How to get better Indoor Air Quality in your home
By Andre Lacroix, Indoor Air Quality Expert; IAQA, BPI, ISAQ, NCHH, NEHA, BHA & AARST
While air pollution gets a lot of attention, the air inside homes may be more dangerous.
While air pollution gets a lot of attention, the air inside homes may be more dangerous.October is National Indoor Air Quality Awareness Month for good reason. This is the time of year we are typically spending even more of our time indoors. This is also the time of year many of us expereicnce a spike in allergy/asthma symptoms, increase in “colds” or sinus irritation and infections as well as more coughing and sneezing!
Don’t be so quick to blame all these health effects on the colder weather or seasonal allergies, maybe the cause is lurking INSIDE your home?
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), you’re likely to experience up to 100 times greater exposure to air pollutants indoors than outdoors.
Unfortunately, most people spend about 90 percent of their time indoors, even more so for our infants and elderly, being exposed to those potential sources of pollution that often lead to discomfort and illness.
That’s why ventilation is critical to a healthy indoor environment. People with asthma, allergies and other sensitivities breathe easier with clean air. Adequate ventilation can improve indoor air quality by removing airborne irritants, pollutants and lowering the likelihood of mold and mildew.
Only recently have home designs really taken into account the need for fresh air indoors. In older homes, windows and the rest of the home leaked so much air that mechanical ventilation wasn’t required. Also, in the days before most homes had central air conditioning, people more often opened their windows and doors for cooling and ventilation, allowing airflow through the house.
Most homes, even older ones, have some sort of mechanical spot ventilation fan, usually in the bathroom areas. Spot ventilation is the use of exhaust fans (such as kitchen, bath, or utility fans) that quickly remove moisture and pollutants from the area. Depending on your home, spot ventilation is usually part of an overall strategy of either natural ventilation or whole house ventilation.
Daily activities like showering and bathing introduce moisture into the air, so it’s important to have ventilation to manage humidity. Humidity – moisture in the air – can get out of control and cause poor indoor air quality that can lead to adverse health effects and damage to the home. Ventilation is also vital for fresh air in the house when a gas furnace operates to avoid any problems with carbon monoxide.
What can you do to make your Indoor Air Quality better?
It’s EZ – Mechanical Ventilation!
Whole house mechanical ventilation maintains the
overall indoor air quality of the home by moving air continuously, compared to local exhaust fans in kitchens and bathrooms that remove high volume
of pollutants from rooms where they are created.
The amount of whole house mechanical ventilation required is determined using a formula based on the size of the building and the potential number of occupants, resulting in a desired cubic feet per minute of air movement.
Whole house mechanical ventilation can be accomplished using a single ventilation fan, air exchanger or other method; or use a combination of these to achieve the required airflow.
If you’re building a new high-performance home or updating an existing home, you will likely encounter the need for whole-house ventilation. Homes built to tighter standards require ventilation systems. That means creating a path to exhaust the stale, dirty air. You want to build tight and then ventilate right.
With a ventilation system, there’s a continuous flow of fresh air to reduce humidity, odors, particulates, VOCs and other potentially harmful substances in the air. Mechanical ventilation also provides a much more even temperature and comfort level throughout the home, improving the overall indoor air quality!
may be tempting to embrace this fragrance, it conceals a range of health risks that warrant our attention. Let’s delve deeper into the perils of paint smells and why they should not be taken lightly.
being. To ensure a safe and healthy living environment, it’s imperative to prioritize your health and elevate indoor air quality.
fatigue, and respiratory ailments due to the proliferation of black mold. However, the hazards extend beyond health concerns; the presence of black mold in basements also wreaks havoc on structural components such as walls, basement boards, and wooden articles. To counteract the damage inflicted by black mold, it is imperative to engage mold removal specialists as soon as you detect 
to the success of mold remediation efforts. By effectively capturing and removing airborne mold spores and other contaminants, these technologies reduce the risk of recontamination and ensure that indoor air quality is restored to a safe and healthy level.
I was fortunate enough to be invited to a dear friend’s daughter’s wedding in Utah. I was so excited to witness what was sure to be a wonderful celebration uniting not only two people in love, but also the marriage of two incredible cultures steeped in rich tradition and two large, loving, supportive families. Kelsie and Laki (names are changed to protect their identities) come from two very different cultures. She from a large family very active in their Church of Latter-Day Saints community and he, from the Polynesian, Samoan culture. This was a wedding not to be missed held at a beautiful ranch in the mountains of Utah. I couldn’t wait!
I was dead wrong about that. The smell never went away. Even getting stronger when I turned up the fan as I desperately tried to air out the car with the fan on high and windows open to provide a path of escape for this awful air. I noticed I had developed a slight headache behind my right eye, like someone was stabbing me with a sharp knife! I have been in the Indoor Air Quality industry for the last two decades, so I know a thing or two about the consequences of breathing contaminated indoor air quality and it was starting to happen to me. Headache, dizziness, nausea, etc. I became acutely aware that I was breathing the 100s of chemicals found in home/car “fragrances” that are designed to mask unpleasant odors.
Some of the most common “solutions” actually make the indoor environment worse. Things like candles, plug in air fresheners & sprays actually add dangerous volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in to our home. Standard vacuums (without HEPA filtration), actually take the fine dirt particles & chemical compounds from the floor & introduce them in to the air. While you mean well, there’s a very good chance you are making the indoor environment less healthy.