Healthy Home: Air Quality

Did you know that the air inside your home is likely to be 2-5 times more polluted than the air outside your home? Why? Building materials, furnishings, finishes, and household items like cleaning products emit toxins that negatively impact the air you breathe creating poor air quality.

What can these products cause?

• Eye, nose, throat, and even skin irritations

• Headaches

• respiratory illnesses (including asthma)

• Increases risk of cancer

A truly healthy home can improve your energy levels, increase cognitive function, boost productivity, and decrease stress. Over the past 30 years we've unknowingly welcomed a whole host of artificial materials and toxins into our living spaces through paints, furnishings and flooring, while sealing up the house with double glazed (dual pane) windows. 

To reverse these affects, we must address some of the most important issues:

PAINT

If you're painting your home, choose paints that doesn't contain Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC's), which give off gas as paint dries and hardens over time. Sherwin Williams introduced a line of zero-VOC interior paint that also incorporates a new technology to reduce VOC levels in the air and to eliminate indoor odors from pets, cooking and smoke.

If you are remodeling or build a new house, consider using CertainTeed Gypsum’s AirRenew Essential IAQ wall board (construction material that makes up walls in your home). It cleans the air by capturing VOCs and formaldehyde, converting them into inert compounds.

PLANTS

Many house plants help purify indoor air. Snake plants, spider plants and Boston ferns, in addition to ivies, lilies and palms are all great air purifying options by removing CO2 and toxins, and releasing oxygen in the room. These are especially important to include in your home if you have double pane windows and/or minimal air circulation.

NASA's Clean Air study ,which investigated the air quality improvements of introducing plants into environments has shown that there are many psychological benefits, including recovering from stress, recuperating from illness, and re-energizing.

VENTING

Good ventilation allows fresh air in and stale air out. Bad ventilation can aid the growth of mold, which needs moisture to survive, and is a major source of poor indoor air quality. Eliminating steam by turning on the bathroom fan before getting into the shower will significantly reduce the likelihood of mold growth in your bathroom. If you are in the market for a new bathroom fan, consider installing one with a humidity sensor. The fan will automatically turn on when it senses a high level of moisture in the room.

Another ventilation issue is the build-up of dust and toxin build-up. Vacuuming regularly and getting a high-quality air filter can also help collect dust for disposal and keep your air quality. Be sure to replace your HVAC vent filters often as well to help aid in keeping your air quality.

Healthy Home: Furniture Edition

As part of my “Healthy Home” series, I wanted to address the furniture that you put in your home. Whether you are looking to remodel, new build, down size, up size, or just re-vamp your existing home, furniture can play a large part in the design and health of your home.

Often times furniture can contain formaldehydes or brominated fire retardants. Which, while the intention of using these chemicals is designed to preserve the furniture, they can also produce a toxic off-gas which can be hazardous to your health. In addition to this, wood finishes are often covered in veneers or other finishes that have toxic off-gasing. While someone with good health might not see any affect, someone who is unhealthy or more prone to becoming sick (due to illness, allergies, or older age, etc.) might see some affects on their everyday lives. For example; a lower immune system, coughing, sneezing, allergies, etc. This issue is exhausted even more when we add double pane windows (designed to combat noise) to our homes, which essentially seals in these toxic chemicals into our rooms where we sleep at night.

There isn’t a solution to every problem, but one small step towards a solution is to select materials for your furniture that are natural, which are far less likely to cause any irritations.