6 Signs of an Unhealthy Home

What is a healthy Home?

In a recent conversation I was asked “how does someone know what a healthy home feels like?” It’s a great question. Health and comfort are intangible concepts and are firmly rooted in our experience. How do we educate every day New Zealanders on what health and comfort is available to them that they have never experienced? How do we show them that good Architectural Design isn’t about award winning designs, but about creating

All I can do is speak to the symptoms of an unhealthy home. And while these may be obvious, sometimes when things are so prevalent, we just accept them as status quo as we are familiar with them.

Here are the 6 signs your home is an unhealthy place for you to live.

Sign 01

Any Mould. Mould is the symptom not the cause. Mould grows when there is the right combination of moisture, organic material and temperature. If you are finding mould anywhere in your home, it’s a sign that your home doesn’t have adequate ventilation. The obvious solution might be to open your windows, but opening doors and windows isn’t enough to ensure constant adequate and sufficient ventilation. Opening doors and windows also is dependent on the time of year and time of day. We do not open our doors and windows wide open in the middle of the night or the middle of winter when we are trying to warm our homes. That means that natural ventilation is reliant on human occupancy and human behaviour, Mould grows anytime, not just when you are home. If your home do not have a mechanical ventilation system constantly ventilating your spaces, you aren’t living in a healthy home.

Sign 02

Condensation on your windows. If you are waking up on a winter’s morning with weeping windows, your home is definitely not healthy. This is predominant sign in bedrooms in winter. The reason is, we shut up our windows and doors in the middle of winter and we spend a large amount of time in our bedrooms sleeping during the coldest hours. Any moisture generated in our homes during these times, including from our breathe and bodies, condenses against cold surfaces. Simply installing double glazing might stop the condensation on the glass, but glass doesn’t remove moisture from the internal environment. Weepy windows are a sign of an inadequate thermal envelope including the windows but also a lack of adequate constant ventilation. If you don’t have a ventilation system and you don’t get condensation on the windows you aren’t in the clear. That condensation will be happening somewhere where you cannot see it, like in your walls, and that is a major cause of concern.

Sign 03

Cold Surfaces. Can you stand close to the French or sliding doors and the floor feels colder there than at the middle of the room? This is a result of an inconsistent thermal envelope. When you put your hand close to the glass does that feel colder? When you stand on a chair and get your head up to the ceiling is that super-hot and when you step down is way colder? When the thermal envelope is inconsistent and surface temperatures vary more than 3 degrees around your home, your home is not healthy. Our bodies do not feel comfortable

Sign 04

The rotting Banana symptoms. Is it a race to finish that bunch of bananas on the kitchen counter before they end up only being good for baking? Bananas ripen in the heat, but if they are rotting faster in your home than they would on the tree outside, it’s not the bananas, it’s your unhealthy home. Overheating is something that isn’t address by building requirements but is a very real problem experienced by majority of homes in New Zealand in Autumn and Summer. Unwanted heat is as much a problem as not enough heat, so while we might be currently huddled around the fire or our heaters at this current time. An inadequate thermal envelope and lack of shading are major contributors to an unhealthy home.

Sign 05

When there is a party in the neighbourhood and you need to get some sleep, can you still hear the noise even through all the doors and windows are closed? A healthy home is airtight, which stops the draughts but also helps with noise. Quality windows that seal shut, and a consistent and efficient thermal envelope stops heat transfer from inside out and also outside in, it also stops noise. If you can hear the neighbourhood parties at 2am, your home probably isn’t healthy.

Sign 06

This one is a silent one. How often to you put a jersey on to avoid putting the heater on? Do you go to bed early because an electric blanket and duvet offer comfort superior to your living room. Do your children go to bed with a hot water bottle? When we have to heat our bed to be comfortable, what does that say about the comfortable and healthy temperatures of the rooms in our homes.  As our power prices rises, many in New Zealand are going to have to choose between comfort and paying the bills. If you have to consider that for a minute, then your home isn’t healthy. Its possible to have a home designed for comfort and low winter energy bills, its just not common.

In New Zealand we assume the Building Code and Code Compliant homes offer us a healthy home solution. The reality is these signs are present in buildings recently completed and even will present themselves in homes currently being designed. Unhealthy homes are not an existing housing stock issue, it’s an issue we are continuing to create into the future.

The only way to ensure that health and comfort is achieved is to design it to a standard that sets performance criteria to ensure its achieved.

There is a voluntary standard that does that, but because it’s not mandated but is  above the minimum requirements, its often overlooked as an expensive, indulgent and elitist concept.

How indulgent is your health? And how important is comfort in your own home to you? Do you deserve the minimum legal requirements or is your home your castle?

To learn more about the Passive House Standard, download the free guide.