Indoor Air Quality Tips for a Unique Winter Season

With the brunt of winter right around the corner, you’re likely considering how you’re going to alter your plans to fit with pandemic restrictions and keep your family safer and healthier. If you are drumming up ways to make it as special as can be this year, consider these steps to simultaneously improve the indoor air quality in your home.

Keep social distancing in mind when planning get-togethers

The pandemic makes gathering tougher, so it’s important to take the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines into careful consideration before making plans to entertain.

Focus on air circulation

Well-circulated air can increase the delivery of cleaner air into your home.² If weather permits, open doors or windows to bring fresher air in. Keep your HVAC system on—the longer you run your HVAC on “fan” mode, the more of your indoor air can pass through the filter. To better capture airborne bacteria or virus particles, make sure the filter you’re using has a MERV rating of 13 or higher (Filtrete™ Smart Filters and Healthy Living Filters with an MPR 1900 and above hit this mark)—these filters are effective at capturing airborne viruses and other particles.³

Skip the smoke

Candles can give your home a cozy, festive smell, but candle soot can lower your indoor air quality while they burn—even soot-free candles can kick off invisible particulate matter that pollutes your indoor air. Instead, opt for air fresheners, potpourri and other scented items that don’t burn. Hint: Filtrete™ Whole House Air Fresheners—available in six scents, including the fall- and winter-friendly Crisp Cinnamon Apple—attach to your HVAC filter to distribute a long-lasting fragrance throughout your entire home.

If you have a fireplace in your home and you plan to use it during the winter, make sure to have a chimney sweep clean it thoroughly before use. Like candles, fireplaces can pollute your air with soot, ash and smoke. You can help mitigate these pollutants with a room air purifier, which cleans your indoor air on a room-by-room basis.

Run exhaust fans

Many of our favorite restaurants are closed this winter, which means lots of cooking at home! Frying foods in oil and baking foods at a high temperature can pollute your indoor air with grease particles and gas, so make sure you turn on the fan and open a window or two before you start cooking. Exhaust fans in your kitchen can also help circulate indoor air more effectively.²

Sources:

1. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/holidays.html

2. https://www.sfcdcp.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Interim-Guidance-Ventilation-FINAL-2020-09-12.pdf (PDF, 202.71 KB)

3. https://www.ashrae.org/technical-resources/filtration-disinfection