Natural light and indoor air quality are crucial to a healthy home and can have a massive impact on our mental wellbeing, productivity and sleep. Everyone has experienced the mood-dulling effect of a dark room, whereas a space that’s bright with natural light feels uplifting and inviting. Equally important is the air quality within one’s home, and access to fresh, clean air can improve our general wellbeing and support our ability to concentrate.
Roof windows are a brilliant way to pull in natural light and connect with our natural surroundings, while also promoting a better indoor environment that benefits health. Read on to discover the specialist VELUX roof windows and technology that work hard to boost light levels and increase ventilation to create a comfortable, healthy indoor environment.
1. Maximise daylight in living spaces
Natural light is an everyday resource that directly impacts our enjoyment of our homes, affecting work, rest and play. With the increase in hybrid working, we’re spending more time at home than ever before, and need to be able to focus while at our desks. Well-lit rooms, full of sunlight, improve our capacity to concentrate and increase productivity.
Abundant natural light also contributes to regulating the body’s release of melatonin, the hormone that controls how and when we sleep. If your home environment has plenty of natural light, this encourages your melatonin to drop during the day, raising your energy levels and consequently helping you to sleep better at night.
Another bonus of naturally bright rooms is that house plants thrive in them. Having plants around a home has been linked to psychological benefits, from improved mood to greater productivity and reduced stress levels.
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2. Be strategic with roof window placement
2. Be strategic with roof window placement
A roof window is one of the most effective ways to bring more daylight into your home and can be especially useful in rooms that would otherwise have little natural light.
As a rule of thumb for a bright interior, ensure your glazing is equal to at least 20% of the floor space of the room. Make sure you also consider planning in enough roof windows to allow for a good and equal distribution of light throughout the room. Don’t forget – you can easily control this daylight when needed with specialist blinds and shutters.
3. Focus on fresh, clean air
Indoor air quality is another hugely important factor to consider. We hear a lot about outdoor pollution and rising CO2 levels, but the air quality inside our homes can also have a considerable impact on our health. Studies show the average person spends up to 90% of their time indoors, so the majority of the total air we inhale is coming from indoor environments, including our homes.
Good indoor air quality really just means air that’s free of pollutants that cause irritation, discomfort or poor health. Quality indoor air improves our comfort, reduces allergen risk, and boosts our mental wellbeing and productivity.
It also has the right level of humidity: between 30% and 40% humidity is ideal in the winter, or 50% to 60% in the summer. If the air is too dry, it can cause static and dry the skin, but if it’s too humid, it can cause problems for people with asthma and allergies, mainly due to the increase in dust mites and mould that flourish in more humid conditions.
The most straightforward way to get rid of harmful indoor air substances and ensure a healthy environment with comfortable levels of humidity is to ventilate frequently. Roof windows that open can quickly improve the climate inside, allowing excess humidity to escape and encouraging fresh air in. This in turn helps to prevent condensation and mould forming, which can cause respiratory illness and damage your home.
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4. Enjoy tailored help from tech
To maximise the benefits of your roof windows for improving your indoor home environment, you can add VELUX ACTIVE with NETATMO, which links to VELUX electric or solar-powered roof windows. It tracks air quality, including CO2 levels, and automatically regulates temperature, light and humidity to keep your indoor environment fresh.
Used in the bedroom, for instance, VELUX ACTIVE linked to your roof windows improves the flow of fresh air thanks to the in-built sensor and live weather forecasts. VELUX ACTIVE then uses this information to establish whether or not opening the roof windows in your space will improve the internal temperature and ventilation levels.
This story was written by the Houzz Sponsored Content team in Houzz Online.
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