Category: Purify Your Air

Dust is everywhere. However, for some people it can be such a nuisance and finding a good way to get rid of it in your home or office can be difficult. In your search for a way to deal with indoor dust, you may have heard that air purifiers can help but even so you remain unconvinced if they actually work.

Well, starting with a quick answer to your question, let me clarify this for you. Briefly put, do air purifiers get rid of dust? Air purifiers do get rid of dust indoors but not completely. Furthermore, not all types of air purifiers eliminate dust. The most reliable type of air purifier for dust is a True HEPA air purifier. To effectively eliminate dust, air purifiers must be used jointly with some additional measures.

Though air purifiers are not the end-all solution for dust, they do considerably reduce the amount of dust in your air.  To give you an in-depth understanding of how air purifiers can help you deal with indoor dust, in this post I firstly show you, in detail, how dust gets into your indoor air and how air purifiers tackle indoor dust. 

Thereafter I show you some recommended air purifiers you can use for dealing with dust and the extra measures you need to take to effectively deal with dust using an air purifier. By the end of this post, you should know exactly how to use air purifiers to get rid of dust.

Where Does Dust Come From & Can Air Purifiers Help?

Knowing where dust comes from and how it spreads, for me, is the first step to understanding how air purifiers can help you with dust. So where does dust come from?

This might be obvious, but for clarity, before I start answering this question let me point out that we are talking about indoor dust. Indoor, dust comes from both outdoors and indoors. Studies show that 60 percent of indoor dust comes from outside your home or a building facility and the rest is generated indoors.

Most of the dust that gets into your home or workspace from outside comes from airborne particles released from soil, plants, and animals. Additionally, you also have airborne particles from factories and traffic pollution. If your neighbors smoke, second-hand smoke from cigarettes also contributes to the dust in your indoor air. 

These are some of the major outdoor sources of dust. Indoors, dust originates from your own dead skin, pet shedding’s, surfaces made of fibrous materials, cooking, some cosmetics, printers, and various other office and household processes. 

For example, if you do some hobby woodwork in your home garage, you are definitely no stranger to dust. All this dust from various sources floats around your indoor air and eventually settles on surfaces across your work or living space. Thereafter, at times the settled dust gets disturbed and subsequently redistributed back into your air.

Airborne dust particles range in size from 0.01 microns up to 1000 microns. As dust particles are airborne, this is where air purifiers fit into the picture in helping you get rid of dust.  Studies show air purifiers can filter out  particulate matter of 1, 2.5, and 10 micrometers in size from your air and this includes dust particles of all sizes.

Like all other airborne particulates, air purifiers suck airborne dust out of the air. They do this by sucking dust-filled air out of your room and passing this air through a series of filters within their filtration core where the dust particles and other pollutants are eventually trapped. 

Dust particles are trapped in the filters while the air simply passes through the filters and eventually it is released back into your room clean and dust-free. This process happens continuously.

After several cycles through your air purifier, your indoor air eventually becomes pretty much free of dust. With less dust in your air, you have a lot less dust settling on surfaces around your home or workspace and this is how air purifiers get rid of indoor dust.

Now, the next question I had after seeing how air purifiers get rid of dust was, “do they completely get rid of dust?” Unfortunately, the answer is no. However, they do substantially reduce the level of dust in an indoor space if you have a good air purifier and you are using it correctly. On this note, we can delve into the next section of our discussion.

What Type Of Air Purifiers Are Best For Dust?

There are many types of air purifiers out there each professing to do wonders for your air. However, some types perform better than others depending on the type of pollutants you have in your air. 

Noticing that some types of air purifiers are better than others at dealing with the various range of air pollutants, the recent trend has been for manufacturers to make hybrid air purifiers. These are air purifiers that are built with a combination of filters to tackle a wider range of pollutants in your air.

Accordingly, to tackle airborne dust, you have a choice between a hybrid air purifier or an air purifier with a single type of filter. Of the many types of air purifiers, the only one you really need for dust is a HEPA air purifier. 

Other mechanical filter air purifiers like MERV filter, electrostatic filter or pleated filter air purifiers will work for dust as well but your life will be less complicated with a HEPA filter air purifier. You also should not go for any odd HEPA air purifier, you have to make sure you get an air purifier that is True HEPA certified.

HEPA filters that are not True HEPA certified are substandard and more often than not you will find that they do not effectively reduce your indoor dust levels. They miss out on filtering a lot of fine dust particles as they can usually only get rid of dust particles that are larger than two to three microns in size.  

Another type of air purifier that will work for dust is an ionic air purifier but they are nowhere near as efficient as True HEPA air purifiers. Additionally, ionic air purifiers produce trace amounts of ozone.

Ozone is a powerful air cleaning agent but it’s not good for your health and causes respiratory irritations if you or your pets inhale enough of it. I would keep away from ionic air purifiers and stick to True HEPA air purifiers for dust. 

Some proprietary filter-based air purifiers perform and filter air more efficiently than True HEPA air purifiers. You can go for these if you like, but again I am biased towards True HEPA purifiers as they are more readily available and they are simply good enough for getting rid of airborne dust.

True HEPA air purifiers can remove 99.7% of particulates down to 0.01 microns and this covers the bulk of airborne dust you need to be concerned about in your air. The other thing you also have to watch for is that your air purifier can do at least 3 air exchanges per hour (3 ACH) and it can adequately cover your room size.

To conclude, if you are getting an air purifier for dust, be it a hybrid or single filter air purifier, make sure to go for an air purifier with a True HEPA filter.

3  Air Purifiers That Actually Get Rid Of Dust

I must say, you are spoilt for choice when it comes to air purifiers for dust. The True HEPA technology is so widespread and pretty much all the reputable air purifier manufacturers have air purifiers that will do an excellent job getting rid of air-borne dust and lowering the amount of dust accumulating around your home.

Of all the options, here are three I found to be a perfect choice for dealing with dust. In my choice, I considered air purifiers that will work well for situations where you have extremely high levels of dust and air purifiers that will work well if you are looking to deal with dust and other forms of pollutants like gases and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs).

1. Enviroklenz  Mobile Air System

One of the best things you can get for a home or office struggling with excessive dust levels is the EnviroKlenz Mobile Air System. From initial observation, this air purifier looks like some appliance from the 1960s but do not be deceived by its looks.

The Enviroklenz is one of the most robust HEPA air purifiers I have seen to date. It may only filter out airborne particles down to 0.3 microns but from anecdotal evidence and independent testing, it has proven very effective in clearing airborne dust.

The secret of this air purifier is in the density of its HEPA media filter. It is much denser than the ordinary True HEPA filter due to the unique layered design that Enviroklenz uses. This enables it to capture dust particulates more effectively than most rivaling True HEPA purifiers. 

The Enviroklenz can clean air in an area of up to 1000 square feet at 3 ACH as required for effective clearing up of airborne dust. For more info about the Enviroklenz air purifier click here.

2. Powermatic PM1250

The next effective system I highly recommend for dust is not an air purifier in its traditional sense but it’s rather an air filtration system. The Powermatic PM1250 Micro Dust system is actually designed for dust in woodworking shops. However, if you have a lot of dust in your home or office this system can work wonders for you.

The Powermatic PM1250 is an airborne dust collector on steroids. It does not use a HEPA filter but rather an electrostatic filter that attracts and captures even ultrafine dust particulates like a dust magnet.

It looks like a big fan but, it’s actually tranquil for its size, even at its highest operating speed. The Powermatic can manage 5 ACH in a room of up to 680 square feet. It can get rid of 99.7% of airborne particulates, including dust particles down to 0.1 microns. For more info about the Powermatic air filtration system click here.

3. Rabbit Air MinusA2

Last but not least, Rabbit Air’s MinusA2 air purifier is a really great choice for clearing airborne dust in small to medium-sized rooms. Rabbit Air has a unique HEPA filter called the advanced BioGS HEPA filter which is tailored towards protecting your environment from dust. 

Their filter is made of a special bioengineered fiber material that prevents mold growth and secondary contamination on them and allows for them to capture airborne particles including dust for a longer time without losing efficiency. 

With the MinusA2, you are going to have less dust floating around, and you will spend less time dusting your home or workspace. The MinusA2 air purifier can manage 4 ACH in a room of about 400 square feet. 

It is quite a robust and high-quality option for clearing and keeping dust at bay in a small to medium-sized indoor space. For more information about the Rabbit Air MinusA2 click here.

Like I said earlier there are many other options out there of dust eliminating air purifiers. As long as they have a True HEPA filter or any better filter than that. For other  great True HEPA filters I have found that do an awesome job for dust and your general air quality, check out my list of recommended air purifiers here. 

8 Extra Steps To Effectively Reduce Dust With Air Purifiers

The thing with air purifiers is that they can only get rid of dust in the air. Accordingly, they cannot completely get rid of dust on their own. As your air purifier cleans your air, it will miss some airborne dust particles and these will eventually land on surfaces around your home.

The job of your air purifier is to minimize the amount of dust that settles on surfaces around your home or workspace and not to completely get rid of the dust. This means you will still have to clean up dust around your home or workspace. However, if you have a good air purifier you will notice the amount of dust you have to clean up is considerably less.

Given that air purifiers simply reduce the amount of dust indoors rather than completely getting rid of dust, here is a list of extra measures you can use together with your air purifier to win the war against indoor dust.

1. Wipe Surfaces With A Damp Cloth

Avoid using feathers dusters when dealing with dust on surfaces but rather wipe the surfaces with a damp cloth. By doing this you minimize the amount of dust you send back into your air and subsequently the amount of dust your air purifier has to deal with.

Another thing you should do when wiping surfaces is mix fabric softener into the water you use to dampen the cloth you are using to wipe your surfaces. 

A lot of items (like TVs, laptops, etc.) and some surfaces around your home build up a static charge and become dust magnets but wiping them with fabric softener greatly reduces their static and consequently the amount of dust they attract and collect.

2. Avoid Carpet Flooring

Carpets are known for harboring dust and all kinds of particles that become airborne with day to day activities carried out on your carpet. So, if you are concerned about dust, consider replacing your carpet for more air quality friendly flooring.

3. Change Your Bedding Often

Beds and beddings are other key sources of dust in your home. They harbor dead skin, hair, particles you brought in from outdoors, dust mites, and much more. To minimize dust from beddings, you need to change and wash your beddings every week. The other thing you can do is get hypoallergenic beddings.

4. Vacuum Your Floors And Surfaces

Vacuuming surfaces and floors every week with a HEPA vacuum cleaner can really help keep dust at bay and it’s very effective if you are doing this in conjunction with an air purifier. When it comes to vacuuming floors you can also invest in a robotic vacuum cleaner. This gadget will keep your floor clean 24/7 and save you so much time keeping your floor clean.

5. Dust Rugs And Apparel Outside

To avoid unnecessary dust indoors, if you have to dust a rug or anything for that matter, take whatever you need to dust outside and do the dusting outdoors.

6. Maintain Your Furnace And HVAC System

A lot of dust can get into your home through your air ducts if you have a central air system. You need to clean your air ducts at least once a year and make sure you replace your furnace and HVAC filters on time. If you don’t, eventually you will have dust coming through your vents and into your indoor air.

7. Control Your Humidity Level

Dust can build up through dust mites if your air is too humid and if your air is too dry then you get static build-up on surfaces around your home and subsequently these surfaces attract dust. So, to minimize dust you have to keep indoor humidity levels at the sweet spot of between 45% and 60%. To do this, you can use either a humidifier or dehumidifier.

8. Prevent Dust From Entering Your Home

As you move in and out of your home you carry a lot of dust on your clothes and shoes. A lot of particles that eventually collect in your home as dust also come in through windows and gaps under your doors. 

There are several measures you can try to stop dust from getting into your office or home through these weak points. To list some,

• you can place doormats at all your doors, 
• you can install dust and pollen screens on your windows,
• you can install door closers on doors to keep them closed all the time, and 
• you can put a draft stopper on your door.

So, these are the 8 extra measures you need to take to effectively control dust while using an air purifier. 

Though you cannot completely get rid of dust indoors, using these 8 measures hand in hand with an air purifier will help you reduce the level of dust in your work or living space to the lowest level you possibly can without any professional intervention.

If you’ve gone through everything I have shared in this post, I think I can confidently say, now you fully know whether you can get rid of dust with an air purifier or not and exactly how to use an air purifier to get rid of dust.

With ever increasing air pollution levels around the world and things like the airborne coronavirus epidemic that’s ongoing as I write this post, improving and maintaining good air quality in a baby’s room is fast becoming a priority for many parents. Fortunately, there is a lot you can do to improve air quality in your child’s nursery.

However, before we get into the details, in short, how can you improve air quality in a baby’s room? In summary, air quality in a baby’s room can be improved by taking four basic steps. The first step is to test the air in the room to identify what’s causing the poor air quality, the next is to eliminate the identified causes, then thereafter it’s regular room cleaning and making use of air remediation appliances.

Air remediation appliances include things like air purifiers, humidifiers, and dehumidifiers. Another essential step in improving and maintaining good baby nursery air quality is monitoring your air quality. 

I touch on all these things in more detail in the rest of this post starting with a reminder of why it’s important to make sure you provide your child with clean air.  Read this entire post and you will know exactly what to do to for good air quality in your baby’s room and to ensure your child does not fall victim to the effects of poor air quality.

Why Should You Improve Air Quality In Baby’s Room?

To better appreciate the importance of knowing how to improve air quality in your baby’s room and to encourage you to take action on this knowledge, I believe it’s important to remind ourselves of the dangers that poor air quality poses to baby’s.  The video below really hit home on this issue for me.

Watch This Video

There are so many reasons why you should improve air quality in your baby’s room but all the reasons are centered on the health of your child. The scariest of these I came across was that if your baby is exposed to polluted air today, they may only ever start to feel the adverse effects on their health years later when they are much older. 

So, you never even know or see what’s happening. Poor air quality is like a silent killer. By the time you know what’s going on it’s a little too late. What’s more, evidence now shows acute exposure to toxic gases and pollution in the home is a serious cause of infant mortality that largely goes unnoticed. 

Based on scientific research, not doing anything to improve poor air quality in your baby’s room is a life and death matter. Should your baby survive extended periods of exposure to bad air, the next risk they face is having neurodevelopmental issues. This means they could get cognitive issues like attention deficit disorder or autism among others.

Next, exposure to traffic pollution has been shown to have negative effects in terms of insulin resistance in babies resulting in higher chances of obesity in the later years of a child. Then you have childhood cancers and a whole host of respiratory issues your child could get, ranging from pneumonia down to asthma. 

I have also learned that with enough exposure to poor air quality, your child can get otitis media, which is a painful ear infection that could have your baby crying non-stop and potentially impair your child’s hearing. Besides the long term negative effects as your child matures into an adult, polluted air also has some more immediate effects on your baby.

Immediate effects your baby could experience include, fatigue, headaches, sinusitis, nausea, allergic reactions, and dizziness. What sucks is that many times you cannot even tell it’s your air that’s causing all this. 

Babies are especially susceptible to poor indoor air quality because their lungs are still developing, their bodies are not developed enough to metabolize and get rid of toxins they ingest from the air, and they inhale much more air per unit of their body weight than adults. To sum it up, they are still softies. 

Unlike adults, if their room is polluted, they cannot say anything about it or simply get up and go to a better environment. Meanwhile, as I have just shown you, they are highly vulnerable to a whole host of risks presented to them through poor air quality and you are pretty much their only line of defense.

Considering all the dangers and vulnerability of your baby against polluted air, the next thing you should be asking yourself is where is my child likely to be most exposed? For most people, the answer is, in their bedroom. 

Your baby will spend most of its time in its nursery and that’s where poor air quality is likely the most damage if you fail to address it. Accordingly, you have to do everything you can to improve the air quality in your baby’s room because it is one of the most critical places where your child is likely to succumb to the negative effects of poor air quality.

What Causes Poor Air Quality In Your Baby’s Room

One other thing I felt important to consider before getting into the details about how to improve air quality in your baby’s nursery is how that air gets polluted in the first place. Understanding this will help you easily improvise and tweak things when you implement the various air quality improvement measures.

The primary pollutants that mess up the air in your baby’s room include PM10 particles, ultrafine particles, PM2.5 particles, biological agents, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Most of these cannot be seen with the naked eye.

All of these travel through the air and enter your home through windows, vents, and other holes around your house and through various objects you carry in and out of your home. As for VOCs, they largely off-gas from certain building materials, furniture, home cleaning products, paints, certain personal care products, and carpets among others.

Another source for VOCs you cannot ignore is household combustion processes like cigarette smoking and cooking. Then for biological agents, you have things like airborne bacteria, germs, mold spores, and viruses. 

They can travel through the air from outside into your home or can get into your home’s air by a sick person sneezing or by dusting off dirty clothes and shoes. Biological agents also include dust mites, pet odors, and shedding of hair and dander from your pets.

Then 90% of your air pollutants both indoors and outdoors consist of your PM 10, PM 2.5, and Ultrafine Particles. These include vehicle exhaust fumes, smoke, pollen, dust, and factory emissions among others. 

Just like in the rest of your home, all these pollutants somehow find their way into your baby’s nursery. More specifically in your baby’s room, some stuff that emits pollutants that go unnoticed include flooring, mattresses, curtains, and toys. 

I would likely never have known all this if I was not into this whole clean air stuff and I can only imagine for the unsuspecting new parents. Now that you are aware of all the key causes and potential sources of bad baby room air quality, the whole idea behind improving things is to simply minimize the volume of any of the identified pollutants across your home.

With this in mind, you are well on your way towards keeping your baby’s air at its best. We can now finally jump into the actual air quality improvement measures you can put in place for your baby’s nursery.

19 Steps To Improve Air Quality In Baby’s Room

1. Get Your Indoor Air Quality Checked

The first step to ensuring good indoor air quality in your baby’s room is getting the air in your home professionally tested for pollutants. You can run tests by yourself but the tests you are likely to run on your own are unlikely to provide you with the level of detail and thoroughness you will get from specialist air quality testers.

A great company I always refer people to for professional air quality tests is IndoorDoctor. They have state of the art gadgets and have access to a wide network of reputable laboratories to assess the state of your indoor air condition.

They also have what they call a New Baby Air Check, which is an air quality test aimed at detecting if your indoor air has any of the most threatening air pollutants for your baby.

Once you run your professional air check you will know exactly what to target and how to cut pollution and improve the air quality in your baby’s nursery.

2. Get An Air Quality Monitor

In addition to testing your air, it is wise to have a real time air quality monitoring system in your baby’s room. There are many types of air quality monitoring devices to choose from. Of the many options, go for a system that will not only indicate your indoor pollution level by the second but will also alert you when your air quality is getting too low. 

One cool air quality monitoring device that recently caught my eyes is the Microbot Alert. Check out the video below to learn more about it.

For some of my recommended air quality monitoring devices click here. When considering an air quality monitoring device, also try to go for a smart and connected device that can show you not just the quality of air it measures around your home but also the air quality outdoors and around your city based on information shared online from official sources.

Having an air quality monitoring device in your baby’s nursery is like having a security guard keeping watch for any intruders and ready to sound the alarm to help you keep your child out of harm’s way. 

3. Clean Your Home And Baby’s Room With Eco-friendly Cleaning Chemicals

When you have a baby in your home, keeping your entire home clean is a key part of making sure the air quality in your child’s nursery is as good as possible. You have to get rid of the clutter around your home. If you struggle with messiness and clutter, check out this guide to learn how to easily deal with clutter in your home.

You should have a cleaning routine in place that takes into account freshening up your air. A big part of all this is to use eco-friendly alternatives to your usual cleaning chemicals especially in your baby’s room and rooms near to or leading to there. 

Simply replacing the cleaning chemicals you use with green detergents and cleaning solutions, over time, works wonders for your entire home and essentially your baby’s living space. For some eco-friendly and green home cleaning chemicals options worth considering, check out my post here.

4. Clean Your Window Sills

Baby’s are highly sensitive to mold, and one common way mold gets into the air in any room including a baby’s bedroom is through a room’s windowsill. Mold often grows on windowsills because windowsills are good at keeping excess moisture which mold thrives on.

Once any form of mold matures, eventually they produce spores which are easily dispersed into the air. Now if the mold spores are produced on the windowsill of your baby’s room, when they disperse into the air, they spread all over your baby’s room with the potential of messing with your baby’s health.

To avoid all this, you need to keep all windowsills around your child’s nursery clean and dry. Mold sprouts where there is filth and moisture and the trick here is to regularly clean your window sills to keep both of these out.

5. Use HEPA Vacuum Cleaner

By using a HEPA filter based vacuum cleaner you can capture much smaller particles of filth lying around your home and subsequently reduce the volume of particulates that can get into your home and baby’s nursery air from surfaces. There are a couple of HEPA vacuum cleaners I found work really well. For more details on them click here.

6.  Use A Robot Vacuum Cleaner

If you are busy parents, or just can’t find the time to regularly keep floors around your home and in the baby’s room clean, then you should really consider a robotic vacuum cleaner. Robot vacuum cleaners detect dirt on your floor and autonomously keep them spotless.

Not only are they a huge time saver, but they will also greatly help you curb the spread of pollutants from your floor into your air when incorporated into your cleaning routine. A good idea is to place one permanently in baby’s room.

7. Dust Jackets, Shoes And Other Things Outside The House

When you dust anything, be it clothes, furniture, curtains, you send all kinds of particles flying into your indoor air. In light of this, it’s wise to do any dusting outside your home. If you can carry something outside, then take it outside to dust it. This way you prevent unnecessarily spreading pollutants in your home and eventually into your baby’s nest. 

8. Don’t Allow Smoking In Your Home

We all know the dangers of smoking. If you are serious about giving your baby the best air quality simply do not allow smoking in your home. There might not be much you can do to stop your inconsiderate neighbor from doing it but in your house, you can ban it. 

You can even make people wash their hands and gargle some mouthwash for the baby’s sake if they have been smoking and would like to visit your baby in its bedroom.

9. Always Use A Kitchen Exhaust Hood When Cooking

Cooking releases a lot of VOCs into your home. These can spread across your home into your child’s room. To minimize this, install an exhaust hood over your cooker if you haven’t already.

Make sure to use your kitchen hood whenever you cook, to suck up as much VOCs as possible before they spread across your home. Make sure to go for an activated carbon hood.

10. Don’t Burn Candles

I am not sure what it is with candles in a baby’s nursery and all the noise around status candles but what I know is that candles do not work to improve air quality in a baby’s bedroom. 

Most candles release VOCs and some scents can be too much for the little one. You can try beeswax candles but better to keep out the candles if you are going for good air quality.

11. Keep Plants Out Of Baby’s Room

Certain plants will work in the baby’s room. There is also a lot of craze out there about air purifying plants but from my knowledge plants are likely to do more harm than good in a baby’s room. Plants can hurt your indoor air quality.

This is contrary to popular belief. However, the reality is some plants attract insects into your and some are dust mite magnets as they collect dust on their leaves and these little critters through their excretions can introduce allergens into the air of your child’s nursery.

I have not even touched on plants that release pollen into the air. Ultimately, all I can say is you are better off without plants in a baby’s room. It’s much easier to control air quality there without plants but if you must have a plant in the nursery read this first to make sure you choose the right type.

12. Ventilate Your Baby’s Room

To get some new and fresh air into your baby’s room, open the room’s windows for at least 10 minutes a day. You should however only do this when your outdoor air quality is reportedly good. 

In many parts of the world, you can check whether the air quality in your city is good or not online. If you have a smart and internet-connected air quality monitor it can also indicate this to you by tapping into official local weather service feeds.

There is just something about letting a sweet breeze of clean air from outside into a room that makes breathing easier. Ventilation from a fan, when windows are open also really helps. With ventilation, you can quickly blow pollutants out into the outdoors that would otherwise linger around in your indoor air for a while.

13. Use Green And Eco-Friendly Alternatives In Baby’s Room

Since studies started being released of how a lot of household products release VOCs and toxic chemicals into your air, in recent years a lot of companies that make safer green household products have started springing up.

These days you can now get green, eco-friendly, organic furniture, carpets, mattresses, toys and you name it that are non-toxic and do not off-gas any chemicals into your air. For a baby’s room, the first items you have to make sure you go green on are your child’s mattress, crib, and beddings.

For organic baby mattresses, without any doubt, my go-to place is NATUREPEDIC. For beddings and a lot of other organic baby stuff, check out Our Green House. Then for cribs, have a look at what Silva Furniture and Green Cradle have to offer. Besides sleep gear, I have also seen some neat organic toys on offer at Oompa.

Personally, I would rather go for a rug than a carpet in Baby’s room. Keeping your floor and consequently your air clean is much easier with a rug than a carpet in your baby’s room. However, if you prefer carpets please watch the video below or look through this guide for some awesome non-toxic carpet options. 

For organic rugs, you will find some great options from Cali Bamboo, Loloi, or Organic Weave Shop.

14. Use Hypoallergenic Beddings

Hypoallergenic beddings are made from materials that are resistant to allergens. This is great for improving air quality in your baby’s room because it means things like dust mites have less breeding ground around the room. 

The less dust mites, the less of their excretions you will have floating around and deteriorating your air quality. Hypoallergenic beddings are also effective at keeping mold, bacteria, and all kinds of air polluting microorganisms you may find on your baby’s bedding at bay. 

They are also a great way of protecting your child from airborne allergens landing around its bed and crib. You can get some nice hypoallergenic crib bedding from Clover & Sage on Amazon. Also, check out my other recommended places to get quality and affordable hypoallergenic beddings here.

15. Keep Your HVAC and AC  Clean

HVACs and air conditioners can be a great way to ensure good ventilation and temperature across your home. However, if you have a dirty HVAC or AC, they can be a significant source of air pollutants across your living space.

To maintain good air quality in your baby’s room, you, therefore, have to make sure your HVAC and AC are clean. With a baby around, try to get these air systems maintained every quarter. 

You have to ensure your air ducts are professionally cleaned and you change filters regularly to avoid mold growth and oversaturation of pollutants on your filters. This way you prevent your AC and HVAC from deteriorating the air in your home and ultimately your child’s nursery.

16. Keep Pets Out Of Baby’s Room

Pets are awesome but unfortunately, they can spread all kinds of pollutants into your air. When you allow pets indoors and into your baby’s bedroom, they spread stuff including pet dander, hair, mold, and even pollen and other air pollutants attached to their body after playing outdoors. 

Don’t forget pets can also pee and poop around the home, which is definitely not good for your air quality. The drastic solution here is to not have pets at all in your home. However, if that’s not an option, the next best thing is to declare your baby’s room a no go zone for pets. 

You can go as far as keeping your pets away from the bedroom area of your home. This way you limit the level of pollutants that find their way into your nursery due to pets.

17. Don’t Remodel The Room When Baby Has Moved In

Unless it’s an emergency and something you cannot avoid, do not do any renovation work in your baby’s room when it is just about to be born or have already occupied its nursery. This will totally mess up your child’s air quality.

Remodeling always entails some form of dust and chemical pollutants getting into your air, and it can take a couple of days before whatever pollution you caused doing the renovations clear up. Especially if you are not using any air moving or filtration system. 

So if you want to maintain good quality air in your baby’s room please avoid renovations. The only exception to this rule is if you are installing some system that actually helps improve your room’s air quality.

18. Maintain A Good Humidity Level

High humidity levels indoors are a strong invitation for air pollutants such as fungi, mold, yeast, and bacteria. To avoid such pollutants in baby’s room, you need to get your humidity level under control.

First, get a good hygrometer for accurate measurement of your humidity levels, then you will need a good dehumidifier to bring your humidity levels down if you have too much air moisture in your child’s bedroom. 

To ensure good air quality, aim to bring your humidity level between 35% and 50%. If your humidity level is too low, you can also fix that by using a humidifier to add some moisture to your air. 

19. Get An Air Purifier

Finally, once you have sorted out all the issues contributing to poor air quality in your baby’s room and addressed air pollutants at their source by actually getting rid of stuff that’s ruining your air, setting up an air purifier in the room will do wonders for your air quality there.

You however need to get the correct air purifier. For a baby’s nursery, avoid ionic air purifiers and ozone generators or anything that generates ozone. Go for air purifiers with smart features and with a True HEPA and Activated Carbon filter. 

For an extra level of filtration, especially against microorganisms like mold and bacteria, get either an air purifier with a UV or PCO filter in addition to your True HEPA and Activated Carbon filter. Such types of air purifiers are really the only type you need to improve air quality in your baby’s room. 

You have a lot of options but to save you time searching, click here to check out my recommended list of air purifiers. You can use these around your home and your baby’s room. To get the most out of your air purifier be sure to position it properly and get the correct size to cover the area of your room.

Other Measures To Protect Your Baby From Bad Air Quality

I have now shown you quite a number of steps on how you can improve the air quality in your baby’s room. The steps I have shown you are by no means everything you need but they are the main steps towards getting and maintaining good air quality in your baby’s room.

The story of providing your child with quality air however does not end in the bedroom. You also have to provide good air quality and protect your child from pollution outside its nursery. There is a host of things you can do to generally ensure your child is always breathing clean air. 

To ensure your baby has access to good air quality all the time you can,

• Get your baby an escape hood gas mask like this one from WellPrepared or this one from MIRA Safety
• Get a portable air purifier to place in your baby’s stroller when outdoors
• Use a stroller with a high seat height like the Graco Modes Nest Stroller to keep your baby elevated above ground level traffic pollution when outdoors
• Stop burning waste around your home and rather send it for recycling or professional disposal
• Improve your baby’s immunity by breastfeeding, immunization vaccines, and through a good diet
• Raise awareness on pollution and child health in your community

Wood Stove fires are great. In fact, modern wood stoves are quite an efficient low-cost heating method compared to natural gas or propane-based stoves or heaters. However, something many people forget when selecting a wood stove is how they badly affect indoor air quality.

Wood stoves emit dangerous fine particulate matter into your air which aggravates asthma, COPD, and other existing respiratory conditions. Furthermore, over the long term,  if you are exposed to high enough concentrations of these particulates they can cause you some serious lung damage . 

Accordingly, when selecting a wood stove you want to make sure to go for options with the lowest impact on your indoor air quality as possible. Five great choices of wood stoves for indoor air quality include,

1. Pacific Energy Summit LE
2. MF Fire Catalyst
3. Blaze King
4. Woodstock Soapstone Absolute Steel
5. Vermont Castings Intrepid Flexburn

I provide more detail on these later in this post. Before I get into the details on these stoves, I also share some important information with you about what to look for when trying to search for a wood stove that will keep your indoor air as clean as possible. 

This way, whatever wood stove you come across, you can assess for yourself if it’s good enough for your indoor air quality. Lastly in the rest of this post, in addition to getting an air-friendly stove, I leave you with some extra tips you can use to ensure your air quality is at its best when running your stove.

Get through this post and you will have all the info you need to successfully maintain the best air quality possible when running a wood stove.

What Kind Of Wood Stove Is Best For Indoor Air Quality?

As I write this post, there is currently no wood stove that does not release any pollutants into your air. The best you will find for your indoor air quality is a wood stove that minimizes how much bad stuff it releases into your air.

Accordingly, for you to make the best choice for your air, it’s important you know which types of wood stoves to go for and which to avoid. You need to know the various types and their advantages and disadvantages before I take you through some viable options from specific brands and models.

The main underlying factor determining how good or bad a wood stove is for your home’s air quality is your stove’s design. Some wood stoves have an airtight design, while others are not, some use catalytic converters while others are non-catalytic. Each of these wood stove designs has its consequences for your air quality.

If you value good indoor air quality, the main types of wood stoves you better stay away from are those that burn wood imperfectly. Such wood stoves create ashes, soot, and creosote as byproducts and these are among the main pollutants from wood stoves that worsen your indoor air quality. 

That said the chances of you getting wood stoves that burn imperfectly these days are very low. This is because everyone is now pushing the eco-friendly agenda forcing wood stove manufacturers to move away from the old types of wood stoves to modern ones that burn more efficiently.

The other type of stoves you want to avoid besides those that burn imperfectly are non-airtight stoves. Several scientific studies showed that non-airtight wood stoves caused levels of total suspended particles (TSP) in indoor air to exceed the Environmental Protection Agency’s 24-h outdoor air quality standard. 

Simply put this means non-airtight wood stoves make indoor air quality really bad. Fortunately, non-airtight wood stoves are largely old generation stoves and you are unlikely to make the mistake of buying one as the world moves away from eco-unfriendly wood stove designs.

Now, seeing that non-airtight wood stoves are something to steer clear of, you might think as long as you stick to airtight stoves you will get better indoor air quality. However, that’s not always the case. 

Some airtight wood stoves are actually dirtier than non-airtight stoves because they keep out oxygen when burning wood and result in incomplete combustion (an imperfect burn). Indeed you have to go for airtight stoves but only go for environmental agency certified ones to make sure you get one that burns wood properly with minimal air pollution.

In Europe, the best wood stoves for indoor air quality have the CE-Label certification, which is issued by selected environmental enforcement bodies chosen by the European Commission across the EU. In the U.K the airtight models you wanna go for have a DEFRA Approved label.

DEFRA is the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. DEFRA is the government body in charge of protecting the environment in the United Kingdom. 

In the US, the concerned environmental body is the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the safer airtight wood stoves you want to go for if you are in the US will have an EPA certified label. Besides the wood stoves certifications I have listed here, there are obviously many others from different countries.

To maintain the best possible air quality in your home, go for wood stoves that are specifically certified as eco-friendly by authorities in your country. In cases where your country has no certification program for controlling wood stove emissions then you can instead go for certified wood stoves from other countries.

In addition to going for airtight and eco-friendly certified wood stoves, the final decision you have to make when it comes to choosing a wood stove that’s best for your indoor air quality is the choice between a catalytic and non-catalytic wood stove. Both these types of stoves are airtight and both have certified and uncertified brands and models.

You obviously want to stick to the certified options but where these wood stoves differ is on how much pollutants they release into your air. Certified non-catalytic wood stoves release up to 7.5 grams of smoke per hour while catalytic ones release up to 4.1 grams. 

So at first glance, catalytic wood stoves are less polluting and a better option for indoor air quality. However, there is a catch with catalytic wood stoves. Every couple of years, the catalytic converter that makes a better option for your indoor air quality eventually wears out and has to be replaced.

Furthermore, when the catalyst wears out, your wood stove emits smoke and pollutants far exceeding the particulate and smoke emissions of 7.5 grams per hour as recommended by environmental authorities with dire consequences for your indoor air quality. 

On the other hand, non-catalytic wood stoves rarely need any parts replaced and are much easier to maintain. Also, with non-catalytic wood stoves, they literally last forever without losing their efficiency. 

Given all this information, my conclusion was that I would go with the catalytic wood stove if I don’t mind the cumbersome maintenance it comes with but want the best air quality I can possibly get with a wood stove in my home. 

Conversely, I would go with a non-catalytic stove if I don’t want the hustle of maintaining a stove and risks of dangerously high emissions should anyone try to run my catalytic stove while the catalytic converter is worn out.

That said I have some good news. You can actually get the best of both worlds. There are some wood stoves out there that have both a catalytic and non-catalytic combustor in one. 

They are designed so that you can easily switch to your non-catalytic combustor when your catalytic converter gets worn out and also so that you can get the various advantages of either type of stove. 

These types of combined wood stoves are the ultimate option when it comes to maintaining the best air quality in your home. You avoid the risks of high emissions by switching to your non-catalytic combustor when your catalytic converter is down and when it’s up and running you optimize your air quality by using a stove technology with the lowest possible emissions.

The thing with the combo wood stoves is that they are on the pricier end of wood stoves. At the time I am writing this post, they cost upwards of US$3000. Catalytic wood stoves are the next priciest costing up to US$3000 and lastly, non-catalytic wood stoves come in at between US$500 to US$2000. 

So this is the basic story when it comes to types of wood stoves for better air quality. Now that you have an idea of the different kinds of wood stoves to go for and which ones to avoid, we can look at some specific brands and models that will work best for your indoor air quality.

5 Best Wood Stoves For Indoor Air Quality

A lot of manufacturers are now trying to push to make zero-emissions wood stoves and some are getting really close. With this industry moving more and more towards eco-friendly technologies, you really have plenty of options when it comes to good wood stoves for your indoor air quality.

Whether you go for a catalytic or non-catalytic wood stove, today you can get either of these wood stove designs at emission levels of less than 3 grams per hour. In no particular order, below is my list of five best wood stoves for your indoor air quality. 

What matters most for indoor air quality is that emissions from your wood stove are kept as low as possible. A good wood stove for indoor air quality emits less than 3 grams per hour of polluting particulates.

All the wood stoves I show you here have emission levels below 3 grams per hour, making them the perfect choice for you if you want to keep your air as clean as possible while running your stove. Let’s take a look at the options then.

1. Pacific Energy Summit LE

Emitting only 1.8 gm/hr of particulates into your indoor air, the Pacific Energy Summit LE is among the best non-catalytic wood stoves you can get for your indoor air quality. This wood stove is designed for larger spaces and is perfect for long cold winter nights. 

It can keep your home warm for up to 23 hours on the lowest setting for one burn with its extended burn feature. For a large wood stove, the Summit LE is quite affordable at under US$2500.

The trouble is this stove is in such high demand and it can be a mission to get a hold of one. It’s made in Canada and the Canadian market gets served first, so it can be quite tricky to get one in the U.S or any other country. 

The summit is designed for rooms of up to 3000 square feet. If you need something for a smaller room of about 500 to 1500 square feet from Pacific Energy, you can try their Vista LE model.  

At 1.9 gm/hr, its emission levels are a tiny bit more than the Summit LE. For a reliable non-catalytic wood stove that adds minimal pollutants to your indoor air, explore the Pacific Energy range of wood stoves. Their stoves are all EPA certified so you can rest assured they are good on their word about their emission levels.

2. MF Fire Catalyst

At 1.9 gm/hr, the MF Fire Catalyst does not have the lowest emission level among catalytic wood stoves, but it is still perfect for your air quality. The MF Fire Catalyst is a US-made wood stove and I particularly like this wood stove because of its smart feature.

You can use an app to control how hot your stove burns and how long it burns. The app also tells you the total volume of pollutants released into your air after each burn. It will also notify you when it’s time to reload your stove or if your stove has been left open.

The MF Fire Catalyst is designed to warm a room of up to 2000 square feet. This wood stove is EPA certified. Just under US$5000 at the time I was writing this post, it is on the pricier end of wood stoves. For more info, you can check out the MF FIRE Catalyst here.

3. Blaze King

Blaze King manufactures some of the best catalytic wood stoves when it comes to air quality.  Their entire range of wood stoves emit particulates into your air at a maximum rate of 0.8 gm/hr. 

This is actually really good and way below any environmental body’s wood stove emissions targets. All Blaze King wood stoves are accordingly EPA certified and they are high-quality stoves manufactured in the US. 

Blaze King Stoves cost between US$3000 and US$4500 depending on which model you go for. They can burn for as long as 30 hours on their lowest setting. 

They claim that burning wood in their stove is carbon neutral due to their stoves’ high efficiency and clean burn capacity. Blaze King has a solid reputation for producing low emission wood stoves.

Do not overlook their wood stoves when you are considering getting a wood stove that minimally affects your indoor air quality. You can have a look at the range of Blaze King wood stoves here at the Stove Shop if you want to immediately check out how much each model costs or visit Blaze King directly here for detailed specifications on each model.

4. The Absolute Steel Hybrid Wood Stove

A company at the forefront of trying to build a zero-emissions wood stove is the US-based Woodstock Soapstone Company.  Among all the wood stoves I came across in my quest to find the least polluting one for a home or any place that needs one, Woodstock Soapstone’s Absolute Steel Hybrid Wood Stove was the second least polluting stove I found. 

Out of 100s of stoves, I looked through, The Absolute Steel Hybrid Wood Stove had the second-lowest emissions rate I could find for a wood stove at a rate of 0.5 gm/hr. It’s an EPA certified stove and will cover rooms of up to 1800 square feet.

A lot of people with respiratory conditions triggered by air pollutants recognize this wood stove as their go-to wood stove for air quality. At the time of writing this post, this wood stove was going for between US$2000 and US$3000. 

This stove is a hybrid and has both a secondary combustion system and a catalytic combustor. This ensures it burns any gasses and VOCs that get beyond your firebox and in turn, significantly reduces emissions.

It also has automatic dampers that increase the air supply and ensure complete combustion across all its burning levels from low to high. What I like about this stove is that the manufacturer allows you to try it for 6 months for free. 

I’m not so happy about them being the only place where you can buy the stove from and get professional support. However, they have been around for over 40 years and they have plenty of happy customers using this approach so you should be just fine in that regard if you go for this stove. You can find out more about the Absolute Steel Wood Stove here.

5. Vermont Castings Intrepid Flexburn

Remember earlier when I talked about combo wood stoves, well in my opinion the Vermont Intrepid probably the best there is. This stove has both a catalytic and non-catalytic combustor, giving you the best of both worlds.

Not only do you have the best of both worlds, but the Vermont Castings Intrepid Flexburn wood stove also has the lowest emissions rate I have seen for a wood stove on both its combustors. Its non-catalytic combustor has lower emissions than even most catalytic wood stoves at 0.6 gm/hr. 

Then its catalytic combustor beats everything I have seen at 0.3 gm/hr. This is as close as I have seen a commercially available wood stove come to zero emissions. Unless I am missing something, it’s certainly as good as a wood stove will get for your indoor air quality. 

Designed to warm rooms of between 600-1800 square feet, the stove is for small to medium-sized rooms. You would think the rest of Vermont Castings stoves would also have such low emissions but the rest all sit just above 1 gm/hr which is actually not so bad for your air.

The Intrepid Flexburn is reasonably priced for a combo wood stove at about US$2300. This stove is known as the cleanest ever wood-burning stove certified by the EPA. Check out the Vermont Casting Intrepid Flexburn stove here.

For good indoor air quality, these are the five best wood stoves I can confidently vouch for. You keep in mind that my assertion here is all based on the emissions rate per hour.

Another thing you have to note is that larger versions of a wood stove are more likely to have higher pollutant emission rates as they burn more wood per hour than smaller ones. The key here is to stay under the 3 gm/hr rate for whatever type of stove you go for. The lower rate the better for your air quality.

7 Ways To Get The Best Air Quality When Using A Wood Stove

Once you have decided on which air quality friendly wood stove you are going to go for, there are several other things you can do to minimize the level of pollution emitted from wood stoves in your home.

1. Get Your Wood Stove Professionally Installed

How you install your wood stove is a major factor behind how polluted your air gets when running a stove. If your stove is supposedly eco-friendly and when you run it it is clearly polluting your air, then it’s likely it was not properly installed.

Studies have shown that DIY installed stoves commonly result in high levels of indoor air pollution compared to professionally installed stoves. So to make sure you err on the safe side, rather get your stove installed by a professional for the best air quality.

2. Follow Your Wood Stoves Instruction Manual

Like any appliance, reading your wood stove’s manual will help you avoid silly mistakes. In the case of wood stoves, you will avoid unnecessarily polluting the air in your home. You will know exactly how to work your damper to avoid too much smoke, and when and when not to increase airflow. All crucial steps to minimize your wood stove’s pollution levels

3. Regularly Service Your Stove

Keeping your wood stove clean, also keeps your air as clean as possible. This means getting your chimneys cleaned about every six months, emptying out your ash pans, and changing your catalysts whenever they are due if you have a stove with a catalyst. 

4. Burn Dry And Clean Wood

For a clean burn, no matter how advanced or eco-friendly your wood stove, you need your wood to be as dry as possible. Your wood should ideally have less than 20% moisture content. To make sure your wood is not too moist, use a moisture meter (#affiliate link to Amazon) to measure its moisture content before throwing it into your stove.

If you do not, wet wood will produce a lot of smoke and really mess up your indoor air quality. The other thing is that some types of wood are more polluting than others when you burn them. 

Hardwoods like maple, birch, and oak have been found to burn better and more cleanly than softwoods such as fir, cedar, and pine. So go for hardwoods rather than softwoods to minimize the level of indoor pollution from your stove.

Lastly, please completely avoid using treated or painted wood, as they emit harmful fumes and do not use pressured lumber, compressed paper products, plywood, MDF, and aromatic cedars. These will totally ruin the air quality in your home and could also mess up your stove depending on the type of stove you have.

5. Refuel The Stove Properly

When placing wood in your stove, the way you place the wood in your stove can not only save you some wood but also help decrease how much pollution your wood stove produces. When using a wood stove, to minimize pollution by burning your wood more efficiently, it is advised that you start your fire from the top of your woodpile rather than at the bottom.

There is less smoke when you burn your wood from the top. Experts also say you should refuel your stove with larger logs stacked at the bottom and smaller ones on top. You also should not overload your stove and you should avoid contact between your wood and stove walls. This way you will get more complete combustion and the cleanest possible burn.

6. Install An Air Quality Monitor

Monitoring your air quality when you have a wood stove can help you know how bad your wood stove is making your air in real-time. To monitor your air quality, you can use carbon monoxide alarms or more sophisticated air quality monitoring tools. 

An air quality monitoring device will also help you keep track of your outdoor air quality. If things are bad outside, you do not want to be running your stove at that time as this can make your indoor air quality even worse. 

Also in some countries, you will be breaking the law as stoves are banned when air quality is really bad. So, with an air quality monitoring device you know exactly when to turn on and of your wood stove to maintain good air quality. Check out my recommended air quality monitoring gear here.

7. Use An Air Purifier

When you have a wood stove, it’s a no brainer to get an air purifier. There are all kinds of air purifiers out there. However, for wood stove pollutants you do not need anything complicated. A HEPA and activated carbon air purifier that filters air pollutants down to 0.3 microns is more than sufficient as pollutants from wood stoves are larger than 0.3 microns.

An air purifier will deal with all the dust and smoke produced from your wood stove. An air purifier I would highly recommend to help minimize the level of pollutants in your air  when you are using a wood stove is the EnviroKlenz Air Purifier.

In conclusion, let me briefly remind you to go for certified wood stoves if you want better air quality in your home. Go for wood stoves that are EPA, Ecodesign Ready, or DEFRA certified. 

Using an eco-friendly certified and low emission wood stove combined with proper use of your stove should help you ensure you maintain the best possible air quality you can while running your stove. With everything I have shared here, you should now be able to confidently find and select the best wood stove possible for your indoor air quality.

A very important aspect of air quality that many people overlook is flooring. Flooring has a bigger impact on your indoor air quality than you realize. Consequently, for your wellbeing and health, whether you are in your home or in any public indoor space you have to be very mindful of what flooring materials you using.

The discussion on floorings and air quality is lengthy but for those of you who are  just want to know which flooring are best, briefly put, which floorings are best for air quality? In summary, the top five best floorings for indoor air include,

1. Tiles
2. Wooden Floors
3. Natural Linoleum
4. Polished Concrete
5. Rubber Floors

I discuss each of these flooring options in more detail in the rest of this post and I also point out which floorings you should avoid if you wanna maintain good indoor air quality. However, before looking at the various flooring options, I start by sharing some important info on how floors worsen your air quality.

Read through this entire post and by the end of it you should know exactly which flooring to go for to get the best air quality in your home or workspace.

How Does Your Floor Make Your Indoor Air Quality Bad?

I am a strong believer in understanding why things are the way they are before trying to improve or fix them. Accordingly, I think it’s important to first explain how your flooring makes your air quality bad before showing you the best flooring for your air so you can better appreciate which type of flooring is best for your indoor air quality.

So, how does your floor make the air in your work or living space bad?

I managed to find only four distinct ways in which floors can cause your indoor air quality to deteriorate.

1. Floors Make Air Quality Bad By Off-Gassing Chemicals

To begin with, your floor makes your indoor air quality terrible mainly by off-gassing toxic chemicals into your air from the materials it is made of. 

Just from this statement, you can see that if your floor is made of non-toxic materials then it’s better for your air quality. The key here is in the materials used to make your floor. 

The materials include not just the floor itself but the stuff used to adhere your flooring to the ground. All the glues, plastics, grouts, protective finishes used on various flooring types including wooden, ceramic, vinyl, and carpet, among others, also off-gas and contribute to making your indoor air quality bad.

The various floorings and materials used to hold them together that worsen your air quality all do so largely by off-gassing Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) into your air. 

2. Floors Worsen Your Air Quality Through Microorganism Growth

Besides off-gassing chemicals, the other way your floor makes your air dirty is by serving as a conducive environment for fungicide and biocide growth. If your floor was not properly installed and it has air pockets and gaps, eventually filth and moisture can accumulate in these places and create the right conditions for bacteria and fungi to develop.

Furthermore, some floors like wooden floors start to rot and smell if they get wet. Other floor materials like carpeting are just really good at retaining moisture making them a haven for air-polluting microorganisms. This is totally not good for you.

Some of these microorganisms eventually develop spores and as part of their reproduction some of these spores eventually disperse into your air and mess up your air quality. For some people, airborne fungal or bacterial spores can be harmless but for others, they trigger all sorts of allergies.

3. Floors Mess Up Your Air Quality With Particulate Matter

Another way I found floors ruin your air quality is by amassing particulate air pollutants and dispersing them back into your indoor air. The type of flooring on which this mainly happens is carpets. I can’t think of any other flooring where airborne particulates can get trapped but my gut tells me it is not just carpets. For now, just hold the thought that it’s not carpets alone.

Carpets have fibrous surfaces that are really good at trapping things including dirt. They will collect dust, pet dander, and pollen and release them back in your air when tampered with. Even with proper care of your carpets, at some point they get dirty, and simply walking across them gets the filth into your air.

4. Floors Cause Bad Air Quality By Perpetuating Bad Odors

The final way I know from personal experience that floors mess up your air quality is by absorbing all the smells lingering in your home or workspace or smells from chemicals you used to clean them and perpetuating these smells in your air.

Not all smells result in poor air quality but most smells coming from your floor do. You can get headaches and sick building syndrome, especially if the smell is overpowering and smells are certainly not good for people with multiple chemical sensitivities.

The biggest culprit for me when it comes to strange odors from floors is carpets. Carpets not only make your air smell by absorbing lingering odors but if they are not well taken care of, they produce bad odors of their own.

Wooden floors are next on the list, especially if you live in a humid area. If carpeted and wooden floors are exposed to excessive moisture they eventually start to smell. The smell is caused by mold, mildew, or fungi thriving under moist conditions. 

Moisture linked odors on your floor usually smell musty and earthy can really cause a lot of discomforts. Besides moisture caused odors in floors, you also have odors caused by pet or human excretions like urine, feces, sweat, or vomit. Some floors are resistant to holding such odors but some easily retain and release them into your air for a while.

So these are all the key ways I know from experience and I found through research that your floor makes your air quality bad. For a quick overview of how your flooring negatively affects your air quality, in the table below, I list some common types of pollutants found in flooring and their detrimental health effects.

List Of Common Pollutants That Floors Release Into Indoor Air

On this note, I think I can wrap up my discussion on the best floors for air quality. The only other thing I would add to get good indoor air quality in addition to getting the best flooring is an air purifier. I write extensively about .

Alright, now that I have shown you how floors contribute to poor air quality in your home or workspace, we can now look at which floors are best for indoor air quality. Besides that, I will also show you which floors are the worst, so you know exactly what to avoid if you want good air quality in any indoor space.

5 Best Flooring Options For Indoor Air Quality

Many floor types are a good choice for indoor air quality. I am however only going to touch on the best five I found through in-depth research on this issue and also from my personal experience living in homes with different floor types.

When it comes to flooring, there are many specific brands of floors that are great for air quality but I will approach our discussion here from a floor-type perspective rather than brand. As I discuss each floor type I will then point out some branded products that stand out for good air quality under each best floor category.

You will find even the worst floor types actually have eco-friendly varieties. Nonetheless, for optimal air quality, you are safer sticking to the floor types with the least emissions and that are the least polluting.  When it comes to flooring and air quality, I also strongly push people to go for GREENGUARD certified flooring. 

The GREENGUARD certification program is one of the best guides you can use to make sure the type of floor you are getting is safe for your indoor air. Based on their low emission and polluting levels, here is my list of the best types of flooring for Indoor air quality.

1. Tiles

Whether you go for ceramic, porcelain, glass, stone, or marble tiles these are all great choices for your air quality in and of themselves. What makes tiles dangerous is the grout and materials used to lay them down on your subfloor.

Some people complain about lead in ceramic tiles but even if you have lead-containing ceramic tiles your air is pretty much safe.  This is because, in ceramic glazes, lead is contained within the hardened surface of the glaze and not a risk to users. 

Lead becomes a problem if you ever decide to remove your tile floor. The dust that gets into your air from breaking your tiles will contain lead and pretty much poison your air. To be on the safe side if you are concerned about lead, rather go for stone or marble tiles.

It’s quite difficult to find ceramic and porcelain tiles that do not contain any lead. The other thing with tiles is that some factory sealed tiles, be it stone, marble, or porcelain are sealed using toxic sealers.

The consequence is that when you are buying tiles, you have to look for Greenguard certified tiles. Fortunately, you are spoilt for choice when it comes to Greenguard certified tiles. With Greenguard certified tiles, you can rest assured you are getting air quality safe tiles. 

The other thing people do is go for tiles that have not been sealed and they seal their tiles themselves using natural 0 VOC sealers. All said and done, if you use non-toxic sealers and grout most types of tiles are well placed not to worsen your air quality. 

Tiles are easy to clean, resistant to most odors, and do not trap pollutants to later release them into your air. In fact, in recent years, a company called Crossville developed air cleaning tiles for those of you who are OCD about your air quality.

2. Wooden Floors

When it comes to air quality, wooden floors are one of those floor types that fall into both the good and the bad camp. Some wooden floors are absolutely terrible for air quality while others are tailored to improve your air. We will touch on the good wood here and discuss the bad stuff in the next section.

The best type of wooden floor for good air quality is hardwood floors. They are quite easy to maintain and unlike carpets, they do not trap contaminants that can later get into your air. However, the challenge with them is that they are prone to water damage and if you expose them to excessive moisture they are likely to rot and subsequently contaminate your air.

Some hardwood floors are also finished with harsh chemicals which off-gas and this is not good for your air quality but fortunately, there are safe alternative finishes for hardwood floors that are excellent for air quality. You really have to be careful about what you are selecting when choosing a hardwood floor.

For good air quality, you have to stick to certified hardwood floors. There are various reputable floor certification bodies. I recommend Greenguard, FSC, Green Seal, and low-VOC certified floors for any floor including hardwood floors. 

Uncertified hardwood floors are likely to contain formaldehyde which is very bad for your air quality. If you can keep your wooden floor moist and consequently keep it mold-free the only other thing you need to worry about for good air quality is what wood finish and glue is used for your wooden floor.

There are many zero VOC and green options for finishing wood. A good example is AFM Poly BP. Some people also use Hemp oil. For nontoxic glue, you can try AFM Almighty Adhesive. However, the ultimate hardwood floor I have seen for good air quality has got to be the Pure Genius smart hardwood floor made by Lauzon.

The Pure Genius floor is a hardwood floor with a zero-emission finish made of titanium dioxide that actually cleans your air using natural sunlight. Lauzon claims that their hardwood floor leaves your air up to 85% cleaner. 

3. Natural Linoleum

Another great floor for air quality is natural linoleum. This is a rare product and at the moment I only know of one brand called Marmoleum that’s available in North America and Europe and it’s made by Forbo Floor Systems.

Unlike normal linoleum, natural linoleum is made of some natural pigments, limestone, linseed oil, some binders, jute, pine flour, and it’s covered with a UV cured sealer on top. What’s more the glue used to adhere it to the floor is 0 VOC. Marmoleum is also Greenguard Certified.

Natural linoleum will off-gas some odor for about a month though but thereafter this floor is clean. Natural linoleum contains no dangerous off-gassing PVC or phthalates and it repels dirt and dust because it is anti-static and it also has antibacterial properties. 

This makes it an excellent choice for indoor air quality. You can learn more about Marmoleum here at Amazon.

4. Polished Concrete

Most polished concrete floors are non-toxic. They are made of potassium silicate or sodium silicate which are safe and do not off-gas. A lot of people think this flooring type is boring but you can actually get quite a lot of amazing flooring designs with polished concrete without hurting your air quality.

In addition to being 0 VOC, it is very easy to clean and does not harbor dust mites, fungi, and other allergens and it is quite odor resistant. Concrete flooring comes highly recommended for you if you have multiple chemical sensitivities. 

The main thing to avoid with polished concrete flooring is toxic sealers like epoxy. Yes, there are some 0 VOC epoxy sealers out there but apparently even zero VOC epoxy still off-gasses slightly. 

Epoxy on your polished concrete floor is, therefore, best avoided if you need the best air quality possible. You can learn more about non-toxic concrete sealers here.

5. Rubber

Last on my list of good floors for air quality is rubber floors. First off with a rubber floor, you might think they are only for gyms and factories but you actually get really great designs for home use as well. 

Rubber flooring will initially have a new smell when you first install it but this quickly wears off and it is not dangerous. The beauty of rubber flooring is you need minimal chemical-based cleaners to keep it clean and it does not trap dust and all sorts of air pollution. 

You can literally keep it clean with water only. It’s moisture-resistant and it does not allow for air-polluting mold and fungi build up. The thing you have to make sure though is to go for 0 VOC adhesives when installing your rubber floor. 

Furthermore, not all rubber floors are made equal and there are some you will want to avoid. As I highlighted previously for floors in general, avoid any rubber floor that’s not Greenguard certified. 

Lastly, stay away from anything made of recycled tires. The best brands for air quality safe rubber floors include Mondo, Artigo, and Nora. Rubber floors have a long service life and they are a great choice for creating healthy working and living spaces. 

In a home setting, I would personally go for rubber flooring in my kitchen, bathroom, and home gym but the designs I have seen available are suitable enough for an entire home. As for indoor public spaces, that’s what rubber floors were made for.

So these are my top five best floorings for indoor air quality and with these out of the way, now we can look at the worst floors.

5 Worst Flooring Options For Indoor Air Quality

Like the good types of flooring for air quality, there are plenty of bad types of flooring for air quality but I will focus on the worst five. I kind of already alluded to carpets and wooden floors as being bad for air quality earlier on, so I will start with them.

1. Carpet Flooring

Carpets can be comfortable and very pleasing to the eye in a home or office but don’t waste your time with carpets if you want pristine indoor air quality. As much as they have soundproofing and insulation benefits, carpets are one of the worst types of flooring for air quality because they release mold, odors, and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) into your air and trap air pollutants.

Not all carpets release VOCs into your air but many do. Usually, they emit VOCs just after being unwrapped and installed but they can also emit VOCs after being cleaned with toxic household chemicals or if you accidentally spill VOC emitting chemicals on them. Carpets will absorb such chemicals and slowly off-gas them in your air over time.

You also want to avoid carpets because of mold and odors. When a carpet gets wet, with water or human or animal excretions, no matter how eco-friendly or emissions-free it is, it becomes an environment where mold can easily thrive and this mold, in turn, grows spores that disperse into your air and can cause various health issues.

Also, the mold and human excretions produce all sorts of odors through your carpet. At times these odors continue to be released from your carpet even after cleaning it. 

Furthermore, you also have particulate pollutants like dust, pollen, and dander that get stuck in your carpet and eventually become airborne. These trapped particulate pollutants then become airborne through day to day activities like walking on your carpet or cleaning. 

Looking at all the ways carpets can pollute your air that I have just pointed out, I have just touched the tip of the iceberg. There are various other ways carpets mess up the quality of your air and we would be here all day if I had to list them all. Accordingly, you can clearly see carpets are not the ideal type of flooring if you want good quality air indoors.

2. Wooden Flooring

Earlier on I showed you the good side of wooden floors. No, for the bad side, I think the first concern I have with wood is its weakness when exposed to moisture. If you live in a high humidity area, for the sake of your indoor air quality, wood is best avoided. 

The other thing is if you have a concrete subfloor, putting wood on top can trap a lot of moisture below your wood floor because concrete retains a lot of moisture. The end result is mold growth between your wooden floor and concrete subfloor with obvious negative consequences for your air quality.

Then there are specific woods you want to avoid and these are largely softwoods. These include woods like pine and cedar. Such aromatic woods have higher levels of natural VOCs than less aromatic woods. As for hardwoods, you want to avoid bamboo. Contrary to popular belief bamboo floors are for the most part not good for air quality. 

Bamboo floors are known to release carcinogenic isocyanates and also formaldehyde into indoor air. There are several chemicals involved in making bamboo flooring and some of these can off-gas for a while in your home or workspace. 

Based on this, my take is you would rather leave bamboo floors alone if you are concerned about your air quality. If you have moisture issues, stay away from wood altogether and lastly to keep VOCs at a minimum in your air, avoid softwoods, especially the aromatic ones.

3. Vinyl

Vinyl has many good qualities as flooring but unfortunately, it does more harm than good for indoor air quality. When installing vinyl, usually there are harmful off-gassing solvents involved. 

This flooring is also prone to water damage especially if water gets beneath it. You cannot remove the water and eventually air polluting mold develops under it. Most vinyl contains dangerous chemicals like Phthalates and plasticizers. 

Some vinyl flooring also contains cadmium. Some Vinyl manufacturers have tried to come up with safer versions of this flooring for improved air quality but in my opinion, Vinyl is certainly not the go-to flooring if you need good air quality in your home or workspace.

4. Laminate

In the spotlight in recent years for emitting formaldehyde, laminate is now largely shunned upon as a bad floor type for air quality. Besides formaldehyde, some Laminate floors contain aluminum oxide which is not good for asthma sufferers, and isocyanate which is carcinogenic.

Laminate flooring also off-gases some VOCs. You will find some laminate floors that are Greenguard Certified. However, in all the laminate flooring, very strong adhesives are used to bond the fibers together to form laminate boards. 

Accordingly, no zero VOC or 100% non-toxic laminate floorings exist currently. Simply put, laminate flooring means trouble for your air quality. Laminate is, therefore, best avoided if you are looking for a floor that will not worsen your air quality.

5. Cork

The trouble with cork floors is that their composition can vary widely and some may contain harmful binders. A lot of cork floors are made using polyurethane glues which off-gas quite strongly. Furthermore, off-gassing adhesives are also usually used to glue down your cork floor on your subfloor. Similar to other types of flooring, you will get environmentally friendly varieties of cork flooring. 

However, knowing that cork floors are widely off-gassing, why go for cork when you have plenty of other cleaner flooring options for your indoor air. So, because cork is known for off-gassing, personally I would avoid this type of flooring if I was concerned about the quality of my indoor.

On this note, I think I can wrap up my discussion on the best floors for air quality. The other main thing I would do to get good indoor air quality after installing the right flooring is invest in an effective air purifier like the Enviroklenz Mobile Air System. I write extensively about how air purifiers can help improve your indoor air quality here.