The air quality in our home is no joke, and we often hear how the air inside is worse than that outside.
Even once we switch all of our home cleaning products and bath and body products to natural alternatives, we still deal with off-gassing from furniture, carpets, and the materials used to build the structure.
But, not all is lost and there are a couple of different ways to deal with the issue.
House Plants
Bringing foliage into the home is a wonderful way to help clean the air you breathe. Some can actually filter out benzene, formaldehyde, and ammonia among other chemicals. Some of the plants, tested by NASA, that help to filter the air include
- areca palm
- english ivy
- peace lily
- spider plant
- pot mum
*if you have animals or small children, check yo see if a particular plant may be poisonous first.
We actually don’t have houseplants anymore, which I greatly miss. But between our two indoor cats, they don’t last long.
On a side note – anyone want a couple of really great cats?
Open the Windows
Moving the air out of your home is also a good way to keep it clean! In our days of energy-efficient homes, with heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer, it’s not too often that we leave all of our windows open.
But doing so not only moves the toxins out, it brings the fresh clean air in. And hopefully, you don’t have an industrial park in your backyard.
I actually take the time once a month or so and open the windows.
In the summer we have them open before it gets to warm outside, letting in the fresh cool breeze of a new morning. In the winter I work room by room so we don’t freeze! I’ll open a window to a bedroom and close the door for a couple of hours. Once the window is closed I turn up the heat to re-warm the room. Even though it takes a bit more work in the winter, I find that we all sleep better in the days after I do this.
And for those of you who may have much worse air outside than in, an air purifier may be the way to go.
How do you keep the air in your home clean?
Donielle Baker
Thank you so much for posting this! I am just about to move into a new home and your blog is really helping me get ready for the new home and cleaner way of life.
We have a purifier that hubby’s parents gave us, so we have kept it in the living room, but someone recently recommended that we put it in the bedroom because that is the room we spend most of the time in (8+ hours of sleeping each night). When the weather is nice (like today), I have most of the windows in the house open. I love fresh air!
Even in the winter, I try to keep the windows open in the room I am cleaning. I also hang the comforters over the door to air out, so that the last thing I do before I leave the room is to finish the bed & shut the windows. If it’s COLD, I can’t keep the windows open too long, but do it for as long as I can stand & might do it again for a few minutes when I am done.
My hubby got us a spider plant for Valentines Day. I have to admit that I would have liked some pretty flowers instead (lol), but I was glad to see it as one on the list! It was the more loving gift, after all!
We use an ozone ionizer that rather then filtering the air, its sends out ions that cause all the dust to become heavy and fall out of the air. On a sunny day, you will never see dust in the air in our house.
These purifiers will actually remove nasty soaked in odors too!