How Does Insulation Impact Indoor Air Quality?

It’s hard to believe sometimes that your own home can affect your daily health needs. From fresh paint to carbon monoxide leaks, even harmful allergens penetrating into your home can affect your health both short-term and long-term.

Insulation is an often overlooked structural home material when it comes to safety and health concerns. How can you be sure that your current insulation is safeguarding your family?

The Construction Group can assist you with your home insulation needs. Keep reading to learn more about how it impacts your air quality.

Your insulation may need to be re-evaluated or perhaps even replaced, especially if you can’t even remember when your home was built or last renovated. Contact us today and schedule an appointment!

What AffectsYour Indoor Air Quality?

Airborne chemicals are everywhere in your home, whether they develop indoors or outdoors.

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from products are in everyday products, such as shampoos and cleaning solutions, which can eventually escape to the outside and contribute to the ozone.

Indoor Pollutants

According to the epa.gov, here are some sources that can create indoor air pollution:

● Fuel-burning combustion appliances

● Products for household cleaning and maintenance, personal care, or artistic hobbies

● Tobacco products

● Building materials deteriorated asbestos containing insulation, newly installed flooring, cabinetry made of certain pressed wood products

● Excess moisture

● Central heating and cooling systems and humidification devices

What’s more, unvented or malfunctioning appliances can release higher and sometimes dangerous levels of pollutants indoors. This is why it’s always important to have your HVAC filters clean or have them replaced. A proper room air purifier can also help with eliminating indoor-bred contaminants.

Now, let’s talk about harmful outdoor air pollutants and allergens.

Outdoor Pollutants & Factors

Outdoor air pollutants can enter buildings through open doors, open windows, ventilation systems, and cracks in structures.

● Radon forms in the ground as soil decays

● Chimney smoke

● Volatile chemicals in water supplies can enter indoor air when using water

● Unwanted soils and dust

● Allergens such as mold spores, pollen, or other natural irritants

Outdoor air can enter and leave a building by infiltration, natural ventilation, and mechanical ventilation. In a process known as infiltration, outdoor air flows into homes through openings, joints, cracks in walls, floors, and ceilings, or around doors and windows.

Certain ventilation devices, such as outdoor-vented fans, help to remove air from a single room, such as a bathroom or kitchen, to air handling systems that use fans.

How Does Proper Insulation Help Indoor Quality?

If you have proper insulation, your outdoor contaminants will be trapped, enabling a safer indoor environment.

With proper insulation, it can be easy for homeowners to alleviate health risks and enjoy a better quality of life. When places where potential drafts could occur are insulated, you are protecting your home from outside allergens and pollutants that can result in indoor air quality problems.

When any unwanted air does come into your home, the air has to ventilate through your HVAC system, which has filters that are specifically designed to help control the contents of the air. These filters can help prevent just about all common contaminants from entering your living space.

In addition, dust and other harmful or allergen pollutants are stopped right at the insulation’s surface, preventing them from entering the home; in turn, allowing you to enjoy a higher quality of indoor air.

You’ll also be glad to know that the popular spray foam insulation is regarded as green, and it has potential to become even more eco-friendly.

Let The Construction Group Be Your Insulation Specialist!

We specialize in most everything that impacts your home’s functioning foundation, including spray foam insulation. Let us get to work ensuring your home is well protected from outdoor pollutants and allergens, giving you a better bill of health. We go out of our way to satisfy every customer!

If you also need to do some seasonal cleaning or adjustments, such as repairing your roof and gutters, we can do that too!