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Have you been waking up with a sore throat lately, or having trouble falling asleep at night due to an incessant cough that just won’t go away? The good news is you might not be sick. But the bad news is your home could be.
Indoor air quality issues can cause a lot of the same symptoms as a cold or the flu, making you think your immune system is to blame when really, your house is causing the problem. But how do you know whether your IAQ is lacking? Indoor air quality testing is the first step. Before we talk about the benefits of a home air quality test, however, let’s take a deeper dive into IAQ and learn more about its causes, symptoms, and solutions.
What Causes Poor Indoor Air Quality?
Some of the most common causes of poor IAQ that we see include:
Dirty ductwork – Without regular cleaning, your ducts collect dust, mold, and bacteria that are then picked up by your future breathing air and delivered straight to your lungs.
Poor insulation and air sealing – When outside air is allowed into your home, you lose control over your IAQ and are subjected to harmful pollutants like smoke, radon, pollen, and more.
Poor ventilation – Ventilation is crucial to keeping your air fresh and clean. Without it, high levels of contaminants and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) can build up in your breathing air. Ventilation is also crucial to keeping extremely harmful substances, like carbon monoxide, out of your home.
Unbalanced humidity levels – When moisture levels get too high, mold and mildew thrive, and your family breathes them in. When it gets too low, your air will dry out, which can cause scratchy throats, dry skin, eye irritation, and other health problems.
Symptoms of Poor IAQ
Poor indoor air quality isn’t something you can see right away; it announces itself in other ways. Most commonly, by making you feel sick. Poor IAQ can cause symptoms like:
- Headache
- Fatigue
- Sore throat
- Postnasal drip
- Eye redness and irritation
- Dry skin
- Coughing and sneezing
Poor IAQ can also exacerbate certain conditions, like asthma, and serious problems like radon infiltration can lead to long-term health risks, including lung cancer.
Testing Your Indoor Air Quality
Before you can solve your IAQ issues, you need to know what’s causing them. At Princeton Air, we use two different testing methods to assess indoor air quality:
IAQ Test
During your indoor air quality test, we’ll install an AirAdvice™ indoor air quality monitor in your home. This powerful little device will take samples of your indoor air and test them for temperature, moisture, carbon dioxide, particulates, VOCs, and carbon monoxide. Then, we’ll safely retrieve the monitor, analyze its findings, and present you with a comprehensive report.
Energy Audit
Controlling the air that comes into your home is a crucial step to improving your indoor air quality. That’s why we recommend an energy audit in addition to an IAQ test. Through this comprehensive home performance assessment, we’ll be able to pinpoint the exact locations where outside air is getting into your home so that we can tighten up your home’s building envelope and give you greater control over the air you breathe.
When testing is complete, our expert team will explain our findings and recommend solutions that will address the specific air quality issues you’re experiencing, whether that’s duct cleaning, air treatment, sealing air leaks, or upgrading your ventilation system.
Here at Princeton Air, we take air quality seriously. Our professional air quality testing services have been perfected over the more than 50 years that we've been in business, and homeowners from Mercer, Middlesex, and Somerset Counties in New Jersey to Bucks County in Pennsylvania trust us with their home’s and families’ health.
