The main thrust of this blog is to educate people on how to keep their indoor environment as clean as possible.  For the most part, we advocate a 2 step system; get your ducts cleaned and get an air purifier. These are good steps, but there are others you can do as well.

First, you must keep the humidity in the house under 50%. I’ve mentioned this a couple of times before, but it is imperative. At this concentration it is dry enough to prevent spores from germinating, but also wet enough that you don’t wake up with a sore throat and a bloody nose.  The easiest way to do this is to get a portable dehumidifier and put it in the basement.

Another thing you can do is to minimize soft surfaces in the home. Over the years your carpets, drapes, and upholstery slowly but surely accumulate dust, dust mites, and all sorts of other things that make the home feel stuffy. First get rid of the carpets. These are usually the worst offenders, as they cover the greatest area and also release whatever they hold when people kick them up.  Drapes are of less concern, and couches…well, I’m not really a fan of leather but it is the best surface for cleaning purposes.

An article I read today brought up a point I’d never heard, but it seems to make sense. Apparently masonry products offer a high degree of protection against indoor mould problems.  Now, there aren’t too many people out there who would choose to have interior walls made of bricks, but if you kept the walls in the basement cement it may have a beneficial effect on the indoor air in your home.

Lastly, make sure any water from your roof is properly channeled away from your home, as a wet foundation in perfect for all sorts of little creatures to build colonies. This also includes making sure the ground around your home slopes away from it.

That’s about it for now. Not all of these things are easy or cheap, but health is something most people don’t think about until it’s too late. You never really can do too much to protect what you have, in terms of improving the environment in which you live.

If people have heard of ozone, it usually has something do to with that hole over one of the poles, or something like that.  And while atmospheric ozone does prevent us all from getting crispier when we go outside, ground level ozone is a serious concern.

Ya’ll ready for some chemistry? I knew you were. Anyway, ozone is an incredibly strong oxidizer, meaning it craves electrons like junkies crave smack, and will take them from whatever it bumps into.  That may not sound like much, but sharing electrons is how molecules are made, and once those electrons are gone, so is whatever was using them before – be it viruses, bacteria, mould, etc…This makes it a very effective cleansing agent, and it is promoted as such.

The Structure of Ozone

Source: http://www.lenntech.com/ozone/ozone-properties.htm

The problem is that ozone is also very stable.  It has a half life of 12 hours, meaning whatever concentration you start out with you’ll have half left 12 hours later, and half of that in 12 more hours and so on until it eventually peters out.

During that time it is very likely to make it down your throat and wreak havoc there and your nose and lungs, and is one reason why it’s classified as a pollutant at ground level.  Yet ozone generators have been available for years as a way to purify the air in your home. Here’s what Health Canada has to say about ozone:

A risk evaluation by Health Canada on ozone generators in January 1999, concluded that ozone generators pose a risk to the health and safety of the public. The direct and purposeful introduction of ozone into occupied indoor environments is unacceptable and therefore should be avoided. Health Canada is concerned with the adverse health effects that may result from the deliberate exposure of the public to ozone from air cleaners that intentionally generate ozone gas (ozone generators). Ozone is an irritant gas that can cause coughs, chest discomfort, and irritation of the nose, throat, and trachea. Health Canada has received complaints from consumers of respiratory problems when using an ozone generator.

Source: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/cps-spc/house-domes/electron/cleaners-air-purificateurs-eng.php

There’s no one out there who doesn’t want to live in a clean environment, but this is not the way to go. Ozone does smell nice, but it will attack your internal membranes.  Meaning you won’t smell anything after a while…ever.  Not to mention that in ozone generators there is no filtration, so particles settle out of the air only to be kicked up again the next time you walk over them.

What you need is an air purifier with physical and chemical filtration.  And you need your ducts cleaned. No matter what you do to clean the air in your home if your ducts are filthy it will still be that old crappy air coming out the next time the furnace is on.

So call us.

There was an interesting story on an air purifier blog about pesticide use and it’s effects on humans.  The post details about the practice of crop dusting and how it can go awry.  People living near areas where dusting is heavy report respiratory problems, dead fish floating in streams beside fields, etc…  Yet “authorities” maintain that if done properly there are very little risks.

It then goes on to say this:

So who is right? Research continues to be done to determine if these chemicals are really at the root of many of the occurrences that people report, but there seems to be no definitive answer that all can agree on.

So let me get this straight…a chemical thats designed to kill insects (whose life processes and needs are not so far from our own) that is sprayed from a plane needs more research to determine if it’s the cause of health problems as postulated by the locals.  Kinda makes you wonder doesn’t it?

Obviously this will not be regulated by the government.  Chemical companies are far to big to have their interests challenged, much less regulated or (gasp!) banned. And while you can make the case that we need these pesticides to maintain production levels, thats not what this piece is about.

The fact is that we are exposed to chemicals all the time…and we need to get rid of them, because they will NOT be regulated for us.  That article goes on to recommend a HEPA filter to rid your home of the noxious gases, but in fact that won’t fully cover the problem.  You see, insecticide dust goes as small as 0.1 microns (remember HEPA filters only go down to 0.3 microns) and if it is truly atomized much smaller than that.  And there are lots of other things that are too small to be caught by filters as well.

So what can you do?  While the HEPA filter is a great start, more protection is needed.  What is needed are a few other steps to make sure the chemicals are eliminated.  The most reliable and common practice is the use of a photocatalyst along with a UV light.  Just so we’re clear, “photocatalyst” means “breaks with light” as in light shines upon it and it breaks stuff that passes through it.  Hopefully that’s not too complicated.

Here’s how it works.  First, the air is drawn into the chamber where it is pre-filtered and then HEPA filtered to remove the particles in the air.  Then it should go through a carbon filter to trap organic gases (organic mean carbon based, and covers pretty much all chemicals found in the home) then a photocatalyst.  The photocatalyst is made of titanium dioxide, and when light strikes it it release hydroxl (OH-) and superoxide (O2-) atoms.  Sorry for the lack of sub- and superscripts.  These atoms are extremely reactive and cleave organic bonds, so whatever chemcials make it this far are instaneously destroyed.  And if a few manage to sqeak through the UV light has the exact same effect, it breaks organic bonds.  This is why sunlight is one of the most powerful sterilizers.

Anyway, the point of this is that to truly have clean air in the home you need a purfier that has the required stages to filter the air.  Physical filters are good, but there also needs to be chemical ones.

So call us at (705)737-4242 to get your hands on one of the best in the business.