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Air Pollution in Our Homes

newyorker.com

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Re: Air Pollution in Our Homes

#111

Post by simple_phrases »

hcurtiss wrote: post #104

I've been exposed to air toxics risk assessments through my work. The problem, in my mind, is not the toxics we're facing in our homes (or even outdoors). It's that humans are really bad at understanding risk. Let's imagine an annual Thanksgiving dinner presents an excess lifetime cancer risk of 2 (made up number -- probably much lower). Many people would find that unacceptable. But why? Many activities we engage in…

> For instance, this article says the odds of dying in a car crash are approximately 10.7 per 100k. That is 10,000 in a million.

There are ~30k automobile deaths in the US per year. Your figure is off by several orders of magnitude.

Re: Air Pollution in Our Homes

#112

Post by fma »

sushisource wrote: post #94
fma wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The kitchen exhaust fans in American homes are very weak (at least, every one I've lived in, and visited...). When cooking, you can smell what people are cooking, so it's not really doing its job of pulling the air out. I upgraded begrudgingly to a Chines brand called Fotile. It's expensive and I fought tooth and nail with my wife because my natural instincts was not to trust Chinese brands I never heard of. Admitted…

God I fucking hate the nonsense "range vents" on the bottoms of microwaves that is typical of many American homes (mine included). They do literally nothing . It's infuriating that in my new-construction, rather nice, home I get this pretend bullshit in my otherwise lovely kitchen. I'm tempted to get a proper range hood just because this infuriates me so much, but the cost of redoing the whole cabinet above the stove…

Lol I was in the same boat. House is new construction, GE appliances... I took down the microwave and replaced it with the Fotile hood. The microwave (its huge...) sits on my counter.

Needed to do minor custom wood work to mount and make it look nice, but it's doable. My dad was a carpenter so it was easy to get done.

Re: Air Pollution in Our Homes

#113

Post by verelo »

swampthinker wrote: post #67
nextos wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is spot on. The only solution is to build houses with better materials that release less VOCs and/or use an air filter with a good activated carbon stage. Carpets have become very popular. But cheap ones release tons of VOCs due to fire retardants and anti-stain treatments. I've switched to a house built in the Scandinavian style, with oiled wooden floors and simple soap-treated furniture. Not only beautiful, bu…

Most modern European housing also has to abide by strict energy efficiency and air leakage standards, so they come with heat-recover air exchange systems.

I came here to say exactly this. I'm in Toronto Canada and just renovated a duplex, i was required to install ERV's to exchange the air. VOC's from off-gassing is unavoidable with present building materials, so the best we can do is replace the air as often as possible to minimize the impact. They're not expensive, and the impact to air quality is massive.

Re: Air Pollution in Our Homes

#114

Post by lxmorj »

swampthinker wrote: post #67
nextos wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is spot on. The only solution is to build houses with better materials that release less VOCs and/or use an air filter with a good activated carbon stage. Carpets have become very popular. But cheap ones release tons of VOCs due to fire retardants and anti-stain treatments. I've switched to a house built in the Scandinavian style, with oiled wooden floors and simple soap-treated furniture. Not only beautiful, bu…

Most modern European housing also has to abide by strict energy efficiency and air leakage standards, so they come with heat-recover air exchange systems.

Air leakage standards in which direction?

Re: Air Pollution in Our Homes

#115

Post by swampthinker »

lxmorj wrote: post #114
swampthinker wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most modern European housing also has to abide by strict energy efficiency and air leakage standards, so they come with heat-recover air exchange systems.

Air leakage standards in which direction?

Building envelopes need to be tighter

Re: Air Pollution in Our Homes

#116

Post by betterbeehome »

rayiner wrote: post #44
jartelt wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in some countries have been cooking with indoor wood-fired stoves forever, yet we know for sure that these stoves are bad for respiratory health. That doesn't mean all the research is wrong! I think the big take away is that you should pretty much always turn on the exhaust hood over your stove top when you cook. Doing so removes many of the particles generated by cooking.

But there is no connection to an actual outcome. Is this reducing my expected lifespan by a year? Two years? Or ten years? I might care about the latter, hard for me to get worked up about the former. The fact that we’ve been doing this a long time means the effect couldn’t be all that large, or else we would’ve noticed something (e.g. a stark difference between those who cook at home and those who eat out).

I don't know why you're getting downvoted so much. People should be more concerned of sensationalism than VOCs for now. Stress kills far more people than this potentially broad category of compounds which could include harmless and vital smells. Is the media now going to try to sterilize our sense of smell as well as our sense of taste.

Ban salt, fat, (but not sugar, just tax it even more), flavour and smells! The hysteria over how to eat and what to eat has killed potentially hundreds of millions of people at this point. Sensationalism motivates culture and is absolutely to be feared.

Of course we shouldn't live in sealed up caves with no vents. We shouldn't live in moldy apartments either. Tell us something we don't know.

Re: Air Pollution in Our Homes

#119

Post by vallode »

NickBusey wrote: post #11
vallode wrote: post #3

I've always tried to air my home out as much as I can while cooking. Pretty much all windows are open. Article reaffirms my core avoidance of things like toasters/microwaves.

The article does mention toasters as a particularly bad culprit, but the word `microwave` doesn't appear anywhere in the text. Curious how you have arrived at this connection between two very different devices.

Erroneous jump to conclusions from my side, I think I naturally group electric appliances in the household in the same 'bad' category. I admit that is an error on my part.

Re: Air Pollution in Our Homes

#120

Post by kaybe »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #92
nextos wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to say, there's evidence some are carcinogenic. E.g. formaldehyde. Studies are lacking, so I prefer to err on the safe side. Especially since buying natural furniture that releases less VOCs is not limiting. In fact, it will last longer as materials are of higher quality.

The limiting factor is they cost a lot more than most people can afford.

Buying used is definitely a good option for well-built furniture. (Here you can get a lot of things for free as well if you're willing to arrange transport.)
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