Is the air inside your home clean?

NORTH TEXAS (CBWNewsTexas.com) - Thursday marks International Day of Clean Air for blue skies, highlighting the importance of healthy breathing air along with steps and the urgent need to overcome air pollution.

The United Nations General Assembly began the international day four years ago. 

Here in North Texas, there have been several ozone action days, meaning the air outside can be unhealthy for sensitive groups. While on a global level, this seems like such a big issue, there are steps you can take in your own home to breathe healthy air.

CBS News Texas spoke with a service technician at Willard Heating, Cooling and Plumbing who says inspecting your air filters is the No. 1 thing you should do. And you should be doing that every month or so and replace it when necessary. If you have pets, you'll probably need to replace your air filters more often. And you'll especially want to replace them when it's this hot out. Forgetting to change your filter can restrict you're A/C from providing full efficiency and start to allow more dust to flow through, which could make it eventually fail.

Noel Baldelamar is a service technician HVAC Department with Willard Heating Cooling and Plumbing. He says there are a few things homeowners do wrong when it comes to cleaning the air inside your house.

"They will install these little scented things inside of their filters and they think it's to make the air smell better. But, there's reasons that you're getting these odors," he said. "For those people, I would strongly recommend getting an inspection done because it could be coming from a source and a lot of times the source is inside the air conditioner."

When it comes to which type of house is better for air filtration, older homes have the advantage.

"Newer homes have a much bigger problem because they are built a lot tighter," Baldelamar added. "People don't realize this but outside air, in some cases, is 4-to-5 times cleaner than inside your home. And, of course, whatever is in your home, you're breathing in whether you are using aerosols or bleach just even candles—it all recirculates."

Filters can turn black faster, according to Baldelamar, because of burning candles working their way to the filter.

Breathing all of that polluted air can really affect our allergies and health issues in some cases, so it's important to make sure to have the cleanest air possible around you.

Click here to learn more about the International Day of Clean Air.