How to Dust During the Winter

12/11/2015

Spring cleaning is all well and good when the weather is warm outside at the beginning of the year. Unfortunately, dust doesn’t take a vacation and will build up even when it’s not a good season for opening the windows. It’s still important to keep your house dusted and clean, both to preserve the quality of your air and to help increase the lifespan of your central heating and cooling systems by reducing the contaminants that it has to filter out.  Of course, keeping the home dust-free also keeps your home looking beautiful and well-organized, even if there are a few messes here and there (the same can be said for kitchen dishes – clean them and the whole kitchen looks cleaner).

Dust Removal

When you’re keeping your house closed to do the dusting, capture is important.  It’s all about the tools and the process.  Stirring up the dust will just scatter it and force it into air vents where it will be captured by the filter, leading to early filter replacements or the need for a full-scale duct cleaning.

Start your dusting from the top down.  If it’s a house, begin on the upper floors, for rooms, start on ceiling fixtures and work your way down to the carpet.

Always use tools that capture dust instead of stirring it up.  High-quality ostrich-feather dusters and microfiber cloths are excellent tools for removing dust because they capture it rather than just kicking the dirt around.  A used fabric softener sheet is good for capturing dust in a pinch.

Follow up with a round of vacuuming.  Use the fancy attachments that sit there so often left alone.  Hit dust hotspots such as drapes, curtains, furniture, and rugs or mats.  Your vacuums should come with everything you need.  Vacuuming the grates and vents in the room isn’t a bad idea to clear surface dust either.  Then finish everything off by vacuuming the carpet thoroughly.  The floor will capture a lot of dust and debris, and carpets hold that in until you walk across them, stirring the dust back up well after you thought it had settled.

Dust Prevention

Now that your home is dust-free, how can you keep it that way?  Of course, it isn’t possible to permanently keep dust out of your home (unless you live in a clean-room with an air-lock and limited access), but there are a few things to prolong that clean feeling of a well-dusted home.

• Use entrance mats – place a mat on both sides of the door and leave your shoes at the entrance to prevent dust from being tracked throughout the home.
• Brush your pets – if you own a pet you have to deal with fur, hair, and even dry skin (just like with people).  Brush your pets regularly to keep their coats clean of dust and shed hair or skin.  If you don’t clean it away now, they’ll leave it everywhere else.
• Mop non-carpeted floors – sweeping and mopping the floors in your home will keep dust from building up and being kicked around on their surfaces.
• Duct cleaning and filter changes – Getting a full duct-cleaning service done on your ventilation system every five years is a great way to mitigate the amount of dust in your home.  Keeping your filters fresh and clean will ensure that you aren’t just kicking more dust into the air every time the heat comes on.

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