Head Home, Breathe Easy: The Laser Egg’s Liam Bates Details How to Better Your Abode’s AQI

Sunny skies and warm weather mean one thing for many Beijingers: a fresh start in terms of accommodation. Or so it would seem, many of us unaware of the health risks that can come from slapping on a coat of paint.

Kaiterra co-founder Liam Bates struggled with such issues upon moving to a brand new apartment in 2013, when he was stricken with extreme eczema. He and his wife Jessica Lam were living there before they founded the Origins purifier and air quality monitor startup (since rebranded as Kaiterra).
“I idiotically thought, ‘Maybe it’s the pollution!’’ Bates recalls, adding that he then shut all of his apartment windows and cranked up his air purifier. But that only made the problem worse. Research revealed the root of the problem: the total volatile organic compounds (TVOCs) in his apartment’s furniture.

“Most furniture is full of glue, so it gives off lots of chemicals,” he says of the TVOCs that were making the air toxic in his home. The cheap new furniture that many of us outfit our apartments with in the summer, not to mention the fresh paint some of us coat the walls with (or the paint that’s already there), is rife with such toxins, which have been linked to cancer and other conditions.

In response to this issue, Kaiterra will release their Laser Egg 2+ air quality monitor later this year. The brand-new device will take TVOCs into account along with the more hyped PM2.5 smog particles, combining that information into an overall index. When Bates placed one of the monitors near a can of paint – during our recent visit to Kaiterra’s Beixinqiao office – its pollution level reading shot up from the low 10s to a top-of-the-scale 500. That means Beijingers should be sure to open their windows and air their apartments out for a few minutes both when they first wake up and then again at midday, regardless of how smoggy it is outside.

“Sure you might take in AQI 150 air for a few minutes. But it’s better than breathing in TVOCs all day long,” he says. Keener home dwellers can take a further step by hunting down and using a special paint called diatomaceous ooze which Bates and Lam used on the walls at their office. Its natural components reduce its toxic emissions to almost nil, especially compared to standard cheap paint. However, simply airing out your apartment regularly should suffice for most Beijingers, according to Bates, because the special paint is so expensive.
That being said, he implores Beijingers not to be frugal when it comes to humidifiers. While they are all but necessary appliances in an arid city like ours, their common cheap models nevertheless spew toxic particles, unbeknownst to users. Bates explains that many owners incorrectly fill their humidifiers with tap water, and the low grade oscillator devices spray that chemical laced fluid in a fine mist that may make the air feel more comfortably moist, but nonetheless leaves the user inhaling toxins. Bates (whose current Laser Egg 2 can measure humidity along with pollutants) says using distilled water might prevent that issue from happening, though a higher grade air purifier would be better (蒸发 on Taobao as opposed to 超声波).

By taking all that into account, Beijingers can better ensure that their apartments are a safe refuge from the smoggy skies, rather than unwittingly turning their homes into a TVOC laden haven.

This article first appeared in the July/August issue of the Beijinger.

Photos: Uni You