How Indoor Air Pollution Impacts Your Family’s Health and Finances

A Two-Part Series on Environmental Health at Home

Part I – How Indoor Air Pollution Impacts Health at Home

Most people assume that the indoor air they breathe at home is fresh and clean just because they don’t see or smell anything. However, this is often far from true.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the levels of indoor air pollutants is typically 2 to 3 times higher than outdoor air levels—even reaching up to 100 times higher. Since most people spend about 90 percent of their time indoors, this is a growing environmental health concern.¹

Poor Indoor Air Quality Can Affect Your Health and Quality of Life

Poor indoor air quality can affect you and your loved ones in four different ways. Fortunately, you can avoid or remedy the situation by conducting an indoor air quality test—what the tests reveal can provide you with a roadmap to resolving your air quality issues regarding:

• Health concerns: Poor indoor air quality can cause a wide range of health problems such as headaches, fatigue, respiratory problems, and allergies. Testing your indoor air quality can help identify potential sources of indoor air pollution and take appropriate steps to mitigate them.
• Comfort: Poor indoor air quality can affect your comfort and quality of life. For example, high humidity can cause mold growth, which can lead to musty odors, structural damage, and poor indoor air quality. Testing can identify high humidity levels and help take steps to reduce it.
• Safety: Certain indoor air pollutants, such as radon, can be dangerous or even deadly. Testing for these pollutants is crucial for ensuring the safety of your home and family.
• Energy efficiency: Testing your indoor air quality can even help you identify energy inefficiencies in your home. For example, air leaks can cause drafts and uneven temperatures, which can impact your comfort and energy bills. By identifying these issues, you can take steps to improve your home’s energy efficiency.

Overall, testing your indoor air quality is an important step in maintaining a healthy and comfortable home environment.

Safeguard your health by testing your indoor air quality for hazards

Now you can test for key types of pollutants that can affect a home’s indoor air quality in California. These pollutants are radon, formaldehyde, VOCs and mold and asbestos and they all have negative impacts on human health. Here’s how each of these pollutants can affect your indoor air quality:

1. Mold: Mold is a type of fungus that can grow in damp or humid conditions. Exposure to mold can cause a range of health problems, including respiratory problems, allergic reactions, and irritations of the eyes, nose, and throat. Mold can also damage building materials and cause unpleasant odors. Sometimes you can see mold while other times mold may be hidden from sight inside walls and under sinks, so mold testing is important here as well.

2. Radon: Radon is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas that occurs naturally in soil and rock. It can enter homes through cracks in the foundation, walls, or floors, and can build up to dangerous levels. Radon is the leading cause of lung cancer among non-smokers, and it’s estimated to cause tens of thousands of deaths each year. Testing for radon is essential to identify if it’s present in dangerous levels and take measures to mitigate it.

3. VOCs: Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) are a group of chemicals that can be emitted from a wide range of products, including cleaning products, paints, furniture, and flooring. Exposure to VOCs can cause eye, nose, and throat irritation, headaches, dizziness, and nausea. Some VOCs have also been linked to more serious health effects, such as cancer and damage to the liver, kidneys, and central nervous system. Testing for VOCs is critical to avoid these health issues.

4. Formaldehyde: Formaldehyde is a colorless gas that is commonly found in building materials such as plywood, carpets, and insulation. It can also be emitted from household products such as cleaners, paints, and adhesives. Exposure to formaldehyde can cause eye, nose, and throat irritation, as well as headaches, nausea, and dizziness. There is an available test for formaldehyde as well.

5. Asbestos: Asbestos is a group of minerals that were commonly used in building materials such as insulation, flooring, and roofing until the 1980s. When asbestos fibers are inhaled, they can cause lung cancer, mesothelioma, and other serious respiratory diseases. To learn if your home has asbestos, you need an environmental testing professional to conduct asbestos testing.

In short, radon, formaldehyde, VOCs, mold, and asbestos can all have negative impacts on indoor air quality and human health. It’s important to test indoor air quality for these pollutants and take appropriate measures to reduce their levels and prevent their accumulation.

The Adviro Indoor Air Quality Home Health Checkup Package Tests for Main Pollutants

To help you assess the quality of your indoor air at home, our environmental testing company created a high-value indoor air quality health checkup package.

Now instead of paying for tests separately, you can test for radon, mold, VOCs, and formaldehyde—with an additional option to test for asbestos—all at once.

Better yet, our certified environmental consultants and technicians will efficiently conduct all of the tests for you. All test samples will be sent to an independent lab to ensure you receive non-biased results. You’ll also get easy-to-understand, detailed reports on all the results—all of which can serve as helpful roadmap to resolve any environmental issues uncovered during your home health checkup tests.

How to Get  IAQ Home Health Checkup Package

To request an Indoor Air Quality Home Health Checkup Package, please contact Adviro by calling (844) 607-9667 or emailing us at [email protected]. We’ll help you breathe easy.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of our Environmental Health at Home Series — How Testing For Indoor Air Pollution Can Impact Your Health Costs and More

Sources:
EPA United States Environmental Protection Agency (2022, December 8). Why Indoor Air Quality is Important to Schools. Epa.gov. Retrieved March 5, 2023, from https://www.epa.gov/iaq-schools/why-indoor-air-quality-important-schools#:~:text=EPA%20studies%20of%20human%20exposure,times%20%E2%80%94%20higher%20than%20outdoor%20levels.&text=These%20levels%20of%20indoor%20air,percent%20of%20their%20time%20indoors