Since becoming a lung doctor and raising three young children, I find myself thinking constantly about what is in the air we breathe. We spend so much time in our homes, and we are learning more about how the lives we live affect our air, from the cars we choose to drive, the cleaning agents we use at home, the appliances we choose, to the HVAC systems we have and how often we open our windows.
It is also fascinating that there is often little meaning or regulation to the claims made by many commercially available products and air cleaners. What does “low VOC” mean? Is it better? What might something called an air cleaner be doing to our home? How do our counter surfaces and walls interact with the chemicals in the air? I learned so much from my podcast guest for this post, and this is being released just in time for you to learn how to choose better during your Spring Cleaning!
Dr. Delphine Farmer is a Professor of Chemistry at Colorado State University. She is an atmospheric chemist who studies the air we breathe both indoors and outdoors. Her work has included projects such as the House Observations of Microbial and Environmental Chemistry (HOMEChem) study, which was a collaborative field investigation designed to probe how everyday activities influence the emissions, chemical transformations and removal of gasses and particles in indoor air. She has also studied how wildfire smoke and VOCs interact with our homes in the CASA study.
We discuss a variety of topics, including how many of the cleaning chemicals we bring into a home can affect the air, and how we can change what we are inhaling by the way we cook, the way we clean, and the way we cool and ventilate our homes. We also discuss how the surface areas in a home, such as walls, furniture, floors ceilings and more can become VOC reservoirs.
We also discuss air cleaner technology, including ionizers. I have covered this previously on the podcast and blog, but she also reviews how this technology can have unpredictable effects and usually generates formaldehyde, which we do not want to breathe.
I hope you learn as much from the podcast episode as I did. I often find myself not sure how to advise people about VOC materials and what high yield choices they can make in their own homes. We also don’t want to find ourselves paralyzed with fear about just living our lives in the midst of imperfect data.
Fortunately, it seems that simpler is better. If something really has a strong smell, don’t bring it into your home unless you have to. Fresh air is good- when the air quality index is green, open your windows to let in good clean air. Run your hood when cooking and be intentional about the appliances you choose for your home. After a big wildfire event, I probably will use that opportunity to do a thorough clean of our surfaces and decrease the reservoirs of VOCs.
To Do:
- Think through the simple steps mentioned by Professor Farmer to keep your home air clean. Consider wiping down surfaces with soap and water after a wildfire event or other big pollution event.
- To learn more about NO2 and gas appliances, check out the “Fire Inside” with Dr. Laura Paulin.
- For more on ionizing technology and other things marketed as air cleaners, listen to the episode “Clearing the Air about Ionizers, Hydrogen Peroxide & More- the 4 D’s of Safer Air with Ken Martinez”
- To learn more about cleaning agents and their risk to health, you can listen to Cleaning Agents, Chronic Bronchitis, and Latino Lung Health with Alejandro Diaz
- Finally, consider a donation to the American Lung Association, which works to educate about the importance of healthy indoor air.
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