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As spring blooms in the Grand Traverse County area, pollen allergies begin to flare. Hiding inside won’t always keep you safe, though. Your own home can also aggravate your allergies to pollen, mold, dust mites, and pet dander.

How to keep your home warm and comfortable in an efficient manner may cross your mind quite often during the winter in the Traverse City area. Sure, you can keep cranking up the thermostat temperature whenever you’re too cool, but you probably don’t want sky-high heating bills. By far, the more cost-efficient way to keep your home comfortable is using the right insulation types in the right places.

Controlling dust in your home may seem like a never-ending chore. However, if you want a cleaner home with more healthful indoor air quality, you’re going to have to deal with dust regularly. This is especially true during the winter when you’re spending more time indoors. So, before you pick up that feather duster, read on to learn more effective ways to control dust.

Good ventilation is very important in any home, helping to ensure that indoor air remains healthy and comfortable for your home’s occupants by working to prevent the buildup of pollutants, odors and humidity inside the home. While good airflow is important throughout your home, there are specific areas that need the most ventilation.

Getting the right balance of humidity in the home can be a challenge. Often, in the summer, it seems as if conditions are too moist, while in the winter, the indoor air quality may be too dry. Read on to learn how to maintain the right balance in your home, all year long.

Depending on factors in your home – including unique circumstances that help create dirty indoor air and threaten the health of family members – you may want to consider escalating efforts to improve indoor air quality. One proven method is to install UV lights, also known as a germicidal ultraviolet light system.

Is your Grand Traverse County home plagued by a furnace smell that you can’t seem to identify? The problem could be a number of things, so to help you out, we’ve compiled a list of possible odors:

Ground source and water source geothermal heat pumps both extract free heat energy from the earth in winter and disperse it back to the earth during summer. However, each derives that heat from a different place.

In climates with long, cold winters, radiant heating is generally regarded as the most comfortable, although forced-air heating systems still dominate, even in Michigan. Radiant heat mimics the sun. It heats objects instead of the air, and by doing so, creates even, long-lasting heat.

Once winter weather arrives, outdoor humidity levels drop because cold air doesn’t hold moisture like warm air does. Running the furnace pulls more moisture out of your air supply and can make the indoor humidity fall to desert-like levels. Investing in a humidifier is the best way to replace depleted moisture and raise the humidity level back to an optimal 45–55 percent range.