A good nose for healthy living

In view of the fact that we humans spend around 90 per­cent of our time indoors, it is all the more import­ant that our liv­ing and work­ing spaces have a pleas­ant (or at least neut­ral) smell and are sup­plied with suf­fi­cient fresh air. The care­ful selec­tion of build­ing products, their cor­rect install­a­tion or applic­a­tion as well as reg­u­lar vent­il­a­tion ensure a safe liv­ing envir­on­ment without adverse effects on our health.

The mat­ter seems simple enough: Odors are either pleas­ant or unpleas­ant, and the lat­ter are harm­ful. This assump­tion, how­ever, is wrong. “Some odors are not only unpleas­ant, but may also pose a health risk. Nev­er­the­less, it can­not be assumed that harm­ful emis­sions always smell, nor that all bad odors are harm­ful to health,” explains Klaus Winkels, Man­aging Dir­ect­or of the GEV, which is the Ger­man Asso­ci­ation for the Con­trol of Emis­sions in Products for Floor­ing Install­a­tion, Adhes­ives and Build­ing Mater­i­als. The Asso­ci­ation tests build­ing products under strin­gent cri­ter­ia and awards the GEV’s EMICODE® label for mater­i­als that fea­ture par­tic­u­larly low emis­sions. Import­ant to know: Even after receiv­ing the cer­ti­fic­ate, unan­nounced spot checks car­ried out by neut­ral test­ing insti­tutes ensure that the pre­defined emis­sion lim­its are com­plied with.

So, odor does not auto­mat­ic­ally mean there is a harm­ful emis­sion. Nor does it mean, though, that every emis­sion can be iden­ti­fied by the nose. A good example of this is car­bon monox­ide: The gas, which is pro­duced by incom­plete com­bus­tion, is col­or­less and odor­less. In high­er con­cen­tra­tions, how­ever, it has a tox­ic effect on the res­pir­at­ory sys­tem­and can even lead to death.

In out­door areas, people are exposed to a mul­ti­tude of odors: exhaust fumes from traffic and industry, emis­sions from anim­al keep­ing and exhaust air from res­taur­ants can all affect the qual­ity of the air we breathe. It is there­fore all the more import­ant that people feel com­fort­able in their homes and are not bothered by nox­ious odors. How­ever, the per­cep­tion of odors var­ies from per­son to per­son. What evokes pleas­ant memor­ies for one per­son may be asso­ci­ated with anxi­ety for anoth­er. “The smell of wood res­in is per­ceived as pleas­ant by many people. Res­ins con­tain terpenes whose smell, when used as a solvent in lac­quers and adhes­ives, is per­ceived as obtrus­ive by most,” Klaus Winkels gives an example.

The expert points out that the typ­ic­al “smell of new­ness” emit­ted by newly installed floor­ing quickly dis­sip­ates through prop­er vent­il­a­tion and is also greatly reduced today through the use of solvent­free adhes­ives. “It is of cru­cial import­ance, how­ever, that the sub­floor is dry. Well over 90 per­cent of odor com­plaints are caused by damp screeds or oth­er sub­floors,” says Klaus Winkels. When renov­at­ing floors, the old floor cov­er­ings must be removed in a 1st step. Care should be taken that no residues remain on the floor that could later cause odor or emis­sion prob­lems. After that, the sub­floor must be prop­erly pre­pared, usu­ally by apply­ing a primer and a lev­el­ling coat. In addi­tion to good dry­ing, it is highly advis­able to use products that have been awar­ded a low-emis­­sion label such as the EMICODE®.

In the con­text of odors and emis­sions, Klaus Winkels also clears up anoth­er pre­ju­dice or mis­con­cep­tion. “Layper­sons often believe that organ­ic and eco­lo­gic­al products are always healthy, while syn­thet­ic chem­ic­al products are rather harm­ful to human health.” He points out that “also nature pro­duces many tox­ins. Form­al­de­hyde, for example, occurs nat­ur­ally in our meta­bol­ism as an inter­me­di­ate product and has import­ant germ-killing prop­er­ties. Nev­er­the­less, depend­ing on the quant­ity occur­ring, form­al­de­hyde must be viewed crit­ic­ally due to its tox­icity and car­ci­no­gen­ic effect.”

Basic­ally, con­sumers have it in their own hands to ensure a low-emis­­sion, healthy liv­ing envir­on­ment by care­fully select­ing suit­able build­ing products and fur­nish­ings. Products car­ry­ing the EMICODE® label and their applic­a­tion on well-dried sur­faces are just as import­ant as good vent­il­a­tion and suf­fi­cient heat­ing in the colder months of the year. Plants such as Afric­an hemp, Ficus ben­jamina and nest ferns also take care of good indoor air. Some plant spe­cies can even fil­ter pol­lut­ants out of room air. Also extern­al shad­ing devices can con­trib­ute to a good indoor cli­mate by pro­tect­ing the inside from over­heat­ing in sum­mer. With a little care, it is there­fore pos­sible to design your own four walls in such a way that you can safely enjoy a per­man­ently healthy envir­on­ment.

Photo: © GEV/Iris Pohl

As a rule, you can rely on your sense of smell, but some­times you can­’t. An unpleas­ant odour is not always an indic­a­tion that there are harm­ful sub­stances in the air.

 

Do You Have Questions?

If you have any ques­tions on cer­tain top­ics or want to con­tact us for anoth­er reas­on, please con­tact us by phone or email.

Phone: +49 211 / 67931–22

info@emicode.com

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8 April 2025