Clean air is a basic human right, seems to me. Unfortunately, it's getting harder to find. Environmentalists have succeeded in raising consciousness about many of the pollutants of outdoor air, but indoor air pollution has only recently hit the news. We canaries have been dealing with it for a while.

Important Sources of Indoor Air Pollution

Some of the worst — and most difficult to avoid:

Scent

Molds

Pesticides

Plastic

Building Products

Cleaning Proudcts

Miscellaneous other Chemicals

A lot is on the web already about this. On this page you will find some links.

Air Cleaning For some possibilities, see this page.

Dehumidifying

For years I delayed getting a dehumidifier because I was trying to research a really heavy-duty, industrial model. Our hundred-year-old house has foundations made of big blocks of granite, laid dry in sandy soil — and in a smaller wing, a crawl space only a few feet over that soil. Absolutely no moisture barriers.

Then one summer, after I told Ward I thought we needed one, he went out and bought the top-of-the line Sears model. It makes an incredible difference. It basically runs all the time, and I'm sure a bigger-capacity machine would get more — but for the first time the basement doesn't smell moldy to me, and I can go down to the freezer we keep in the basement again. Plus the spiderwebs that used to be all over are gone.

Pure Oxygen

General Information

EnviroVillage — This site has a lot of good information about Indoor Air Quality (IAQ)