The air inside your house could be five times more polluted than what’s outside, especially during the winter. Cold weather keeps windows and doors shut tight, preventing the exchange of fresh air. Roaring fireplaces are a potential source of noxious soot and smoke. Even scented candles, whether peppermint or pine, can release harsh chemicals. Those pollutants can trigger a number of ailments, including allergies, asthma, and chronic headaches. Even if you’re symptom-free, it pays to clear the air at home when you're expecting guests because people react differently to contaminants. Here are some effective strategies from the experts at Consumer Reports—and many of them don’t cost a thing. You’ll also find our latest test results for air purifiers, which can provide an added weapon in your effort to breathe easier. Water is the cause of so many house problems, including those related to bad indoor air. Too much moisture raises humidity levels above 50 percent, the point at which mold, mildew, and other allergens thrive.

That’s why it’s critical to keep out rainwater by maintaining your gutters, leaders, and downspouts. Also make sure that the soil around your house slopes away from the foundation. All of those particles you see dancing through the daylight come from pollen, pet dander, and other pollutants. Regular vacuuming prevents dust buildup on carpets, furniture, and other surfaces. Once a week should suffice, although if you have pets that shed a lot, you’ll probably need to clean more often. To find the best vacuum for carpet, bare floors and pet hair, check our full vacuum Ratings and recommendations. It’s a good idea to dust furniture, blinds, and windowsills before you vacuum. Using an electrostatically charged duster or a damp rag will help minimize airborne particulates. Of course, the less dirt that enters your house, the better. Place doormats at entrances and consider imposing a shoes-off policy. Switch on your exhaust fans Routinely replacing the air in your house with a fresh outdoor supply will cut down on contaminants.

Exhaust fans are a good source of ventilation, especially during the winter months when windows tend to be closed. air purifier plants for officeRun the bathroom fan after you shower to control mold and mildew. benefits from air purifierAs for the kitchen, our tests have found that vented range hoods remove smoke and odors far better than a fan on an over-the-range microwave.where to buy alen air purifiers in canada Remember that many cleaning products are a potential source of contaminants. Always read the labels and follow instructions carefully. In the case of certain cleaners, chemicals are emitted quickly, so use them only in well-ventilated areas. Other products, including paint, release chemicals over time, so look for those that are low in VOCs (volatile organic compounds) and for items that are formaldehyde-free.

After using them in a room, keep the windows open with a fan running for several days. Stamp out smoke and fumes We all know that smoking cigarettes kills. But what’s less known is that about 3,000 nonsmokers die each year from lung cancer caused by secondhand smoke. So ban smoking in your house. Wood-burning stoves and fireplaces can also release harmful smoke and soot if they’re not maintained properly. Along with scented candles, incense can send particles into the air that can cause asthma attacks and allergic reactions. Then there’s carbon monoxide, a more threatening pollutant that claims hundreds of lives each year. Referred to as the silent killer, the odorless, colorless gas can kill without warning if it leaks from a faulty furnace, clothes dryer, or other fuel-fired appliance. Install a CO alarm on every level of your house, including the basement. Consider an air purifier Those devices can help clear the air in your house. We wouldn’t have spent almost $10,000 on dozens of test models if that weren’t true.

But first you should take the preventative steps outlined above. “Without source control and proper ventilation, using an air cleaner to reduce pollutants in your home is like bailing water out of a leaky boat,” says Elliott Horner, Ph.D., lead scientist for UL Environment (Underwriters Laboratories). Certain environmental conditions may also create the need for supplemental air cleaning. For example, if you rarely open your windows because you live next to a highway or near an industrial site, an air purifier might be helpful. Top air purifiers from our tests Consumer Reports tests both room and whole-house air purifiers, which replace the standard filter in a forced-air heating or cooling system. Here are the top three of each type. Whirlpool Whispure AP51030K, $300 Lennox Healthy Climate CarbonClean 16, $100 3M Filtrete 1550, $29 Carrier EZ Flex Fliter Cabinet, $64 For more choices see our full air purifier Ratings and recommendations.The IP address used for your Internet connection is part of a subnet that has been blocked from access to PubMed Central.

Addresses across the entire subnet were used to download content in bulk, in violation of the terms of the PMC Copyright Notice. Use of PMC is free, but must comply with the terms of the Copyright Notice on the PMC site. For additional information, or to request that your IP address be unblocked, For requests to be unblocked, you must include all of the information in the box above in your message.February 18, 2015 Stanford engineers develop new air filter that could help Beijing residents breathe easily Stanford's Yi Cui and his students have turned a material commonly used in surgical gloves into a low-cost, highly efficient air filter. It could be used to improve facemasks and window screens, and maybe even scrub the exhaust from power plants. In the past few years, Yi Cui has made several business trips to China. Each time he has found himself choked by smog produced by automobiles and coal power plants. After a few of these trips, Cui, an associate professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford, came up with an idea to clean the pollution.

He and his graduate students set to work designing an inexpensive, efficient air filter that could ease the breathing for people in polluted cities. “My lab group really likes to solve problems, even if it’s something we’ve never worked on,” Cui said. “We think we could use this material for personal masks, window shades and maybe automobiles and industrial waste. It works really well, and it might be a game-changer.” The work is published in the current issue of the journal Nature Communications. This was the first time Cui’s group had designed an air filter – Cui’s work with nanomaterials focuses primarily on battery technology – so he and his students didn’t immediately look to materials that have traditionally been used in air filters. Instead, they looked for polymers that would have a strong attraction to the main components of smog, particularly particle matters that are smaller than 2.5 microns, known as PM2.5. These pose the greatest risk to the human respiratory system and overall health;

current filtration systems that can remove them from the air are very energy-intensive. It turned out that polyacrylonitrile (PAN), a material commonly used to make surgical gloves, met these requirements. “It was mostly by luck, but we found that PAN had the characteristics we were looking for, and it is breathtakingly strong,” said Po-Chun Hsu, co-author on the study and a graduate student in Cui’s lab. Using a technique called electrospinning, the researchers converted liquid PAN into spider-web-like fibers that are just a thousandth the diameter of a human hair.  In the study, the researchers approximated Beijing’s smog by flowing smoke from burning incense over different densities of the fiber, and later performed a field test in Beijing. The final material allows about 70 percent transparency and yet collects 99 percent of the particles. “The fiber just keeps accumulating particles, and can collect 10 times its own weight,” said Chong Liu, lead author on the paper and a graduate student in Cui’s lab.