The Importance of Your Homes Indoor Air Quality

As we increasingly work from home, the need for optimum indoor air quality (IAQ) in our homes should be high on our living standards list.

Building codes cover basics like toxic materials in building materials, and kitchen and bathroom ventilation. But they don’t address the difficulty of keeping fumes or unhealthful smoke and ash out of a home.

Healthcare designers know how to do this for hospital settings; economies of scale don’t exist for the places where we live… Yet.

Homeowners and designers are looking for solutions, from tried, true and simple, to emerging and innovative.

At the simplest level, some houseplants have been shown to have air filtration powers, but they won’t kill a deadly virus or eliminate smoke and ash. They do, however, create a welcoming atmosphere and deliver biophilia benefits.

At the opposite level, smart home systems that manage indoor air quality are becoming more widely available and popular.

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Common Environmental Toxins

If you, a family member has chemical sensitivities or a compromised immune system, you’ve probably been educating yourself about products that off-gas toxins.

In the past faulty laminate flooring were being sold by major retailers and newer product reports warn of the danger of phthalates in some popular luxury vinyl flooring products. 

On the other hand, many manufacturers have released paint lines with no volatile organic compounds (VOCs). This is a tremendous advance, but did you know that electronics like televisions and computers can also off-gas? So can appliances, mattresses, carpeting and upholstery. What can you do about it?

If replacements are in the budget, you can research non-toxic alternatives to some of them. There are situations where it’s unavoidable. For example, dishwasher might be off-gassing from the kitchen into the lounge in an open plan living area. So might the plush carpet or upholstered rocker in the nursery.

Kitchen and bathroom ventilation shortfalls are surprisingly common. In the first instance, the home is going to smell of food odours and possibly smoke, and its walls can get covered in grease over time. Inadequate or unused bathroom ventilation can result in mould and mildew issues. These are both easily addressed with widely available ventilation product upgrades.

Some of the latest ranges and cooktops on the market activate a companion vent hood automatically to prevent cooking pollutants. Sensor vent fans do the same in the bathroom, and can be a real benefit to homes with forgetful teens.

Where you can’t avoid off-gassing risks because the space calls for a sophisticated computer setup or home theatre, for example, an air quality detector can spot problems, an ozone-free air purifier can help eliminate them and a smart home air quality management system can react on its own to IAQ issues.

Radon Risk

One under-appreciated air quality risk is radon exposure. Like carbon monoxide, radon is an invisible, odorless gas that can kill you. CM does it fairly quickly; radon does it slowly as the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking.

A decade or so ago, there was a lot of hype about the radon risk of granite countertops, (driven heavily by competitive products). Experts say that the risk is low in this regard.

Radon testing kits let you know if a space is impacted and radon detectors can alert you on your phone to dangerous levels. With so many more people spending extra time indoors working at home, exercising at home, schooling their children at home, checking for and eliminating radon can be especially important right now.

Smoke and Ash Dangers

If you live close to areas prone to bushfires, smoke and ash spread can be a tremendous wellness issue. Since the frequency and severity of these disasters has been increasing in recent years, it’s helpful to know how to address them from an IAQ perspective.

Regularly cleaning the filters of your air-conditioning units is a must, it’s easy enough for a DIY vacuum and high pressure clean. An ozone-free air purifier or cleaner works as an alternative for those without air-conditioning.

Final Thoughts

Keeping windows open is also helpful, but it becomes challenging in colder weather and unsafe in smoky wildfire areas.

In these challenging times when we’re all extra-stressed, it’s important to take a deep breath and focus on long-term needs as well as short-term solutions. Indoor air quality issues tend to fall into both categories.

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This article via design milk does not constitute advice; readers should seek independent and personalised counsel from a trusted adviser that specialises in property, a tax accountant and property design specialist.