I want to breathe deeply. It doesn’t matter where we are: in the forest, on the coast or at home.
Scientists recently discovered that the air in an apartment can be dirtier than outside. But this should not be so. Air by default affects the quality of our life. If the household has a tendency to allergies, then special attention to the air. What we breathe literally affects everything: general health and performance, sleep, appetite, mood, health and immunity. Clean and fresh air in the house, on the contrary, will help to cope with malaise, fatigue and stress. This is an important condition for good sleep and the ability to recharge overnight with vigor and well-being. What influences air quality and how to determine these parameters?
Fresh air is saturated with oxygen, has no odors and impurities. Freshness depends on the regular flow of outdoor air, its cross-flow between rooms and the hood. If the concentration of carbon dioxide that we exhale exceeds 800-1000 ppm, the body will begin to react to the stuffy air: we will feel that we are stuffy, drowsiness and headache will appear.
The cause of stagnant air may be a violation of ventilation, that is, a blockage in the ventilation pipe, or contamination of the grille. In addition, if you like to burn candles, incense sticks, turn on the heater, the process of saturating the air with carbon dioxide accelerates.
How to check: start with the ventilation system, which is often the one that needs help the most. Take a strip of tissue paper and, having opened all windows and doors, including the entrance one, bring it to the ventilation shaft at a distance of 5 cm. If the paper is sucked into the shaft, the ventilation works normally. Now close the windows and the front door, leaving the interior doors open. In this position, the paper should not be sucked in. Do not repeat this technique with a lighter. Gases can accumulate in the ventilation shaft and can be flammable.
How to fix: The easiest way to freshen up the atmosphere in your home is to ventilate. Leave the window open for half an hour – the room will be filled with oxygenated outdoor air.
Cleaning the ventilation is able to cope with ventilation problems. You can only clean the ventilation grill yourself. Sometimes this is enough. If the reason lies further, in the pipe, call specialists or contact the management company of your house. Both fans and smarter appliances can improve air circulation in an apartment. For example, the inflow will be provided by a breather, a device for intake and cleaning of external air. And the electronic hood will help with the removal.
The ideal humidity for living quarters is 50-60%. This is a very important parameter for comfortable sensations of the body and the safety of many things in the house. Insufficient humidity leads to respiratory diseases, dry skin and mucous membranes, as well as dustiness in the air: dust particles easily fly off dry surfaces with any movement. Also, dryness can dry out wooden furniture and books, peel off the edges of wallpaper strips. In turn, high humidity threatens the sensation and smell of dampness, as well as the appearance of fungus and mold, which worsen the atmosphere in the house and threaten the health of household members.
How to check: you can check this parameter yourself with a glass of water. Leave it in the refrigerator for a couple of days to cool the water down to 3-5 degrees. And then put the glass in the room, away from sources of heat and cold, and see how the instantly misted sides of the glass behave for 10 minutes. In dry air, they dry out, in wet air, condensation will begin to drain in large drops. At normal air humidity, small drops of water will remain on the walls. But such a parameter as humidity is difficult to accurately assess by eye.
“Nowadays, sensors are gaining popularity, which clearly show the current state of the air in the house. They are easy to install, and provided you are connected to your home Internet, you can get constant access to information about the air condition through a mobile application. Such a system can even be rented, ”says a smart home expert from MGTS.
How to fix: often high humidity is the result of a violation of the structure of the house. Lower floors can suffer from a basement, from which moisture rises through cracks in the walls. And the upper floors are susceptible to it due to cracks in the roof. It is best to eliminate such violations thoroughly, excluding the original source.
If you have not been able to find or eliminate the cause of the violation of humidity, smart gadgets will come to the rescue. The simplest of these are heaters for damp rooms and humidifiers for too dry. Best of all, the devices that are part of the smart home system will cope with maintaining comfortable humidity in the house at the set values.
This is another extremely important parameter on which our health largely depends. The air must enter the apartment clean, without exhaust gases and city dust. However, most of the pollution is already inside the apartment – accumulations of household dust, animal hair.
Problems can be caused by … cleaning! Many household cleaning products contain harmful substances such as formaldehyde. These substances remain on surfaces and in the air. If you overdo the use of such products, the concentration of chemicals can become hazardous to health.
In the case of low-quality building materials and furniture, the situation is even worse: they can emit formaldehyde, phenol and carboxylic acid esters all the time. Make sure that vinyl and linoleum wallpaper, laminate and parquet flooring, oil paint and glue used to decorate your home have quality certificates.
How to check: see what happens in the sunbeam after someone passes by. If you see a whirlwind of fine dust grains, it’s time to start wet cleaning. As for chemical pollution and car exhaust, only a professional chemical analysis of the air in the house can accurately determine the composition and concentration. Your own feelings can tell you that it is time to do it: cough, sore throat, runny nose and skin allergic reactions.
How to fix: The most effective ways to fight for air purity are cleaning and regular ventilation. And also a responsible attitude to the choice of furniture, building materials and in general everything that you bring into the house. Also, the air will be cleaner in the apartments of lovers of minimalism. The fewer things in the apartment – books, souvenirs, and especially clothes and textiles – the cleaner the air.
However, usual hygiene in this matter may not be enough. For example, in apartments overlooking a busy highway in eternal smog, as well as where small children, asthmatics or allergy sufferers live, you can use air purifiers or air conditioners with this function.