This chart shows a partial list of the most common air pollutants and their sources. Knowing the sources of certain pollutants help you later in deciding the best areas to conduct your IAQ testing. Knowing the sources of contaminants also helps you to determine the best method to eliminate them.
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 The
average American spends up to 90% of their time indoors. Think about
it. When you wake up in the morning in your bed you are inside your
house. Then you leave your house to get in your car. You step out
of the car and enter your place of work. After several hours, you
leave workto go back home, go shopping, go to a restaurant or other indoor places. The majority of your day is spent indoors, making you one of the many average Americans. Those more susceptible to the effects of poor IAQ spend even more time indoors. These people include infants, the elderly and critically ill. |
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We seal our homes and buildings as tight as possible to keep our
heating and cooling costs down. This causes |
Perhaps
the biggest cause of poor IAQ today is energy conservation.|
Mold and bacteria aren't your only concerns.
Pretend you have a sister or daughter who has come down with a
cold. During the first day of her cold she is still able to attend
school and participate in activities at home. The first symptoms
she has is a runny nose and a cough. At school that day she is
constantly sneezing and coughing. When she goes home you play
games, help her with homework and eat dinner together. The whole
time she is still coughing and sneezing. The virus becomes aerosolized
for you to inhale. The virus lands on your |
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| There
are several other pollutants that won't cause a cold or an infection,
but can cause serious allergic reactions. When a door opens or your dog comes inside pollen also comes inside. There are many sources for dust and dander. The main source is you. You shed billions of dead skin cells everyday. Your carpet, furniture, household cleaners, the paint on your walls, your toys, your bedding, cosmetics, perfumes, and virtually everything in your home and most buildings today releases some type of VOC or gas into your air. Another common pollutant present in many homes today is cigarette smoke. A single cigarette alone releases over 4,000 chemicals in your air. Many places of business no longer allow smoking in the building or on their property, but many adults still smoke in their homes. This places their children and other people in their home at risk. |
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these contaminants do exist, what makes them so harmful to our health? Removing certain sources of contaminants does not always fix the problem. As you have alreadylearned, there are various sources for the many different contaminants. Many illnesses can becontributed to the many contaminants in your air. Mold spores can cause allergic reactions, serious health risks, and in some cases death. The bacteria circulating in your home can causerespiratory infections, infections in open wounds, and more. While most people quickly overcome the common cold in a matter of a few days, the same cold can be fatal to infants, elderly and critically ill. Colds also cause absence from school or work and time away from family and friends. As the items off-gas and send chemicals and VOCs into the air you inhale these chemicals. Many of the chemicals can cause allergic reactions or pose other serious health risks, such as cancer.When a cigarette burns it releases over 4,000 chemicals into the air which places your health "up in the air". The chemicals in cigarettes can cause many different diseases of the lungs or even cancer. They also weaken your immune system and cause damage to many other vital organs in your body. |
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| How
Do We Remove These Contaminants From The Air We Breathe? Some items pose greater threats to your indoor air than others. One of the best ways to remove the contaminants is to eliminate the sources. Since virtually everything in homes and buildings is synthetically made out of chemicals or attract other pollutants what should you do? Completely strip your building or home of every item in it? No. Even if you did, the materials used to create buildings and homes also contain contaminants. Instead a good first step is to remove some of the larger sources of contaminants.  If a smoker resides in your home ask them to smoke outdoors. This greatly reduces your exposure to the 4,000 plus chemicals released from cigarettes. Not to mention how much better this will make your clothes, personal items and home smell. Carpet is one of the biggest and most common sources of air pollutants. Carpet covers over 70% of the floors in America. Most new carpet contains over 31 chemicals including: volatile organic compounds, styrene, 4-PC, and formaldehyde. Some of these chemicals are considered carcinogens. They can cause severe, even deadly neurotoxin reactions. Some carpets are glued directly to the floor using strong adhesives containing harmful chemicals. The chemicals in carpet are not the only pollutants. Overtime we spill liquids, foods, and other everyday items on the carpet. We track in pollens, molds etc. from outdoors and they become imbedded in the carpet. We cough and sneeze on the carpet. We along with our pets leave dead skin behind and much more. All which equates to one giant sized area with almost every contaminant known to man trapped within. This is now another perfect breeding ground for mold and bacteria. Even if you clean your carpets often you only clean the surface. All the contaminants lurk deep within and resurface quickly. In fact, the act of cleaning your carpet increases the moisture under your carpet, resulting in a dark, warm, moist environment to grow more mold and bacteria. You thought your bathroom was gross. Think about it tonight as you lay and play on your soft comfortable carpet. |
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Another
large pollution source often overlooked is the ducts and coils
of your HVAC system.
It's also a good idea to open your windows as often as possible
to allow old stale air to escape and introduce new fresh air into
your home or other buildings. What should a person do about all
other pollutants left behind after removing the above sources?
With humans and pets being two of the biggest sources in homes
and buildings there must be other options. We can't exactly make
ourselves disappear to have clean air. |
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Most people are not aware of the serious problems lurking in their air. They assume if the dust levels are low or they vacuum often that their air is clean. The truth is that most homes today have extremely poor indoor air quality. Not because of dust, but because mold, bacteria, yeast, VOCs, viruses and more build up in our tightly sealed homes. Test your air for mold, bacteria and yeast today. When you see the results we will help you choose the right air purifier. |
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includes
This test kit will give you a good idea of general air quality in your home or allow you to conduct a before and after test. After
exposing the test kit to air for 1 hour you place it in a room temperature
and low light |
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