How is air quality measured at home?
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)we spend around 90% of our time indoors – at home, in the office or in educational institutions.
Poor indoor air quality is the number one environmental health risk — responsible for more than 6.5 million premature deaths worldwide every year — according to the World Health Organization. The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the importance of clean air and improved ventilation, as well as measuring indoor air quality.
We look at how you can keep an eye on the air quality in your home and whether humidifiers—devices that add moisture to the air—can improve your air quality. Check out our guide to the The best humidifiers for the facts about these devices.
Home air quality: what you need to know
Outdoor air quality has been a concern for many years, but what about indoor air quality? The concentration of pollutants in the air inside can be between two and five times higher than in the air outside, the says EPA, meaning health risks can be greater indoors. But why?
Pollutants such as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and ozone at low levels can enter your home from the outside, but many things you find indoors have a cumulative and adverse effect on your air quality.
The most harmful pollutant are small particles resulting from the combustion of solid fuels used in cooking and heating. Other sources include soot, smoke, dust, dirt, mold, tobacco products, detergents and cosmetics, and central heating and cooling systems.
But how do you know if you have poor air quality in your home? Immediate but short-term effects include irritation of the eyes, nose and throat, headaches, dizziness and fatigue, he says EPA. Repeated or prolonged exposure can lead to long-term health problems such as chronic and acute respiratory diseases, heart disease and cancer.
Reducing or eliminating the source of pollution can restore air quality in your home. Opening doors and windows improves ventilation and allows air to circulate naturally, diluting emissions and literally blowing pollutants away. Mechanical ventilation, such as with outdoor fans, can remove air from a single room, while ventilation systems at strategic points in the home replace indoor air with filtered outdoor air.
You could also use an air purifier that best air purifieror a humidifier to increase the humidity levels in the home to keep irritants like mold and pollutants in check.
Can Humidifiers Help With Home Air Quality?
Humidifiers are electronic devices that increase the humidity, or level of moisture in the air, usually in a single room in your home. According to the information, the optimal humidity is between 30% and 50% Centers for Disease Control and Preventionbut humidity can drop as low as 10% in winter when cold outside air is warmed and dried indoors.
“Humidifiers are especially helpful in cold climates, where indoor humidity levels can be too low in winter,” says Eric Schiff, a physics professor and air quality expert at Syracuse University. “Bedroom humidifiers used with the bedroom door closed can cost-effectively improve air quality.”
Humidifiers come in different forms, but they all have the same basic principle: they add more moisture to the air. There are warm mist humidifiers, like a vaporizer that heats water into steam; cold-mist humidifiers such as the evaporative humidifier, which uses a fan to blow air over a wet wick; the impeller, which creates a mist using a rotating disk, and an ultrasonic humidifier, which emits water using a vibrating atomizer.
Humidifiers improve the air quality in your home by increasing the moisture content of the air. This can alleviate a number of health issues, including dermatitis, a condition in which the skin can become dry, itchy, and scaly. Increasing humidity can prevent drying of the mucous membranes in the nose and throat, as well as dry cough and dry eye syndrome, which are often caused by cold, dry and dusty environments.
We should also be careful to avoid excess moisture, says Schiff. “Humidifiers should be operated primarily to increase relative humidity to 40% if possible. Lower values increase a person’s susceptibility to diseases. Higher concentrations lead to the growth of organisms such as mold, which are unhealthy.”
Steps to measure home air quality
You can measure the air quality in your home with an always-on electronic monitor that continuously tests and reports pollutant and humidity levels via a built-in display panel or a connection to a smartphone. Some also track temperature, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide levels to get a real-time overall view of air quality at all times.
“Many inexpensive indoor thermometers also measure relative humidity. These are recommended,” says Schiff. “More advanced and expensive devices also measure small particles and volatile organic compounds in the air. These can be helpful when there are health issues in a family or when living in places with significant air pollution.”
Carbon dioxide monitors can identify poor ventilation areas and are being increasingly used in schools and work environments to help stem the spread of the coronavirus, the says Health and Safety Officer. COVID-19 spreads easily indoors, and increasing ventilation with outside air or using air purifiers can counteract the spread, says Schiff: “These measures are important in public spaces such as shops, restaurants and schools.”
It’s also worth getting a carbon monoxide meter to test for the tasteless, odorless and colorless gas, especially if you have a gas oven or stove. The gas is a byproduct of fuel combustion and is lighter than air, so monitors should be placed high up near the ceiling.
Air quality in your home or indoor spaces can pose a significant health risk, especially during the coronavirus pandemic. You can measure your air quality with an in-home monitor that gives you real-time readings, and then take action to improve air quality by either improving ventilation, reducing pollutants, or increasing humidity with a humidifier when the air is too is dry .
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