Indoor Air Pollution

Fifty million people in the United States suffer from respiratory illness. Asthma is at an all time high. Knowledge is the key to preventing and reversing respiratory illnesses. As you read on, you will understand that there are some very simple and inexpensive ways to take action.
My favorite book on the topic of indoor air pollution, which I recommend is, How To Grow Fresh Air by Dr. B. C. Wolverton, states, "During smog alerts people are generally advised to stay indoors. Yet modern scientific research indicates that the indoor environment may be as much as ten times more polluted than the outdoor environment." The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) currently ranks indoor air pollution as one of the top five threats to public health. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sets no guidelines for volatile organic compounds in non-industrial settings
The EPA estimates that indoor air pollution from chemicals such as those released by paint are responsible for more than 11,000 deaths from cancer, kidney failure, and respiratory collapse each year. That freshly painted smell that you get when you freshen a room with conventional solvent based (latex or oil) paint comes from volatile organic chemicals (VOCs). VOCs make up as much as 60% of the ingredients in paint and include formaldehyde, benzene, and acetone. These chemicals can cause a wide range of health problems including allergies, headaches, dizziness, asthma, chronic fatigue, liver problems and even cancer. Yet the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sets no guidelines for VOCs in non-industrial settings.
There are some alternatives to conventional paint. Some companies have come out with low VOC lines of paint as well as sealers to stop existing paint from off-gassing. These paint lines are a significant improvement, but they are still based on manufactured chemicals and may not be an adequate solution for many people. An even healthier and perhaps also more beautiful option is to use natural paints. You can easily make these paints yourself, or you can buy them ready-made, just like any other paint.
To buy natural paints contact: The Old Fashioned Milk Paint Co. Groton, MA, www.MilkPaint.com or BioShield, Santa Fe, NM, www.BioShield.com.
Other common household sources of chemical vapors, (VOCs), include carpeting, ceiling tiles, chlorinated tap water, cleaning products, cosmetics, draperies, fabrics, floor coverings, gas stoves, grocery bags, permanent-press clothing, plywood, particleboard, stains and varnishes, tobacco smoke, upholstery, wallpaper and many more.
Some of the chemical vapors that off-gas from these items and are harmful to humans include ammonia, benzene, chloroform, formaldehyde (embalming fluid), trichloroethylene, phthalates, and xylene/toluene. These vapors can cause sick building syndrome. The symptoms of sick building syndrome include allergies, asthma, eye, nose and throat irritations, fatigue, headache, nervous system disorders, respiratory congestion, sinus congestion and many more.
One way to reduce the inhalation of these chemicals is to increase ventilation by opening windows and doors, another is to become knowledgeable about the sources and avoid them. However, it is not always possible or cost-effective to achieve suitable ventilation (for example, during winter in a very cold climate). In these instances there is an inexpensive and beautiful way to reduce the toxic vapors from your indoor environment - house plants!
Just as forests and jungles improve the air quality of our planet, house plants improve the air quality of your house! How To Grow Fresh Air lists 50 house plants that purify the air. They are rated in four categories: removal of chemical vapors, ease of growth and maintenance, resistance to insect infestation, and transpiration rate. The top ten house plants from that book (by overall rating). 1) Areca Palm, 2) Lady Palm, 3) Bamboo Palm, 4) Rubber Plant, 5) Dracaena "Janet Craig", 6) English Ivey, 7) Dwarf Date Palm, 8) Ficus ALII, 9) Boston Fern, 10) Peace Lily.
It is possible to lower the chemical off-gassing of new furnishings by allowing them to off-gas before bringing them indoors. You can do this by leaving them in a warm garage or on a porch for at least two months (the longer is better) before bringing them inside. My favorite way to feel safe about furnishings (and save money too) is to obtain used furnishings!
Manufactured homes (AKA mobile homes) are sold under different liability laws than permanent homes. This does not mean that the chemical vapors are different. The following is a health warning that comes with manufactured homes: "Important Health Notice. Some of the building materials used in this home emit formaldehyde. Eye, nose, and throat irritation, headache, nausea, and a variety of asthma-like symptoms, including shortness of breath, have been reported as a result of formaldehyde exposure. Elderly persons and young children, as well as anyone with a history of asthma, allergies, or lung problems, may be at greater risk. Research is continuing on the possible long-term effects of exposure to formaldehyde.
Reduced ventilation resulting from energy efficiency standards may allow formaldehyde and other contaminants to accumulate in the indoor air. Additional ventilation to dilute the indoor air may be obtained from a passive or mechanical ventilation system offered by the manufacturer. Consult your dealer for information about the ventilation options offered with this home.
High indoor temperatures and humidity raise formaldehyde levels...
If you have any questions regarding the health effects of formaldehyde, consult your doctor or local health department. "
There is a wonderful alternative to a convention house and the chemical cocktail it likely contains. Recently there has been a resurgence of building homes from natural materials. Strawbale, adobe and cob are coming into vogue in many places, and if built correctly, they don't off gas at all.
Your home is your sanctuary, the place you go to rest and recuperate a medium for expressing who you are and perhaps the culmination of years of hard work. Buying a home is the major achievement of many people's young lives. The house is a symbol of stability family and prosperity and is likely to be the recipient of a great deal of your time and money spent on decoration and maintenance. You will probably spend fifteen to thirty years of your life working at a job that you may love or may loath in order to pay your mortgage. Yet this hard won sanctuary that you so treasure may also be quietly destroying your health.
The modern home is a chemical gas chamber made of thousands of toxic synthetic materials that are dangerous to builders, homeowners, and the environment. Houses are not just made of wood and brick. They are wrapped in plastic and Styrofoam painted with toxic paints, have tiles glued down with adhesives, vinyl flooring, Formica countertops, plastic carpets, formaldehyde soaked insulation, fire retardant synthetic furniture, poly-vinyl-chloride water pipes, plastic bathtubs and enameled metal ones; the list goes on and on. In fact, probably the majority of the components of a home are toxic. The chemical off-gassing from a new house (Oh, that lovely fresh small of a new house!) can last for the entire lifetime of the building, which in the case of most homes built today is only about 50 years. At the end of that time the house becomes toxic waste, nothing more than a disposal problem for your children. Compounding the problem is the fact that well intentioned efforts at improving energy efficiency have meant that most homes now are virtually hermetically sealed. Very little fresh air comes in and few toxic chemicals can escape.
Most homes leave something to be desired in the area of human comfort as well. New homes are usually straight edged and sterile with little connection to nature. Residents often spend thousands of dollars on decorating to soften or disguise the soul impoverished linear qualities inherent to the modern home design. We all come from thousands of generations of people who have lived and died surrounded by the natural environment and being surrounded in our homes by straight lines and perfectly smooth surfaces that never occur in the natural world can be subtly unsettling. Living as we do now in cities and suburbs the closest most of us get to our ancestral environment is a chemical drenched lawn or a city park. While we may enjoy the stimulation of this lifestyle, the lack of connection with our natural environment can cause constant low level stress and ultimately damage the psyche as well as the physical body.
There is an alternative, however to living in a toxic synthetic environment. People built breathtakingly beautiful and comfortable homes for thousands of years before sheetrock, latex paint, fiberglass and all the rest were ever invented. Many people today are looking to these ancient traditions of architecture to provide relief from chemical induced illness and refuge from high stress environments. Houses can be built entirely from stone, wood, straw bales and earth without any synthetic materials at all. When we surround ourselves with the elements that we have evolved with throughout human history we are far less likely to be harmed by them than by chemicals that have existed only for the past two or three generations.
Earth is the oldest and most common building material on earth. About one half of the world's people live in homes built of the earth and many of us who have not grown up with these traditional buildings are beginning to see the need to revive them in the Western world. Earthen buildings in one form or another have been built for thousands of years all over the world, in Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Parts of the Great Wall of China are built from earth as well as large parts of the first great cities, Babylon and Ur. In Yemen there are cob buildings five stories high built in the middle ages and still inhabited today. In Southern England tens of thousands of cob homes between 500 and 700 years old remain in use today as hundreds of new ones are being built with the encouragement of the Queen.
In North America there is the Taos Pueblo, the oldest constantly inhabited buildings in the U.S., built entirely from earth. Even in the northeastern US many colonial era homes are built of earth, most of the wooden ones having long ago burned or rotted away. There are at least forty adobe homes in New York over 100 years old. There are cob and adobe homes in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. Even Paul Revere's home in Boston is built of adobe bricks.
Types of earthen building include adobe, rammed earth, wattle and daub, and cob.
Cob is a style of earthen building developed in the harsh wet environs of the British Isles. It is similar to adobe, being made of the same natural ingredients, but where adobe is formed into bricks and sun dried cob is applied directly to the foundation by the handful or by the shovelful to create hand sculpted free flowing walls. Building with cob is a creative experience similar to sculpting with clay. Cob is stronger than adobe and more resistant to wet weather because it has a higher straw content and because it is monolithic. In other words, cob is not made into individual bricks, but rather the whole building is one single brick. There are no seams for the walls to crack along.

Cob homes can be built entirely from natural materials from the foundations to the paints. These houses are cool in summer and warm in winter because of their thick walls and thoughtful designs, so they may never need to be heated or air-conditioned except in the most extreme climates. I spoke recently with a woman who grew up in a stately old adobe house in Central America. She recalled afternoon naps as a child, taken to escape murderously hot afternoons, in the pleasantly cool bedroom of her parents' thick walled earthen home.
One of the greatest benefits of a cob home is that not only will it not be poisoning you, but it can also be very inexpensive. Thus you can spend less time in a stressful work environment and more time participating in the life of your family and community which will certainly also keep you healthier and happier.
In 1872, J. R. Black M.D. authored, The Ten Laws of Health. The first law in that book he called, 'Breathing a Pure Air, its Violation, and Results'. He recommends that we keep our windows open for ventilation no matter how hot or cold the weather. The following quotes come from that book. "The foolish fear of gentle currents, even when the body is well protected, is very fruitful in mischief. It induces men and women to sit and sleep in closed, almost air tight, apartments, enveloped by an atmosphere deficient in oxygen, every inch of it abounding with the foul and deleterious exhalations from the body.The true rule, and one that deserves to be universally adopted for the preservation of health during the winter season, is to warm dwellings less and clothe the body more. Compare the warmly-clad, healthy pioneers, with their open, barnlike houses, and the daintily-clad, pale, shivering, sickly beings who live in airtight, oven-like rooms, and the former will be found to be very rarely victims to colds, not a few of them during a long lifetime never needing the services of a physician, while the latter nearly always feel the need of medical aid. There is nothing cheaper or more easily obtained than good, pure air; and the idea of having it foul in order to preserve its warmth, is not only sickening, but is, besides, the very worst kind of economy."
Kristine Nolfi provides modern day science to back up Dr. Black's previous quote in her book, Raw Food Treatment of Cancer. "Since we use five or six hundred quarts of air per hour we can soon exhaust the oxygen in a small room whose windows and doors are closed. We then inhale our own exhaled carbon dioxide and awaken to a heavy head in the morning."

The choice is yours, to ventilate or not to ventilate. But don't be fooled by air-conditioning, most ac units recycle the same air. If your ac unit is equipped with an air exchanger, you should turn it on.
Mold is another hazard to indoor air quality and is one of the most insidiously dangerous indoor air pollutants. If you have mold growing indoors, I recommend that you take it very seriously. Airborne mold spores have been known to make some people so sick that they require hospitalization. Home furnishings and even walls that have mold living in them are best disposed of. Even when the visible surface mold has been cleaned off, mold can survive inside and behind sheetrock walls and in furniture, only to grow again once the chemical used to clean the surface dissipates. A dehumidifier can help by keeping the humidity level low enough to prevent mold from releasing mycotoxins and health-affecting spores. There are specially designed air purification machines that kill airborne mold spores. A company called EcoQuest manufactures these machines.
Dust mites are the most common allergen-producing organism found in our homes. They live in carpets, mattresses, upholstered furniture, and those areas that rarely get cleaned and accumulate dust. They require periods of relative humidity above 55 percent in order to thrive and breed. Keeping the humidity below 55 percent with a dehumidifier is helpful in controlling these microscopic animals.