Indoor Oxygen Quality
More and more we hear about the importance of air quality in homes and businesses. Air quality effects asthma, congestion, allergies, headaches, and many other medical conditions. Air quality can cause problems and/or make current problems worse. Some of us have air quality in the front of our minds but some people don’t think twice about it. Why should they, some ask, it’s just tiny particles they can’t see hiding inside an invisible gas. Out of sight, out of mind. When I hear the words “air quality”, I don’t feel that I hear the full impact of what is at hand. This is why I like to call it “Oxygen Quality”. Oxygen is the life blood of our respiratory system and very few people don’t understand the importance of oxygen. Indoor “oxygen quality” affects every breath we take. Even if the tiny particulates floating in the air didn’t harm us directly, they are still taking the place of and depriving our lungs of valuable oxygen molecules.
Allergies are often mistaken for colds or the flu and businesses with poor air quality report severely increased numbers of sick days to those who have good oxygen quality. Productivity is also higher in employees who are not affected by asthma and allergies. It has been proven that this oxygen quality is important but how can we effectively improve the quality of the oxygen we breathe in our homes and offices? There are a few options to improve indoor air quality: Air scrubbers and air filters are of course helpful to remove what is already in the air. Running the furnace fan 24/7 helps cycle the air and replacing the furnace filter when it gets saturated with dust are also helpful. But how do we affect the causes of poor indoor air quality? In office buildings especially, a huge amount of dust and allergen particulates reside in the carpet and upholstery. Every time we sit in a chair it expels the air that fills the foam seats and shoots those particulates into the atmosphere around us. On a sunny day sit your chair between you and the window, slap the seat and watch the dust dance in the sunlight. Similarly the carpet kicks up those particles as it’s walked on as well. Dust treats these fabrics like a filter and sticks to them building up until they are jarred loose. The longer between cleanings the more particles get expelled into the air.
Professional commercial carpet and upholstery cleaning is the best way to remove these particles from these materials. Oxygen is important to us all and like anything important it requires some investment to receive its full effects.