What airing the house can teach you about living through a renovation
New pine has a lovely smell, warm and faintly sweet, and for the first day of any building work it is all I notice. By the third day the scent has changed: plaster, sanding dust, the chemical edge of fresh sealant, and a fine grey film on every surface in rooms nobody has touched. Renovation is good for a home in the long run, but while it goes on it asks a lot of the air you breathe.
If you live in Kentucky, a conversation with one of the general contractors Lexington KY homeowners call on can settle most of these questions before the first wall comes down. This piece is about the rest: how to keep the air in your home kind to your lungs while the work goes on, borrowing an old Japanese habit that costs nothing.
The Japanese habit of airing a house
In Japan the word kanki means airing a room by opening windows to swap stale air for fresh. It is drilled into children at school and repeated at home: open the windows in the morning, open them again after cooking, open them after cleaning. Many households open two windows on opposite sides of the house so that the air actually moves through rather than sitting still. Futons go over the balcony rail on sunny days for the same reason.
What I like about kanki is that it is a habit of the household rather than a gadget. Nobody buys anything; somebody simply walks round the house and opens the windows at the same times each day, and the rooms feel lighter for it.
It is a small, unglamorous habit, and it suits a house under renovation very well. Building work produces fine dust and fumes faster than a closed house can clear them. Moving air through the living spaces, while keeping the dusty area itself sealed off, is most of the answer.
Renovation dust is finer than it looks
The dust you can see on the table is the coarse part. The finer part hangs in the air for a long time and travels through the house on draughts, on clothes and on the soles of shoes. Sanding plaster or joint compound, cutting wood, drilling into masonry and breaking up old tiles all make it. Fresh paint, adhesives, sealants and some new flooring give off fumes as they dry, which is where much of that sharp new smell comes from.
Older homes add another layer. Paint from decades ago may contain lead, and some older building materials, such as certain insulation, ceiling textures and floor tiles, may contain asbestos. Neither should be sanded, scraped or broken up until a qualified professional has looked at them and, where needed, tested them. This is not a job for a weekend with a scraper, and a good contractor will raise it before work begins in an older house.
Questions to ask before the work starts
You do not need to know how the building work is done to ask sensible questions about how it will be done around you. These are the ones I would put on a card and hand over at the first meeting:
- How will the work area be closed off from the rest of the house, and what will cover the doorways?
- Where will cutting and sanding happen, and can the dustiest jobs be done outside or with the windows open?
- How is dust cleared at the end of each day, and is a vacuum with a fine filter used rather than a broom?
- Which rooms will stay usable, and how will we get to the kitchen and bathroom?
- Does the house need testing for older materials before anything is disturbed?
- Which paints, finishes and adhesives will be used, and how long should rooms air afterwards?
Ask, too, how long each stage is expected to take and when the noisiest days will fall. Knowing that the floor sanding happens on Thursday lets you plan to be out, open the windows before you leave and come back to a room that has had time to clear. A contractor who is happy to talk through these details before work starts is usually one who will keep you informed while it goes on.
Season matters too. Central Kentucky has humid summers and properly cold winters, and both make it harder to keep the windows open for long. Spring and autumn are usually the easiest seasons for airing a house while work is going on, if you have any choice in timing.
Living in the house while the work goes on
Most families stay at home during a renovation, and the strain is not only on the lungs. Noise, early starts and a house that never quite feels tidy wear on sleep and patience too, so it helps to treat one room as a clean, quiet refuge. Usually that is a bedroom. Keep its door shut, keep work clothes and tools out of it, and if you can, run an air purifier with a fine filter there overnight.
A few habits make a surprising difference:
- Shoes off at the door. The Japanese genkan, the small entrance area where outdoor shoes are left, is a ready-made dust barrier. Even a mat and a shoe rack by the door helps.
- Wipe, don't dust. A damp cloth lifts fine dust; a dry duster sends it back into the air.
- Wash bedding more often while the work lasts, and keep clean laundry out of rooms near the work area.
- Air the living rooms morning and evening with windows on opposite sides open, as long as the dusty area is sealed.
- Set up a temporary kitchen corner if the kitchen is being remodelled, with a kettle, a rice cooker and a washing-up bowl, so you are not eating in the dust.
If someone in the house has asthma, a young baby or a lung condition, think seriously about whether they could stay elsewhere for the dustiest stretch, such as demolition or sanding.
Leave the diffuser off for now
People often ask me which essential oil will cover the smell of new paint or sealant. My answer is none of them. Covering a smell does nothing to the fumes underneath, and an oil diffuser adds more fragrance compounds to air that is already carrying plenty. The only real fix for that new smell is fresh air and time.
Once the work is finished and the rooms have aired properly for some days, a little scent can make a newly finished room feel like yours again. Keep it modest: a few drops in a diffuser, short sessions, a window open, and well away from cats, dogs, babies and anyone with asthma. Never apply oils undiluted to skin, and never swallow them.
When to see a doctor
Fine dust and fumes bother most people a little: a scratchy throat, a mild headache, itchy eyes, all of which fade once you leave the room or open the windows. See a doctor if symptoms do not settle when the air is clear, or if you notice wheezing, a cough that keeps coming back, tightness in the chest or breathlessness. Anyone with asthma should keep their reliever inhaler to hand and speak to their doctor if they need it more often than usual during the work.
If you live in an older house and are worried that children or a pregnant member of the household may have been exposed to old paint dust, talk to your doctor about whether any testing is sensible. Sudden severe breathlessness, chest pain or a child struggling to breathe is an emergency at any time.
Yojo habit: For as long as the work lasts, open two windows on opposite sides of the house for ten minutes every morning and every evening, and keep the bedroom door shut in between.
The one thing to remember
The smell of new work is the sign of a house changing, not a scent to cover up. Seal off the dust, keep one room clean, and let fresh air do the patient work of clearing the rest.
The writer
Philippa is a British writer who has lived in Japan for many years and has blended essential oils at home for two decades. She looks after the Aroma corner and never writes a recipe without the dilution.
