Stay healthy in a tight house

Build­ings con­sume almost 40 per­cent of total energy in Ger­many. Up to 85 per­cent of this energy “goes up the chim­ney”. Com­mon causes of heat loss are unin­su­lated exter­i­or walls and leaks in the build­ing envel­ope. For this reas­on, the Ger­man Energy Sav­ing Ordin­ance (EnEV) was launched in 2002. Accord­ing to this reg­u­la­tion, good thermal insu­la­tion is man­dat­ory for new build­ings. But also exist­ing build­ings need to ful­fill cer­tain energy require­ments when under­tak­ing renov­a­tion or ret­ro­fit­ting. This helps reduce green­house gas emis­sions and heat­ing costs. But do air­tight houses also keep the humid­ity and pol­lut­ants inside? These legit­im­ate con­cerns can be elim­in­ated by tak­ing the right pre­cau­tions.

From the roof to the base­ment – the build­ing envel­ope encom­passing our rooms can become leaky over time. A lot of heat is lost through cracks, joints and oth­er weak spots. As a res­ult, res­id­ents waste a lot of money to “heat the out­doors”, espe­cially when the tem­per­at­ures drop below zero. In sum­mer, the leaks in the build­ing shell allow the heat to enter the rooms. Power guzz­lers like air con­di­tion­ers and fans are used for cool­ing and thus boost the elec­tri­city bill. How­ever, if the house is air­tight and well-insu­lated from top to bot­tom, res­id­ents can live more com­fort­ably and at the same time save costs. Moreover, they com­ply with the leg­al require­ments and pro­tect the cli­mate.

Many build­ing own­ers and ren­ov­at­ors fear that liv­ing in a well-insu­lated house is like liv­ing in a “plastic bag”. They believe the walls can no longer breathe. But with the right meas­ures, the exchange of air can be clev­erly con­trolled instead of driv­ing the energy costs up. Reg­u­lar purge vent­il­a­tion is essen­tial: the house should be aired briefly but intensely. Altern­at­ively, fresh air can be provided by suit­able vent­il­a­tion sys­tems. Wheth­er nat­ur­al or mech­an­ic­al vent­il­a­tion: mois­ture can escape to the out­side. When com­bined with prop­er heat­ing, the breed­ing ground for mold is elim­in­ated. So there’s noth­ing wrong with a tight house.

How­ever, build­ing own­ers and ren­ov­at­ors should make sure that the insu­la­tion and oth­er mater­i­als used are healthy for liv­ing. Patho­gens can­not simply be elim­in­ated by vent­il­a­tion. Right from the start, care must be taken that pol­lut­ants and volat­ile organ­ic com­pounds (VOCs) are not allowed to “sneak” inside. You don’t need to carry out extens­ive research to know which products are safe for use inside your home. Nowadays, pro­fes­sion­al crafts­men usu­ally work with products that are harm­less to human health. A quick glance at the product pack­aging is suf­fi­cient. If the product is health and envir­on­ment­ally com­pat­ible, it is marked with an eco-label such as the Europe-wide recog­nized EMICODE^® EC1 seal.