Clear the air: Indoor pollutants may be lurking in your home

She always cared about the quality of the air inside her home, but a year ago, when her son was born, Tiffany Whitney became downright vigilant. "We live in an old house," she says. "We definitely worry about it."

Her husband brought home an air purifier. Then the couple purchased a carbon monoxide detector for their Murray home.

And air quality was definitely on Whitney's mind a few weeks ago, when she was taking a shower and noticed mold along the edge of the tile. Her first thought was to scrape it off with her fingernail. But when she touched the wall, it yielded to the pressure of her finger.

This is the interesting thing about living in Utah, notes Fred Johnson of Eagle Environmental, a company that specializes in cleanup of hazardous materials. You've got all the indoor air hazards common to any other state — stuff like asbestos and radon and chemicals from carpet and countertops — and then you've also got mold.

Mold in the desert? Yes, says Johnson. He recently attended a conference where he was told Utah has a perfect climate for "acute safety hazards" from mold. In Utah, during the winter, roofs may leak and pipes may crack. (This is what happened in the wall behind Whitney's bathtub.) If sheet rock, insulation and beams get wet, then mold grows in places you can't even see. When summer comes, everything dries out and the mold spores become light and airborne. Spores spread better in Utah than they would in a damp Florida summer, Johnson explains.

Mold may be more of a problem than it was 30 years ago, experts say. In fact, all indoor pollutants may be more of a problem because our houses are more airtight than they were 30 years ago. Also, more of us have air-conditioning and keep our windows closed year-round.

But Utahns are becoming increasingly aware of indoor air quality. Realtor Nanette Pratt says that every year homebuyers ask more questions than they did the year before. They ask about radon, lead, asbestos, mold and offgassing.

Radon

In 1998, the National Academy of Sciences declared radon the second-leading cause of lung cancer in the United States. Radon is a naturally occurring gas, an odorless and invisible decay from uranium in the ground.

Radon is not a problem in the outdoors, but it can seep through a home's foundation. Trapped in your house, radon builds up. The Environmental Protection Agency says more than 4 picoCuries per liter of air is a hazard.