December 12, 2023
It’s officially holiday season here in the Douglasville area and many homeowners are already making preparations. In the midst of shopping and celebrating, however, it’s important to pay attention to your home’s indoor air quality throughout the winter months.
We all tend to spend more time indoors when the weather turns cold, but did you know that the EPA reports indoor air can be up to five times more polluted than the air outdoors? This can be especially true during the holiday season with extra guests and cooking going on around many homes. At Anchor Heating & Air, we offer several ways to make sure you’re breathing clean, healthy air and have put together this list of tips and tricks to help.
1. Schedule Heating Maintenance
Your heating system is responsible for keeping you comfortable throughout the winter months, but it can also distribute pollutants throughout your home if it is left unmaintained. During a heating maintenance visit from the team at Anchor, we’ll thoroughly inspect your system to not only ensure it’s operating at peak performance, but that it’s running as safely as possible, too.
Heating maintenance is especially important to your indoor air quality if you have a traditional, combustion furnace. We’ll check your furnace for carbon monoxide leaks and other contaminants that could be dangerous to your family’s health.
2. Install a Whole-Home Humidifier
Winters tend to be dryer in Newnan and elsewhere in Metro-Atlanta, which can make it easier for your family to get sick during flu season as well as dry skin or even structural damage to your home. At Anchor, we install several indoor air quality products, including the Aprilaire 800 humidifier. Installing a humidifier can help you stay warmer throughout the winter and keep your home at the EPA recommended indoor humidity range of 30-50%. Aprilaire humidifiers even have a ductless model that integrates perfectly in homes with mini split heat pumps.
3. Change Your HVAC Air Filters
While changing the air filter on your heating system is part of our furnace or heat pump maintenance checklist, they should be changed more often than once a year. Ideally, you should be changing your HVAC air filter every 30-60 days, but during the holiday season when indoor activity is at its highest, more often may be necessary. In addition to standard air filters for furnaces and heat pumps, Anchor also offers a wide selection of air filters with high MERV and HEPA ratings.
4. Consider Air Purification
If poor air quality is something that you deal with in your home at other times of the year, it will almost certainly get worse during the holidays. Your home’s indoor air quality can be affected by many factors, from your heating system to what cleaners and products you use. We install high-performance air purifiers from REME that can help keep your family safe from airborne and surface bacteria, viruses, and even odors—just in case someone burns the turkey.
5. Get a Live Christmas Tree
In addition to the mechanical ways to improve your indoor air quality at home, there are several small changes that can help keep volatile organic compounds (VOCs) at bay, like opting for a live tree. While there are several safety tips to keep in mind when using a real tree, they are much better for air quality than their plastic counterparts.
Don’t Let IAQ Ruin Your Holiday Season, Call Anchor Heating & Air
We understand the important role indoor air quality plays in how comfortable we feel in our homes and want to ensure that our clients around Austell and Peachtree City breathe easier. From our EZ-Pay Program that offers peace of mind with HVAC maintenance to our comprehensive IAQ solutions for Atlanta homes, Anchor is here for you.