Improve Indoor Air Quality with Duct Cleaning and Carpeting Cleaning: Make Your Home Safer and Healthier

How important is the air you breathe? If your answer is "extremely important" (and it should be!), then it's essential that you ensure your home is as clean as possible. According to the American Lung Association, most people spend an astounding 60-90% of their time inside their homes: this means that if your house isn't totally clean, you're likely breathing in contaminants that can make you sick!

Although you may think your home is thoroughly clean—after all, you vacuum, dust, mop, etc.—pollutants can build up in places you'd never think to look. The two biggest culprits for harboring particles that can make you sick are actually your carpets and air ducts! Neglecting routine cleaning such as carpet cleaning and duct cleaning means that contaminants like bacteria, pollen, allergens, and mold can accumulate in your house. This dramatically impacts the quality of air in every breath you take. However, the good news is that you can easily improve your interior air quality by having your carpets and ducts cleaned ASAP!

Carpet Cleaning

Although routine vacuuming removes the dirt and debris from the top layers of your carpet, conventional vacuums don't reach deep into carpeting. As a result, grime, dust, pollen, pet dander, bacteria, dust mites, and other particles accumulate in the lower layers of your carpet. These pollutants can make your family sick, exacerbating allergies, asthma, and other respiratory illnesses. That's why it's important to have your carpets cleaned regularly, usually about once a year.

Your carpet cleaners will use a truck mounted vacuum system to get your carpets totally clean. Using a hot water extraction system and eco-friendly emulsifiers to penetrate deep within your carpet fibers, they'll loosen the built-up gunk before sucking the debris and cleaners back out. This wet carpet cleaning technique gets your carpets clean even in the deepest layers while only leaving your rugs a little damp (this helps prevent mold/mildew growth). Your carpet cleaners can also use this same system to clean your upholstery. The same particles that collect in your carpeting can be embedded in your furniture and can negatively impact the health and safety of your home. Like carpet cleaning, furniture cleaning is an affordable, simple solution to improving the air quality in your house.

Duct Cleaning

One of the most commonly overlooked areas of your home is your ductwork. Do you remember the last time you had it cleaned? If it's been a while--or never!--since your ducts were cleaned, you need to call your local air duct cleaning provider.

When your ducts are dirty, every time your heating or cooling system kicks in, it circulates pollutants throughout your home. These can include dust, pollen, pet dander, rodent droppings, dust mites, fungus, bacteria, and dirt. That means you're breathing these contaminants the entire time you're inside your home. Even brand new homes may need their ducts cleaned, as drywall dust and debris frequently make their way into ducts during construction and can create an ideal environment for mold and mildew growth. So just because your home is new, doesn't mean that your ducts are clean!

During your duct cleaning, your technician will use a powerful truck mounted vacuum to suck the debris and pollutants out of your ductwork, ensuring that the particles don't make their way into your home. Stuck-on grime will be carefully sweep off your ducts using a variety of specialized tools, including rotating brushes and compressed air, loosening it to be extracted by the vacuum. These precise cleaning techniques ensure that your HVAC system is safely and thoroughly cleaned out, removing the contaminants without spreading them into your home (and making the problem worse).

According to the EPA, indoor air is up to 70 times more polluted than the air outside. But you don't have to live in a home full of dangerous contaminants. If you're ready to start breathing better air in your home and want to make your house a safer place to live, call your local carpet cleaning and air duct cleaning services today to put your home and family on the road to better air quality!

Matt Gallo is a home improvement enthusiast and the Internet marketing manager for Prospect Genius, a leader in online marketing for local service providers.