Moving from your childhood home or college dorm room into your first apartment is the beginning of a new chapter. From choosing the perfect lighting to arranging furniture, there are different ways to make your new space feel like a home.
As a renter, you might think air and water quality are out of your control. But thanks to Canopy, you have plenty of options for making your new space cleaner and more comfortable.
Common Comfort Challenges in New Apartments
Stuffiness
When thinking about how to make your home feel more comfortable, indoor air quality might not immediately come to mind—but there are plenty of reasons it should. Multi-unit buildings can often feel stagnant due to the apartment layout and airflow in common spaces, like hallways. Shared ventilation systems mean pet dander, mold, and other allergens can filter through ducts between apartments. Feeling under the weather? Exposure to these airborne contaminants could be the reason.
Dryness
Indoor humidity affects comfort, too. It’s normal for air to feel drier in fall and winter because cold air doesn’t hold as much moisture. Turning up the heat might make your apartment feel even dryer—and you might not have as much control over the thermostat to make it better.
The heating systems in many buildings rely on older steam heat technology, and this is particularly true of buildings in New York City. Steam radiators are the norm, pumping steam from a central boiler to each apartment’s steam radiator, which releases the steam as heat. The radiators in the apartments don’t always have individual controls to adjust the heat, so people might crack a window or run a fan for comfort, regardless of the outdoor temperature.
Living in a dry environment naturally causes your body to lose moisture. As a result, you might have irritated eyes, a hoarse throat, or dry, flaky skin.
Hard Water
Apartment buildings have to provide a lot of water throughout the day and help it maintain its temperature and cleanliness, whether there’s a faucet running on the ground floor or a bathtub running on the top floor. The water in pipes might contain a lot of calcium and magnesium ions—also known as hard water—and affect your bathroom fixtures.
Hard minerals can leave white scale buildup and mix with dirt and contribute to pink mold growth in your tub or shower stall. This means you’ll have to clean your shower more often and put more work into it.
Beyond adding time to chores, hard water and excess chlorine also affect the natural oils in your skin and hair. If your hair feels dull and dry after washing, or your skin feels tight and itchy, your shower might be to blame.
Noisy Neighbors
Shared walls in an apartment building means overhearing some of your neighbors’ activities, which isn’t ideal if you’re working from home or trying to relax.
How Canopy Can Make Your First Apartment Feel More Like Home
Thankfully, these challenges are easy to solve with a little help from your favorite Canopy devices.
Get Cleaner, More Breathable Air With a Humidifier
A humidifier is a multi-tasking household device, hydrating rooms to combat dryness caused by steam radiators and seasonal changes. The ideal indoor humidity level is in the 30% to 50% range, and we make it easy to stay in that range with our sensor technology that keeps the humidifier running when it’s needed and pauses when it’s not.
Your hair, skin, and sinuses will thank you for the boost of hydration. Added moisture in the air causes airborne contaminants to stick to surfaces, so they’re easier to clean up.
The size of your apartment will determine its hydration needs:
- Our Large Room Humidifier is handy in a spacious studio. It delivers a steady flow of hydration throughout up to 1,000 square feet, so it’s perfect for spaces with lots of airflow.
- For individual rooms or apartments up to 500 square feet, our Bedside Humidifier provides hydration where you need it most.
- If you want targeted hydration that goes anywhere you do, try our Portable Humidifier. Keep it plugged in by your desk for comfort and fragrance while you work or move it around the apartment to take advantage of the 11-hour run time on a single battery charge.
Sleeping with a humidifier nearby can ease snoring if you use a CPAP machine for sleep apnea. The hydration also contributes to your beauty sleep.
The Bedside and Large humidifiers use wood pulp filters to trap contaminants, and all three models use Smart Persistent Airflow™ technology to prevent mold and mildew. These features ensure we’re introducing clean hydration into your space.
Feel Cleaner With a Filtered Showerhead
Get your beauty routine back on track by keeping dissolved minerals, chlorine, and other substances out of the water. Our Filtered Showerhead is easy to install without extra tools, so it’s perfect for renters—just remember to put the original shower head back when you move out. The filter media removes substances that deplete your hair and skin of natural oils. When the water mineral content is kept in check, your shower or tub won’t become as grimy after you bathe. For a better angle, opt for our Handheld Filtered Showerhead.
Our shower heads come with Canopy signature aromas and felt diffusers to create a tranquil, fragrant atmosphere in the bathroom.
Make Your Home Smell Fresher With a Diffuser
Our Diffuser is made to fit anywhere you want to bask in your favorite scents, whether it’s the bathroom during your self-care routine to a cozy chair for reading. The smell of lavender and other soothing scents will help you feel more relaxed and ready to sleep, no matter what’s going on in the building. Swap out your soothing scent for something more energizing to make your home feel more inviting for guests and stimulating while you work.
