Carpeting is a great flooring option for people looking for comfort and warmth for their home. When shopping for a floor covering, however, it’s important to know how carpet affects air quality and how you can ensure your home is comfortable at every level.
How Carpeting Affects Air Quality
Air Quality and Carpeting
Your home’s air quality is impacted by a number of environmental factors, including the season, your geographic location, and the ventilation of your home. Since we spend a great deal of time in our homes, making sure that the IAQ (indoor air quality) is clean can help keep us healthy. Many types of allergens, like dust, dust mites, and pollen, all exist outside and can easily get indoors. Because of their incredibly small size, allergens in the outside air can get indoors with relative ease, even with the windows and doors closed. When you’re in the market for new flooring, carpet air quality can be a major concern.
Carpeting can unfortunately compound bad air quality by trapping allergens and dust within its fibers. Besides allergens, pollutants like VOCs and fine smoke from wildfires can also be absorbed by carpeting. For people with healthy lungs, many allergens pose little threat, but people who are immunocompromised or small children may experience the effects of allergens and pollutants from carpet fibers.
Additionally, VOCs (volatile organic compounds) can also be found in carpet fibers themselves that are fresh from the factories. While VOCs in modern carpeting are greatly reduced and are no longer a concern for most people, VOC levels do vary in homes. If you have an older carpet or installed cheap carpeting that is high in VOCs, your carpeting might be causing irritation in your nose, throat, and lungs. Industrial and commercial office carpeting can be more likely to contain VOCs, because some applications use adhesives and other chemicals that contain volatile organic compounds. Since these carpets are usually lower pile, they may retain fewer allergens and dust, however.
Air Quality Safe Carpeting
Carpet and indoor air quality are linked, but there are things you can do to keep your home’s air clean. As we discussed, the presence of VOCs is low or nonexistent in modern carpets, especially those that are natural fibers, like wool. While wool carpets don’t contain VOCs, they do still attract and hold allergens and other airborne pollutants. So what can be done about carpet indoor air quality? Is carpeting just not the right choice? While some people forgo carpet in their homes due to air quality concerns, there is another option. With proper care and regular cleaning, residential and office carpet can be perfectly safe in terms of air quality. Regular cleaning and other changes around the home, as well as specific steps taken at installation, can all greatly reduce the risk of airborne pollutants and allergens taking up residence in carpet fibers. Here are some tips for making sure your carpet is not negatively impacting your home’s air quality.
Dry steam cleaning your carpets annually and regular vacuuming can both help keep allergens out of your home. Dry steam cleaning can be done more regularly if air quality dips, and there are many home gadgets that can help read air quality in your home. Keep track of allergens and other pollutants in your area by consulting weather websites and the local news. Invest in air purifiers and higher-quality air filters for your home’s HVAC systems if you can, which will keep circulated pollutants from settling in your carpet’s fibers. The most important part of keeping your indoor air quality high is to clean regularly and to monitor the situation. If you’re a person with severe allergies or lung problems, perhaps consider a different flooring option, like vinyl or hardwood.
Indoor air quality is incredibly important to your well-being, but you don’t have to sacrifice carpeting to keep it excellent. Ready to remove old carpeting safely, install new carpet properly, or learn about options for cleaning your carpet to maintain good air quality? Give the experts a call at Ozburn-Hessey for indispensable advice and professional installation.