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| How Is The Air Quality In Your Home? |
Lincoln, RI, October, 2004 - You’ve certainly heard of deadly Legionnaires Disease and you may have heard of “sick building syndrome” where workers’ complaints of allergies, tiredness or even illness are attributed to poor ventilation and unhealthy indoor air quality. But did you know that your own home – the place where many of us spend most of every day - can be the breeding ground for some of the same problems, caused by the same culprit - poor air quality?
One alarming statistic demonstrates how important “indoor air quality,” or IAQ, can be to the health of children, whose young respiratory systems can be easily affected by bad air. Consider this fact: asthma affects almost 8 million children in the United States, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. That figure represents an increase of over 200% in the past 20 years. EPA lays the blame for the increase in asthma in children to indoor air pollution. That’s right – pollution. In fact, EPA says that indoor air can be several times worse than outside air.
IAQ is today recognized as a real problem in apartments and homes nationwide, and we are not talking exclusively about cigarette smoke as the obvious source of the problem. IAQ problems are usually the result of a variety of factors inside a dwelling. These factors include pollen and dust, pet dander, mold and fungi spores and microscopic dust mites. Even common household items such as carpeting and wallpaper, paint and lacquers give off fumes for a long time after installation or application, and some of these fumes can be harmful when inhaled. In addition, homes can be invaded from within by dangerous carbon monoxide leaking from a cracked heat exchanger within a basement furnace.
Ventilation and heating ducts in a home are often the ideal breeding place for mold, fungi and mites, and dirty filters in air conditioning and heating units are major contributors to IAQ. Furthermore, today’s heavily insulated, energy-saving “tight homes” are also part of the problem because they effectively “lock in” allergenic particles and airborne toxins.
Every apartment or home needs to be dusted because dust, like rust, never sleeps. Especially in winter, with windows and doors closed for weeks and months on end, dust builds up on household surfaces. You might ask: where does this dust come from if not from outside? Well, some of it does come from outside regardless of the fact that windows are kept closed, but most of it is generated through a home’s heating and air conditioning ducts.
Common household dust is also composed of other common household detritus: dead skin, pet dander, hair and those ubiquitous dust mites who live in the stuff. It all makes for a rich mix, and it swirls in the air inside a dwelling until it falls on furniture, shelves and any other immobile surface at hand. As it builds up on a surface it finally becomes visible to the naked eye as dust.
Because of the health implications of poor air quality inside buildings both small and large, the heating and ventilation industry now recognizes IAQ as a major problem, and much work has been accomplished during the past two decades to study, measure and treat “sick” buildings, including the common American household dwelling. Many plumbing and heating contractors now focus on IAQ remedies as one of the important services they offer.
For example, air quality experts from local Gem Plumbing and Heating can test the quality of the air in your home using an IAQ monitor that electronically analyzes your home’s air quality 24 hours a day, recording a sample every minute for three consecutive days. Homeowners then receive a report that allows them to “see” their home’s daily air quality along with suggestions for improving it. Gem professionals can recommend installing HEPA filters and other measures that will dramatically improve the quality of the air you live in.
For more information on indoor air quality solutions, visit Gem’s website at www.gemplumbing.com. To make an appointment to have your home’s air quality analyzed, call Gem at 831-7000 in RI or 1-877-436-7586 from within Southeastern Massachusetts.
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