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Many tenants' complaints have come to the Sanitary Control Offices as to various unfavourable life conditions as follows: noise, vibration, strange smells, etc. The latter are present mostly. What's that? Is it industrial plants, intensive car flow? Sometimes there is neither the first, nor the second, and the people can not stay in a building for a long time. What is the reason of their disturbance? How to help? For explanations we addressed to Galina Krahmalnikova, the sanitary doctor of the State Sanitary Control Office, responsible for dwelling houses.
The similar call is very recent: "It's impossible to stay in the house. It seems, everything is saturated with carbolic acid. Please, help!" Experts came to examine the situation. And here is what they discovered. One of the tenants had bought the wooden - shavings panels and decided to make furniture out of them. The more the production process approached it end, the more terrible smell in the house became more unpleasant. It turned out that the host of the flat was not wrong - it was really carbolic acid! Dangerous chemical components he brought to his house by himself. The binders of the wooden panel include phenol. Water solution of this substance is called carbolic acid...
Phenol containing can be except the wooden panels also the synthetic carpets, coverings, heat insulation materials, plastic ceilings. The point is that polishes, paints, insulators are mostly produced of the phenol-formaldehyde resin (pitch) for strength and durability. More reliable substance is not discovered till now. But completely harmless for health chemicals do not exist. How harmful are the supplementary components? Named substances relate to the second danger category, that means that their concentration limit for the buildings is rather small: 0.003 mgr for phenol, and 0.01 for formaldehyde.
Exceeding of these indices can lead to various disorders and indispositions. It's worth noting about the situation with so-called "phenol" houses which appeared in Moscow in the 70-s. That was an experiment, and fortunately enough, such 5-storeyed houses were not numerous. The point of the innovation was in changing of the traditional insulator inside of the concrete walls by cheap technical wool, saturated with phenol - formaldehyde resin (pitch). But with time concrete got ruined and the poisonous miasma evaporated. In the hospitals that these buildings were registered at, the patient files of "phenol" houses were different from others in size.
People applied to various offices and services, but no help was given. Evident proofs as to the platform saturation were absent. And only in some time various research were fulfilled in those houses, and they were recognized as not suitable for living.
How to avoid unfavourable consequences of phenol action? To start with we'll tell that tenants are to be careful first of all. Now significant part of new flats are rent without decoration, people finish repairs by themselves. Thus, purchasing at the markets and shops construction materials be sure to thoroughly examine their contents, if needed ask the sales-men to show you the Quality Certificate.In case they do not have it - do not be tempted by such a purchase, but refuse it. By the way, price does not show the harmless material. Thus, the most content of harmful for health substances one can find in fashionable wall-paper produced by the method of silk drawing.
Article of newspaper "Appartment, cottage House, Office", 18.01.2002, written by Ilya Gribov
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