Richmond Air Quality

High quality indoor air purifiers can make a huge difference on the air quality in your home. You can find many good air purifiers on Amazon. The best ones to get have HEPA air filters, which can remove over 99% of particles.

• Dyson fans are great, but they are expensive
• Levoit has some good high quality options at more affordable prices

But there are many more good options. Whatever air purifier you get, be sure to change your filter regularly, so it can keep operating efficiently to clean your air.

Put air purifiers in rooms where people are, such as bedrooms & living rooms. They can also be helpful in kitchens to clean the air of any food or cooking particles. They do tend to dry the air out, so you might also consider getting a humidifier or having house plants in the same room (see below).

If you have central heating or AC in your house, then you have an intake filter somewhere. Filter Buy is a great place to buy replacement filters at affordable prices. Look for MERV-13 filters to remove most particles without compromising your HVAC system. If you can, double check your HVAC system to see what MERV rating is recommended.

When cooking on your range or stove top, always turn on your hood to ventilate your kitchen. This is especially important if you use a gas stove, but it applies to all stovetop cooking. Cooking can release particles and fumes, and gas burners release VOCs. Your hood is designed to suck all of that out of your house, so you don't breathe it in.

Certain house plants are particularly good at cleaning air. The book How to Grow Fresh Air documents 50 plants identified by NASA for their air cleaning and purification abilities. You can find a shorter list of good clean air plants here: 20 Best Air Purifying Plants. There’s also a TED talk on How to Grow Fresh Air.

General guidelines for indoor plant placement:

• Near furniture that might be off gassing
• In rooms where people tend to be, such as bedrooms and kitchens
• Wherever it’s easiest for you to maintain the plant

There are a few plant nurseries in Richmond that may carry some of these fresh air plants:

• Golden Gate Palms & Exotics Nursery
• Curios Flora (previously Annie's Annuals)
• The Watershed Nursery

Mold in your home, office, or in schools can be quite unhealthy. Here's some advice on how to test for mold and remove it:

• How to test for mold in your home (although home test kits are not considered reliable)
• Mold Busters is a great mold testing business based in Berkeley
• Reactic Restoration is an excellent remediation company based in Richmond

To prevent mold, you want plenty of air circulation, with low humidity, and no moisture build up on surfaces. Air purifiers and ventilation fans help create this type of anti-mold environment.

Monitoring your indoor air quality is a great way to know if you need an air purifier, or to see how well your air purification is working. You can find many air quality monitors on Amazon. As far as we know, the most important thing to measure is PM2.5, but VOCs and other particle sizes (PM10 & PM1) are important too. One monitor that we like is Breathe, because it’s small & portable.

You can also get outdoor air quality sensors like Purple Air. But check the purple air map below to see if you really need one. There might already be a sensor in your area. If you do want to get a purple air monitor for yourself, you may want to try filling out Groundwork Richmond’s Purple Air Interest Form. They are giving away some number of Purple Air monitors to certain Richmond residents.

Checking outdoor air quality maps regularly is a great way to stay informed and make decisions about how long you want to be outside, or whether to keep your windows open at home. Below is a Purple Air map for Richmond, but Google Maps and Apple Weather both have air quality layers too. Google and Apple use multiple sources of air quality data, likely including Purple Air.

If the air outside is especially bad, then you may want to wear a face mask / respirator. N95 masks are a common type that removes 95% of particles. And if you're driving, use your vehicle's air filter to re-circulate the air instead of bringing in air from outside.

Above, we wanted to focus on specific actions you can take to improve your air quality. But here are some links if you want to dive in deeper.

• Richmondside has a created a comprehensive Richmond air pollution guide
• You can also find a lot more on the Bay Area Air Quality Management District website.