The effect of painting at home with a modern paint

The effect on Indoor Air quality of painting at home has been debated. This paper presents a case study where a normal Scandinavian two-bedroom apartment has been refurnished with new paint on the walls and ceilings and the VOC emissions have been measured during eight weeks. Low-emitting wall and ceiling paint was selected for the study and a paint shop rolled two layers of new paint on the walls and ceilings in two rooms. Parallell the paints were applied to glass plates according to the Scandinavian trade standard and investigated with the FLEC method in the laboratory. Emissions were measured 2 days and 1, 2, 4 and 8 weeks after the last application of paint. Only a few components such as glycols have pronounced emissions in a modern paint. The emissions from the painted glass surfaces are higher in the beginning and decrease faster than the emissions from the surfaces in the apartment. The two types of paint demonstrate larger difference in the laboratory than in the apartment. Secondary emissions of previous events in the apartment become evident after repainting. For true low emitting water-borne paint the emission decreases to the initial level within the period of four weeks. From the emission data available no apparent risk should be perceived.