Indoor air quality is often 2-5 times worse than outdoor air. One of the best ways to keep your indoor air clean is to open your windows when possible. But in the cool winter, you can also use plants to freshen indoor air. Some plants have been found to purify the air of contaminants like [...]
Filed under: Air quality on January 13th, 2010 | 2 Comments »
I went to a presentation last night on summer air quality in my city. Apparently, we have failed federal air standards for the past three years due to our high amounts of ozone (carbon monoxide, lead, particulate matter, nitrogen oxide and other pollutants were in compliance). Ozone is produced when volatile organic compounds (VOCs) mix [...]
Filed under: Air quality, Environment, VOC on July 28th, 2009 | No Comments »
We just tried our first zero VOC paint. The paint base has no VOCs and the colorant is also free of VOCs. There aren’t many paints on the market that use a no-VOC colorant so I was really excited to try it. I thought the paint was great. It covered well and I was happy [...]
Filed under: Air quality, Environment, VOC on June 3rd, 2009 | 2 Comments »
I ran into a neighbor at the local pub over the weekend and mentioned that we had been painting over the weekend. She said she was going to paint soon too and we started talking about it. I mentioned that the low-VOC paints we had used were on sale until the end of the month, [...]
Filed under: Air quality, Chemicals, Environment, VOC on March 24th, 2009 | No Comments »
As the weather warms up, I’d like to remind you to open your windows! Indoor air quality can be very poor and almost always, the air outside is cleaner. So if it’s a nice day, take the opportunity to open your windows and air out your house. I have been really diligent about this for [...]
Filed under: Air quality on March 9th, 2009 | No Comments »
For those of you following our radon saga, we just got the results back from our post-mitigation radon test. It was 1.4 piC/L! Well under the EPA’s safety limit of 4 and much lower than when our home was first tested (13!) Yay! We were advised to continue testing our home’s radon level (when done [...]
Filed under: Air quality on November 12th, 2008 | 1 Comment »
After going on and on about how healthy we tried to make our new home, we got some bad news today. We had a radon test performed by our home inspector. He placed it in the basement for 48 hours. The EPA sets the safety level for homes at 4 piC/L. Our home’s level was [...]
Filed under: Air quality on October 14th, 2008 | 2 Comments »
This week we move in to our new home. We have been waiting for it to be built for months now and are very anxious to get settled. Posts may be a bit sporadic for the next week or two, and the site may even be down for a bit while our server is moved.
Since [...]
Filed under: Air quality, Environment, VOC on October 12th, 2008 | No Comments »
Recently, there have been a few articles in the press about granite countertops emitting radon. Radon is a radioactive gas that is released from the natural stone when the uranium in it decays. But would this be enough radon to harm the health of the people living in a home with granite countertops? Radon is [...]
Filed under: Air quality on September 11th, 2008 | 3 Comments »
Did you know that according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), indoor air quality has been shown to be 2-5 times (even up to 100 times) more polluted than outdoor air? Thanks to airtight homes, harsh cleaning chemicals, and houses filled with substances that emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other pollutants, our indoor [...]
Filed under: Air quality, Chemicals, VOC on September 5th, 2007 | 3 Comments »