Home air inspection leads to winds of change

Houses with good air quality tend to be energy-efficient, mould-free

Kathryn Young

CanWest News Service

Friday, June 30, 2006

If Shawn Rankin laughs delightedly and offers to take a picture of your house, it’s not a compliment.

The indoor-air-quality investigator was evaluating my home, inspecting all the nooks and crannies to sniff out moisture and mould, air leaks, chemicals and anything else that could affect what we breathe.

Then, he spotted our canoe.

We had leaned it against the side of the house for winter storage, but somehow never noticed it partially blocked the vents from our dryer and basement bathroom. One had a broken flapper in the open position – creating a four-inch hole into our house – and the other one was dented. Dryer lint hung off the bow.

“I’m going to take a picture of that,” Rankin chuckled.

Canadians spend about 85 per cent of their time indoors, so indoor air quality should be an important concern, especially if a family has allergies.

Homes with good air quality tend to be energy efficient. They’re watertight, well-ventilated and air changes are controlled, all of which helps control mould and dust.

The typical calls Rankin gets are from new homeowners who suspect mould or asbestos, families with allergies, and people whose basements smell musty. Assessments cost $150.00 per hour with a two-hour minimum, and you learn a lot about how air moves in your house – how it gets in, how it picks up and drops moisture and how it leaves. He also gives you lists of changes to make, explaining how and why they are needed.

Rankin arrived with an arsenal of gadgets to measure moisture, temperature and humidity. But the best tool of all, he said, is your nose. His nose told me the basement was musty. His moisture metre placed on the concrete floor proved it. I should get the cardboard boxes off the floor because condensation plus cellulose equals mould. Plastic storage boxes are good. Piles of press releases, file folders and newspapers on your basement office carpet are not.

Then we ventured into the furnace room. The humidifier that we rarely use was turned off. But it was still filled with water that had turned bright green, and the air from our furnace was still blowing over it. Gross.

We discovered our house was over-ventilated – if all our bathroom fans, kitchen exhaust fan and dryer were going at once, we could easily be sucking poisonous gases like carbon monoxide back down the chimneys from our furnace and fireplaces. Plus they were expelling heated air.

A new furnace would avoid the back drafting problem, and Rankin recommended a heat-recovery ventilator to help balance our ventilation.

The news wasn’t all bad. Rankin liked my Rubbermaid storage bins, hardwood and ceramic floors on the main level, roof vents, the ground sloping away from the house on three sides, and our furnace filter.

But the list of bad stuff was longer: the wall between the garage and house is not sealed well enough, downspouts need fixing, the foundation is cracked in three areas, the attic overheats due to insulation covering the soffit vents, which are too small, better weatherstripping and caulking is needed all over, the chimney needs repointing and the basement needs to be dehumidified.

“It’s very normal,” he said. “Nothing really glaring. There’s an accumulation of a lot of things that don’t help.”

Published in The Montreal Gazette June 2006