New Home Smell

[Maggie]

We just took possession of a 2006 KIT Builder home, which is in Utah approximately 3 hours from our primary residence. Interior setup, including drywall, tape, texture & paint, were done around December 10, with carpeting being laid on December 16. Inside the home were warnings about formaldehyde being released at high temperatures.

As we have parrots, who are highly susceptible to air-borne odors & toxins, I am extremely concerned about the smell in the house. It seems worse in the kitchen & dining room area, which have linoleum, while the bedrooms seem to have less odor. I don't know what the smell is, it doesn't seem to be paint and I'm not sure if it's the carpet, but we're very concerned about it being toxic to the birds.

What, if anything, can be done to get rid of the odor? And does anyone know what it is? The winter weather is too cold to leave the house open 24/7. Airing it out during the day helps a lot, but when you close it back up & turn the heat on, the smell comes back.

Any help and/or advice would be very much appreciated! Thank you!

Maggie

[ScottMan]

It is formaldehyde. Manufactured Homes are built with cost effective materials containing lots of it. You will notice it around the cabinets especially. You will have this odor for a few weeks. I never heard of it causing issues with pets, but you never know. It is one of the issues of owning a mobile home. Think of it as a new car smell. All you can do I think is crack open the windows if it is really bad, or put your pets in one of the bedrooms.

[Suane]

Sharper Image has a filter that will remove odors. It's cost runs around $400. unless you can find it on their website for returned equiptment then the cost is half. They're inspected before resale on the internet.

[mac]

Pardon me, but I'd never buy that - it's horribly inefficient. A HEPA filter would work much better. Visit your library / read Consumer Reports - they had a piece about air cleaners recently.

[rmurray]

sorry Mac..this is not the place for this trhesd..but I have the for mentioned system and it works great..I doubt that it would help much with the original posters problem..but this system is great..

[Tim]

It may appear to be costly, but run the bathroom, and kitchen exhaust fans continually for a while. One of the ways of exchanging air in the home is to run the fans. Once the air appears to be better, start turning off the fans in the smaller rooms until the smell goes away. I do not agree that the manufactured homes have a high amount of formaldehyde. If you think of any other type of housing being built today the types of materials are similar. Just as in a new car, there are new smells until you ventilate enough.