Raise your hand if you're concerned about your heating bill.
No shame in that, energy costs are high and many of us have invested a significant amount to keep our homes safe, warm and dry especially in the winter. But did you know that locking your home as tight as a bug in a rug has a downside? The air in a tightly insulated home may not be fresh air. Contaminants and mold may build up, the atmosphere gets ion charged and soon the family may complain of headaches and feeling blah. Are you familiar with sick building syndrome, SBS? It's not just offices. We may take vitamin D in the winter to compensate for the seasonal change in the sunlight, but we also need to think about how to improve air quality in our homes and offices. There's a medium cost, higher tech way to keep your home's air fresh and well circulated. And there's a low tech no-cost way.
Let' start at the top.
First you might think that your furnace already does circulate fresh air since it has vents or a chimney. But your furnace or fireplace isn't pulling air from outside, it's pulling air from inside which of course can lead to poor air quality in your home. You can install a heat recovery ventilator yourself or ask a pro. The unit can run between $300 to $500 range. Here's a link to Popular Mechanics
that will explain how an HRV works.
Of course, you could just open the windows.
That seems counter intuitive in the winter, as New Englanders we work to keep drafts to a minimum. But we're only talking about 15 to 20 minutes here. Open some windows and create a draft through your house. Not every day of course. But winter gives us these little warm ups, so on those days I open just two windows upstairs and the kitchen window downstairs. In my house this creates a perfect draft that acts like a broom sweeping the poor air quality out of my house and sweeping fresh air in. If you have vents in the bathroom or kitchen, turn them on while you're airing out the house. In about 15 minutes you can close the windows and breathe easy with improved air quality in your home.