The Importance Of Choosing Paint Low In Volatile Organic Compounds

If you are moving into a new home or simply just looking to repaint or refurbish your current one, it is hugely important that you think about the types of paint that you are using, from the clear coat for painted wood to paint for decks and paint for the nursery. Though, aside from the color that you choose, it might not seem all that important, picking out paint is, in fact, the very opposite.

For one, when picking out pain from a clear coat for painted wood to porch and floor paint to wall paint, you should be careful to choose a paint with a low VOC content. VOC stands for volatile organic compound, and volatile organic compounds can have a number of negative health effects if there high concentrations of them in your clear coat for painted wood or deck paint, as well as crib paint and paint for the nursery. These negative effects only worsen the longer that you are exposed to them, which means that many of us are likely to suffer a number of detriments. As the average person spends around ninety percent of all of their time in an indoor setting – one potentially filled with volatile organic compounds – this is something that the average home owner and consumer needs to be aware of.

Volatile organic compounds, be they in your clear coat for painted wood or your paint coverage for your walls, are particularly harmful to those who have chemical sensitivities. For someone with a chemical sensitivity, a VOC level of just five hundred ppb could be a cause for concern. Children as well are more likely to be susceptible to the negative effects from the volatile organic compounds found in a clear coat for painted floors and other such sources of volatile organic compounds in paint. For children who have lived in an environment with volatile organic compounds present, there is an increased risk of not only rhinitis, but of asthma and eczema as well.

The negative impact of volatile organic compounds on adults has also been looked into. In one study, a group of office workers were moved to work in an environmentally controlled office instead of their office that had levels of volatile organic compounds present. In just this span of less than a week, the changes seen in these employees was considerable. When cognitively assessed, they performed more than one hundred percent better than they had at the beginning of the study, showing the negative impact that volatile organic compounds can have on overall and general cognitive ability.

Fortunately, while volatile organic compounds should of course be taken seriously, you may not be imminently in danger from them. This is because these volatile organic compounds actually degrade over time – and most significantly over the course of a year – and if you have had applies a clear coat for painted wood or the like more than one full year ago, it is likely that you no longer need to worry about the level of volatile organic compounds that you are currently being exposed to. However, it is important to make your paint selections carefully in the future, eliminating the risk of any negative side effects to begin with in the first place.

From a clear coat for painted wood to safe paint for the nursery, the paint that you choose matters, particularly so if you have children or a chemical sensitivity. While many people are not aware of the potential harms of volatile organic compounds, many people are simply not even aware that they exist in the first place. This means that too many people are being exposed, and will continue to be exposed, to unnecessary levels of these sometimes harmful volatile organic compounds. Fortunately, this problem can be rectified relatively easily. If you have painted recently and used paints high in volatile organic compounds, you can always go over the existing paint with shielding paint, which can help to reduce the amount of VOCs that you end up being exposed to. On top of this, you must choose paint low in volatile organic compounds in the future to further reduce the risk of your exposure.