Air quality outdoors has been a concern on many of our minds lately, as smoke from the Canadian wildfires drifts all the way south to us.
But how much do you know about indoor air quality? Indoor air is often more contaminated than outdoor air, but we don’t get air quality warnings about that with our weather forecasts.
We’d like to tell you a little bit about indoor air quality: how it’s contaminated, how air purifiers improve it, and how cleaner air can improve your life.
What Your Air Contains
You’re familiar with the dust that settles around your home, and you might know that much of it consists of dead skin cells. If you have pets, you also see dust bunnies of pet hair. Interestingly, it’s what you don’t see that causes pet allergies, not the fur. The pet dander people react to is, like so much of your dust, dead skin cells. Other allergens your indoor air likely contains include pollen and mold spores.
But wait, there’s more! Unhealthy compounds are released by everything from your carpet to your cleaning products. Coming in from outside you have auto exhaust and chemicals from pesticides, herbicides, construction materials, and everything else being used in your neighborhood. And don’t forget pathogens! Bacteria and viruses float around in the air as well.
What Air Purifiers Do
If you’re looking into air purifier services in Sterling, VA you may be wondering what makes a purifier different from an air filter. While air purifiers do contain a filter, they go far beyond what simple air filtration systems do. They specifically target the contaminants and neutralize them so they can’t sneak through or around a filter and keep causing trouble. How? The two types go about it in very different ways.
- Ionization purifiers pass the air through a field that magnetically charges the particles contained in the air. The air then passes over a plate that has an opposite charge. The particles can’t escape—they get stuck to the plate (which is removable and easily washed).
- UV purifiers pass the air through a beam of ultraviolet light at a specific frequency that is deadly to single-celled organisms. Under that light, the proteins in germs, bacteria, mold spores, pollen and more are scrambled like eggs. The chemical bonds are broken, and the pathogens are no more.
How You Can Benefit From an Air Purifier
Your home and your health can be much improved by having cleaner air. Fewer contaminants means fewer respiratory and allergy symptoms and a lower likelihood of asthma attacks. People report having more energy, better sleep, fewer headaches, and improved moods after getting air purifiers. Eradicating germs can help you and your family get sick less often, resulting in fewer days home from work and school. Killing mold spores means you won’t be breathing mold, but also that you won’t have it making an unsightly mess in your home. Of course having less dust means doing less dusting and sweeping and having a cleaner house.
There’s one more thing to keep in mind. When you smell something, that’s because there are actual particles of it in your nasal passages. That stinky-sneaker smell is registering in your brain because of foot bacteria making their way into your nose. When you eliminate those bacteria with an air purifier, you won’t have to smell them anymore.
AllTech Services, Inc. is your trusted resource for ways to improve your indoor air quality. Contact us today!