The home is a relaxing haven every family member looks forward to after a busy day. So, it’s a must to keep it clean at all times, including the quality of air that circulates within its walls. However, indoor air quality can be affected by contaminants and allergens, including viruses and other microorganisms, that can compromise your own and your family’s health and safety. One way to keep indoor air clean is by adding air filters.
In this post, you’ll learn the top reasons why you need to add air filters around your home.
1. Avoid Allergy Attacks
Both outdoor and indoor pollution can aggravate allergies, which affect 50 million Americans every year. Allergies can be lethal because of hypersensitivity as triggered by different types of allergens. Even the slightest dust exposure or air impurities can trigger an attack for people suffering from allergies, which can, at times, be debilitating.
An air purifier ensures that your home is free of impurities, providing utmost protection and comfort. Air filters can trap air contaminants, most especially minute ones that are unseen by the naked eyes, which could help avoid allergy attacks.
Here are some tips when installing filters to avoid allergy attacks inside your home:
- There are various furnace filter sizes, and measuring the size (length, width, and height) you need is important before buying one. While the size can be found on the air filter, you might need to find the measurements yourself if you don’t see any printed numbers on your old filter.
- If it’s for a new installation of air filter, hiring a professional installer is highly recommended to determine the correct size of air filter, based on the size of your living space.
2. Prevent Respiratory Complications
Aside from preventing asthma attacks, installing air filters can also prevent respiratory complications. For instance, inhalation of microbes can aggravate bronchitis and may result in pneumonia, especially among children and the elderly.
When good indoor air quality is not maintained, inflammation of the lungs may occur over time, leading to permanent lung injury. This may lead to pulmonary fibrosis or scarring of the lung tissue and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD.
Here’s how air filters work to prevent respiratory complications brought about by contaminated air:
- Routine cleaning and installation of new air filters can significantly improve indoor air quality. While larger particles can be controlled by regular dusting, washing of sheets, and vacuuming, small particles are filtered by air filters.
- Mechanical air filters trap air particles through their filters. One type of mechanical filter is high-efficiency particulate air or HEPA filter, which can also trap gases.
3. Maintain Good Indoor Air Quality
An air filter’s efficiency is measured and expressed through minimum efficiency reporting value or MERV rating, which ranges from 1 to 20. When the rating is higher, it means that the amount of particulates is higher than what the air filter can handle.
Because there are different rating systems for air filters, it’s important to compare different filters. A high MERV rating can block air from circulating effectively, so you also have to consider the age of your HVAC system. Get assistance from an HVAC company or sales associate to know the best air filter to install in your home.
Check out this MERV rating system designed by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers:
- Low-Efficiency Air Filter (Grade 1 To 4): It is designed to protect your HVAC system, but it won’t improve indoor air quality.
- Medium Efficiency Air Filter (Grade 5 To 13): It can remove small to large air particles, such as viruses, bacteria, pet dander, and some molds. However, it’s not useful in filtering dust mites. On the other hand, Grades 7 to 13 air filters function close enough to a level of high-efficiency filters.
- High-Efficiency Air Filter (Grade 14 To 16): This type of air filter can process very small particulates (0.3 microns or larger) and is the best standard air filter available.
4. Gain Peace Of Mind
By installing the right air filter around your home, you’ll have peace of mind, knowing that your children, aging parents, and everyone entering your home will have clean air to breathe. Remember that excellent indoor air quality prevents the worsening of health conditions and lowers the possibility of contracting coronavirus. Also, it promotes more time for families to bond because of less sick days.
Conclusion
Adding air filters in your home can help improve indoor air quality, filtering large and small air particles with the help of a reliable HVAC system. Also, air filters help prevent asthma attacks and pulmonary complications that can compromise the health and safety of all household members.
