As professional house cleaners who service hundreds of homes per year, we are keen observers of what makes a house clean and what makes it dirty. You might think that running your central air conditioner would keep dust, dirt, pollen and other allergens from entering your home, thus keeping it cleaner.
But actually running the air conditioner can make the air inside your home about ten times more polluted than the fresh air outside your home. While the filters on your air conditioning unit do provide a barrier between the pollutants floating in the outside air so they don’t enter your home, they are inefficient in cleaning the small allergens that can make people with allergies sneeze and have other symptoms.
Open a Window
As usual, the natural way is the better way. While air conditioners will keep your home cool in hot weather, they aren’t very good at preventing things like dust and pollen from getting in. In fact, because they enclose the interior of your home, they recirculate pollutants already found in your home and don’t give them any way to escape the interior atmosphere of your home.
That’s why it’s often the case that a house with the air conditioning running will usually have a bigger dust buildup on tables, furniture, and other surfaces than a home with its windows wide open to the fresh air.
Air Conditioning Risks
Enclosed systems fed by air conditioning also have been linked with air-borne diseases such as Legionnaire’s disease.
Hot weather is uncomfortable so running the A/C is sometimes essential. But to keep your cooled air purer, it’s a good idea to add an air purifier to the home’s recirculation system. Air purifiers that include Hepa filters can remove the tiny particles that can trigger allergies, asthma, and other respiratory conditions in vulnerable people.
