How Indoor Plants Can Improve Air Quality
You can improve indoor air quality in a variety of ways, including eliminating contaminants that occur naturally inside of your home. For example, carpeting that is not properly cleaned and maintained can create dust buildup and increase particle matter that deteriorates the air quality inside of your home.
Another source of allergens that reduces the air quality inside of your home is smoking. Even if the smokers living in your home do not intend to quit, smoking outside is not only better for everyone by eliminating dangerous second-hand smoke, but also increases the indoor air quality.
In addition to these contaminants that cause poor air quality, pets, foot traffic, and dirty air filters are all things that reduce the quality of air inside of your home. Even painting or laying down new floors and carpeting are huge sources of chemical pollutants inside of your home.
Simple Steps That Can Make Huge Differences
To improve your indoor air quality, clean rugs and carpets and change your air filters regularly—and for a lesser-known fix—add indoor plants throughout your house. Besides being aesthetically pleasing, indoor plants serve a dual purpose. Indoor plants can help improve air quality.
Not all indoor plants are effective at improving indoor air quality, and household plants alone will not solve air quality problems. Without ridding your home of all of the other sources of air pollutants, the effectiveness of using indoor plants to improve air quality is minimal.
How Indoor Plants Can Help
Indoor plants improve air quality by lowering the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. Just as humans inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide when breathing, plants do the opposite to survive, “inhaling” carbon dioxide and “exhaling” clean oxygen. They act as a natural filter, weeding out airborne mold spores, microbes, and humidity as well as sucking certain biological and chemical compounds from the air.
By placing a few indoor plants throughout your house, you can improve air quality noticeably. Here are some of the most effective plants for improving indoor air quality inside of your home:
Aloe Vera — This is not just a topically medicinal plant for rashes and burns. It can also serves as a natural filter that reduces allergens in the air.
English Ivy — This plant is probably the second-most effective indoor plant for improving air quality.
Ferns — Ferns, such as Boston ferns, are both beautiful and carbon dioxide-absorbing machines.
Peace Lily — The Peace Lily is great for removing chemical compounds and requires little sunlight. But, if you own pets, you do not want to use these indoor plants because they can poison them.
Lady Palm — The Lady Palm looks like a small tree with leaves that fan out. It is very pretty as an accent and helps to reduce the amount of mold inside of your house.
Several other varieties of indoor plants can help improve air quality as well. Depending on the type of plant that appeals to you and the air quality improvement you are looking for, one may suit you better than another.
Contact an HVAC company that specializes in indoor air filtration, such as R&D Indoor Comfort, for more information on improving the air quality in your home.