Maintain Your Indoor Air Quality While Cleaning Your Home

Cleaning your home is something we all do. Some of us more than others, but it is a fact of life that our homes need cleaning. In general, cleaning and indoor air quality do not go together. The chemicals, scents and additives in many cleaning products are not conducive to good indoor air quality. Yes, your room might smell like lemons and flowers, but that typically comes with off gassing and other particulates being added to your air. There is hope however and we will take a look at what can be done to eliminate or at least lessen the negative effects of cleaning your home. Sorry, you will still need to clean, but let’s do it with less negative impact on your indoor air quality.

Use Natural Cleaners

There are a lot of cleaners on the market that claim to be natural. When we refer to natural cleaners, we are looking for ones that do not have dyes or perfumes added. That is generally where the “bad” stuff is located. There are three challenges to natural cleaners however. First, they are generally more and sometimes significantly more expensive than traditional cleaners. This can cause many people to move towards more traditional cleaners. Second, many just don’t clean or disinfect as well as traditional cleaners. Third, it is hard to determine which ones are actually natural. It seems like everyone says their products are all natural, yet when you look into it, you see a whole list of additives or you find out that what makes it a “green’ cleaner is they put it in a recycled bottle.

Ventilate While You Clean

One of the best strategies you can have no matter what type of cleaners you are using is to ventilate as you clean. Most homes will have at least one exhaust fan (bathroom exhaust fan or kitchen range hood). Utilizing an exhaust fan as you clean will help to remove the particulates being released into the air. Going room by room, here is how that would look:

Bathroom

Turn on the exhaust fan and leave it running for about 30 minutes after you are done cleaning. That will help to remove the initial release of chemicals during cleaning and any residuals after. If you don’t have an exhaust fan in the bathroom, open a window if the weather allows.

Kitchen

If your range hood vents to the outdoors, turn it on. As with the bathroom, this will remove the initial and residual release of chemicals. If you do not have a range hood that exhausts to the outside (many just recirculate the air back into the kitchen), open a window or door if possible. Something to keep in mind is the range hood can be very effective for removing particulates from cleaning the range, but also the floors, counters and other areas of the kitchen. We can sometimes think the range hood is only for the cooking surface, but it is also very effective for the other areas of the kitchen as well.

Laundry Room

This is a tougher one as many laundry rooms do not have ventilation fans in them. While we recommend that one be installed, we also understand that the costs and logistics of doing so, might be a deterrent. If an exhaust fan is not possible, opening a door or window if possible will help.

Other areas of the home

Many of us think, laundry room, bathroom and kitchen in terms of cleaning, but the rest of the home needs cleaning as well. That might be using a hardwood or tile cleaner on the floors, shampoo on the carpet, furniture polish and so forth. All of these can give off particulates. Opening a window or door if possible is a good first step, but have you considered the exhaust fans? Generally, these areas are in close proximity to an exhaust fan. Think about turning your range hood on when you are cleaning the living room right next to the kitchen. Turning the exhaust fan in the powder room on when you are cleaning the hallway. What about the exhaust fan in the master bathroom while you are cleaning the bedroom? The goal is to get the bad stuff out of the house and using exhaust fans is a very effective way to do so.

BONUS NOTE: Some will say to utilize a portable fan like a box fan while you are cleaning. While this would be effective to remove the particulates from the room, the issue is where are they going? If you are able to put the fan in the window and have it blow outside, that is very effective as you basically just created a very large exhaust fan. Even if you have the outside air coming in, you are at least diluting the particulates and making the air better to breath. The trouble comes when you are just pushing the particulates to other rooms of the home. Now instead of negatively affecting the indoor air quality of just one room, you are contaminating multiple rooms. Fans can be affective, just keep in mind where the air is moving and are you providing a way for the air to exit the dwelling.

The goal of this post is to get you thinking about what you can do (small or large) to better your indoor air quality while cleaning your home. Some of the items are very simple, some more involved. Ask yourself, what can you commit to do to make sure the air you are breathing is the best it can be. For more information about exhaust fans and range hoods, visit airkinglimited.com.

Is Your Home Clean?

Seems like a simple question – Is your home clean? Many of us would say yes, for the most part it is clean. There might be a loose sock or two lying around and the kids might have just dragged some grass or dirt in, but its not like there is an inch of mud on the floors. Asking if your home is clean is a bit of a loaded question because the answer always NO. Now we are not here to judge your house but we are here to help you understand what factors make it not clean. Notice we are not saying dirty. While dirt does contribute to the uncleanliness of a house, it is not the only factor.

When we refer to a clean house we are looking at things you can see as well as things you can’t. Some are easier than other. For instance when your white rugs look closer to brown than white, they are not clean. If there is dirt and dust all over, it is easy to see that the home is not clean. Where it gets tricky is when you are dealing with unseen or very hard to see contaminates. These would include things floating around in the air like viruses, particulate matter and so forth. Even something like dust is actually hard to see until it piles up on surfaces.

There are numerous items that cause our homes to not be clean. Just daily living in your home is going to cause it to not be clean. Add in pets, kids, guests and so forth and the battle to keep it clean increases exponentially. Here is where we can go one of three ways. First is to ball up in a fetal position and tell yourself you're doomed. We don’t recommend that. Second is to try and clean everything constantly, hose off the dog and kids every time they come in from outside and basically drive yourself crazy. Again, not what we recommend. Third is to create a strategy to minimize contaminates and increase your indoor air quality. How do you do this?

1. Look at your home and what activities are causing contaminates. As we have spoken about at length in other blog posts, cooking is one of the top contributors to contaminates in the home. If you are finding grease or other build-up on or around the cooktop that is an indication that you haven’t been using the range hood, don’t have one, or need a better one that vents to the outdoors.
2. Are you using your bathroom exhaust fans? Exhausting contaminates including moister decreases the possibility of mold and mildew from forming. They also help to remove any off-gassing from things like cleaners.
3. Do you make everyone take off their shoes when they come into the house so they don’t drag dirt in? Do you brush the dog regularly to decrease the amount of hair floating around (large dog owners we understand, this can be a full time job with a shedding dog in the summer months – do your best).
4. Do you burn candles? They can be a major contributor to poor indoor air quality. You can read more about that here.
5. Do you have a regular cleaning routine. We talked about obsessive cleaning and it being a bit unrealistic, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be part of a regular routine. When using cleaners look for ones with low VOC’s and utilize the exhaust fans of the home (bathroom fans as well as kitchen range hoods) to exhaust any of the cleaning chemicals that are released into the air during the process. On good air quality days, opening a window is also a good option.

So we come back to the first question – Is your home clean? The answer is always going to be no, but hopefully we have given you some things to consider and look for to increase the cleanliness of your home which will have a positive effect on the overall indoor air quality of your home.

For information about exhaust fans, range hoods and fresh air solutions visit www.airkinglimited.com