How to Reduce Home Dust with Your HVAC System
When the weather warms up, you can’t wait to open your windows and let that fresh air and sunshine in. But if you suffer from seasonal allergies, that fresh air comes with sneezing and congestion from all the pollen and dust.
Instead of spending your entire spring cleaning, find out how you can get your HVAC system to do the work for you.
What Causes Home Dust?
No matter how much you clean, your home will gather dust. You may wipe down your surfaces every day, keep up with pet hair, and more, only to find dust landing on your furniture.
Where does all of it come from? Dust is an accumulation of dead skin cells, pollen, pet dander, household dirt, and more, so just living in your home will cause dust. When this happens, you can have bad allergies, it can be miserable.
If you want to cut back on cleaning every day without seeing dust everywhere, you can prevent it from the start with your HVAC system.
How to Reduce Home Dust
You will have dust no matter what you do, but your HVAC system can be your first line of defense to prevent dust from building up on furniture and surfaces. Here’s what you can do:
Replace Your Air Filters
One of the best ways to reduce dust in your home is with your HVAC filter. This essential component of your HVAC system is to filter out dirt, dust, and allergens to ensure your home’s air is clean.
Your filter will also gather dust over time, however, so you have to replace it to keep everything in working order. You can also upgrade your filter to one that’s better equipped to keep your air clean.
Air filters are classified by MERV ratings. MERV ratings below 4 are for the average homeowner, but they won’t work to clear out all the small dust particles. The filters with a MERV rating above 13 are designed to gather virtually every little particle of dust or dirt, but they’re not appropriate for your home. These are designed to be used in commercial or specialized spaces, such as a hospital or office building.
Aim for a MERV filter rating between 4 and 13 to ensure your home is as clean as it can be.
Changing your air filter regularly can help you reduce your dust buildup, but keep in mind that relying too much on your filter will make your HVAC system work harder. It’s important to change your filter regularly – at least every six months.
Use the HVAC Fan While Cleaning
Air filters are good for removing the dust and dirt that’s floating around the air, but what can you do about the dust and dirt that ends up on your surfaces?
If you turn on your HVAC fan while you’re cleaning, you can keep all that dust and dirt from floating up into the air, only to fall back on your furniture and floors. The dust you kick up while you’re cleaning will get sucked into the air filter instead.
Inspect Your Air Ducts
With all the dust that ends up on your furniture and floors, can you imagine how much must be hiding in your air ducts?
It’s important to have your ducts professionally cleaned on a routine basis. Otherwise, you’ll find that a lot of your household dust ends up stuck in your ducts, building up and forcing your HVAC to work harder. Worse yet, all of this dust and dirt will get blown out into your home while your HVAC is running.
Regular duct cleanings should be part of your HVAC’s maintenance to not only reduce the dust that ends up in your home but keep your HVAC system functioning optimally.
Clean Air Vent Registers
Whether dust is coming from your ducts or ending up in the vent from traveling through the air, a lot will get caught in the vent registers. They’re the perfect place for dust and dirt to get stuck in nooks and crannies.
This is an easy fix, fortunately. Wipe down your air vents once a week to keep the dust from building up.
Install an Electric Air Cleaner
These steps are a good start, but if you’re still worried about dust ending up in your home, invest in an electric air cleaner. This is a component for your HVAC system that filters out microscopic particles from the air, helping your home stay cleaner.
Electric air cleaners use electrical pulses to draw in dust and dirt particles, catching all the pollutants that come with them like bacteria, viruses, and mold spores. If you suffer from seasonal allergies or a respiratory condition, this is the best way to make sure there are less contaminants in your home.
Book a Routine HVAC Inspection and Tune Up
Your HVAC system is a complex and expensive aspect of your home. It works hard all year – harder if you’re in extreme climates – and regular HVAC maintenance is necessary to keep it running at its best.
If you need an HVAC tune-up or want to improve your indoor air quality, contact us at Bell Brothers!