Sneezing Sucks. How Ventilation Deals With Allergies and Hay Fever

Allergies suck, but ventilation can help.  

If you are one of five Kiwis that suffer through spring allergies and hay fever, you're probably wondering how you can escape from your scratchy throat, runny nose, and headache. You've tried popping antihistamines, which work for a while but never seem to solve the problem permanently.

Ever thought about cleaning the air you breathe? Filtered ventilation can provide a more permanent solution to allergies. 

But how does ventilation help with allergies? The short answer is that by introducing fresh, filtered air into your home, you can dramatically reduce the amount of pollen entering your home and therefore you. The fresh air also reduces the moisture in your home, so less indoor allergens are created too!  

Want to get rid of that runny nose and sore throat? Book a free home assessment now so you can live a healthier, happier life.

Not quite convinced? 

Read on to find out exactly where allergies often come from, and why ventilation can help solve the cause, not the symptoms of your allergies and hay fever.

Why do you get Allergies? 

The main cause of allergies and hay fever is a simple case of mistaken identity. When you breathe an allergen in, your body thinks it is a highly dangerous intruder and produces antibodies to try to fight it. 

This antibody, immunoglobulin E (IgE), is a type of white blood cell that is typically specialised to target a specific type of chemical or protein.  

When an IgE antibody finds its target, it captures the offending chemical or protien and releases histamine to try and kill it, which causes swelling, irritation, sneezing, and all the other allergic reaction symptoms you know and loathe. 

Exactly why your body sees allergens as an intruder is still up for debate, with allergies being considered idiopathic (which is just a fancy way to say that we don't know). Research suggests that it might have something to do with similarities in chemical structures with actual harmful substances like bacteria or viruses, but it's still hotly debated. 

One off allergies might just be a mild annoyance, but continued exposure can lead to allergies getting worse as your body becomes increasingly sensitive to whatever is triggering the reaction. These worsening allergies can also develop into more serious conditions like Asthma or COPD (which we’ll be covering in a future blog post). But what substances can cause allergies and hay fever? 

Pollen: 

The obvious and most common cause of allergies and hay fever is pollen. Unfortunately, outdoor pollen is virtually unavoidable. Seriously, you wouldn’t believe how much pollen gets released into the air each year.  

According to allergy.org.nz, a mature pine tree produces between 0.5 to 0.75kg of pollen per year, NZ has roughly 640 million pine trees, which results in about 500 million KG of pollen being flung throughout the country. This staggering number is only for pine pollen too! There are plenty of other plants that release allergenic pollens like flowers, grasses, and other kinds of trees. 

Fortunately, pollen is seasonal, so you only have to live with it over Spring.  

Other Allergens: 

As some of you will be all too aware of, pollen isn’t the only cause of allergies. Irritant particles like dust mite and cockroach excrement, pet fur, and mould spores can all cause an allergic response from your immune system. 

Unlike pollen, these irritants often come from inside your home and can be a year-round problem. Most of them also trace their roots back to excess moisture in a home. Dust mites, cockroaches and mould all require a high indoor humidity (over 70%) to grow and thrive.  

Luckily, this is something that ventilation can help with. 

How can you deal with Allergies and Hay Fever? 

A simple way to mitigate the effects of allergies is to take an antihistamine pill, but that is a temporary solution for the effects, not the cause. To effectively reduce allergies and alleviate hay fever within your home, you need to reduce the number of allergens in the air. 

Filtered ventilation can easily reduce the number of outdoor allergens entering your home and you. A F7 filter will catch most fine particles as they are brought inside, including both allergens and pollens, keeping your home clean and easy to breathe in. 

The extra air movement from a home ventilation system also helps push a lot of the indoor allergens out. The air movement also reduces the amount of moisture in your home, limiting the growth of other indoor allergens like mould and insect excrement. 

Ventilation isn’t a silver bullet that will completely eliminate your allergies. It can’t help your pets shedding or stop you from breathing pollen in outside, but it will help keep the air inside your home cleaner so you can be more comfortable at home. 

If you’re tired of dealing with hay fever and allergies inside your own home, book a FREE home assessment here: https://smartvent.co.nz/book-a-free-home-assessment  

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