Increasing your indoor environmental quality

Outdoor air quality has been a hot topic for decades now, but little focus has been given to the quality of our indoor environments.  It turns out there are several harmful contaminants, gasses, and particles that are regularly found in the air you breath for hours every day.  Luckily the green building movement is focused on rewarding builders for providing occupants with healthier to breath air. 

A leading technique to improve air quality and reduce energy usage is demand controlled ventilation.  Used often in commercial buildings, carbon dioxide detectors measure the amount of carbon dioxide in the interior air( effectively a measure of how many people are in the building) and exchanges the air accordingly.   In the past, ventilation systems would constantly exchange the air in a building, which can be a tremendous waste of energy during times when the building is vacant.

Using quality air filters also helps protect the occupants from poor air quality.  Make sure to use an air filter with a Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value (MERV) of 13 or higher, in accordance with the Department of Energy Efficiency's recommendations.

Another major concern are Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC), which are gasses released by a variety of products in a home.  Examples include:  paints, carpets, cleaning supplies, glues and adhesives, etc…  (HARMFUL EFFECTS) Although the presence of these chemicals has decreased as awareness has been heightened, there  is still much you can do to limit the presence of VOCs in your home.