Cigarettes can have a massive impact on the air quality in an indoor space. While smoking is banned in most commercial buildings, such as businesses, many residents continue to smoke inside their homes. This can cause a buildup of environmental tobacco smoke, or secondhand smoke, which can impact the air quality in your home.
So, how does cigarette smoke affect indoor air quality? In reality, any chemicals or combustibles that release particles in the air can impact the air quality in your home. Because of this, you may need to take extra precautions to filter your air better and find HVAC solutions to reduce the impact of smoking in your home.
Smoking Increases Air Pollutants
Cigarettes contain many known carcinogens and dangerous chemicals, including formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide. When released into the air, these particles may be breathed in along with carbon monoxide, another gas that can be deadly in the right amounts. Unfortunately, these pollutants can be difficult to remove from your home, especially if there has been smoking for years in that dwelling or business.
Worse, smoking does not only affect the person who smokes. Smoking cigarettes increases the amount of environmental tobacco smoke or secondhand smoke. Secondhand smoke can be as deadly as directly smoking a cigarette, so exposure to the smoke over time can impact your health even if you are not the person who is lighting up.
Because smoking can so drastically increase air pollutants, you can expect any home where someone smokes indoors to have poorer indoor air quality. That changing quality can, unfortunately, impact your health and the health of anyone else who lives there. When this happens, you may need to purify the air and remove the buildup of pollutants that may now exist in your home.
How to Purify Your Home’s Air
You may have noticed a decrease in indoor air quality when you have already smoked in your house or lived with a smoker. Fortunately, this does not have to be a permanent situation, as you do have the opportunity to help purify your home’s air. Taking the right steps now can help clean up the air quality in your home and help you live more comfortably.
You have many options available to you to help increase your home’s indoor air quality and potentially reduce the chances of a serious health issue. The choices you make may vary depending on the specifics of your home or business, but any of them can help reduce the impact of cigarette smoke on your health, as well as that of your family and customers. Reach out to our team if you need help in taking any of these steps to help your home’s air stay breathable.
Avoid Smoking Indoors
One of the most important steps to purify your home’s air is to simply avoid smoking indoors. While removing the pollutants from the air and textiles in your home can take time, stopping any smoking indoors can prevent further buildup and allow your home to air out. That can help purify your home’s air over time.
However, we understand that not everyone has control over this aspect of their home. For example, you may be renting an apartment or house with another person who does smoke. In these cases, you may need to take other steps to improve the air quality in your home for your own health and safety.
Increase Ventilation
When you have smokers in your home, allowing more opportunities to remove these pollutants from your home is vital. You can significantly improve the air quality by taking actions to get the bad air out and fresher air in your rooms. For example, you could keep windows open whenever possible or invest in a freestanding air purifier.
While these options will not prevent polluting particles from cigarette smoke from building up in your home, they can reduce the impacts of the smoke and benefit your indoor air quality. That allows you to breathe more easily even if you cannot prevent smoking in the house.
Improve Ventilation
Once you have taken some steps to increase clean airflow in your home, you may also need to improve the effectiveness of your ventilation. If you already have an air filter, it may be past time to replace it or completely clean your duct system. Over time, especially in homes with cigarette smoke, pollutants and grime can build up in your HVAC system, impacting its quality and efficiency.
Fortunately, you may have options to improve your ventilation system. When you call on a professional business to inspect, clean, or even replace or install new portions of your HVAC system, you can expect a system that can more robustly remove pollutants from your indoor air. If you are noticing more frequent issues caused by cigarette smoke, it may be time to check whether you are due for an upgrade or if you are in need of repairs.
Improve Your Air Quality with an Air Conditioning Professional
When you have a smoker in your home, keeping your home’s air quality high can be difficult. Whether you smoke inside or live with a smoker, this can reduce your indoor air quality in serious ways that can affect your health.
At Ambient Edge, we offer expert air conditioning services that can help you keep the air in your home cleaner. While not smoking in the house is one of the best things you can do to prevent these issues, we also offer more robust air filtration options for your needs. Our team is prepared to serve people struggling to better the air quality in their homes.
Our services are available for residents of Arizona and Nevada. For those struggling to keep their home’s air clean and healthy, it may be time for an upgrade or cleaning, so do not delay. If you are seeking HVAC and ventilation services for your home, reach out to schedule an appointment with us by calling or filling out our online contact form.