Sealing your home from drafts may lower your heating and cooling costs, but it can also cost you your health. In any structure—but especially those built after 1970—better insulation can make air inside the typical home more than 100 times more toxic than outdoor air, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Blame it on the scores of chemical vapors that seep from building materials and household products—from cancer-causing formaldehyde in carpeting, furniture, and wood panels to asthma-inducing chemicals in air fresheners, cleaners, and paints.
To clear out those toxins, open windows and doors for about ten minutes each day in winter and summer, with the heat or air conditioning turned off, advises Alex Wilson, author of Your Green Home (New Society Publishers, 2006). For maximum cross ventilation, it’s best to keep all the windows and doors open at the same time, if possible. In spring and fall, when air doesn’t move as easily from indoors to out, run exhaust fans such as your stove, attic, and bathroom fans. (Springing for quieter fans might make you more likely to use them for this health-preserving purpose, Wilson adds.)
Another way to clear the air: get at least two tropical houseplants per 12-by-12-foot room. Palms, ferns, bamboo, and other tropical plants absorb airborne toxins into their leaves and roots, says Bill Wolverton, Ph.D., an environmental engineer and former NASA research scientist who pioneered the use of these plants as air filters in space stations.
Also, when you buy a television, computer, or piece of particleboard furniture, let it air out in the garage for a few days before setting it up indoors; when new, these items release their highest concentrations of pollutants.
To clear out those toxins, open windows and doors for about ten minutes each day in winter and summer, with the heat or air conditioning turned off, advises Alex Wilson, author of Your Green Home (New Society Publishers, 2006). For maximum cross ventilation, it’s best to keep all the windows and doors open at the same time, if possible. In spring and fall, when air doesn’t move as easily from indoors to out, run exhaust fans such as your stove, attic, and bathroom fans. (Springing for quieter fans might make you more likely to use them for this health-preserving purpose, Wilson adds.)
Another way to clear the air: get at least two tropical houseplants per 12-by-12-foot room. Palms, ferns, bamboo, and other tropical plants absorb airborne toxins into their leaves and roots, says Bill Wolverton, Ph.D., an environmental engineer and former NASA research scientist who pioneered the use of these plants as air filters in space stations.
Also, when you buy a television, computer, or piece of particleboard furniture, let it air out in the garage for a few days before setting it up indoors; when new, these items release their highest concentrations of pollutants.
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