Are New Carpet Fumes Harmful?
You’ve put it off for way too long, and now is finally the time that you need to replace that horrible flooring in your home. Whether it is worn out, has unpleasant odors trapped in the material, or even if you are looking to change the aesthetic of your home, new flooring will be your go -to option. The decision, however, will be a difficult one due to the numerous types of flooring available, but when it comes down to selecting a flooring there is something else you will want to consider ahead of the actual look of the flooring in your home – the hazards that the flooring contains and releases into your personal indoor environment.
The installation of new carpeting inside your home will leave the room with a new sleek look, as well as a strong putrid odor that is produced into the air from this newly added flooring. Flooring in general is a challenging item to select for inside your home, with numerous different types, styles, and material that are used that can all bring with them different potential hazards into your home’s environment. From laminate, hardwood, tile, and even carpeting can all contain different hazardous toxins within its construction that can be emitted and released into the indoor environment of your home after installation.
In this article we are going to discuss the potential dangers that lurk in your home’s new carpeting and what you can do to get rid of new carpet smell inside of your home’s air.
What is Carpet Made Of
Carpet is composed of an amalgam of materials both synthetic and natural fibers. There are four main components of carpeting – nylon, polyester, polypropylene, and wool. Each of these materials contain a different blend of fabrics that are all used together to form a sturdy, durable carpeting. The base material of carpet is fibers which ever carpet is made up of – and 90 percent of all carpets that are made today are constructed of synthetic fibers, with the rest using natural fibers like wool.
However, today more and more carpeting’s are being constructed and made using synthetic fabrics that are attached to a backing which is a way cheaper and easier to make option. These different types of carpeting are installed using adhesives and glues that contain different chemicals that can be toxic and will emit into the air and taint indoor air quality.
How Long Does Carpet Last?
Have you had the same carpeting inside your home’s bedrooms for a long time now – maybe 5 or 10 years? Carpeting is a durable type of flooring, but it also has some downfalls when it comes to the life of the carpeting when inside of your home. The fabric flooring is susceptible to spills, odors, tears, and other weathering that will be noticeable on the flooring, especially over time. In comparison to other types of flooring, such as wood, tile, or laminate, carpeting is among the hardest to keep clean as it will shows everything (stains, dirt, etc.).
Performing regular maintenance on your carpeting will help to preserve the life of your carpeting and allow it to last longer inside of your home. If you can get a good ten years out of your carpet than you are among the lucky!
Why Carpet is Bad for You?
When it comes to selecting a new flooring for your home, you may decide to steer away from carpet and go with a natural material that contains little to no VOCs within its composition. Carpeting use to be a highly popular selection for flooring, but as more and more information came out about the potential lurking toxins in its composition such as VOCs and other hazardous chemicals. As we discussed earlier, very few products today are made with natural products and the processes that many items go through is even less natural – with added chemicals used in the manufacturing process that can end up being released into your home’s air upon exposure to the environment.
The toxic components of carpeting will also include the padding and adhesives that are used in the installation of the flooring in a room. Padding and adhesives contain a different mix of chemicals (VOCs) that are used during their manufacturing process, and as these chemicals off gas into the indoor space it will taint the quality of the air and potentially lead to health symptoms from those who are exposed to these off-gassing chemicals.
Toxic Carpet Symptoms
Carpets can emit a bout of VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) and the formaldehyde in carpet into the air that has been strongly correlated with poor indoor air quality. In total, synthetic carpeting releases over 40 different chemicals into the air, and two of these chemicals (styrene and 4-phenylcyclohexane (4-PC)) are both produced from the latex backing that is used on almost every carpeting.
When it comes to the health of an individual that is exposed to the chemicals found in new carpeting, there are a variety of symptoms and health issues they can begin to experience. Volatile organic compounds can lead to wheezing, coughing, respiratory irritation, and difficulty breathing among other toxic carpet symptoms.
Detoxing New Carpet
A home with carpeting has many other sources of pollutants that will leave their home flooded with different chemicals that are hazardous to the environment. However, when new carpeting is installed inside you home the levels of chemical VOCs will be at a record high that can and will lead to potential issues for both the air’s environment and those that are exposed to these chemicals. These chemicals that are released from carpeting can release a strong odor into the air that can persist for a long period of time after the installation occurs, this process is called chemical off gassing.
Smell of New Carpet Chemicals
After installation of carpeting is done inside your home there may be a new odor that is introduced into the air that will flood through your whole home. The smell of new carpet is caused by the chemicals that are found in the construction of the material that are released or off gassed into the air after its introduction into the room temperature environment. Volatile organic compounds, when introduced to room temperature will evaporate into the air as a gas which will spread and leave an odor throughout the home.
Carpet Off Gassing
Carpet off gassing takes place when the chemicals that are used in the carpeting during the manufacturing process, like VOCs that will release into the air and taint the air quality and the smell of the environment. The chemicals that are used in carpeting will turn into a gas in room temperature and will easily release into the air, spreading far and wide throughout the space. New carpet, after installation, will release VOCs and off gas for days after installation – with the first 4 to 5 days the worst. After this period of time the carpeting can continue to off gas for even months after the carpet was laid on the flooring.
Fun Fact: The adhesives that are used during the glue down process of the carpeting will actually off gas much more than the carpet itself.
How to Get Rid of New Carpet Smell
The smell of new carpet can not only be hazardous to the health of those exposed, but it can also be very irritating to smell in your home. The chemicals that are used in carpeting will release into the air through off gassing that will leave behind a strong odor that will be very noticeable in the environment. The carpeting, the padding, the adhesives, and the backing material can all contain chemicals that will be released into the air that will be very volatile in the environment for the air quality and for the health of those exposed.
When it comes to getting rid of new carpet smell, there are many ways in which people will try to expel the toxic smell from their personal indoor environment, including opening windows, adding fans to the affected room, using baking soda on the surface, or even applying vinegar to the carpeting in an attempt to neutralize the odors. Some of these methods will be beneficial in the removal of the VOC carpet fumes that are produced from the new carpeting, but ultimately it will not work to remove the odor completely from both the surfaces and the air.
Treating the Carpets Surface:
Treating the surface of your new carpet will be a very labor-intensive process that will require both time and diligence. Each area needs to be spot treated to gain maximum removal of the hazardous toxins and odors that are produced from these off-gassing chemicals. The EnviroKlenz Everyday Odor Eliminator will be your secret weapon when it comes to the removal of chemicals found in your new carpet that are leaving your home toxic.
EnviroKlenz utilizes a patented earth mineral technology that will effectively neutralize and/or break down chemicals and noxious odors from the surface when contact occurs between the earth minerals and the source of the hazardous toxins. The easy application will require a dilution of water and the EnviroKlenz Everyday Odor Eliminator that will be directly applied to the carpeting by working it in to the fibers of the carpet using a brush or a rag. After 15 minutes a proper wet water extraction will pull both the earth minerals and the toxins from the carpeting.
Treating the Off-Gassed Chemicals in the Air:
Air quality is often times not something we think about when discussing new carpeting and the hazards it presents to the environment. However, it is a significant issue when it comes to the installation of new carpeting inside your home. Carpeting off-gasses chemicals into the air as a gas that will spread rapidly and taint the quality of the indoor air and leave behind a strong new chemical odor in the environment. When you treat the carpeting, you may think your job is done but the real issue will now be completely present in your air where chemicals from the new carpeting are swirling around. The best way to treat these off-gassed chemicals that are in your indoor air is through the use of an efficient air purifier for chemical and odor removal.
The EnviroKlenz Mobile Air System is unlike any other air purifier, as it uses an advanced patented technology that is able to effectively neutralize or break down a broad spectrum of pollutants in the air including particulates, odors, and a wide variety of chemicals (VOCs, Formaldehyde, and other chemical odors). The majority of air purifiers fail in odor elimination because they mainly focus on particle filtration. However, with the EnviroKlenz patented earth mineral technology the EnviroKlenz Air Filter inside the Mobile Air System is able to effectively break down and/or neutralize a broad spectrum of noxious and chemical odors that pass through the filters media. If you are worried about the particulates that pass through this filter, don’t worry because they will be captured by the hospital-grade HEPA filter that works as the second stage of filtration – providing across the board protection and filtration!
New carpet fumes can be both harmful and hazardous to your indoor air quality. However, with the necessary tools and information you can easily and quickly mitigate and restore your home’s environment back to safe and comfortable conditions that you are happy to be in for extended periods of time.
Mobile Air System
✓ Patented earth mineral technology works to attack VOCs and break them down on a compound level
✓ No chemicals or masking agents
✓ Will not release any chemicals back into your environment
✓ Safer and faster at removing VOC’s than traditional carbon filters and PECO air purifiers
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