the air.
• Replace Air Filters Early. – If your HVAC filters are on the list for a change, do it early in the month and you’ll have a bit of extra help to ensure that the air is crisp and clean in your home this holiday season.
• Add an Air Purifier. – All of the previous tips help, but if you want to boost your air cleaning efforts, even more, you might want to consider the use of an air purifier with a HEPA filter. Some of these can even remove cigarette smoke and the smells that come in on a guest’s clothing from the air.
• Vacuum Early and Often. – There’s no way to block every particle out of a home. This is why even with all other efforts and regular care of your HVAC system, we suggest that you vacuum and sweep your home frequently.

If you’re in need of a holiday checkup for your HVAC system before the holidays kick into high gear and things get crazy busy, contact our team at Triple T in Utah County and Washington County to schedule a maintenance visit today!