INDOOR AIR SCIENCE
Household chemicals

From irritating to deadly
• Air fresheners
• Ammonia
• Cleaners
• Glue
• Paint
• Pesticides
• Roach motels

By “household chemicals,” we don’t just mean the ones you know about — the bottles under your kitchen and bathroom sink, the paint and thinner in your garage. We’re also talking about chemicals used to build your home and the chemical residues that have found their way into your home over the years. All of these sources can contribute to sick building syndrome.

Formaldehyde and benzene are two of the more familiar names in a long list of VOCs (volatile organic compounds) present in most buildings that eventually seep into the air you breathe. They can cause headaches, rashes, nausea, respiratory irritation, cancer, and death.

Your home can trap chemicals that would degrade quickly in outdoor air and light. Some are relatively innocuous. Others can be deadly. In 1993, the University of Southern California found that 25% of surveyed homes had traces of DDT in their carpeting — 20 years after the dangerous pesticide was banned in the United States.

Ventilating your home and workplace using one or more energy recovery ventilators (ERVs), you can dissipate chemicals before they build up to levels that endanger the health of you and your family.

The RecoupAerator® home ventilation system is used in homes across the United States. It is America's top-rated energy recovery ventilator (ERV).

Household chemicals
•
Household Chemicals Fact Sheet,
Stirling Technology
•
Scientific American: A Case of the Vapors
Ground Toxins Diffusing into Homes Prove Hard to Assess,
Scientific American, July 2002
•
Home, Sick Home, Johns Hopkins Magazine, September 2000