Need to know
- Bushfires and significant changes in weather can affect the air quality in your home
- Keeping smoke and other pollutants out of your home is the easiest way to protect indoor air quality
- Once the smoke or other pollutants get into your home, using an air purifier or cleaning is the best way to clear it
When there are bushfires, the resulting hazy smoke can cause air quality to reach hazardous levels, even in areas many hundreds of kilometres away. The tiny particles within this smoke can not only cause irritation and inflammation, they can have a serious impact on people with respiratory conditions or other health issues.
We look at what can be done to protect the air inside your home from smoke and other pollutants.
Check the predicted air quality data for your area so you can prepare for poor conditions.
Checking air quality
Staying informed about predicted conditions can help you be prepared for days when air quality is at its lowest.
A spokesperson for the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (DPIE) in NSW told us that air quality forecasts are made each day using information from a number of organisations.
"The Sydney air quality forecast for the next day is published at 4pm daily on the Environment, Energy and Science website. It is based on advice from a number of government scientists including forecasters in the Bureau of Meteorology and experts at the NSW Rural Fire Service."
Different departments in other states have responsibility for providing data for their jurisdictions:
- Victoria – the EPA AirWatch service supplies air quality forecasts from around midnight each day.
- Queensland – air quality is tracked throughout the state through a network of monitoring stations.
- South Australia – the EPA provides monitoring.
- WA – an hourly update of air quality is provided by the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation.
- ACT – the Department of Health provides regularly updated data on air quality.
- Tasmania – the Environment Protection Authority provides real time air quality data.
How to prevent smoke and pollutants getting in your home
CHOICE air purifier expert, Chris Barnes says, "It's easy to assume that pollution is only an outdoor problem. But that same air makes its way into your home, carrying all the same pollutants: vehicle exhaust, pollen, and smoke," he says.
As with many things, prevention is better than the cure.
"Keep doors and windows shut early, ahead of hazy days in particular," is his first piece of advice to prevent polluted air coming into your home.
Keep doors and windows shut early ahead of hazy days
CHOICE household heating and cooling expert Chris Barnes
Of course, closing up the house only works if your home is well sealed.
"Make sure any major drafts are blocked with draft excluders and seal any leaky windows," Chris also suggests.
Sealing your home properly will also help reduce heating and cooling costs, so will continue to pay dividends beyond improving the air quality.
However, you should also be aware of the pollutants that might already be in your home. For both indoor and outdoor pollutants, an air purifier can improve indoor air quality and reduce irritants in the air you breathe.
"There are many pollutants that originate indoors, such as household dust, cigarette smoke, pet dander and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted from paint and the foam inside sofas and mattresses," says Chris.
Air purifiers can improve indoor air quality and reduce irritants in the air you breathe
The pollutants released by gas cooktops are another common offender.
"All of these things can impact your indoor air quality, sometimes much more than you might expect. One of the lesser-known benefits of an air purifier is having its inbuilt air quality sensors tell you about your home's indoor air," he explains.
Clearing the smoke
If smoke gets into your home and you want to clear it, or you want added protection against outdoor pollutants, there are a number of options.
1. Use an air purifier
Buying an air purifier might be worth it if you or someone in your family is particularly affected by smoke or irritants in the air.
"A good air purifier can help clear the air inside your home of smoke and smoky smells," says Chris.
"You will need to close all doors and windows to stop more smoke getting in, at least for the room you want to purify. A purifier with a HEPA filter is your best option for filtering smoke."
Find out more about reasons why you might want to consider an air purifier.
2. Use an air conditioner
Although not as effective as an air purifier, an air conditioner may help remove some smoke particles.
"Air conditioners usually aren't made to filter out smoke – they're more suited to filtering dust and pollen – but they may still help to make the air quality better than it would otherwise be."
Most major air conditioner brands do offer air purification features in at least some of their split-system models. These are typically ionisation filters. While they might not be at the level of full HEPA filtration like a good air purifier, they should still be useful in helping keep the indoor air clean.
3. Cleaning
If smoke has got into the house and settled on floors and other surfaces, then giving the house a good clean can help. A vacuum cleaner with HEPA filter will help remove any soot from smoke that's settled on the floor.
What is HEPA?
HEPA stands for high-efficiency particulate air. Vacuums equipped with HEPA filtration are excellent at catching these invisible irritants. The vacuum's bag or bin traps the collected pet hair, dirt and larger dust particles, and blows the air back out into the room through the HEPA filter, which makes sure that any really fine particles that escaped the dust bag don't make it back into the indoor air.
There are different standards around the world, but generally to get a HEPA tick of approval, vacuum cleaners must trap at least 99.97% of emissions, down to a tiny 0.3 microns in size.
Unfortunately, vacuums with HEPA filters do tend to be the more expensive models. However, you can find several barrel and upright models under $300 with HEPA filters (click the HEPA filter box on the left hand side of the page to filter results so only vacuums with this feature are displayed).
For stick vacuums, almost half of the models in our current review have HEPA filters, and some of these are also priced under $300.
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Stock images: Getty, unless otherwise stated.
