A home gym can provide a great way to stay in shape, especially when the weather outside isn’t the best. However, it’s important to understand that the indoor air quality in a home gym can leave much to be desired.
This is an unfortunate reality given your increased level of respiration during an intense workout. When you’re working up a sweat, you’ll actually be breathing in more of this low-quality air than you would otherwise. To help you address the issue of indoor air quality in your home gym, the crew at Huft Home Services are proud to offer this problem/solution guide.
Problem: Humid Air
One way you know that you’ve had a really good workout is that your body produces lots of sweat. Especially during an indoor workout, where the temperature is fairly constant, sweat is an almost certain result of anything more than a light workout. Unfortunately, all this sweat can lead to humid air in a home gym.
Typically, anywhere from 40%-50% relative humidity is considered comfortable for an indoor environment. Beyond this, though, you end up with a constant damp feeling in the air and may even find it difficult to breathe. Sustained levels of high relative humidity can provide ideal conditions for the growth of mildew on walls and in carpet fibers. This can lead to respiratory distress during demanding workouts.
To overcome the issue, it’s a good idea to have Huft Home Services install a whole-home dehumidifier that will ensure the relative humidity in your home gym stays at a constant level. If you pair this device with a humidifier for the dry winter months, you can be sure that the air in your gym and throughout your home will be comfortable and healthy.
Problem: Elevated Carbon Dioxide Levels
Every time you breathe out, you release a small amount of carbon dioxide. If your home gym is in an enclosed area and you frequently have long workouts, the level of carbon dioxide could become elevated. This can make it more difficult to breathe, though it’s unlikely to lead to life-threatening conditions due to the natural air exchange that takes place through small gaps between various surfaces around your home.
In 2011, California joined twenty-five other states that have adopted some form of requirement for carbon monoxide (CO) alarms in residential home construction. It is important to make sure that your home gym is equipped with the right type of detector.
In addition, one of the best ways to overcome this air quality issue is to put some plants in your home gym. Plants remove carbon dioxide from the air during photosynthesis, replacing this gas with fresh oxygen. This highly oxygenated air can help maintain your energy during workouts and protect against a post-workout crash.
Plus, plants absorb other harmful substances along with carbon dioxide, which can help to deodorize your home gym, making it a more pleasant place to do your workouts. If your home gym doesn’t have windows, make sure to use plants that don’t mind low-light conditions so that they don’t die, resulting in wasted money.
Problem: Lots of Dust
Though it has other components, a large portion of the dust in your home is made up of your own dead skin cells. Any activity, including exercise, that increases contact between various parts of your body results in friction that releases large amounts of dead skin cells. For home gyms, this can result in a dusty environment.
Excessive amounts of dust can lead to allergic reactions such as sneezing, coughing, and other respiratory distress. Plus, dust can get into sensitive exercise equipment and cause it to malfunction. It’s important, therefore, that you do what you can to remove as much dust as possible from your home gym.
One great way to do this is to install a whole-home air filter from Huft Home Services. These devices filter the air as it’s drawn in by your HVAC system. Most whole-home air filters have a mechanical filter that removes large dust particles and a chemical filter to remove odors. Some also have a biological filter that can kill certain types of pathogens.
After it leaves the filter, the clean air is then fed through the rest of the HVAC system and throughout your home. This helps to lessen the amount of dusting you have to do and reduces the risk of allergy symptoms in you and your family. If your utility closet doesn’t have the space for a whole-home air filter, you can choose to use a single-room filter that you place in your home gym at regular intervals.
Problem: High Levels of Volatile Organic Compounds
There’s nothing like the thrill of adding a new piece of equipment to your home gym that will take your workouts to the next level. Unfortunately, new and old equipment alike can release large amounts of volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, into the air in your home gym.
VOCs, come from substances such as paint, dye, rubber, plastic, and other materials. They can contain harmful chemicals such as benzene, formaldehyde, toluene, xylene, and many others. Many of these chemicals are known carcinogens, meaning you need to keep your exposure to them as low as possible.
In addition to having plants in the room, which have been shown to remove VOCs, it’s also a good idea if you can open a window to your home gym to let in some fresh air. Running your HVAC system from Huft Home Services without heating or cooling the air is an effective way to circulate air throughout your home so that the concentration of VOCs can be reduced, and the VOCs can be circulated to an area in the home where they can escape. A single-room air filter with a chemical component can also be used to remove some VOCs.
A Company That Cares
Whether your air quality issues are limited to your home gym, or you’re having problems throughout your home, we at Huft Home Services stand ready to assist you. We can take care of a variety of issues that reduce indoor air quality, all with a commitment to service that has earned us the Angi’s Super Service Award and an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau.
If you need to add components to your HVAC system to help control your air quality, we can do that. If you need or maintenance for your furnace or air conditioner maintenance, we can take care of that as well. Plus, we can help assess your indoor air quality so that you know exactly what you need to do to improve it.
When it comes to energy efficiency, we’ve got you covered there, too. We offer insulation installation, which will help to lower your energy bills and keep your home comfortable, even in extreme weather. We can also install whole-home house fans, which is a great way to regulate your home’s temperature, keep fresh air flowing, and use less electricity.
At Huft Home Services, we follow several core values in everything we do. These values are comfort, safety, value, integrity, and transparency. Customers often appreciate our willingness to explain what we’re doing and the value we provide for money spent. If your home gym could use an air quality boost, give us a call at Huft Home Services today. We service Sacramento, Elk Grove, Yuba City and the entire surrounding areas.
