When summer arrives, Culpeper VA residents close up their homes to keep the AC inside. Although tightly sealed homes increase energy efficiency, they can contribute to unhealthy indoor air quality. Here are several things you can do to keep your indoor air healthy during the summer months.

Control Moisture Levels

The humidity generated from showers and cooking, if ventilation fans aren’t used, provides ideal conditions for bacterial growth in your Culpeper home. Inhaling any of this growth can trigger allergies and sinus infections and harm your family’s health. Experts say that indoor humidity levels should range between 30% and 50%, with 45% being ideal.

You can control your indoor humidity in several ways. Make sure that kitchen and bathrooms have fans that exhaust moisture to the outside. Tending to your HVAC equipment with regular maintenance ensures that your AC unit plays its role in humidity control. Installing a whole-home dehumidifier or portable dehumidifier for specific trouble spots also helps you maintain healthy humidity levels and good indoor air quality.

Maintain Proper Ventilation

To save energy, your AC unit recirculates your indoor air. That can be a problem if the air is full of stale cooking odors, volatile organic compounds, and airborne pollutants such as dust. Good ventilation ensures the proper airflow that’s necessary to keep your family safe, your home comfortable, and your indoor air fresh.

Ceiling fans — along with bathroom and kitchen fans exhausted to the outside — help maintain proper airflow. On days when the outside air quality is satisfactory, a natural way to ventilate your home is to open the windows. On bad days, a whole-house ventilation system exchanges preconditioned outdoor air for contaminated indoor air.

If you have indoor air quality concerns, check out the air quality solutions we offer at Duct-Rite Mechanical LLC or call (540) 216-0545. We’re trained to evaluate your home and provide the solutions that deliver the comfort that you expect and deserve.

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