Is Your Home Making You Sick? The Symptoms of Poor Indoor Air 
Quality
Last week, I met with a family who’d been dealing with mysterious health issues for months. Mom had constant headaches. Dad woke up every morning with a scratchy throat. Their teenage daughter’s allergies never seemed to let up, regardless of the season.
“We’ve seen three different doctors,” the mom told me as we sat at their kitchen table. “Nobody can figure out what’s wrong.”
After 20 minutes checking their system, I found the culprit, a severe mold problem hiding inside their air handler, pumping microscopic spores throughout their home with every cycle of the AC. Their symptoms weren’t mysterious at all—they were textbook signs of poor indoor air quality.
I’ve been with One Hour Heating and Air for over fifteen years now, and this scenario plays out more often than you might think. The air inside your home can be making you miserable without you even realizing it’s the source of your problems.
The Body’s Warning System: Symptoms You Shouldn’t Ignore
Your body is pretty good at telling you when something’s wrong. The trick is learning to listen to it. Here are the symptoms I see most often in homes with air quality issues:
Those Never-Ending “Allergies”
When customers tell me they’ve been taking allergy medication year-round with little relief, internal alarm bells start ringing. Seasonal allergies should be, well, seasonal. If you’re constantly battling symptoms—sneezing fits, itchy eyes, runny nose—regardless of pollen counts outside, something inside your home is likely triggering these reactions.
I worked with a retired teacher last year who’d been taking daily antihistamines for three years straight. After we installed a whole-house air purification system, she called me six weeks later to say she’d stopped her medication entirely. Her “allergies” disappeared because they weren’t allergies at all, they were reactions to recirculating dust and pet dander trapped in her system.
The Mysterious Energy Drain
This is one of the sneakier symptoms. People often attribute constant fatigue to age, stress, or just “how life is.” But breathing contaminated air forces your body to work harder than it should. Your immune system stays in overdrive, your lungs labor to extract oxygen, and before you know it, you’re exhausted by mid-afternoon.
I can’t count how many times customers have mentioned—almost as an afterthought that they seem to sleep better and have more energy after we’ve cleaned their system and improved their air quality. Your body spends a lot of energy fighting against poor air quality, and when that burden lifts, you feel it.
The Skin and Eye Connection
Your skin is your largest organ, and it reacts quickly to air quality issues. Persistent dryness, random rashes, or itchy patches can all stem from contaminants in your air. Your eyes, with their delicate membranes, are even more sensitive.
I remember one family whose two young kids kept developing red, irritated eyes. The pediatrician had prescribed various eye drops, assuming it was pink eye or allergic conjunctivitis. We discovered their humidifier was malfunctioning, and the extremely dry air was causing the irritation. A simple fix to balance their home’s humidity resolved months of discomfort.
The Headache That Won’t Quit
Headaches are particularly telling, especially if they develop after you’ve been home for a few hours. Carbon monoxide, VOCs (volatile organic compounds) from new furniture or cleaning products, and even mold can all trigger headaches or migraines.
One customer described her headache pattern perfectly: “I get home from work around 5:30, and by 8, my head is pounding. But on weekends when we’re out all day, I feel fine.” That timing isn’t coincidental, it’s your body responding to something in your home environment.
The “Just Cleaned Yesterday” Syndrome
This one frustrates people to no end. You dust thoroughly, only to find a new layer by the next morning. While some dust is normal, excessive dust reappearance often indicates filtration problems or leaky ductwork. Your system might be pulling dust from attics, crawlspaces, or even outside and distributing it throughout your home.
A customer once showed me how she could write her name in dust on her coffee table just 24 hours after cleaning. After sealing several major duct leaks, her dusting routine stretched from daily to weekly a pretty good indicator that we’d solved a significant air quality problem.
The Breathing Struggle
This is the most serious symptom and the one that should prompt immediate action. Shortness of breath, wheezing, chest tightness, or chronic coughing especially in those with asthma or other respiratory conditions—can indicate significant air quality issues that need addressing right away.
Just last month, I worked with an elderly gentleman whose COPD symptoms had worsened dramatically over winter. His doctor had increased his medication twice, but he wasn’t improving. We discovered his furnace had a cracked heat exchanger, releasing combustion gases into his home. After replacing the unit, his breathing improved within days even his doctor was surprised by the turnaround.
Your Nose Knows: The Odor Factor
Our sense of smell exists for a reason—it warns us about potential dangers. Strange or persistent odors in your home deserve attention:
The Musty, Damp Smell
This is the calling card of mold and mildew. It might be stronger in bathrooms, basements, or around windows, but if your whole house has that subtle “old basement” smell, you likely have a moisture problem feeding microbial growth somewhere in your system.
The Chemical Scent
New furniture, fresh paint, or recent renovations can off-gas VOCs for weeks or even months. These chemicals might smell “clean” or “new,” but they can cause significant respiratory irritation and headaches. If your home has that overly chemical smell, your ventilation isn’t adequately removing these compounds.
The “Something’s Just Off” Smell
Sometimes customers can’t even describe the odor it’s just “wrong.” Trust that instinct. Our brains are wired to detect subtle changes in our environment, especially ones that might signal danger. If something smells off to you, it probably is.
When Your Home Needs Professional Help
Everyone experiences an occasional sneeze or headache. But consistent patterns deserve attention. It’s time to call in professionals when:
- You feel noticeably better away from home than in it
- Multiple family members experience similar symptoms
- Your symptoms follow predictable patterns related to being indoors
- You’ve tried basic solutions like changing filters without improvement
- Your home has visible mold growth, excessive humidity, or extreme dryness
- Your energy bills have increased while comfort has decreased
Our No-Shortcuts Approach to Cleaning Indoor Air
At One Hour, we take a methodical approach to solving indoor air problems:
First, we perform a comprehensive assessment. We’re looking at your entire system not just the parts you can see. This includes checking your ductwork for leaks, inspecting for mold growth, measuring humidity levels, and testing for common pollutants.
Based on what we find, we develop a tailored solution. Your home is unique, and cookie-cutter approaches don’t work for air quality issues. Some homes need dehumidifiers to control moisture. Others require advanced filtration to capture allergens. Many benefit from UV purification systems that neutralize biological contaminants.
We then focus on thorough system cleaning. This might include professional duct cleaning to remove years of accumulated dust and debris, cleaning evaporator coils where mold often grows, or sanitizing other components that harbor contaminants.
After addressing the immediate concerns, we establish proper airflow throughout your home. Balanced airflow prevents stagnant air pockets where pollutants can concentrate and ensures your entire home benefits from whatever air quality improvements we’ve implemented.
Finally, and this is crucial, we set you up with a maintenance plan. Air quality isn’t a one-and-done fix; it requires ongoing attention. We’ll help you understand how often to change filters, when to schedule system cleanings, and what warning signs to watch for in the future.
Beyond Band-Aid Solutions
The home I mentioned at the beginning of this article? After treating their mold problem, cleaning their entire system, and installing proper filtration, the family’s symptoms disappeared within two weeks. The mom called me, actually crying with relief, saying her headaches had completely vanished for the first time in over a year.
That’s why I do this job. Because breathing clean air shouldn’t be a luxury—it’s a necessity for health and wellbeing. And nobody should have to feel sick in their own home when the solutions are often straightforward.
If you’re experiencing any of the symptoms we’ve discussed, don’t wait until they become severe. Your body is trying to tell you something important. Listen to it, and then give us a call. Let’s figure out what’s really going on with your air.
Because when you can breathe easy, everything else gets easier too.
