Summer allergies are never pleasant. You can’t control the air outside, but you should be able to be allergy-free in your own home. Allergens from outdoor air can enter your home and circulate through your heating and cooling system, affecting your indoor air quality. Fortunately, there are ways to reduce or eliminate these allergens from your indoor air.

The first step to reducing indoor allergens is to prevent them from entering your home. You can do this by changing a few daily habits:

Park indoors: If you have a garage, use it. Pollen and other allergens build up on the surface of your car when it sits outside. When you touch these surfaces, pollen is transferred to your clothing and then into your home. Parking indoors reduces surface pollen, and attached garages will limit your exposure to allergens in outdoor air.
Clean regularly: Dusting and vacuuming help remove unwanted allergens from the surface and carpeting in your home.
Repair air leaks: Not only do you lose efficiency through air leaks in your home, but you also allow allergens and other unwanted particles to impact your indoor air quality.

Of course, you can’t completely prevent allergens from entering your home, but you can remove them once they are there:

Indoor air cleaners: Portable or whole-house air cleaners can remove unwanted particles from single rooms or your entire home. It is important to find an air cleaner capable of removing the allergens that most affect your family.
UV lights: Rather that trapping unwanted particles, UV light air sterilization systems destroy allergens, either killing them or making them unable to reproduce.
Air filters: The standard air filters in your heating and cooling system mostly prevent dirt and dust from entering the equipment. These filters actually do little to improve indoor air quality. However, there are high-efficiency filters that you can use to remove allergens and other unwanted contaminants from the air in your home.

For indoor air quality solutions in Long Island, contact the professionals at T.F. O’Brien Cooling & Heating. We’ll help you keep your home comfortable, and allergy-free, all year long.

Our goal is to help educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about indoor air quality and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.

T.F. O’Brien services the Long Island, New York area. Visit our website to see our special offers to get started today!