For the first time since the start of the pandemic, many families will be gathering indoors to celebrate the holidays. As preparations are being made for these celebrations, safety is top of mind. Concerns about indoor air quality have become more prevalent during the COVID era and for the first-time, many families are considering how to increase the air quality in their homes prior to welcoming people in outside of their immediate family bubble.

As nannies and families prepare their homes for the holiday, we reached out to Andre Lacroix, of EZBreathe Healthy Home Solutions to learn simple strategies for improving indoor air quality prior to opening up their homes to hosting.

NM: Does ventilation make a difference?

Absolutely. Proper ventilation, or air exchanges, includes removing the existing stale, stagnant and sometimes toxic air from the environment and replacing that air with fresh, clean air. The key is taking the air from inside the home and exhausting it to the outside. Recycling the indoor air isn’t enough to make our homes healthy. When ventilating air to the outside, we also remove the constituents that make up that air. This includes things like Volatile Organic Compounds, or VOCs, Chemicals, unhealthy gases, like Radon and moisture.

NM: How do you know if the air you are breathing at home is safe?

You can always hire a professional to come out and test your air, but more often than not, there are some simple things to do prior to taking that step. The easiest way to diagnose if your house is making you sick is to determine how you feel when you remove yourself from that environment. Do you cough less or sniffle less? Does your headache go away outside of your home? Are you not as stuffy when you leave, which in the past you always thought was just a part of waking up? Do you or your children have less allergies, or allergic reactions outside of the home? I have worked with many people that didn’t think much of this, until they began paying attention to the details.

NM: What can families do to reduce the amount of germs in the air?

The three biggest things families can do to reduce the amount of germs in the air are:

Source Control. This includes removing the things causing the problems. Is there a wet, damp or moldy carpet or items in the basement? The water problem needs to be solved. Are there leaky sinks in the kitchen or bathrooms? Check under the counters for any signs of water problems. Are you using scented candles or air fresheners? What kind of cleaning supplies are you using to clean the house, including surfaces? Although it sounds drastic, these things need to be eliminated from the environment.

Ventilation. Ventilation is the key to a healthy indoor environment. As humans, we are the cause of a large majority of the health problems in our home. We do things like cook, shower, sneeze, sweat- all things that add contaminants to the indoor air. We even bring things in to our home. That new carpet smell? Those are chemicals in the carpet that are off gassing. How about that new couch that advertises the ability to clean up red wine spills like they never happened? That’s a chemical that has been added to that product, and not a natural one. And that chemical does off gas. The off-gassing process can last anywhere from a few months to years, and it is dependent on the amount of ventilation occurring in the house.

Filtration. On certain occasions, and especially for people with compromised health, filtration can be important. The concern with this type of remedy is the ongoing maintenance. There will be filters that have to be changed on a regular basis. What is also of concern is what we’ll refer to as the Law of Diminishing Returns. If a filter is supposed to be changed out, or washed, every 6 months, how effective is that filter in the 5th month, compared to on Day 1?

NM: What small steps can we all take this year to safeguard our health and wellbeing and improve the air quality in our homes?

Maintain your HVAC system with even more regularity than before. If the filters suggest changing them every 6 months, then change them every 3. Get rid of the things that you think are helping your indoor environment. Candles, air fresheners, and chemical sprays, for example. If you don’t have a whole house ventilation system, then regularly open your windows, even in colder environments. The windows don’t have to stay open for hours on end, but 15-20 mins a couple of times a day will help to rid your home of unwanted pollutants. I can hear it now: “But my heat is on, and opening the windows will just cost me a lot more to heat my home.” There’s an opportunity cost in everything we do. If the extra few cents per month, and that’s all it will be, help create a healthier indoor environment, then that means less doctor’s visits, or maybe even less allergy medication.

NM: What are the biggest pollutants of household air during the holidays? How can we reduce them?

Candles, air fresheners, cooking and Christmas trees. Don’t reduce these things, eliminate them. If a candle in your home smells like a Christmas tree, that is not natural. That is a combustion process, think flame, going on in your home, whereby chemicals are being released in your house to mimic that smell. It’s hard to think about, but if it means our children cough less, scratch less, and are, overall, happier, than it is worth it to eliminate these things. I speak from experience. We learned over 10 years ago that our now 14-year-old son was allergic to pine. It was a tough decision, but the first year that we had a fake tree and our son no longer had “the invisible wall” in his nose, we knew we made the right decision.

Andre Lacroix, VP EZ Breathe Healthy Home Solutions

Andre is a Certified Indoor Environmentalist, Healthy Home Specialist, National Radon Measurement Provider and all around Indoor Air Quality Advocate with over 15 years’ experience in Indoor Air Quality. Andre is passionate about the home’s role in supporting a healthy lifestyle for homeowners everywhere. He is a Board of Director and VP of the Basement Health Association and also a member of IAQA, Indoor Air Quality Association; BPI, Building Performance Institute; ISIAQ, International Society of Indoor Air Quality; NCHH, National Center Health Housing; NEHA, National Environmental Health Association; BHA, Basement Health Association; AARST, American Association of Radon Scientist and Technologists. Andre is an avid waterman and loves surfing, scuba diving, free diving and gazing out at the ocean, unless he is talking about indoor air quality, that is!

Maintaining Indoor Air Quality During a COVID Christmas