Awareness of the importance of “healthy homes” has been on the rise in the past few years as families are realizing the significant role that their homes can play when it comes to health and safety.
Healthy homes have cleaner, fresher indoor air, lower levels of air pollutants, are pest-free, and are well-maintained to avoid safety hazards.
So what are some of the different ways that you can ensure that you’re living in a healthy home? At Total Home Performance, healthy homes are our specialty. Here are five ways you can get on the right track with your Eastern Shore house.
1. Schedule a Healthy Home Assessment
In the same way that energy audits can help you get to the bottom of energy efficiency issues in your house, healthy home assessments can help you identify the specific challenges you’re facing in creating a healthy home for your family.
A healthy home assessment includes tests and visual inspections of the parts of your home most commonly responsible for creating an unhealthy living situation. Symptoms we look for include:
-
Poor indoor air quality
-
Mold & moisture
-
Indoor drafts
-
Dust & allergens
-
Poor ventilation or the need for air purifiers / filters
-
Pests & rodents
With the results of your healthy home assessment, you can schedule the services you really need to make your home cleaner, healthier, and more comfortable.
2. Improve Your Indoor Air Quality (IAQ)
Indoor air contains 2 to 5 times the levels of certain pollutants as outdoor air on average, so it’s important to take steps to ensure that the air in your home isn’t making you sick or causing allergies and asthma to act up.
Common air pollutants can range from dust and pet dander to VOCs from cleaning products, mold, smoke, and more. There are many different ways to address poor IAQ, including upgrading your insulation and air sealing to help prevent outdoor air pollutants from making their way in your home and circulating in your breathing air.
Not all indoor air quality problems require the same solution. Total Home Performance can identify the causes of the problems in your home and find the right service to address the issue for your family, so you don’t have to regularly call for air quality tests or install indoor air quality monitors in your home to keep track of indoor air pollutants.
3. Get Moisture and Humidity Issues Under Control
Moisture and humidity can build up in your Maryland home from everyday activities like cooking and showering, but often moisture issues start at the lowest levels in your home: your basement or crawlspace.
Crawlspace encapsulation and basement insulation can prevent outside moisture from getting into your home with the installation of vapor barriers and basement waterproofing. Meanwhile, whole home or crawl space dehumidifier installation can better control humidity levels to prevent allergy-causing mold growth and help you avoid calling for house mold removal.
4. Keep Your Home Well Ventilated
The more airtight a home is, the more protected from outdoor air pollutants you’ll be—not to mention that your home will be more affordable to heat and cool, and more comfortable as well! But airtight homes need proper ventilation to ensure that your air doesn’t grow stale or fill up with pollutants from common activities like cleaning, cooking, and more.
Home ventilation starts with running your oven hood vents and your bathroom fan regularly, but some homes require whole home mechanical ventilation, like ERVs. Total Home Performance can walk you through the ventilation options available and recommend the best solution for you.
5. Prioritize Home Safety Solutions
Yes, the top priority of healthy homes is often seen as preventing illness or allergies, but that doesn’t mean that we should forget about physical safety. Whether you’re trying to baby-proof your home to prevent injury to your newborn or identify the necessary aging-in-place modifications you need to ensure that your home is safe for years to come, Total Home Performance can help find a solution for you.