Good indoor air quality (IAQ) is essential to staying healthy and comfortable in your home in Harrisonburg, VA. The threats to this important attribute are not always obvious, so it pays to know how to spot issues in this area. These are three signs that could indicate your home has poor indoor air quality.
Poor Respiratory Health
If your home has poor IAQ, you’ll almost certainly feel this in the form of a variety of respiratory symptoms. You may suddenly begin coughing, sneezing, feeling lightheaded, or developing headaches when you didn’t before. If the symptoms worsen when you spend more time at home, your air quality is likely the culprit.
If you suffer from allergies, your symptoms may appear in a persistent form. In extreme cases of indoor pollution, you may even experience nosebleeds or vomiting.
All these symptoms might result from exposure to airborne contaminants like pollen, dust, dust mites, pet dander, organic growth, and volatile organic compounds. Prolonged exposure to high concentrations of such things may even cause you to contract severe respiratory diseases like COPD.
Problems Sleeping
The same pollutants that can make your life so unpleasant during waking hours will also have the power to torment you in your sleep. Specifically, constantly irritated lungs, sinuses, eyes and throat can prevent you from breathing properly, disturbing your rest. Lack of sleep will make you feel sluggish, weaken your immune system and leave you open to opportunistic diseases.
Weak HVAC Performance
Finally, if you notice your HVAC system’s performance declining, pollutants may be the cause. Choking off the flow of air through your system and coating the internal components, airborne dust, and other contaminants will decrease the effectiveness of your HVAC system in keeping you cool. Thus, your utility bills and the total stress on your system may rise.
Many other things may cause these same difficulties, however. Remember to provide your system with annual maintenance to keep your system in good shape.
With all of the short-term and long-term dangers of bad IAQ, we recommend taking immediate action when you become aware of bad air quality in your home. Call Valley Air Heating, Cooling & Plumbing and ask for our IAQ services in Harrisonburg, VA today.
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