Of Course Your House Is Killing You

And it’s not just the gas range.

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Fireplaces and wood-burning stoves emit more pollution than gas stoves. (Photo By MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle/Getty Images)

There’s nothing as bad for you as living well.

Here’s a nice memory: My wife and I are in Aspen, sitting by a fire that is a little bigger than it really needs to be, drinking a nice Margaux; the dachshund is tuckered out from hiking up the mountain earlier in the day and is fast asleep with her belly turned toward the fire. Dinner is simmering in the kitchen. 

Horrors, all, of course: There’s getting there, to begin with, and the dose of radiation you get every time you fly (“aircrew have the largest average annual effective dose of all US radiation-exposed workers”) added to the extra radiation you get just from being in the mountains (“calculations based on data from NCRP reports show that the average level of natural background radiation (NBR) in Rocky Mountain states is 3.2 times that in Gulf Coast states”), the magnificent fireplace (“Wood-burning fireplaces: Not such a hot idea”) that makes the emissions from the gas range look like the purest oxygen in one of those weird Japanese oxygen bars by comparison, the Margaux (“Even a Little Alcohol Can Harm Your Health,” the New York Times warned last week), the sweet little puppy (“pet dander can potentially be harmful to your respiratory system”), the bacteria-laden spice rack in the kitchen, the steak …

And there is nowhere to go to cleanse yourself from all that contagion: “Your bath mat is disgusting,” reports the New York Times. And don’t even ask about taking a long, hot shower or a warm bath on a cold winter night. 

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  1. Seebert42

    That last sentence, is in fact the truth- the problem with all these environazis is that they've lost what it means to be human.

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  2. JG

    How do these people survive?

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    David Burke

    https://youtu.be/EM2MGN_w4sU

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  4. Jack A. Zentrist

    And what about what you're sleeping on? Good heavens. And the foam mattress you had to place on the twenty-year-old mattress, because your shoulder is killing you? Talk about toxic! And what about the fact that your air ducts haven't EVER been cleaned? I finally did get rid of a cheap, fifteen years old recliner, the toxic insides of which were coming out. And then, every time you sweep or vacuum...omg. But the most alarming thing to me was the fact that my attached garage still has all kinds of toxins, I guess infiltrating right into my living room! As my doctor friend said, "We're all living on borrowed time."

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    Ray Salemi

    This morning I decided to learn a little about this gas stove thing, and so read a front-page article in The Boston Globe. Even being new to the issue, I could see the article was ridiculously one-sided and likely written by a naive young reporter.

    I craved the data from the other side of the argument and found it here.

    Thanks for doing all this research and presenting it so well.

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    1. JFradin

      Agreed.

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    Jaredmanly77

    This was informative and well said.Agree about the fire and drink and being good for your soul.

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  7. David.A.Oliver.Jr

    You've forgotten the most important word: risk. Risk is what my great grandmother was getting at when she'd say "All things in moderation." Colorado is known for being rocky and asbestos is a rock. Indeed Colorado was the home of the world's greatest asbestos miner, miller and producer Johns-Manville Corp; and it's still the home of an entity of the same name that emerged from bankruptcy court after its liabilities had been washed away. But while J-M the asbestos company is long gone the asbestos is still there in the rocks of Colorado.

    You kicked up a little asbestos dust on your hike and you breathed more of it as you enjoyed your wine, yet not even EPA nor OSHA care (and nor should you) because the risk, of which exposure dose is the measure, is so low that other risks (flying, driving, living well, etc.) that people choose not to care about are, relatively speaking, far higher. Every Coloradan goes to his grave with a little asbestos in his lungs but only a handful (and only then if you believe even a single fiber of it poses a risk) are ever troubled by it.

    Our failure as a nation to have an honest discussion about risk presents an opportunity for Republicans ... who are of course too stupid to seize it.

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  8. Tpro15

    I recall reading a few years back about a study purportedly showing that children whose first years were spent in the cleanest urban and suburban environments were more likely to suffer from asthma than those who had grown up in rural and semi-rural environments with a lot of dirt surrounded by animals. The immune systems of the former lacked the stimulus to develop the proper defenses.

    Interestingly, I developed childhood asthma. My father had a plethora of allergies, and my parents were so concerned that their children would also that we were never allowed to crawl on a floor unless it was covered with a sheet, and our blankets were sewn inside of sheets that were washed weekly.

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  9. Tpro15

    The healthiest houses are those in which there is constant airflow between the interior and the exterior. A traditional rope and pulley double-hung window accomplishes this nicely, but--as you may have noticed--in their wisdom our governments have decided that, in order to minimize energy use, houses must be sealed and insulated to a degree that renders what had been common good construction practices illegal. As you might imagine, here in California, the list goes on forever.

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    Walter.Sobchak.Esq

    MERV-13 is not high enough. you want 17 or more: https://www.iso-aire.com/blog/what-is-a-merv-rating-and-how-does-it-compare-to-hepa

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