Taking Action to enhance the indoor air quality in your home
- Getting started: Conduct an Healthy Home Audit.
- Determine your priorities- what changes should you make right away? What projects are short-term, and which ones are long-term?
- Are you concerned about specific rooms, or areas of your home? Take a look at potential projects room by room.
Do you have some time on the weekend?
By setting aside a little more time, there are several weekend projects that you can do yourself:
- Clean out your basement – sort through and discard unwanted items.
- Clean out your garage – sort through and discard unwanted items.
- Get a ventilation unit installed by a qualified professional to ensure fresh air flow throughout your home.
- Steam clean your carpet and ensure adequate ventilation is available to help carpet dry.
- Replace or add weather stripping around windows and doors.
- Seal or caulk outdoor entry points in the basement floor or walls to prevent water, air, or insects from entering your home.
- Clean out eaves troughs and downspouts by removing any obstructions such as leaves or branches.
- Ensure that the yard surrounding your home slopes away from the house to prevent water from draining into your basement.
Are you renovating, or planning any long-term projects?
If so, it's a great opportunity to look at including changes to your home that will enhance overall air quality:
- Look at removing any carpet in your home and replacing with flooring. If you must have carpet in your home, look to replace old carpeting with low emission carpet. For more information, go to the Carpets page of our site.
- Install an exhaust fan (if you don't already have one) in your kitchen and bathroom to help limit moisture buildup from cooking and bathing. If you already have an exhaust fan in your bathroom, look at installing a timer that will shut off the fan automatically after a certain amount of time.
- Install an exhaust fan in your garage to allow for fresh air to help dilute any vehicle exhaust from vehicles and other equipment.
Do It Yourself Projects
Do you have an hour? There are easy projects that take less than an hour to implement!
One Hour Do-It-Yourself Projects
Rate Your Air Quality IQ
How will you score on your AQIQ. See what you can do to make your home safer and healthier. Click here to take the quiz.
