What makes up good air? I’ve studied hundreds of sites over the years related to this simple issue and to be honest I don’t have a clear answer. Clean air is a lot like clean water. Clean water doesn’t mean it has been distilled so that essential elements have been removed from it because that is unnatural. But what about clean air? What is okay to have in the air and what is not?

Most homes today are built with cost or availability of materials as the central focus and not VOC’s. Volatile Organic Chemicals are still common in many materials and this affects the air that we breathe. Then there is Radon, pollution from local factories, smoke, dust and dust mites, allergens and the list goes on.

Then what about EMF’s or ELF’s? Few of us really know what effect wiring, microwaves, radios, tv’s have on the atmosphere around us.

We often talk about going natural but the majority of people don’t want to spend that extra few percent to go all natural. How do we do it? How do we achieve clean air for our home?

Then there are more issues. Air Circulation. Take an average back room with no ducts, moisture seepage from the walls and you have mold, mildew and fungi problems. This is true for any type of house especially todays homes that are so well insulated the air in them becomes stale.

The problem with stale is that it holds on to the pollutants and the house becomes a breeding ground for germs and bacteria, especially in warmer conditions.

So if there is to be air circulation from the outside you want to make sure that air you bring in is quality air and quality controlled.

But how do you get air in the house and then make sure the stale air is expelled? I think one has to think of air like water that flows. If it stops in one spot for too long it might be good for algae but its not for humans. So air has to be pushed forward towards its goal. Now this is not so difficult in an open home with few walls but where you have a lot of rooms you need forced air. Personally I think that the flowing water/air concept will help us design homes where there are various types of ‘pushing’ or pulling.

For example a siphon can actually go uphill for a time before eventually drawing the water downhill. If pressure is built up in a house would it not be possible to draw air from the highest to the lowest point where it can then be expelled?

Nature also works this way with wind but rarely does wind operate at the speeds we desire. The last thing most homes need is a wind storm blowing through the various rooms. It does seem to me there must be a way to capture air pressure via the wind, and then transfer that pressure to various rooms in the house to keep air circulating. Such air pressure could operate a forced air fan which could then draw outside air in where it could be filtered and if necessary UV’d to remove any toxins. One of the biggest keys to removing mold is air circulation but of course it is important to make sure the humidity doesn’t rise to much more then 50%.

Some regions of the home can transfer moisture in. Thus the house has to be designed as a self enclosed unit.

Now a lot of designers build what I describe as stop gap solutions. An air conditioner, for example, is brought in because the house is not holding the coolness and the outside heat is brought in. A de-humidifier is needed in some homes because we’ve allowed moisture to become a problem.

Thus each home must be designed so those things are not needed. Since very few homes can trap heat year round we must rethink the way we build homes. And that is why Earth Sheltered homes must be one of the ways we construct in the future.