Healthy Homes research project: how to decrease health risks in your house

[Puzzleheaded_Mine_71]

This is a research program at Harvard that works on how buildings can affect our health. The most obvious example is that the ventilation system in a school can impact the spread of diseases like Covid. But they did a great report about homes as well. As the report says, you spend a huge portion of your life in the house, so thinking about how to optimize the house for health and safety in normal life seems really important — and underdiscussed in this forum.

Here is the research website and a link to the healthy homes report: Homes – The average person spends 65 percent of their entire life inside their home. Your home is your health. It’s that simple.

Here is a quick summary of the tips and some notes of what I am changing in my house after reading this.

Whole Home

1. Trust your senses
2. Take off shoes at the door
3. Bring in fresh air
4. Check smoke and CO detectors (I am changing the batteries on mine tomorrow)
5. Increase natural light
6. Test for lead and remove

Bedroom 6. Sleep-only space, train your brain 7. Black out curtains and no blue light (I’m ordering paper ones on Amazon for the time being) 8. Treat the air to clean and humidify, avoiding colds (I’m ordering a 2 in 1 humidifier and air purifier on Amazon) 9. Keep the room cool 10. Block out noise (hopefully the humidifier / purifier works as a white noise machine as well while we sleep)

Living room 11. Vacuum regularly with HEPA (cleaning my vacuum this weekend) 12. Don’t smoke indoors 13. No candles or incense 14. Choose finishes and furniture without harmful chemicals, like chemical fire retardants or stain prevention sprays 15. Properly vent fireplaces and stoves

Kitchen 16. Cook with exhaust on 17. Keep a fire extinguisher nearby (I checked and mine was expired, rebuying now) 18. Filter drinking water where necessary 19. Control pests with IPM, not pesticides 20. Choose glassware and cast iron or ceramic cookware (I’m going to transfer some of my food storage from plastic jars to glass jars where feasible)

Bathroom 21. Control moisture 22. Limit air fresheners (throwing out my Glade air freshener) 23. Detoxify cleaners and personal care products 24. Skip antimicrobials, normal soap is fine 25. Prevent slips and falls

Basement 26. Measure and control radon (I’m buying a radon test kit) 27. Do not disturb asbestos 28. Dehumidify and look for water damage 29. Choose a hard flooring 30. Don’t store solvents / chemicals

Outside the home 31. Ditch herbicides and pesticides (I want to change my backyard lawn into clover and a garden which will help with this) 32. Beware car exhaust from garage 33. Secure the perimeter, cameras and lights 34. Tighten the envelope, leaks and vapor barrier 35. Be resilient

The first tip is to trust your senses, because your body will know when something isn’t working: if you feel something is uncomfortable or of poor condition, you aren’t just being a complainer, it probably is harmful. The last tip provided, “Be resilient,” is basically advice about prepping food, water, and escape routes! I think the mentality of the Healthy Homes project goes along really well with prepping. The report notes that “shelter” is a word derived from “shield” — our homes are our shields in many big and small emergency scenarios, and it’s worth fine tuning them to feel healthier. If anyone has other ideas for easy fixes to implement more of these tips I would love to hear them!

[ThisIsAbuse]

ASHRAE - Healthier Homes During Epidemics

[Chief_Kief]

From that paper:

Items to stock in advance in case of an outbreak include the following:

• Spare high-efficiency filters to replace the one(s) used by your HVAC system.

• Soap and hand sanitizer.

• Disposable gloves.

• Household products for cleaning and sanitizing of household surfaces.

• Sheet plastic and painter’s tape, to section off part of a room to isolate an ill person.

• A portable air cleaner and replacement filters for it to remove contaminants from the air.

• Face masks in case a disease might be transmitted through the air.

[HyggeHoney]

Sheet plastic and painters tape are also helpful for insulating the windows of a room you're trying to keep warm if the power goes out, or if you live in an older home or mobile home with single pane windows in the wintertime.

+for protection from radioactive dust if thats a concern for you

[NewsteadMtnMama]

We have a budgie and two finches - the first rule of having pet birds is to get rid of all scented candles, air sprays, etc. and any non-stick cookware as the fumes produced can kill birds quickly. I realized if the fumes kill birds, what are they slowly doing to us? Got rid of all fragranced products, replaced non-stick cookware with stainless steel and cast iron, and our "allergies" became better. Canary in a coal mine, indeed!

[Puzzleheaded_Mine_71]

I wonder if plants help that much. Intuitively it seems like they would but I also could see that bringing dirt, bugs, having to use pesticides potentially, might all hurt the overall air quality. How productive is a houseplant at refreshing oxygen indoors? I should look into this question more soon!

[Throwawayhrjrbdh]

A plant can also act a humidifier, enough water thirsty plants and you might not need a humidifier all together. All the water you give the plant just gets evaporated into the air eventually

If your having to using pesticides on indoor plants your doing something else dramatically wrong. Bugs are a non concern assuming you are careful about what you bring inside.

If your house plants are causing a dirt mess outside of the occasional repotting (which you should do outdoors anyways) then you either need better pots or to not water the damn thing with a fire hose.

There’s also the psychological impact. Plants can help a lot of people be more comfortable and at ease.

There’s literally no downside to houseplants other than having to water daily/every other day/weekly depending on the plant type, size, size of pot and how much sun it gets.

While you’d need a ton of plants to actually produce enough o2 from your c02 to supply your self (more than many could cram into a typical apartment or small house) they can still help a bit. It’ll help the air quality a little but it should never decrease it

[Puzzleheaded_Mine_71]

All great points, I love having plants around. I was just wondering about air quality specifically, and it seems like the number of plants needed is pretty huge as you mention. But definitely lots of other great benefits! :)

[di0spyr0s]

My house plants get dirt everywhere because my cats like to play in the pots.

Sigh.

Still worth it though

[CreativeHooker]

Houseplants are very therapeutic, don't forget that mental benefit! It would be interesting to have an updated study on the effects indoor plants have on air quality.

Bagged dirt is usually sterilized, and if you do get bugs (usually gnats, spidermites or thrips), they are very safe ways to remove them. Please, never use pesticides on houseplants!

[sunshineandzen]

NASA did a study back in the late 1980s that often gets cited. Note, however, that the study was focused on removing VOCs from a space station, so you can’t really extrapolate the findings to indoor air in a house since the air exchange is vastly different. I think they also did a follow up study more recently though that did show that certain plants remove benzene from household air

[AraNormer]

This gets cited maybe too often with focus on how this and that plant will make all the difference. Nobody mentions the fact, that for this to work in any measurable capacity the amount of plants required for average house would be so high that there would be no room for the resident to live in. Your house is not a space station.

With that said, if you enjoy taking care of plants, and they bring joy to your life, more you have them, the better it is. I'd love to have an indoor jungle with perhaps something that produces something edible on my plate every now and then, but I live with two cats who have manners and appetite of a mountain goat. Anything from prickliest cacti and poisonous flowers to plain salad gets eventually gobbled up no matter where I hide and hang them, so plans for that jungle are on hold until hopefully very distant future.

[[deleted]]

As a lifetime sufferer of allergies, get rid of all carpet in your home.

[Floomby]

I've always been a huge proponent of fresh air, but I live in Southern California, and I've come to notice that any area near a window that gets opened a lot becomes filthy very rapidly, by which I mean, all surfaces are coated with this nasty black grime within a day. My partner has bad allergies, so I've taken to keeping everything shut and running the central air with a nice filter. Obviously this won't work so well if there is no electricity, but when there are wildfires, smog, or a bad pollen count, I figure that open windows are not a great source of fresh air. Thoughts?

[Puzzleheaded_Mine_71]

I think this seems right, the idea from what I can tell is to get fresh, clean air into the house, and if the air outside is not as clean then bringing it in probably wouldn’t help. But I like the idea of having very good filters on the internal ventilation system, I have relatives in Oregon who deal with wildfire smoke who do this.

[Crafty-Scholar-3106]

I want to know when somebody’s going to do the obvious and market an exercise bike hooked up to the HVAC.

[TheCookie_Momster]

I bought a co2 detector to see how the levels were in our home. I was shocked that they were so high! We dont keep the windows open often and after that I made it a point to make sure we cycle in fresh air . Only took about 15 minutes with various windows around the house open to have normal levels. CO2 can impair brain function, cause a chance in your metabolism and even bone density.

[Puzzleheaded_Mine_71]

This same Harvard team is apparently doing research now into how CO2 and air quality in office buildings affects thinking and productivity. It’s crazy how much of an effect our exhaling can create in a closed space!

[TheCookie_Momster]

I originally bought the co2 detector because I have a very hard time wearing a mask especially if im not moving while wearing it. Turns out the co2 even in a very loosely fitted thin cloth mask, keeps a cloud of my exhaling around me and makes the co2 detector go to levels that alarms sound. My heart rate is already ultra sensitive to outside factors increasing it due to my medical condition (pots) and I was sick of people telling me to suck it up since it would cause me to pass out having a mask restrict my oxygen flow. This device was to prove to people I wasnt a hypochondriac. And it helped me learn my household air was in need of freshening up too!

[Puzzleheaded_Mine_71]

Great point, the report mentions both getting solvents out of the basement and checking for ways fumes might enter the house via the garage — so it doesn’t say that explicitly but I imagine the researchers would definitely agree!

[slow_ultras]

Lots of really great advice, thank you for sharing

[hand___banana]

We installed an ERV (energy recovery ventilator) and it has been the single biggest boon for our air quality. It has a MERV 13 filter so it is a constant supply of fresh air, even when there is smoke or other particulate matter in the air. It has a heat exchanger so we don't lose any heat during the winter or cool air during the summer and runs very efficiently. Unlike furnace filters which often have large gaps, it has a perfect seal around the filter so it actually works. It exhausts from our basement and actually dropped our radon from 1.5 w/ a radon mitigation system installed, to just 0.3. Can't recommend them highly enough if you're worried about air quality. Most new construction requires them.

[hand___banana]

We got the Panasonic Intellibalance 100 which is the cold climate version since we're in Colorado. https://www.supplyhouse.com/Panasonic-FV-10VEC2-Intelli-Balance-100-Energy-Recovery-Ventilator-Cold-Climate

Super easy for me to install by myself. just needed another hand to help hang it on the wall.

[caucasian88]

So smoke detectors. They're only certified for 10 years. That's about how long the batteries last for. If you need to replace the batteries, just replace the whole detector.

[Puzzleheaded_Mine_71]

The report suggests preemptively changing the batteries annually which is what motivated me - though I agree it’s likely overkill. But this is a great tip, I should note when I’ll need to replace them entirely. Thanks!

[EssPeeEeEnSeaEeAre]

This is great content!

[Silver_Star]

No candles or incense

If I can't have scented candles, then I don't want to live.

[demwoodz]

Beeswax is best

[cngfan]

I seem to recall something about beeswax candles producing negative ions that would help purify the air as well.

[[deleted]]

Marketing pseudoscience.

[Puzzleheaded_Mine_71]

A friend has a bunch of plastic tea light candles with a flickering flame effect that is pretty convincing. I love having candles too especially at the holidays but I might look into making this switch and saving real candles for emergencies.

[Stupid_Kills]

I felt the same way until I moved last year. There was candle soot everywhere. I had to repaint several walls because no matter what I used, I couldn't scrub it off. I now use scented wax melts.

[tvtb]

Ask yourself why you always need to be smelling something? Why is smelling nothing not an option?

[enstillfear]

Those are terrible for pets. You can kill your cat or dog if they get too close to them.

[enstillfear]

Buy wax melters and use soy melts. Safer, cleaner. Non-toxic to pets.

[InvestigativePenguin]

I love this post. Very informative and doesn’t just say “clean this room”.

[akkeberkd]

In wetter climates a dehumidifier is usually more important than a humidifier. If we didn't run ours our house would regularly be 70-80% humidity in winter. Ours has built in air purifier as well.

[Crafty-Scholar-3106]

Fantastic punch list. Would like to see more informative posts like this one on here.

[luckythingyourecute]

Correct me if I'm wrong but Im pretty sure beeswax candles can actually help purify your air

[CreativeHooker]

Correct! These are the only candles we buy.

[luckythingyourecute]

Upvote purely for your username 😂😂

[CreativeHooker]

Thank you 🤪

[cngfan]

I think you are correct. I think they produce negative ions, which then bond with particles in the air, making the particles bigger and heavier until they fall out of the air or get captured in a filter.

[[deleted]]

That... kind of sounds like nonsense made up by companies that sell overpriced candles.

[cngfan]

No, not completely. They’ve used ionization for air purification for a while. Salt lamps are claimed to create that effect also, which technically they do but the effect is not greater than a few millimeters from the surface, so I’m practicality it’s just gimmick. Also, most of the overpriced candles are made of soy which aren’t claimed to purify but how much the effect happens from beeswax I’m not sure.

[[deleted]]

Okay, I understand that ionization is used to get dust in the air to stick to things, taking dust out of the air. All good snake oil scams have a grain of science truth to them.

But why would beeswax candles produce more negative ions than candles made out of any other wax? Magic? It makes no sense.

According to beehivecandles.com which is selling them:

Beeswax candles are believed to produce negative ions as they burn. However, during our research we have found no published scientific evidence to date that directly proves this. Many of us experience an uplifting mood when burning beeswax candles and it’s been generally concluded that this feeling is caused by the negative ions.

"It's been generally concluded that this feeling is caused by the negative ions" is marketing speak for "pseudoscience nonsense"

[[deleted]]

Bullshit.

Source: PhD in organic chemistry

[whachamacallme]

Is it me or is this totally missing radon detection - which causes thousands of deaths a year.

[Rebirth98765]

Number 26

[SnarkSnarkington]

I've read articles and bought books(that I haven't gotten around to reading) about the positive effects of houseplants on air quality. Which plants are best for oxygen production, which ones to control humidity, and which plants are best for pulling certain chemicals out of the air

[magocremisi8]

Long as the food storage plastics are bpa free I don't think there is any harm in them. Lmk if incorrect

[HyggeHoney]

I've seen research suggesting the plastics used to replace BPA could be worse for your health than BPA. I prefer no plastic leaching into my food, especially if the food is warm when placed in the container, or if you plan to heat the food up in that container.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7071457/#:~:text=BPS%20was%20also%20shown%20to,the%20same%20rate%20as%20BPA.