March 29, 2024

Indoor air quality is more than just a passing fad. More and more we are coming to understand how indoor air quality affects our health and quality of life. Indoor air problems include mould, radon, carbon monoxide, toxic chemicals, toxic building materials, asbestos, household cleaners, pesticides, and combustible air-borne gasses. These are commonly sourced inside older kitchens, garages, basements, and bathrooms. Home remodels’ real benefit is removing older toxic building supplies, sources of moisture and mould, and decaying and toxic building supplies. How can you improve your kitchen?

Consider a Luxury Kitchen Remodel.

You can have trained professionals remove and dispose of the toxic materials and then visit miketaylorbespokekitchens.co.uk for luxury London kitchens and remodel ideas. A professional kitchen can take care of a host of indoor air pollution sources. Consider these indoor air pollution sources that gutting your kitchen and updating its hardware will cover:

  • Radon – A second-leading cause of lung cancer and impossible to detect or smell, it’s a radioactive gas.
  • Lead Paint – Even newer homes may have some surfaces coated with special lead-based paint, especially older kitchen cabinets or vintage furniture.
  • Diisocyanates in polyurethane products – Most notably older wood varnishes and finishes.
  • Asbestos – Until the early 1990s most home and building products were fortified with fire-retardant Asbestos.
  • Mould– This can grow even where moisture is hidden within the walls or behind cabinets.
  • Carbon Monoxide Build Up – This can come from outdated and poorly ventilated gas-powered appliances.
  • VOCs – Volatile organic compounds are emitted from a variety of products, including paints, adhesives, strippers, carpets, and more. These may include benzene, xylene, toluene, and more.
  • Formaldehyde – This can come from older cabinetry, sub-flooring, shelving, furniture, panelling, and fibreboard.
  • Chromated Copper Arsenic (CCA) – This has been in use since the 1940s to make pressure-treated wood more resistant to rot and insect damage. It was mostly used in outdoor decking and patio furniture, but some older homes used it for cabinetry.
  • Poor Ventilation – This results in a build-up of potentially deadly pollutants, bad odours, mould and mildew, and more.
  • Outdated Water Filtration – These can either have pollutants in themselves due to being older models or simply be doing a poor job of filtering out dangerous compounds from older water pipes.

Improving Your Kitchen

Older kitchens are often bathed in toxic chemicals. Back before 1980 many building supplies and insulation included toxins, dioxins, and asbestos. The 1990s brought in very toxic fire retardants and preservatives like formaldehyde. Older kitchens often contain high levels of formaldehyde and asbestos in flooring, paints, coatings, adhesives, counters, wood finishes, and insulation. As these break down they aerosolise or become airborne particles in the air and this adds up to very toxic air in our homes and especially our kitchens.

Time for a Remodel?

A kitchen remodel can help you address any underlying air pollutant issues by helping you strip away outdated kitchen installations and replace them with new, pollution-free updated versions. Further, a kitchen remodels project can open up new ways to get proper ventilation and address many issues in older homes. Protect your health by reducing kitchen sources of air pollution through a remodel project.

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