I developed a 3-step process to taking care of your indoor air quality: The 3 C’s to Quality Indoor Air. They include circulation, cleaning and comfort.
Image: The Importance of Indoor Air Circulation
Circulation or air flow or air exchange is the first step in the process. Air circulation plays a major role in all parts of the process. Circulation of the air in the room or building allows you to filter your air, which is cleaning. It also helps to diffuse or spread the pollutants added to the air, like stirring milk in your coffee.
All three steps are necessary for proper indoor air quality, however without circulation, the other two steps would be nearly impossible. Diagram
What Makes Good Indoor Air Circulation?
Every room should have windows and doors, at the very least. Circulating the air into the room space is performed by your building’s gaps. The gaps suck in the air from the outside of the building, or under the flooring or the roof cavity.
Once the air is sucked in by the gaps, it passes through the open windows, doors, cracks and into your space. Diffusing the room’s air is performed by building materials, objects and space around them. The diffused air is exchanged out through the open windows, removing out particles and gases that are making your air polluted.
Sealed spaces equipped with a Heating Ventilating Air Conditioning system, filter and mechanically circulate the room air. The system sucks in warm air from inside air handling system, or the rectangular box just along the wall. After it passes through the conditioning and pre filter, air is pushed back into your room, without the larger particulates.
Your return vents should be located in multiple rooms, if they’re not I would suggest getting a licensed professional to assess for you. The whole process is circulation of the building’s air.
How to Improve Air Circulation
Its good practice to move furnishings and clutter in a direction that will stir the air (like milk in coffee) in your space, hence, air flow, circulate, exchange.
If your space has one gap, it’s a good idea to keep it open at all times. This will circulate the air and also mix the air to flow in the space to the outside, this is particularly important under the house in the sub floor cavity.
Stagnant Areas
Stagnant areas are spots in your space or home or building that have poor circulation. Some common spots are:
- Behind your curtains
- Behind your furnishings, against walls like your lounge or bed or desk
- Unoccupied, closed-up rooms
- Cupboards
- Corners of rooms
- Cluttered rooms
- Objects blocking air flow
Sometimes these stagnant areas are unavoidable. You can do your best to open cupboards and clear clutter to improve these areas, but you may just have to take care of these areas manually. This is why it’s important to always have a damp micro fibre cloth handy to freshen those areas.
De-cluttering
This is a major part of air circulation. Every space is going to have a few stagnant spots, so practicing good air circulation includes de-cluttering your space. You should move furnishings and objects in your space, at least once every six months.
Image: room space that is clear.
De-cluttering and cleaning stagnant areas and other areas of your building helps to keep dust, mould and bacteria at bay. It gets these particulates away instead of clinging to furnishings, so that your ventilation system will have an opportunity to ventilate them out.
Determine Your HVAC Exchange Rate
The exchange rate is the volume of air it takes to exchange in your space through the HVAC system or air purifier in one hour. It is not necessary to know this number for residential. However, your HVAC professional can certainly do the maths if you are concerned for commercial. If you don’t want to find out this number, a general rule of thumb is run your HVAC only when windows and doors are closed. For commercial premises, run the system when the building is occupied.
Circulation, air flow and air exchange, is very important in quality indoor air. It’s easy to do since open windows and doors do all the work for you. Just make sure you:
- Open the windows and doors 24 hours a day
- Keep spaces clear of clutter
- Move objects
- De-clutter, dust and vacuum your rooms at least once a week and move the furnishings and hit all the stagnant areas
- Angle your HVAC system or portable electric fan(s) to spin the air in a circular motion
- Avoid bringing cleaning and personal care products inside
My 3 Cs to quality indoor air control: circulation, cleaning and comfort. I suggest you read these posts to understand how to keep your quality indoor air:
How to Keep Your Indoor Air Clean7
Basic Indoor Air Biology 101 8.3
The Nature of Indoor Air Quality
I added The Nature of Indoor Air Quality because you should know what you’re working with before you get started.
Towards healthier living, Carol Parr ♥
As Building Biologists, we have acquired knowledge of adverse health effects and recommend effective strategies to reduce occupants’ exposure by eliminating and controlling as many sources of pollutants as possible.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE MASTERY OF QUALITY INDOOR AIR Tile
We cut out all the fluff and confusion of indoor air maintenance and stripped it down to the bare bones in this easy-to-read illustrated digital guide. LEARN MORE
Image: The Importance of Indoor Air Circulation
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