Wood Floor Q&A: Understand Indoor Air Quality Concerns

My customers said they are really concerned about IAQ. What is IAQ?

Bud Ferguson, founder/CEO at Marietta, Ga.-based Negative Air Systems, answers:

In the not very distant past, including when I started contracting 25 years ago, very few people in our industry were concerned about IAQ: indoor air quality. Everybody, including consumers, knew that if you were going to get hardwood flooring, you expected it was going to be a messy process, from the saws to the removal of the carpeting and padding to the sanding. When I got my wood floors done, there was such a lingering effect that I had to clean my house for weeks and weeks afterwards (and it just stayed in my HVAC system). The most that we did as wood flooring contractors was to hang plastic—containing dust, fumes and anything else in the house.

In the broadest sense, IAQ means the health and comfort of the individuals and the space inside of a business or a home. In our industry, we always think about that dust generated, but IAQ goes beyond that to the VOCs in the products we use, the mold that may be present and airborne pathogens.

The days of customers expecting a mess from wood flooring work are long gone. Today’s wood flooring pros have three main options when it comes to ensuring clean air inside the home: dust containment systems with vacuums, air scrubbers using HEPA dust filtration and negative air systems, which draw inside air out of the building. I recommend using at least two out of these three systems on every job—not only does it alleviate customers’ concerns, it also makes a clean environment for the workers on the job, improving their working conditions and the quality of the work. Older generations (like me) resisted having to bring more stuff onto the job site, but fortunately, today’s younger wood flooring pros take their own health more seriously and are more willing to use newer systems that benefit everyone.