Have you ever noticed that after you clean, your furniture, floors, tables, and nooks and crannies start to gather dust only days later? No matter how much you do it, dusting seems like a never-ending job.

You’ll never be able to completely eliminate dust, but you can get your HVAC to help you reduce dust in your home to cut back on cleaning. Find out what you can do to keep your indoor air cleaner and dust free.

What Causes Home Dust?

Even if you’re a clean freak, you can’t eliminate all the dust from your home. It’s made up of dead skin cells, pet dander, bits of insects, pollen, and other airborne particles, so you create dust just by living in your home.

Unfortunately, if you have allergies or other conditions, all that dust can create problems like sneezing, coughing, congestion, and more, which can make your home miserable.

Fortunately, your HVAC system can help you maintain good indoor air quality with less dust and dirt.

How to Reduce Home Dust

Your HVAC system can be your first line of defense in preventing dust and dirt in your home. Here’s how you can reduce your home dust with your HVAC system.

Replace Your Air Filters

Your HVAC filter keeps your air free of dust and dirt particles, but it accumulates dust on its own. If you don’t replace your air filter on a regular basis, you’ll only end up with more dust and dirt on your surfaces.

When you replace your filter, consider if you wouldn’t be better off with a higher-quality filter. All air filters are classified by MERV ratings. A filter with a MERV rating below 4 is standard for many homes, but it may not be enough for people with respiratory conditions, allergies, pets, or climates that have a lot of dust.

A filter with a higher MERV rating, such as 13 or above, is rated to take out virtually every particle in the air, but that may be too much for your home. These filters are usually used in industrial settings like office buildings or hospitals. It’s ideal to get an air filter between 4 and 8 to keep your home cleaner.

If you would like to use a higher MERV rating, adding additional return air filters in the home will allow you to do this safely.

Use the HVAC Fan While Cleaning

Air filters are your first line of defense for dust and dirt in the air, but that doesn’t help you wipe down your surfaces.

As you clean, the process of dusting, wiping, and sweeping sends dirt and dust into the air, only to settle back down a few hours later – undoing all your hard work. When you’re dusting, turn on your HVAC fan to capture all that dust and dirt and keep it from ending up back in your home.

Inspect Your Air Ducts

Your air ducts are a great place for dust and dirt to build up and go unnoticed. Over time, this dust can increase the stress on your HVAC system, and worse, it’ll all get blown back into your home when your system is pumping out hot or cool air.

It’s important to have your air ducts cleaned regularly to reduce the dust that ends up in your system. Air duct cleaning not only keeps your home cleaner, but it reduces the stress on your HVAC system.

Clean Air Vent Registers

Dust travels through your home and your HVAC system through normal use. As it travels, it can accumulate on the vent registers, which have plenty of tiny spaces that you can easily miss during your regular cleaning.

Fortunately, the best way to minimize the dust on your air vent registers is by wiping them down every week or two.

Install an Electric Air Cleaner

Electric air cleaners are a great way to improve your indoor air quality. This component is part of your HVAC system and uses electrostatic energy to draw in dust, dirt, and microorganisms like viruses, mold, and bacteria that can make you sick.

If you have allergies or other respiratory conditions, having an electronic air cleaner helps you reduce the dust that ends up in your home and the irritants that cause sniffling, sneezing, congestion, and sinusitis.

Install a whole home Air Purifier

Air purifiers help clean the air in many ways. Firstly, they actively treat and sanitize the air that goes through your HVAC system with UV lights to kill viruses, bacteria and mold spores. Secondly, they polarize tiny duct particulates to allow them to stick together and separate from the air, allowing them to be collected by your air filter.

When air purifiers are paired with an electronic air cleaner your homes indoor air quality will be better than ever.

Book a Routine HVAC Inspection and Tune Up

Your HVAC system is one of the vital parts of your home’s comfort and safety, especially when it’s hot or cold outside. It’s also a complex system with many moving parts that can take wear and tear, making them less efficient over time.