Winter temperatures are starting to subside, and that means spring is upon us! Before long, it’ll be time to open up the doors and windows and enjoy the warmer temperatures. And with those warmer temperatures comes spring cleaning season. After a long winter of being cooped up inside to avoid the frigid cold, spring cleaning provides you with an opportunity to refresh your home, get rid of old junk, and give everything inside a thorough, careful cleaning that you’ll enjoy for months going forward.
However, spring cleaning can do so much more for you than simply clean your floors, furniture, and other possessions—it can also clean the air in your home as well. In this blog, our Mandeville HVAC service experts will explain how.
Spring Cleaning & Your Indoor Air Quality
When you open up your home for spring cleaning, you’re actually doing something you more than likely haven’t done for weeks or even months—allowed a significant amount of time for fresh air to flow into your home. When you’re depending on your furnace or heater to keep you comfortable, you’re keeping your home shut to the outside world. This keeps more of that valuable heat inside where you need it and keeps your energy bills lower. However, this comes at a cost: your indoor air keeps getting recycled through your HVAC system, and that means it progressively degrades in quality.
It’s not uncommon for many indoor air quality problems to arise over winter. First off, indoor odors tend to develop over these months, and they often go unnoticed simply because you live with them. Your nose becomes accustomed to them, and before long you don’t notice the various smells that have built up over weeks or months. It’s like cooking a strong-smelling food like bacon or broccoli in your home—after a while you stop smelling it, but after a trip outside your home for a half-hour or so, the smell hits you like a brick again when you return.
Second, airborne dust and other floating quality hazards tend to accumulate as well. Your furniture may have accumulated a strong supply of dust over winter, but a good chunk of that dust could very well be in the air as well. This problem is only made exponentially worse by having dirty, dusty air ducts that are packed with hazards like mold spores, dust, mildew, and so much more. This is why having your air ducts cleaned should be a pivotal part of your spring cleaning.
Finally, another reason why your indoor air tends to suffer in winter is purely because you spend more time indoors. Have you ever noticed how it seems like everybody tends to get sick when the temperature drops? At this point, a common cold spreads like wildfire, and everyone around has it before you know it. Well, this isn’t due to the actual cold—in fact, it’s name is a misnomer. The reason why the common cold spreads so rapidly during winter is because people spend so much time inside. When someone is sick, the illness-causing bacteria can be spread through surface contact and even through the air itself. Airborne bacteria and viruses tend to accumulate in homes during winter, and that’s why it’s so crucial to keep a constant supply of fresh air flowing through your home.
When doing your spring cleaning this season, open up the doors and windows and let fresh air make your indoor air quality improve tremendously. And be sure to call the Mandeville HVAC service experts from Nu-Air Heating and Cooling, LLC at (985) 288-2445 to schedule your air conditioner maintenance as soon as possible!