Ecology of the apartment

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

It is impossible to feel in absolute ecological safety even in your own apartment. Or especially in your own apartment? The golden rules of the Russian buyer: "to make it beautiful, inexpensive and for centuries" can later do a disservice. Svetlana Aleksandrovna Savina, an environmental specialist, told me about the environmental dangers that can lurk in the apartment.

Measurement of the ecology of apartments is carried out by special organizations, which are still few in number. Experts, having patiently listened to your complaints or requests, will take air samples, examine the electromagnetic situation, measure the general radiation background, make a "diagnosis" and write out a "course of treatment" for the apartment. But when all the procedures are completed, you will even receive an environmental certificate that you can show to your friends, certifying them in the absolutely clean ecology of your home.

But from what to expect a dirty trick in the apartment, you can find out in advance. And observe environmental hygiene. From an environmental point of view, there are several types of pollution:

Chemistry, chemistry …

The type of pollution includes various harmful substances emitted from materials or coming from the street: phenol, formaldehyde, aromatic hydrocarbons, mercaptans, sulfur compounds, which eventually cause diseases of the respiratory and nervous system, damage to the heart and blood vessels, and allergic reactions.

The main source of phenol in the room is building and finishing materials, furniture made of chipboard (chipboard). If the chipboard has been kept in the warehouse for six months and there is only one cabinet made of this material in the apartment, then there is nothing wrong.

If a whole set of just-produced chipboard has been bought for a room, then it is extremely dangerous to live in such a room. It is now fashionable to cover the floor with laminate. It also contains phenol and formaldehyde. But a high-quality laminate becomes completely safe after a month.

Phenol poisoning occurs by inhalation of its vapors and by absorption through the skin. Its signs are weakness, fatigue, sweating, drooling, irritability, excitability, dizziness, digestive upset, shortness of breath, palpitations, hand tremors and pain in the epigastric region.. Formaldehyde is included in the list of authentically carcinogenic substances, causes chronic poisoning, can lead to inherited chromosomal mutations adversely affect the respiratory tract, apartments on the ground floors, directly above the basement, especially if the house is old, and on the upper floors, where leaks also occur more often. The outer walls of buildings, especially on the north side, are often cold and damp, especially if no batteries are installed in them, and therefore can also be populated by mushrooms. Mold also forms on the filters of air conditioners, if they are not cleaned for a long time, and sometimes it grows on the windows.

If you remembered that you were once flooded, then it is better to treat this place out of harm's way with either any chlorine-containing or special antifungal agent. The same should be done in the damp corners of the apartment.

It is better to lay tiles in the bath. It is easier to clean, and even if molds appear, they are easy to remove.

Don't try to find mushrooms yourself. They are microscopic and can only be detected by laboratory methods. If you can see them, then it's really bad. The black fungus in the bathroom is safe for health, and if the fungus is greenish, yellowish, and even shaggy, stay away from the room and call specialists. Beauty requires sacrifice - not the best motive for choosing finishing materials. It is the fashionable carpet, laminate and any other polymeric materials that are most harmful to human health. Mushrooms are very willing to settle in the pile of the carpet, so it must be cleaned regularly in a dry cleaner, but not everyone has such an opportunity. By the way, in the same place (and also in bedding, on bookshelves, in old stuffed toys and among yellowed pages of magazines and in other places where dust "lives") dust mites live - another causative agent of allergies. The first symptoms: coughing, pain in the eyes, throat irritation. Further, there may be swelling of the throat, larynx, lacrimation. If you breathe dust from day to day, then respiratory diseases, inflammation, headache, eye irritation are inevitable. The way of fighting is as old as day - regular wet cleaning.

Only good old parquet is absolutely harmless. True, there is an exception - pine. You have to be careful with this tree. Pine causes allergies in some people. And this applies not only to parquet, but also to pine furniture.

Do not bundle the wires

In cities, the increased electromagnetic field of industrial frequencies (50 Hz) has recently become a big problem. Such a field is created by electric cables, transformer substations, various industrial equipment, computers and office equipment, and household appliances.

If you are in the electromagnetic field for several hours every day, then it can damage the heart, blood vessels, endocrine glands and nervous system and cause serious diseases. The electromagnetic field cannot be seen, felt, measured independently, "tasted". But you can try to avoid it.

Take a closer look at the wires from electrical appliances. How do they lie? A messy tangle that hasn't been unraveled since the Flood? And right under the bed? And you wonder why you wake up in the morning with the same heavy head as you went to bed in the evening!

Wires lying randomly or coiled into a ring create a large electromagnetic field.

As a preventive measure, it is better to turn off all electrical appliances located near the bed from the sockets, even the night light on the bedside table, despite the fact that it seems to be turned off, and in no case charge the mobile phone at the head of the bed. Also, don't turn on too many techniques at the same time, unless you need everything at once. Do not attach wires around the perimeter of the room, and especially behind a bed or sofa where you spend a lot of time. Internet and telephone cables are an exception. These are very low-power cables, and you shouldn't be afraid of them.

And you also need to be wary of items brought from other countries - they can be a source of radiation.

Microclimate

Another enemy of your home comfort is fashionable and "comfortable" synthetics. The abundance of synthetic materials disrupts the normal air exchange in the apartment. The microclimate is made up of several parameters: humidity, temperature and air movement. If you use only synthetic materials, fresh air does not enter the room and the humidity increases, and if some material (for example, drywall) absorbs moisture, the air, on the contrary, becomes too dry. The double-glazed windows for windows that are popular today impede natural air exchange. Fresh air somehow enters through the cracks of ordinary wooden windows and doors and normal ventilation takes place. An apartment with a double-glazed window is like a tin can. Moreover, in emergencies, synthetic materials only exacerbate the situation. For example, in a fire, a glass unit releases substances that can cause severe poisoning: dizziness begins, and you can even lose consciousness. Double-glazed windows and ceiling tiles contain very high concentrations of toxic substances.

There is an opinion that plants are our domestic environmental agents: they restore a comfortable microclimate and, like brave supermen, fight all pests at once. This is not without reason, "but" …

Although bacteria and molds are "scary" by lemon, myrtle and lavender, in order to feel completely safe, you need a whole garden …

Plants absorb harmful gases such as formaldehyde and xylene. True, when these substances are "overdone", the flora, alas, is powerless. This requires the intervention of specialists.

Air conditioners, ionizers, ozonizers are designed to heal the air and improve the indoor climate. In fact, it turns out that these are not the best home helpers. In an air conditioner, air passing through a mechanical filter loses its physical properties. And breathing "fake" air is not only unpleasant, but also not useful. The air conditioner violates the natural ionization of the room, and as a result, immunity suffers. The general weakening of the body leads to various diseases. In summer, when it is very hot both outside and in the room, one cannot do without an air conditioner, but it is better, at any opportunity, to still use the old "old-fashioned" method - to ventilate the room. Air purifiers are useful, but you need to choose them carefully: the best option is water-based purifiers. Don't even look at the ozonizers. Ozone is used only in very severe cases where there is microbiological or bacterial contamination. This is done, as a rule, by specialists and without the presence of people.

House

I must say that not everything depends on the diligence of the owners. There are some more external factors that you should pay attention to if you are just looking for a new apartment. Phenol can even be found in the structures of the structure itself. Moreover, people living in a house where the level of this substance has significantly exceeded the maximum permissible norm, get sick more often than others.

If you are going to move to another apartment, ask your neighbors how healthy the atmosphere is at the entrance. Perhaps there is even some kind of characteristic disease at home.

In older buildings (before 1960), a dark resin-like coating is found under the parquet floor. It releases a substance from a number of aromatic hydrocarbons, which can provoke the development of malignant tumors of the endocrine glands and genitals.. In modern houses with "chemistry" the situation is better, but there are problems of a microbiological nature. Sometimes unsold apartments are empty for a very long time, the walls become damp, and a fungus settles in them. The newly made owners, without noticing it, cover the walls with finishing materials, under which the fungus grows quietly further, causing a strong allergy in a person. Therefore, before entering a new apartment or repairing the walls, it is better to dry and treat with antifungal agents.

Pay attention to the walls of the common corridor: is there a distribution board hanging on the wall of your potential apartment. If this wall is "with access" to your corridor, then there is no particular danger, but if this is a room, especially a children's room, then you should think: do you need it? Be sure to look under the outer window sill to see if a greasy wire is hidden there. This is true for old buildings in the center of Moscow. These wires create a harmful electromagnetic field.

At-risk groups

For children and pregnant women, the ecological safety of housing is of paramount importance. The course of pregnancy and the immunity of the expectant mother largely depend on the home microclimate. Elderly people are also quite sensitive to the environment, but the environmental factor simply aggravates existing diseases. Any harmful discharge is either allergenic itself or aggravates the existing allergy. Therefore, for allergy sufferers, taking care of the ecology of their own apartment is the number one task.

If you follow the ecology of the apartment, then you need to start with the renovation. The most environmentally friendly natural finishing materials, if wallpaper, then paper, if varnishes and paints, then water-based and always with the inscription "For interior work". When buying, be sure to check whether the expiration date has expired, whether the composition and the name of the manufacturer are written on the package. Any, even high-quality, synthetic material at first emits a certain amount of harmful substances, so the ideal option is not to live in an apartment for the first month after general repairs.