It dawned on me recently that perhaps the reason for our increasing love affair with coffee, is down to the state of our housing.
I don’t drink coffee. I don’t need caffeine. In fact, I’m positively dangerous when on it. It’s an out of body experience, where I need scraping off the ceiling, whenever I’ve had a cup.
This has nothing to do with my housing situation, more evolution perhaps?
So, obviously I don’t understand the fascination? I don’t understand why you’d need a coffee to wake up or function in the morning? Why isn’t your sleep restful enough?
Could it be something to do with the air quality in your bedroom?
Here is a chart of a house I’m monitoring. It shows the Carbon Dioxide levels in the two bedrooms way higher than recommended levels, every occupied night.
The peaks only subside when the bedroom door is open in the morning. I don’t think this is healthy for students, studying or workers, working.
Carbon Dioxide
We hear about Carbon Dioxide warming the planet on a daily basis. What is not so well understood is that monitoring of carbon dioxide for air quality happens because it can provide an indication of trigger levels for other pollutants too, like VOC’s, particulate matter, viruses and chemical contaminants.
What does High CO2 level exposure feel like?
Here's what it may feel like to be in an environment with high CO2 levels:
1. Stale air: Rooms with high CO2 levels often feel stuffy and lacking in ‘fresh’ air. This sensation occurs because CO2 accumulates when there is insufficient ventilation to bring in fresh outdoor air.
2. Difficulty breathing: Some individuals might experience slight breathing discomfort or shortness of breath in areas with elevated CO2 levels. This is especially true for those with respiratory conditions or sensitivities.
3. Drowsiness and fatigue: In environments with high CO2, people may feel more tired or experience difficulty staying alert. This can result in reduced productivity and concentration levels.
4. Headaches: Prolonged exposure to elevated CO2 levels might trigger headaches in some individuals.
5. Poor concentration and cognitive function: High CO2 levels have been associated with reduced cognitive abilities and impaired decision-making.
6. Increased heart rate: In some cases, elevated CO2 levels may cause a slight increase in heart rate, particularly in sensitive individuals.
7. Nausea and dizziness: In extreme cases of poor indoor air quality with very high CO2 levels, some people may experience nausea, dizziness, or other discomforts.
Harvard researcher Joseph Allen and colleagues found a link between indoor air quality and cognitive performance in a study of working professionals (Allen et al. 2015) found diminished workplace performance by working professionals, with a 15 and 50 percent reduction in decision-making performance at 945 ppm and 1,400 ppm, over the 550 ppm control group.
Cue the coffee!
Have you noticed any of the effects mentioned above?
Do you wake up feeling drowsy?
Do you wake up in a room where the air feels stagnant, like an old swamp?
So what’s that got to do with condensation?
Condensation is caused by water vapour condensing on cold surfaces. Single glazed windows are often the coldest surface in a home. The volume of vapour in the air is known as humidity.
High humidity increases the amount of condensation.
Let’s look at another property.This property has single glazed aluminium windows.
The lounge has excessively high CO2 levels and the house has high humidity levels too. This is not an airtight house by any stretch of the imagination.
This is an indication of poor air quality. The only way to improve air quality including CO2 and humidity levels is with ventilation.
The Importance of Ventilation
What is the ventilation mechanism in your bedroom?
It’s most likely opening your windows, isn’t it?
Do you sleep with your windows open in winter?
You definitely need to, if your door is shut. You probably need to if your door is open too. If you don’t you’re likely gassing yourself, so;
Cue the coffee!
What if I want my windows to be closed at night, because it’s too cold outside?Then you need a mechanical ventilation system. There is no other option.
Balanced Mechanical Ventilation
What you need is filtered fresh air from outside pumped into your bedroom. This will push the stagnant stale stuffy air under your door, if and only if the door has been undercut sufficiently. That stuffy air needs to go somewhere, otherwise your house will blow up like a balloon. It’s better if it doesn’t find out through all the cracks and crevices in your home. That could cause condensation inside your walls, leading to decay.
So, at the same time as supplying filtered air to your bedrooms and living rooms, the air handling unit extracts the equivalent volume of air from your bathroom, ensuite, kitchen and laundry.
This is called a balanced system.
Now, the air coming into your bedroom is cold, because the air outside is cold, so that’s not a lot better than opening your windows, except, the air is filtered, constantly, continuously and consistently.
What if the system captured the heat from the air that is being extracted out of your wet areas, to warm and temper the air coming into your bedroom? That would be pretty neat, wouldn’t it?
This is what a heat exchanger does. https://www.healthyhome.kiwi/the-clever-heat-exchanger
This is called mechanical ventilation with heat recovery; MVHR
So now, you have warm filtered air coming into your bedroom, which means the room is less humid, less polluted and so you sleep much more soundly.
You’ll be a lot more comfortable across the whole house too. You can still enjoy a coffee, if you like the taste. You just don’t need a coffee. And it doesn’t need to be caffeinated.
Personally, I prefer a cup of Rooibos tea.
Ps: This is the same house as above after installing a MVHR system. It’s not perfect, so could do with some refinement, but it’s much better that before! There are often quite a few people in this space, so keeping levels perfect, is likely almost impossible.
HEALTHY HOME COOPERATION
Healthy Homes for all Kiwis. Housing is about people. People working together in cooperation to provide Healthy Homes for people to live in.
Damien McGill: Engineering Happy Healthy Homes for People & Planet
