How To Improve The Air Quality In Your Home Today
How’s your indoor air quality?
So maybe you read the title thinking ‘I don’t have a problem with my home air quality!’? Well I can almost 100% guarantee that you do.
The statistics are pretty damming; we spend on average 90% of our time indoors these days where we can be breathing air that is as much as 3-5 times more polluted than the air outside.
That’s really bad when you bear in mind that outdoor air pollution is at illegal levels in many of our cities and that air pollution causes up to 40,000 premature deaths in the UK each year.
Why is our indoor air quality so bad?
New research has shown that 50% of all pollution could be caused by domestic products in our own homes such as paint, cleaning products, spray deodorant, perfumes, air fresheners, shampoo, carpets, sealants, varnishes and new furniture.
When you really look at the composition of many everyday products you wonder how they can legally be sold! It’s time for us to completely reconsider almost everything we use and how we go about detoxifying the air. We need to stop accepting homes full of VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) that can cause health problems such as asthma, allergies, headaches, sore throats, eye and nose irritation, poor sleep, other respiratory problems and in cases of long exposure, heart & lung diseases and cancer.
So how can you improve the air quality in your home?
For A Start Open All Your Windows! Opening all your windows regularly will ventilate your home; unless you live in a very highly polluted area, your air quality inside will be improved. Always use your cooker extraction, whenever I cook in my kitchen without extraction my air quality monitor drops down to a really shocking level of about 50-60%!
Create An Indoor Jungle Plants bring life into our homes by bringing us closer to nature and purifying the air of toxins. Keeping house plants can be daunting for some but if I can keep them alive then anyone can – not that there haven’t been some casualties along the way! Read my plant blog here to find out more about styling and looking after indoor plants.
Keep Your Home Naturally Clean Be cautious about the cleaning products you use in your home, many products we can grab off the supermarket shelves contain harmful toxic chemicals that can cause lung damage, allergies and eye, nose and throat irritation. Use natural, non-toxic hypoallergenic eco-cleaning products (click for inspo) or microfiber cloth and water can be enough. You could even make your own natural and healthy cleaning products! For ideas, check out this book.
Kick-off Your Shoes It may not feel polite for some to ask guests to remove their shoes at the front door but if you have a ‘no shoes’ policy pesticides, chemicals, pollutants and bacteria won’t be tracked through your home. A basket of natural slippers for guests is a fun idea!
Always Choose Low VOC Paints Choose low or zero VOC paints to decorate with so that you don’t risk your paint emitting toxins into your home. Some paints that contain VOCs only emit for a few days or weeks so really good ventilation can be enough but others can go on to create VOCs for years. This goes for adhesives and varnishes too. My next blog covers more about this so check back soon if you’re interested in more detail on this one.
Try To Love Dusting! I know this one is difficult right? Try to keep on top of the dust in your home, using a damp cloth on surfaces and thoroughly hoovering carpets that harbour an enormous amount of dust mites, mould spores and other allergens. If you have pets then this goes for dander and hair too. Longer term, if you have respiratory problems it would be better to replace carpets with hard flooring for easier cleaning and soften them with rugs that can be thoroughly cleaned outside.
Scent Your Home Differently This is a really easy one to do as you replace your existing products or just stop using them entirely. Find alternatives to aerosol air fresheners and get rid of any smelly plug-ins, you’re just pumping toxins into the air. Many candles (scented or otherwise) are made from paraffin and their smoke contains carcinogens, avoid burning candles unless you’re using a natural alternative such as beeswax. If you love to have a distinctive scent in your home use natural room spritzers, essential oil diffusers or natural candles.
Choose Natural Accessories When adding accessories to your home try to find the most sustainable option, these will often also be the items that have had the least contact with chemicals. For example, choose eco mattresses and organic bed covers and cushions made from natural materials such as wool, cotton and linen.
Keep a Check on Condensation Damp areas or homes high in condensation are a breeding ground for mould spores, which can cause allergies and asthma. Wipe away condensation from windows, try to dry clothes outside if possible and always use the extractors in your bathroom.
Air Out New Furniture & Carpets Before You Use Them New furniture is likely to give off toxic gasses, to begin with, unwrap them in a garage or in a very well-ventilated room if possible and leave them to air out for a few days. Do you know that great ‘new carpet smell’? That’s likely to be toxic too so try to choose furniture and carpets in natural materials that don’t have toxic coatings and treatments. Choose formaldehyde-free wood, MDF and composites or buy antique and second-hand furniture, as any off-gassing will have already occurred. It’s also a good eco choice.
Stop Using Toxic Smellies Find natural alternatives to strongly scented products such as aerosol deodorant, perfumes and hairspray. Shampoos, conditioners and other showering products can also become airborne particulates when mixed with hot water from the shower, try to use natural products without synthetic fragrances and other toxins.
Does this all come as news to you?
Were you aware of any of these indoor air quality issues?
Which is the most surprising and which are you likely to do yourself at home?
All of these changes will contribute to putting the health and wellbeing of you and your family at the heart of your home, improving general health and energy levels, concentration and productivity.
I’m trying to move toward incorporating all of these elements into my home! I find that my air quality monitor helps me to see when the air quality is dropping and when I need to open windows or use an extractor fan. In a perfect world, I would install a combination of an HRV unit, dehumidifier and air purification system but these improvements will have to wait! Please do ask any questions in the box below or on Instagram or Facebook!
Further Info * VOCs are dangerous because they break down to PM2.5 (*see below). PM10 and PM2.5 relate to the size of particulate matter in the atmosphere and are measured in micrometres. PM10 particles can be breathed into the lungs causing respiratory problems and diseases, PM2.5 are worse because they are finer, small and light and hang around in the atmosphere longer. Due to their small size, they also go much deeper into the lungs and stay there for longer. PM2.5 exposure can trigger or worsen asthma and other respiratory problems at quite low levels and are linked to heart and lung diseases. Today in Leeds the outdoor air quality measure is 49 – a ‘green’ or ‘good’, level, but it only has to tip over into 50-100 to be a moderate risk to those with existing respiratory diseases.
