When we head home to escape the stresses from a long day at the office, the last thing we want to have is a headache. But headaches due to the indoor air quality in our homes are more common than you may think. Other irritations could include irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat, dizziness and fatigue.
The good news is that such effects are usually short-term and treatable. Sometimes the treatment is simply eliminating your exposure to the source of the pollution causing the air quality in your home to deteriorate. A visit to the Environmental Protection Agency’s website tells us there are many sources of indoor air pollution in any home. These include combustion sources such as oil, gas, kerosene, coal, wood, and tobacco products; building materials and furnishings, asbestos-containing insulation, wet or damp carpet, and cabinetry or furniture made of certain pressed wood products.
Products for household cleaning and maintenance, personal care or hobbies are also culprits, as are central heating and cooling systems and humidification devices. While this list makes your home sound like a toxic wasteland, let’s keep in mind that the solution is as simple as adding a ceiling fan to your attic.
According to the EPA, usually the most effective way to make the air more breathable in your home is to eliminate individual sources of pollution or to reduce their emissions. Some sources, like those that contain asbestos, can be sealed or enclosed; others, like gas stoves, can be adjusted to decrease the amount of emissions. Another approach is to increase the amount of outdoor air coming indoors. Most home heating and cooling systems, including forced air heating systems, do not mechanically bring fresh air into the house. Opening windows and doors, operang window or ac fans, when the weather permits, or running a window air conditioner with the vent control open increases the outdoor ventilation rate.
Local bathroom or kitchen fans that exhaust outdoors remove contaminants directly from the room where the fan is located and also increase the outdoor air ventilation rate. If you are involved in short term movies like painting, paint stripping, heang with kerosene heaters, or even cooking, it’s important to keep the area you are working in well-ventilated.
Cleaning the air in your home is another opon, but this may take a real structural change and will require some investment. There are many types and sizes of air cleaners on the market, ranging from relatively inexpensive table-top models to sophisticated and expensive whole house systems. Some air cleaners are highly effective at parcel removal, while others, including most table-top models, are much less so. Air cleaners are generally not designed to remove gaseous pollutants.
The EPA also points out that while houseplants have been shown to reduce levels of some chemicals in laboratory experiments, there is no evidence that a reasonable number of houseplants remove significant quotes of pollutants in homes and offices.
