A home renovation can be a major undertaking, involving a lot of time and expense. But it can also dramatically improve your home life, and give you the residence that you’ve always wanted.

However, when you’re committed to a very large renovation project this level of work can often affect a part of your home life that you hadn’t given much thought to; air quality. We’ve got three tips that will help you to keep that quality up.

Carefully Inspect Attics & Basements

You may want either an expert to do this, or you can conduct this yourself with the appropriate precautions, such as a breathing mask.

If you think that you would like to finish either the basement or the attic, and these are areas you haven’t spent much time in, be very careful inspecting these spaces.

The big danger you’re looking out for here is mold or signs of rodents. In both cases, mold and rodent remains contain toxic substances.

Spores can cause respiratory issues when people breathe them in unprotected. The droppings, urine and even skin flakes or fur of rodents can retain virulent diseases that, in dust/powder form, can be inhaled and caused illness. Be EXTREMELY careful when handling rodent residue to avoid contamination and sickness.

Take Extra Care When Removing Old Paint

Maybe you just bought a house that hasn’t been renovated in quite some time. If there’s old paint on the walls, and you want it removed before applying a fresh coat of new paint, be careful.

In homes that haven’t been painted since 1978, there’s a very good chance that the paint that was used on the walls may contain lead. Lead itself is relatively harmless while it’s in the paint.

But in removing it, it now becomes dust particles floating through the air. Breathing in lead dust can make adults ill, but it can have especially serious effects on children.

Their developing lungs are much more susceptible to infection from breathing lead dust. Be especially careful when you are removing this from walls, take all due precautions to keep it from contaminating the air afterward.

Replace Your Filter

Once your renovations are finally done, there’s still one more thing you need to do for both financial and health reasons. You should go down to your furnace or HVAC system, take out the filter that’s in there, and replace it with a fresh one.

The usual schedule we’d advocate is a seasonal change. Every three months is a decent time to replace an HVAC filter. However, with all the activity of walls torn down, floors rebuilt, insulation installed, or whatever else you did while remodeling, a lot of particles got into the air, and your HVAC system caught them in the filter, making it extremely dirty.

If that dirty filter remains, your HVAC system has to work harder, for longer periods of time, and that means that your energy bills are going to go up. A new filter increases your HVAC’s efficiency. If you’re getting your home renovated in the Durham, NC, do it the right way. Get good work done, and make sure you’re happy with the results. But don’t make any compromises on the quality and safety of the air during the work. You and your family will depend on it.