Rid your home of pesky allergens with these tips.
It’s finally spring and allergy season! Fortunately, there are ways you can protect yourself and your family from an itchy throat, runny nose, and watering eyes. Making simple updates to your home can help you get rid of pesky allergens so you and your family can enjoy the warmer months ahead. Here are six ways you can allergy-proof your home:
1. Keep your basement dry
Basements often trap moisture that leads to musty odors, mold, and mildew, common irritants for allergies. To prevent this issue, invite an expert to help you determine the source of the excess moisture in your basement. Sometimes the solution may be as simple as installing a vapor barrier and other times you may need more extensive repairs to dry up your lower level.
2. Keep dust out of your bedroom
While you may know to wash your linens weekly to eliminate allergy symptoms, you may not remember to put dust mite-proof covers on pillows, comforters, mattresses, and box springs. This added allergy barrier can prevent microscopic bugs from invading your sleeping space and triggering allergy and asthma symptoms. Vacuuming your carpet or area rug regularly with a HEPA filter every week can also keep your bedroom a low-dust zone and is an effective way to keep your home allergy-free.
3. Replace your carpet
Carpet acts like a filter and traps allergens such as dust, pollen, and pet dander. If you’d like to reduce your exposure to these allergens, it’s a good idea to replace your carpet with other allergy-friendly flooring such as tile or hardwood. These flooring types are easy to clean and less likely to absorb allergens.
4. Repair or install bathroom ventilation fans
Bathrooms trap a lot of moisture than can exacerbate springtime allergies. To ensure proper ventilation in your most-used room in the house, ensure you have a properly functioning fan to allergy-proof your home. The fans should be routed to the outside and run for at least 30 minutes after bathing.
5. Avoid wood-burning fireplaces
The smoke and gasses that wood-burning fireplaces and stoves emit can irritate respiratory allergies. The good news is that most natural gas fireplaces don’t have the same effect. If you like to stay warm by the fire on those cool spring evenings, talk to your remodeler about converting your fireplace from wood to gas.
6. Use two doormats
There’s a reason that you often find sets of two doormats sold together at many home improvement stores. By placing one outside your front door and one inside the door, you can dramatically reduce the amount of outside allergens that get tracked into your home.
Although you can’t get rid of all the allergens in your home, these strategies will help reduce their effect this spring.
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For more the 40 years, Waunakee Remodeling has been providing turnkey remodeling services to homeowners throughout Madison and Dane County. Our team is committed to providing complete home remodeling solutions for all exterior and interior projects. We have 2 convenient showrooms – our headquarters in Waunakee and on Odana Road on Madison’s West Side. If you’re considering a project, feel free to reach out to us!