Today’s better insulated homes are great for saving energy and reducing your heating and cooling bills, but tighter homes can result in indoor air pollution levels that are five times higher than the outside air.

Proper ventilation is key to reducing pollutants and improving the air quality in your home. Here are some ways to enhance the ventilation and improve the air quality in your home.

Kitchen Ventilation

The kitchen can be a major source of moisture and pollutants caused by cooking. Installing and using a range hood that’s vented to the outside removes excess moisture, cooking odors, and other pollutants from your home.

When installing or replacing a range hood, it’s important to choose a quiet, high quality model that has multiple speeds, such as Allure range hoods from Broan.

Bathroom Ventilation

Bathrooms are another major source of moisture, which if not removed can cause mold and mildew. Installing an ultra quiet Broan bath fan that’s vented to the outside is the best way to remove excess moisture.

Be sure to use the fan every time you shower or take a bath, and keep the fan running for 15 to 20 minutes after you’re finished.

Whole House Ventilation Systems

A very effective way to remove polluted air in your home is by installing a whole house ventilation system, such as those from Broan.

A whole house ventilation system not only removes polluted air from your home, it can replace it with filtered outside air as well.

Other Ways to Improve Indoor Air Quality

Replacing the air filter on your heating/cooling system every 2-3 months with a quality, electrostatic filter not only improves your indoor air quality, it allows your HVAC system to run more efficiently.

Placing common houseplants—including philodendron, peace lily, snake plant, dracaena, and bamboo palm—around you home can help remove harmful pollutants from the air.

Read Improving Indoor Air Quality in Your Home to find out more.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Danny Lipford: Hi, I’m Danny Lipford. You know with the weather getting a little colder, it’s time to make sure the air inside your home is as clean as it can be, because most homes the air inside is five to six times more polluted than the outside air. Here’s the reason why.

People are tightening up their homes. They’re doing things to make their home more energy efficient. Things like putting in new windows, caulking around all the cracks they can find on the outside, new doors, weatherstripping thresholds. This is great for the energy bill, but it’s causing those pollutants inside your home to be trapped. And it all starts with getting rid of the excess moisture.

Two places inside your home that you have to rid of that excess moisture—your kitchen and your bath. And when you have open floor plans, like we have in this house and in many houses. It’s open to the kitchen, very important for it to have an exhaust fan—a range hood—that’s not only properly installed, but properly sized.

Now, this one from Broan is an Allure hood. And it’s great it’s got all of these variable speeds that you can hardly even hear. It’s got this great light adjustment, and it’s very easy to clean. But here’s one of the key parts—it’s vented all the way to the outside and doesn’t stop just in the attic.

The bathroom is another place, and in this particular house in the master bathroom, didn’t even have an exhaust fan. They had mold and mildew all over the place, damage around the shower. We installed a very simple high efficiency Broan exhaust fan that’s worked great in taking care of all of those problems.

The homeowner said, “Even the mirror doesn’t even fog up anymore.” But you have to use them—not only while you’re cooking and taking a shower, but ten to fifteen minutes after that.

The other real first line of defense when you’re wanting to improve your indoor air quality—your furnace filter. We talk about this all year long and the importance of regularly changing this filter is very important. Use a good quality electrostatic filter, change it every two to three months.

But the ultimate in cleaning the air inside your home is using a balanced ventilation system. Again, Broan has a great supply of whole house ventilation systems, and they’re able to exhaust air, bring air back in while filtering it through a HEPA filter.

And a few simple things you can do—add a few plants. They will help rid your home of volatile organic compounds that’s the result of cleaning supplies. Now, there’s a lot of other information that you can find on our website at TodaysHomeowner.com.

Editorial Contributors
avatar for Danny Lipford

Danny Lipford

Founder

Danny Lipford is a home improvement expert and television personality who started his remodeling business, Lipford Construction, at the age of 21 in Mobile, Alabama. He gained national recognition as the host of the nationally syndicated television show, Today's Homeowner with Danny Lipford, which started as a small cable show in Mobile. Danny's expertise in home improvement has also led him to be a contributor to popular magazines and websites and the go-to source for advice on everything related to the home. He has made over 200 national television appearances and served as the home improvement expert for CBS's The Early Show and The Weather Channel for over a decade. Danny is also the founder of 3 Echoes Content Studio, TodaysHomeowner.com, and Checking In With Chelsea, a décor and lifestyle blog.

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