With more time spent indoors, you may be wondering about carpet VOCs in your home and how to limit them.
VOCs is short for volatile organic compounds. Pretty much anything that has a smell in your home is releasing VOCs, not just carpet. Some of the most common household products include furniture, candles, air fresheners, cooking equipment, paint (one of the biggest negative-VOC offenders), cleaning chemicals, flooring, and just about everything else there.
Even the highly prized new car smell (and air fresheners that give cars that "new car smell") represent fumes off-gassed (released) from the materials in your car.
Though you can't totally eliminate your exposure to VOCs, you can make an effort to limit your exposure to them just as you might to hormones and pesticides in your food.
Here are five steps we suggest.
First, conduct an inspection of your home for the common sources of VOCs. Look for supplies of unused chemicals, such as paints, varnishes, solvents, adhesives, and caulks.
Get safely rid of any supplies that are unused or little-used.
For those you keep, ensure they are in a safe place away from children and pets, and - ideally - in a well-ventilated area.
Household furnishings like carpet, upholstered furniture, or items made from composite wood tend to off-gas more VOCs when they are new.
Scented candles emit VOCs when they burn.
Cleaning supplies off-gas when you use them.
Increasing the amount of fresh air in your home will help reduce the concentration of VOCs indoors.
The carpet industry has a long history of creating products that provide numerous benefits, especially for indoor air quality. Today, indoor air quality (IAQ) is an important environmental consideration, especially since we spend approximately 90 percent of our time indoors.
In 1992, The Carpet and Rug Institute (CRI) launched its Green Label program to test carpet, cushions, and adhesives to help specifiers identify products with very low emissions of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs).
In the 2000s, CRI launched the Green Label Plus programs for carpet, adhesives, and cushion. These enhanced programs set higher standards for indoor air quality and ensure that customers are purchasing the very lowest emitting products available on the market. 
We recommend fresh air in your home before and after installing new carpet.
A sunny day with a nice breeze is perfect, but any weather that allows you to keep your doors open will do. For most parts of the country, this means scheduling your carpet installation in the spring or fall. This will allow the VOCs to escape your home.
After your carpet installation, you may want to turn on ceiling fans, activate your central air conditioner's fan (most have a fan-only mode), and any other big fans you may have to get the air moving.
This works best with the doors and windows open, but even if you can’t open up your home, the circulating air will help diminish VOCs.
Next, you'll want to implement a maintenance routine to keep your new carpet looking like new and VOC-free.
Once you have installed your new carpet and aired out the rooms, you need to ensure you vacuum your carpet regularly.
Use a vacuum cleaner that has a filter and strong suction. Carpet is a great filter itself, as it traps VOCs from other sources, as well as dirt and dust making it easier to rid yourself of them.
However, factors like poorly filtered vacuum cleaners or the kids playing on the carpet can cause agitation. This is when VOCs and dust can become air born again if you haven't regularly vacuumed.
It is important, therefore, to maintain your carpet and remove dust and dirt with regular, well-filtered, vacuum cleaning.
>> See Top Flooring Maintenance Tips for Carpet and Hardwood
Given these five steps, you can easily limit carpet and other VOCs in your home.
If you're ready to select your carpet for your home, let us know.
You can visit one of our two showroom locations in Middletown or Orange to experience for yourself several carpet styles that are ideal for stairs. Or, you can do so remotely.
>> See Open for Business While Respecting Social Distancing
Let us know of any questions in the comments or contact us.
We look forward to helping you.
Thanks for reading,
Note: We originally published this article on 06/24/2020, and have updated it.
