When we talk about air quality, most of us think of hot, smoggy days in the city, but what about the air quality in your home? Airborne mould spores, pollen, dust mites, and other pollutants may be floating around your home, polluting the air you breathe.

“Experts agree that the air inside the house is five to ten times worse than the air you breathe outside,” explains Jon-George Popowich, general manager at Boonstra’s One Hour Heating & Air Conditioning. Homes built since the 1970s have been built so tight to make them energy efficient and the reason why the air quality is so poor is that indoor pollutants never get a chance to escape. Most new homes are filled with man-made materials, particles, and cleaning agents that we end up breathing in as we go about our daily lives.

So how do you improve the air quality in your home? Popowich has a few recommendations to help you eliminate the chemical soup in which you may be bathing in your home.

“We can remove the source by cleaning the duct work in the house and then putting a good filter in place,” says Popowich, adding that a better filter will help eliminate more dust from redistributing in the house.

Dilution is another method used to help improve air quality by introducing fresh air into the house. Heat recovery ventilators remove stale air out of the house and replace it with fresh, clean air from outside. These units can be added to your current system to help improve the air quality.

For those people who suffer from extreme allergies and asthma, a hypoallergenic home may be the perfect solution to help eliminate some unpleasant symptoms. Popowich explains that these homes combine several different methods to help improve air quality. Hi-tech HEPA filters are high-efficiency filters that remove airborne particles. Used in conjunction with carbon filters that absorb odours and different volatile organic compounds, the air quality will be significantly improved.

Another part of the system is the UV light, which replicates what Mother Nature does naturally outside.

“Germs and bacteria don’t like ultraviolet radiation and UV light is exactly that,” says Popowich, adding that the low levels of UV introduced into your heating and cooling system help destroy a variety of bacteria living in your ducts.

So how do you determine the air quality in your home? Boonstra’s One Hour offers air quality tests, where a technician walks through the home to assess your current system and what challenges you may be facing regarding air pollutants.

“We use particulate counters, which measure the amount of particles in the air, right down to a submicron level, so we can really see the things that you’re breathing that may be triggering your allergies and asthma,” explains Popowich. “We don’t claim to be doctors, but it will defiantly lower the pollutants that you’re breathing and decrease the likelihood of you having things like asthma flairs, allergic reactions to dust and pollen and dust mites.

For more information on air quality tests at Boonstra’s One Hour, visit www.boonstrasonehour.com.