Sleep is a vital part of our life. It’s when our bodies can reenergize, heal, and it even helps us with memory. But if you’ve been noticing lately that you’ve been having trouble sleeping, it might not be you, the coffee you drink daily, or even that Netflix series that you’ve been hooked on. It could be your environment—particularly your indoor air quality.
Just as the comfort of your mattress can affect the quality of your sleep, so too can the quality of your indoor air have an effect on your body as you rest. Whether it’s through your windows or through your HVAC system, the air that circulates through your home comes from the lower levels of your home. This includes your basement or crawlspace.
To understand why our upstairs air is coming from our basement or crawlspace, we first have to understand how air moves through a home.
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The Stack Effect
Think of the Stack Effect, also known as the Chimney Effect, as simply as that warm air rises. Just like warm air raises a hot-air balloon, the air in your home also rises from you’re your to upper levels.
Along with that rising air comes many things that may be present in it—airborne particles and moisture that can have an impact on your health and your ability to sleep.
But what exactly is it in the air that could be reducing your quality of sleep, or even your ability to go to sleep promptly? Let’s take a dive into the various factors that can affect your indoor air quality…
Air Pollution
Perhaps one of the most obvious factors is the airborne pollution in your area. But different areas may have different concentrations of pollutants, and your age and health history can also affect how you may react to those pollutants.
According to the EPA, regarding the effects of indoor air pollution, “Health effects from indoor air pollutants may be experienced soon after exposure or, possibly, years later.” There are also a broad range of symptoms that a person may experience depending on their sensitivity to airborne pollutants. The EPA explains, “Certain immediate effects are similar to those from colds or other viral diseases … If the symptoms fade or go away when a person is away from the area, for example, an effort should be made to identify indoor air sources that may be possible causes.”
Indoor air pollution can also have long term effects. The EPA has listed respiratory diseases, heart disease, and even cancer as possible effects to long-term exposure to indoor air pollution.
Here are just some of the indoor pollutants that your indoor air may contain…
- Fumes from house cleaning and home maintenance products
- VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) released from building materials such as insulation and certain types of flooring
- Smoke from tobacco products such as cigarettes
- Radon
- Pollen
- Excess moisture in the air
- Mold spores
- Air pollution from outside
Most of these pollutants can be managed by ensuring that your home has proper ventilation. Without good ventilation in your home, these airborne pollutants can linger and accumulate until they begin to affect you. However, there are some sources that cannot be so easily dispersed with just good ventilation. Let’s take a look at some of the more challenging sources of indoor air pollution
Mold
Mold spores are everywhere, including your home. There’s no way to actually keep every mold spore out of your house. But if that’s the case, how do you stop mold from growing in your house? The key is what begins the mold growth process: moisture.
Without moisture and a food source, mold spores have no way to begin their growth cycle and spread. Be alert for these warning signs of potential mold…
- A musty, earthy smell coming from your basement, crawlspace, bathroom, or anywhere else in your home—this could mean that mold is already growing in your home and spreading mold spores into the air.
- Water leaks from your kitchen or bathroom sink, leaks from your plumbing that runs into your crawlspace or basement—these are all moisture sources that can kickstart mold growth.
- Discoloration in your drywall, dark spots spreading across your wooden structures in your lower level, or fuzzy growth on spoiled food—all of these are different ways that mold may appear in your home.
Radon
Unlike other air pollutants which may come through your window or be growing inside your house like mold, radon is a hazardous gas that’s created as trace amounts of uranium in the earth breakdown. This radioactive gas then leaks its way upward and disperses into the atmosphere. However, that radon gas can also seep into a home through its lower-level space. Radon simply seeps out of the dirt floor of a crawlspace. Meanwhile, due to the porous nature of concrete, radon can also infiltrate into a basement. What’s more, due to what’s known as the “Stack Effect”, homes are like passive vacuums that can encourage more radon to get sucked in.
Radon gas doesn’t just remain in the basement or crawlspace either—the stack effect causes the air from your lower-level space to rise. Once it enters your home, radon gas is then spread throughout your living spaces. If too much radon should accumulate in your home, it can lead to a heightened risk of lung cancer. According to the EPA, “Radon is the number one cause of lung cancer among non-smokers”.
While proper ventilation will help clear your home of accumulated radon, it won’t stop the radon from entering your home. That’s when you’ll need to do something about your crawlspace or basement to prevent radon from having an easy way in.
What Can All This Indoor Pollution Do to Your Sleep?
Just like when you’re awake, your body relies on getting good quality air to properly rest, recover, and continue running its many functions as best as it can. Air that’s contaminated with pollutants can cause a variety of health problems that can obstruct that ability to function and recuperate during sleep. During a ten-year study from Environment International, scientists found that both dampness in the air as well as mold can have a detrimental effect on the person trying to sleep. That study revealed that the presence of mold and increased dampness led to an increase of these symptoms…
- Insomnia
- Early Morning Awakening
- Difficulty Initiating Sleep
- Difficulty Maintaining Sleep
This then led to an increased reporting of daytime sleepiness for those who were part of the study.
Another study, this one by the Annals of the American Thoracic Society, found that people who were exposed to higher levels of pollutants and nitrogen dioxide (created from the burning of fuel, such as vehicles) in the air were more prone to develop sleep apnea.
How Can I Improve My Indoor Air Quality?
While opening your windows might sound like a good first step, it will only allow more outside pollutants to invade your home. You’ll want to first make sure that your HVAC has a fresh air filter that is replaced frequently and regularly—they should be replaced between 60 to 90 days, depending on the manufacturer’s recommendation. If your filter should look very dirty sooner, then it should be changed. You should also make sure that the filter has at least a MERV rating of 13. But this won’t get prevent all pollutants from entering your home.
Along with keeping up on your HVAC filters, you should also consider a portable air cleaner that comes equipped with an absorbent filter that can help remove gases. These filters or activated carbon filters can help provide extra filtration for harmful gases such as VOCs.
Any sources of excess moisture and humidity should also be addressed. Leaks in the basement or humid air flowing into your crawlspace can negatively affect the air quality of your living spaces, whether it’s from increased humidity, mold growth, or even dust mites (dust mite fecal particles can become airborne and cause allergic reactions).
If your basement walls or floors should have cracks that are allowing water and moisture to leaking in, you should have your foundation repaired. Basement waterproofing may also be necessary to keep groundwater from collecting against your foundation—it can also provide passive protection against radon that’s seeping up. Meanwhile, if a crawlspace is what you have, crawlspace encapsulation can help keep moisture out while also providing a passive means of radon mitigation.
A Dry Home Makes a Safe and Healthy Home
Basement that has had remedial work done to correct mold that cause poor air quality
Taking care of your indoor air quality will do more than make your sleep better—it benefits all your indoor activities. From foundation repair to basement waterproofing and crawlspace encapsulation, these are tasks that are best left to the professionals who know what equipment and materials to use to create the best results. Whether you have a wet basement or a moldy crawlspace, leaving these problems alone will only make them get worse with time.
