Easy and carefree breathing

High demands at work, the hec­tic pace of every­day life, to-do lists in our leis­ure time – six out of ten Ger­mans find their lives stress­ful. One in five even feels per­man­ently under pres­sure. This is the res­ult of a Forsa sur­vey com­mis­sioned by Tech­nik­er Kranken­kasse, a Ger­man health insur­ance com­pany. That’s why our home is becom­ing an import­ant place for wind­ing down and relax­ing. Just take a deep breath and spend time with your fam­ily – this works best in your own four walls. Nat­ur­ally, you do not want haz­ard­ous pol­lut­ants from build­ing and install­a­tion products to invade your com­fort zone. Reli­able eco-labels, above all the EMICODE^® seal, indic­ate which products are low in emis­sions and envir­on­ment­ally friendly.

A good job and a secure income are worth striv­ing for, but they should be com­ple­men­ted by a high qual­ity of life. To achieve this work-life bal­ance, people place more and more import­ance on a styl­ishly fur­nished home as a place for relax­a­tion and recre­ation. But what if your cosy home, your oas­is of com­fort and well-being, is actu­ally a threat to your health? What if the build­ing mater­i­als and fur­niture inside your home pro­duce nox­ious vapors that can lead to ser­i­ous phys­ic­al com­plaints?

Walls, floors and ceil­ings account for the largest part of the liv­ing space sur­round­ing us at home. They should there­fore not con­tain any harm­ful sub­stances like volat­ile organ­ic com­pounds (VOCs). Wall pan­els, seal­ants, primers, adhes­ives, fillers, joint seal­ants, insu­lat­ing under­lays and par­quet var­nishes – these are products that we hardly notice in our every­day life. This makes it all the more import­ant for us to make a care­ful choice before they are allowed to enter our homes.

For­tu­nately, there are now reli­able qual­ity seals such as EMICODE^® indic­at­ing which products are really low in emis­sions. They are also the products of choice for pro­fes­sion­al crafts­men. A trust­worthy indic­at­or is the EC1 seal on the pack­aging. The EMICODE^® seal is based on an eval­u­ation sys­tem that is recog­nized through­out Europe. It takes a close look at many build­ing products and checks their emis­sion beha­vi­or under the most strin­gent test cri­ter­ia in order to ensure the highest pos­sible level of con­sumer pro­tec­tion. Only low-emis­­sion build­ing and install­a­tion products are awar­ded this seal. Reg­u­lar spot checks by inde­pend­ent test­ing insti­tutes mon­it­or the long-term com­pli­ance with the qual­ity stand­ard.