Do Candles Impact IAQ?

Burning candles is a popular way to create welcoming, clean scents within your Daphne, Alabama, home. The flickering flame of a candle helps boost a cozy ambience when you have company over, or when you want some alone time. Unfortunately, most candles contain IAQ-damaging chemicals you don’t want to be released into your home’s air.

Paraffin Is Dangerous

Candles seem pretty harmless: after all, they’ve been around for centuries and almost everyone burns candles once in a while. Unfortunately, candles aren’t harmless to your IAQ. Candles (even soy candles) contain paraffin wax. The paraffin wax is part of what gives a candle its consistency, but it also contains harmful chemicals you don’t want in your air.

In fact, paraffin has only been around since the mid-19th century. It can contain formaldehyde, dioxins, and other noxious chemicals that are bad for human health and can exacerbate allergies. Even candles that claim to be healthy or clean probably contain paraffin if you read the ingredients.

Better Home Scents

How your home smells gives you cues to your IAQ and can impact how you, your family, and your guests feel inside your house. Burning candles with pleasing scents certainly adds to your home’s positive ambience. If you love to burn candles, make sure you’re not burning them to cover up an unpleasant odor somewhere in the house. The root of that unpleasant odor could be something like mildew or pests, which negatively impact IAQ.

To get better scents inside the home, burn beeswax candles. Beeswax is a natural substance that will scent your home without injecting paraffin into the air. You can also create your own potpourri from dried flowers, cinnamon sticks, and cloves.

Burn candles sparingly, or not at all, to improve your IAQ. For other IAQ tips, including which air purifiers and air filters we recommend, contact Keith Air Conditioning, Inc. Reach us at 251-476-3610 so we can answer your IAQ questions and assist you with your IAQ needs.