Indoor Air Quality: Hard Surface vs. Carpet

I ran across an article titled "Asthma: Carpets vs Timber Floors" on the popular Treehugger.com blog about research published in Australia from a doctor who found that frequently vacuumed carpet is actually better for indoor air than hard surface floors.

The blog article begins, “Just as everyone is pulling up their carpets and sanding back the exposed floorboards out comes new research to say ‘Whoa’. According to Dr Heike Neumeister-Kemp, from the School of Biological Science at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia, all is not be as we first suspected.”

The research, which says that, “regular maintenance of carpets using high efficiency vacuuming could help in reducing airborne fine particulate levels and maintain a stable fungal spora within the indoor environment,” uncovers some myths about vacuuming and floor surfaces.

“Seems that ‘mould and bacteria spores, and fine particles, PM 10 and PM 2.5 - that's the little one that can go in your lungs’ after falling on hard timber floor are being disturbed by air movement and sent back up into the air (and throats). Whereas vaccums with high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters lift and clean carpet fibres, so they can hold such particles out of harm’s way.”

Here is a link to the original research study titled "Reducing airborne indoor fungi and fine particulates in carpeted Australian homes using intensive, high efficiency HEPA vacuuming".

In case you need a reminder about hard surface vs. carpet, this article titled "Improving air quality from the floor up" explains that the choice of flooring affects indoor air as follows:

"... It has long been recognised that carpeting can improve indoor air quality by capturing and holding fine dust tightly and keeping them from becoming airborne again, therefore minimising their circulation in the so called ‘breathing zone’... With a regular carpet the fine dust concentration in the air is four times lower than with hard flooring, resulting in a cleaner breathing zone and therefore improving the overall air quality."

Which would you go with for indoor air quality? Hard Surface or Carpet? You know my answer!

Thanks, Treehugger, for sharing some good news about vacuums, carpet and indoor air quality.

For a list of high-efficiency vacuums, go to the CRI website for the list of Seal of Approval vacuums.

~Bethany