Indoor Air Quality
By Julie Schmale
IQ what?!
I…A…Q…. “What is that?” you might wonder -and why should you care?
Indoor Air Quality is what it stands for. And considering Canadians spend 90% of their time indoors, you should care! We should all care!!
Over time our lifestyle has changed. We spend more time indoors, and there are more and more people who suffer from various reactions to the environment -whether in the air we breathe or in the food we consume.
When one of our flooring reps mentioned that nowadays building products need to meet a higher standard for Indoor Air Quality reasons, it caught my interest. Maybe because I happen to struggle with chronic sinus inflammation, I don’t know. I DO know that there are many other people struggling with various reactions to their environment!
This post is to enlighten if you are currently unaware of this, just like I was, when our rep brought it up.
Winter is on the doorstep and we’re looking ahead to 6 months (I’m sorry…. It makes me sad too) of snow and lots of time spent inside. And did you know there are many different things that contribute to our quality of air? Our flooring and furniture and drapery?!
The irritants we breathe in are called Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) -and they appear naturally everywhere around us, they’re also added to man-made products and in the by-products of those products. Problems occur when we breathe in the too much of them.
Formaldehyde is one. The building/flooring industry has been in trouble for this one in the past. But it actually appears naturally in everything. Some is essential, but too much of it is not good. It occurs naturally in wood products -like hardwood and laminate floors, furniture and drapes even. It also appears in the glue and adhesives used in flooring and other building materials. Imagine when you put all of them together…. Yikes!
Manufacturers have over the years modified the materials they use in their products, so it emits as little VOC as possible. And they get tested to make sure consumers know what they’re getting. One type of certification is called Green Guard Gold. One of our flooring suppliers, Metropolitan Hardwood Floors, takes the quality of their products very seriously. All their products meet the requirements for low emission of VOCs and would therefore contribute to GOOD Indoor Air. Actually, looking through the stuff we have in our store, they all have some type of “green” low VOC rating.
“GREENGUARD is a low emissions certification program owned and managed by one of the largest and most respected product safety organizations in the world. At this time, all of Evoke’s GREENGUARD certified products have achieved Gold status. GREENGUARD Gold complies with stricter certification requirements than any other emissions program. It establishes a very low Total VOC level and sets emissions for specific VOCs at 1/100th of the US Federal Government’s Threshold Limit Value (TLV) for occupational exposure.
GREENGUARD Gold certification is “designed to define low-emitting materials suitable for environments where people, particularly children and sensitive adults, spend extended periods of time, in particular schools and healthcare facilities.”
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You’re thinking “Why am I reading this? I’m not getting new flooring!” Well, there’s a bit more to it, so keep reading… You have what you have in your home, I realize we’re not all changing our flooring because of this. BUT, you can still contribute to the air quality you and your family breathe in this winter. And here’s how….
Most common indoor pollutants are fungi, dandruff, dust, and pollen. So the obvious thing to do is clean -vacuuming and dusting. Not smoking inside. Keeping your pet’s hair cleaned up. Washing your sheets every week (I admit, I do mine maybe every two weeks). Dust mites feast on your dead skin cells…. Super nasty things going on in the microscopical world! Yearly or bi-yearly tasks like steam cleaning your furniture (you won’t believe how dirty the water gets!) and getting your area rugs professionally cleaned. Replace your furnace filters every 3 months -don’t try to squeeze extra time out of it! You don’t gain anything in the end. You should also get your furnace ducting cleaned every other year -there’s a lot of junk in there. “I just moved in to a new-built home” you say -then you should DEFINITELY get it cleaned because the whole building process is not a clean one and leaves lots of junk behind in the ducting that then later on blows around and contributes to POOR air quality. If you bought a home and it had previous owners, you should absolutely get the ducting cleaned! Maybe it’s never been done before -you have no idea what left in the ducting that you’ll be breathing in this winter.
Condensation on your windows and doors? Not good. That means you have too little airflow or too much humidity in your home -and we all know moisture is ideal for mold growth! Mold spores are a type of VOC. They appear in the air everywhere, inside and outside. They only become a problem when they attach themselves to a place with moisture and start growing. Turn up your air exchanger if you have one or use a de-humidifier.
This article from Medical News Today on mold is great.
To begin with, I was intrigued by this new (to me) concept of Indoor Air Quality and how it’s affected by the building materials we sell and people in our community are putting in their homes. But in my research, I realized that there are many factors that contribute to our IAQ (Indoor Air Quality), building materials are just one of them. Most of us won’t or can’t change what our homes are made of. BUT! If you are, choose a product that complies with a green building program, like Green Guard Gold. If you are getting rid of carpet in the basement, choose a hard surface floor instead and cozy the space up with an area rug.
I am by no means an expert. My hope is that you have been made aware if you weren’t already, and you’ll do your own research and step up your indoor game.
Rid your home of bad VOCs and give your family better air to breathe this winter. After all, our homes are where we unwind and escape the world around us.
