How to check the cleanliness of the air at home? Scotch tape!
A person’s well-being depends on many factors. Clean air in the house is one of them. If you are forced to constantly inhale dust, you may have a headache and deteriorate your mood, and in addition, the risk of bronchial asthma, allergies and bronchitis increases. To check how polluted the air is in your apartment, it is not necessary to call a laboratory assistant to take samples and pay for an expensive analysis - you can conduct a small test yourself.
Checking air purity yourself
To find out how clean the air is in your home, use tape:
- Cut a long strip of tape (at least 25-30 cm).
- Stick it in the room as if it were a Velcro fly trap - the strip should hang freely in the air. The simplest option is to attach it to a chandelier lampshade or an open window.
- Leave the tape in this position for several hours. At the same time, you can lead your usual lifestyle - use the room for work, relaxation, cooking, and games.
- Remove the tape and look carefully against the light. If it remains clean or has collected a small amount of dust, it means it is safe to be in the room. But severe contamination of the tape indicates that there is too much dust in the air.
Do not check while cleaning - by sweeping or walking across the floor with a vacuum cleaner, you actively raise into the air that dirt and dust that is usually “hidden” and does not affect the condition of the air.
It makes sense to hang a strip of tape not in one room (for example, only in the bedroom or in the kitchen), but in all rooms, including the bathroom, since ventilation works differently everywhere, furniture and things are also different everywhere, and accordingly, the situation with cleanliness may differ .
How often should I test?
If environmental conditions do not change, it is enough to monitor the cleanliness of the air once every 3-4 months. “Unscheduled” inspections are justified in the following cases:
- you notice that it has become more difficult to breathe in the house;
- construction has begun near your home;
- you changed the frequency of cleaning;
- There's a new vacuum cleaner in the house.
How to make the air in your home cleaner?
The easiest way is regular wet cleaning. Moreover, you need to wipe not only the floor, but also other surfaces - tables, window sills, the top of cabinets and chests of drawers, open shelves, wooden and plastic armrests of sofas and armchairs.
Another option is to get rid of the “dust collectors”. These include unnecessary soft toys, fleecy carpets and bedspreads. But it is best to buy an air purifier - a device that filters out all contaminants, including those invisible to the eye (smoke, aerosol).
Clean air in the apartment is the key to health. Therefore, do not neglect checking its condition, especially since the tape test does not require either expensive materials or complicated instructions.