I think our bedroom is making us sick...

10 years ago

Both my husband and I have bad allergies which we can't seem to keep under control. We noticed when we went out of town last week that we slept better in the room we stayed in even though it was warm enough without A/C that we had to open the windows (Hill Country in the summer) which we never do at home because of our allergies and we were sleeping on a double instead of a queen. The bed and pillows weren't encased either like at home.

I have hired a designer to remodel our bedroom to hopefully make it more allergy friendly. We are planning to rip out the 14+ year old original carpet, hopefully replace our mattress and recover our chairs with leather. We recently purchased an air purifier which runs 24/7.

The former owners had a dog, which I'm allergic to so I'm hoping that ripping out the carpet in favor of hardwood will deal with that.

Are there any other potential environmental culprits I'm missing that could be causing my headaches when I wake up and my husband to not feel well rested when he wakes?

The house is too new for asbestos or lead to be issues and we recently had a mold problem in the adjoining bath so our bedroom has been tested for mold.

I don't want our bedroom to look like a sterile hospital room but we'd like a consistent good night's sleep.

Featured Answer

PRO

Scott Design, Inc.

10 years ago

last modified: 10 years ago

@Maguire - I used the wrong term. It's not perspire, it's evaporation. The average person loses enough moisture in his/her breath and by evaporation through the skin (doesn't involve the sweat glands) to amount to almost a cup of water loss in 8 hours. This vapor finds its way into the exterior walls in a couple of ways... warm air is attracted to cool spaces and the heat from the sun pulls the moist vapor through the wall space to the outside. Some of that moisture doesn't leave immediately and remains in the wall. This does not happen overnight. It's an accumulated effect. I have remodeled many buildings and have seen this condition.

Another illustration of this evaporation is if the bed is under a window and upon awakening in the morning you see condensation on the glass. This comes from evaporated moisture of sleeping individuals.

On another note, the dark walls above baseboard radiators is due to warm convected air rising from the heating elements carrying airborne dirt, oils, candle soot and other pollutants from the atmosphere of the house and depositing it on the wall.

That's my lesson for the day :)

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Comments (25)

studio10001
10 years ago
The ductwork is a possible culprit,too. If it wasn't tested when the beroom was treated for mold, it would be worth looking into.
nwduck
10 years ago
last modified: 10 years ago
Do you have trees or other vegetation close by the windows? Ever keep your windows open? It might be something exterior that is naturally making its way in.
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PRO
Maguire
10 years ago
last modified: 10 years ago
Ductwork is a big one. Do you have a fireplace in there, if you do keep it cleaned out. I'm sure you're careful of cleaning products you use throughout your home, but you might try switching laundry detergents. If you use a liquid go back to a powder, try the cleanest, greenest products you can without added scents or fabric softeners.
Throw pillows and other bedding in the dryer (30 minutes on hot) once a week to kill bacteria. Use natural fibers in your bedding. Open up your home whenever you can, especially after you get your hardwood in there (try to find flooring with no VOCs) Chemicals are used throughout a house in finishes, paint, etc, so air it out, open all the windows, or turn just the fan on, on your HVAC controls, your thermostat, whenever you can.
You may need to get a someone in to check your air quality if it continues.
nwduck
10 years ago
Worked in commercial RE for many years, and in our findings by industrial environment consultants (after several tenants being suspicious of said ductwork) , it's not usually in the ductwork. You could have an issue if there are breaks in the lines, or gaps in the seals where something could be sucked in from under the house, or in the attic. BUT systems are designed to be closed (furnace/AC/filter/return), and given your issues I'm sure you have high end filters well maintained on both units. If you haven't checked for standing water around/in your A/C unit, that would be something to look at. Generally, if there is something in the ductwork , the allergen would blow throughout the house, not just the bedroom.

I think it is most likely something outdoors, as I mentioned earlier, (one time it was the soil in a large plant a tenant had in the suspect area!) or it's the carpet and pad in your bedroom.

Best wishes, and sweet dreams.
bumblebee728
10 years ago
Is it possible there could be a slight carbon monoxide leak? Do you have a detector? The headaches and waking up not feeling well made me suspicious. Or that Chinese drywall that was in the news a few years ago that emits some type of gas?
Don't want to scare you but do want you to be safe, just in case it could possibly be one of these.
User
10 years ago
This is what California Building Energy Efficiency Standards (Title 24, Part 6) is all about. (not making sure everybody has a range hood). You can clean your air all you want, but if there is no oxygen in it, you will have that problem, especially at night. Your house is too closed up. You need a fresh air exchanger with a filter on it incorporated into your HVAC system. Just turning on bath fans and range hoods does not work. It will not exchange the air properly. It will create negative pressure in your home and pull up RADON from the ground. If nothing else, open your windows frequently when the pollen is not blowing around.
bumblebee728
10 years ago
tcufrog, have you found out what the culprit was? Hope you and your husband are feeling better.
creeser
10 years ago
I really feel getting that old carpet out of there is going to make a huge difference. No matter how well you try to clean the carpet, it never is really clean. Dirt and pollens work through the weave of the carpet and when you pull it up, there will be a good inch of filth underneath it. Including pet hair.
mousemaker
10 years ago
last modified: 10 years ago
you have gotten a lot of good advice! everyone should check their homes for these things, as my friend would say "irregardless" :) of the age of the home. you never know what has gotten inside.. Our home is over a hundred years old and it had a horse hair carpet in the upstairs bedroom. It was horrible. It was nailed to the floor. I think i took out about a coffee can full of nails and staples. The most fun job!!
One thing I thought of while reading the posts. Has your husband been checked for apnea? It's a really common sleep disorder and perhaps the combination of the allergens and apnea is keeping him from sleeping well. I need more than two hands to count the people I know who have apnea machines :)
PRO
Scott Design, Inc.
10 years ago
Is your bed on an exterior wall? If so, you may find mold within the wall. During the night, your body perspires considerably and that moisture is drawn to cooler spaces, in this case the wall. This moisture combined with the paper on the sheetrock and the wood framing provides excellent conditions for mold. Do you see a darkening of the wall behind your bed at floor level?
PRO
Maguire
10 years ago
last modified: 10 years ago
That's pretty gross Scott Design. I can't imagine a sleeping body could produce enough sweat that mold would grow in the walls! Eeewww. Wouldn't the sheets and mattress be soaking wet?

I've seen dark walls behind headboards and thought it was dust. Could what you're saying really be true?
User
10 years ago
I think you will find a huge improvement with removing the carpet and replacing with hardwood. You will be amazed at how much filth is underneath the carpet. We did that along with removing all down pillows and comforters, and our son's mild asthma pretty much vanished. We also put in, later, a HEPA air cleaner attached to our central air, and that made a difference for our regular allergies.. Also, we never open our windows because unfortunately, the outside air affects our allergies as well.
PRO
Maguire
10 years ago
The inside of most homes is 2 to 5 times more polluted than outdoor air. If you have a HEPA filter, my guess is what you're saying is that rather than opening doors and windows you cycle the outside air through your filter and through the house, but for those of us that don't cycle air through the HVAC best to open windows and doors.
nasmijati
10 years ago
In addition to the excellent advice in the above posts, I believe it is a good idea to shower and wash one's hair sometime between going outside for the last time during the evening and going to bed, to wash off any pollen and dust on one's body.

Using a fresh pillow cover each night also makes a big difference for me. (I have read that it also reduces teen facial acne)!

I suggest that you keep dirty laundry in some other room. Keep shoes in another room. Who knows what is on the bottom of your shoes...
PRO
Maguire
10 years ago
last modified: 10 years ago
O boy Scott Design, you had me going there!!! Too funny, and a bit gross. Can you imagine, we'd all have more than a ton of mold in our houses to deal with!

But to set the record straight, (I'm worried you're going to confuse people, SD):
The body loses water through the skin by sweat....only. Perspiration, evaporation, etc. coming from a body is sweat.
Because of a process known as diffusion, heat will pass from a warmer object to a cooler one but warm air isn't attracted to cool areas.
Condensation (when water changes from a vapor into a liquid) on a window is due to high humidity in the air (get a dehumidifier) whether or not anyone is sleeping in the room.
If you have a humid home check in areas of low air flow for moisture like behind sofas and headboards. Most HVAC units control moisture.
A sleeping body leaves more moisture on the bedding than it does on or in a wall.

Anyway this thread is a bit craycray for me. All the best to you and I hope you enjoy your new floors!
PRO
Scott Design, Inc.
10 years ago
@ tcufrog...regardless of the back and forth with Maguire and my subsequent disagreement with his "setting the record straight"... my point with the use of one specific scenario related to sleep and headaches was there can be conditions in a home that promote mold and allergic reactions not obvious to most homeowners and difficult to discover. If all other allergen remediation doesn’t solve the problem, then you may have to look into the structure of your home. And yes, there are professionals in "building science" who would be able to identify such conditions.
tcufrog
Original Author
10 years ago
Sorry I haven't posted recently but all of sudden I looked at the calendar and realized that oh sh** school is about to start and I haven't done anything to get my kids ready. They start school this week. We have also been busy choosing flooring and making other decisions related to redoing our bedroom and are trying to decide which avenue to pursue.

We keep our dirty laundry in the bathroom and usually don't have shoes in our bedroom. We don't have radiators since we live in Texas and our bed is against an outside wall but not a window.

We had our master suite tested for mold this spring and I know they took at least one sample in our bedroom. I was having the headaches before the testing. If there was mold in the bedroom wouldn't the tests have found it? They seemed very thorough and were the highest rated local mold testing company on Angie's List.
pcmom1
10 years ago
Can you experiment by sleeping in a guest room?
tcufrog
Original Author
10 years ago
We will be doing that when our bedroom is taken apart to paint and install the hardwood floors. I'm very curious to find out if we'll sleep better.
PRO
ReSquare Architecture + Construction
10 years ago
FWIW: all good suggestions on possible culprits, but watch your new materials are as low VOC as you can find, especially if you will be occupying during the renovation. And if you are not installing pre-finished wood floors, seriously reconsider staying in the home during the work.
PRO
Select Hardwood Floor Co.
10 years ago
last modified: 10 years ago
IMHO, you'll feel a marked difference once you've gotten rid of the CARPET.
The wood floor industry has made extensive gains over the last 8-9 years simply because it was finally discovered (& published) that carpet not only COLLECTS dirt, dust, dander, & many other contaminants... it is also a very high percentage of the "dust" you see on furniture & flying around in the sunlit air.
I've had more than a few people mention that once the fuzzy stuff was gone, they only needed to "dust the furniture" half as much.
I've long thought that when there's carpet present... what you see (and breathe) isn't just dirt/dust... but actually carpet FIBER.
@ReSquare makes a good point re: prefinished vs. job finished hardwood.
If you're sensitive to chemicals & "off-gassing"... you may be better off considering a prefinished product.
And I'll add... be careful with some of the "imports"... they may be less expensive, but in many cases it's because of the materials used, which are less "compliant" than those produced here in the USA.
(Had to toss that in).
Good luck! Let us know if there's a difference. Always interested in market feedback.
email us at: david@selecthardwoodfloor.com
katie_says_hi
9 years ago
I've read somewhere that curtains could be another culprit...
and also molds
sootsprite
9 years ago
2013 post
Peggy Hicks
9 years ago
We got a robotic vacuum cleaner, which cleans daily under our bed ( as well as the entire house). It does cleaning that I rarely tackled, and this has helped with allergens. For $350, it's an easy fix

I think our bedroom is making us sick...

Scott Design, Inc.

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