What is a Volatile Organic Compound? I’m sure many of you have heard this term before. Maybe from the news or talking with your friends and neighbors. This is a subject that isn’t talked about widely so I wanted to share with you the basics of VOC’s and how they can affect you and your families health. Let me begin by explaining what a VOC is.
What Is A Volatile Organic Compound
A Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) are organic chemicals that have high vapor pressure at room temperature. These organic compounds are in products that you use around your house everyday. These items include paints, lacquers, paint strippers, cleaning supplies, carpet and even in office equipment such as a copier. As you can see they are in every nook and cranny of the modern 21st century life.
Volatile Organic Compounds typically concentrate indoors due to the number of man-made items inside the home. In fact a study conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that VOCs levels inside a typical home is anywhere from 2 to 5 times higher than the outdoors. It didn’t matter if the home was located in the city or in a rural area.
How Do They Affect You?
The effects of VOC’s are wide ranging. Primarily it depends on how much you are exposed to them.
Symptoms range from minor ailments such as headaches and nausea to more serious conditions such as kidney damage, liver failure and cancer. As you can see VOC’s are a serious issue in today’s home. While the total elimination of VOCs is highly implausible, there are step that you can take to mitigate the damage caused by VOC’s in your home.
Your Carpet and VOC’s
The carpet in your home also emits VOC’s simply by being a man made product. There are a number of industrial chemicals and adhesives that go into making your carpet and carpet padding.
This doesn’t mean that you have to throw away your carpet! Carpets have a very low VOC off-gassing. Newly installed carpet normally emits most of their VOC’s 24-72 hours after installation.This means that the negative health effects from VOC’s emitted by your carpet is minimal.
How You Can Limit Your Exposure To VOCs
There are a number of ways that you can limit your exposure to VOCs. Here are a few tips you can implement right now!
- Open windows to increase air circulation
- Don’t mix household products
- Use products as directed by manufacturer
- Keep exposure to items such as benzene and methylene chloride to a minimum (found in paint strippers and adhesive removers
While these are good tips to use when trying to avoid VOCs from household items, what can you do about the VOCs emitted from your carpet?
Flooring Alternatives
This is a question that has many answers. There are a dizzying array of flooring options to choose from. If you have an older vinyl or synthetic carpet you could switch to a carpet that utilizes natural fibers such as wool, sisal or cotton.
Also look for the Green Label Plus tag by the Carpet and Rug Institue when shopping for a new carpet. The Green Label Plus guarantees to consumers that they are purchasing the lowest emitting VOC’s carpet on the market. For more information about this program click here!
Ceramic tile is also a great option because it emits no VOC’s. Click here for more information about low VOCs emitting flooring. If you go the tile route we can clean and maintain it for you too!! Phoenix Carpet Repair and Cleaning is truly your one stop shop for all your carpet and tile care needs!
How We Can Help
As a carpet repair company naturally we are going to advocate for repairing your carpet over purchasing a new one. When it comes to our customer’s health we have no bias. We want to see everyone happy and healthy. Buying a low VOC emitting carpet is a great way to clean up indoor pollution. This can be especially beneficial to your health when you consider that we spend nearly 90% of our time indoors!!
In addition to purchasing a new carpet our green carpet cleaning service is a great way to service your new carpet. Our green carpet cleaning products are environmentally friendly, soap free, hypoallergenic with no VOC off-gassing. Our green carpet cleaning service ensures that your carpet is professionally cleaned while not adding VOCs to your home.
We would love the opportunity to further explain the benefits of our green carpeting cleaning service to you. Give us a call today at 602-488-4186 for more information!
Our service area includes Goodyear, Peoria, Phoenix, Avondale and Litchfield Park!! We look forward to serving you!!!
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