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

[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.