Improving the ecology of the house: 8 rules for using a gas stove

A kitchen with a gas stove is often the main source of air pollution throughout an apartment. And, which is very important, this applies to the majority of the inhabitants of Russia. Indeed, in Russia, 90% of urban and over 80% of rural residents use gas stoves Khata, ZI Human health in the modern ecological environment. - M.: FAIR-PRESS, 2001.-- 208 p. …

In recent years, there have been publications by serious researchers about the high health hazards of gas stoves. Doctors know that in houses where gas stoves are installed, residents get sick more often and for longer than in houses with electric stoves. Moreover, we are talking about many different diseases, and not just about diseases of the respiratory tract. The decline in the level of health is especially noticeable in women, children, as well as in the elderly and chronically ill people who spend more time at home.

Professor V. Blagov not in vain called the use of gas stoves "a large-scale chemical war against their own people."

Why using household gas is bad for your health

Let's try to answer this question. There are several factors that combine to make the use of gas stoves hazardous to health.

The first group of factors

This group of factors is due to the very chemistry of the natural gas combustion process. Even if household gas burned completely to water and carbon dioxide, this would lead to a deterioration in the composition of the air in the apartment, especially in the kitchen. Indeed, oxygen is burned out of the air, while the concentration of carbon dioxide increases. But this is not the main problem. In the end, the same thing happens with the air that a person breathes.

It is much worse that in most cases the combustion of gas does not occur completely, not 100%. Incomplete combustion of natural gas produces much more toxic products. For example, carbon monoxide (carbon monoxide), the concentration of which can be many times higher than the permissible norm by 20–25 times. But this leads to headaches, allergies, ailments, weakening of the immunity of Yakovlev, M. A. And we have gas in our apartment. - Business ecological magazine. - 2004. - No. 1 (4). - S. 55.

In addition to carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, formaldehyde, and benzpyrene, a strong carcinogen, are emitted into the air. In cities, gasoline is released into the air from emissions from metallurgical enterprises, thermal power plants (especially coal-fired) and cars (especially old ones). But the concentration of benzpyrene even in the polluted ambient air does not compare with its concentration in the apartment. The figure shows how much more benzpyrene we get while in the kitchen.

Let's compare the first two columns. In the kitchen, we get 13.5 times more harmful substances than on the street! For clarity, let us estimate the intake of benzopyrene in our body not in micrograms, but in a more understandable equivalent - the number of cigarettes smoked daily. So, if a smoker smokes one pack (20 cigarettes) a day, then in the kitchen a person receives the equivalent of two to five cigarettes per day. That is, the hostess, who has a gas stove, "smokes" a little.

The second group of factors

This group is associated with the operating conditions of gas stoves. Any driver knows that one cannot be in the garage at the same time as a car with the engine on. But in the kitchen we have just such a case: combustion of hydrocarbon fuel in an enclosed space! We are missing the device that every car has - the exhaust pipe. According to all hygiene rules, each gas stove must be equipped with an exhaust ventilation umbrella.

The situation is especially bad if we have a small kitchen in a small apartment. Scanty area, minimal ceiling height, poor ventilation and a gas stove working all day. But at low ceilings, the products of gas combustion accumulate in the upper layer of air up to 70–80 centimeters thick. Boyko, AF Zdorov'e by 5+. - M.: Rossiyskaya Gazeta, 2002.-- 365 p. …

Often the labor of a housewife at a gas stove is compared to the harmful working conditions in production. This is not entirely correct. Calculations show that if the kitchen is small and there is no good ventilation, then we are dealing with particularly harmful working conditions. A type of metallurgist serving coke batteries.

How to reduce harm from a gas stove

How can we be if everything is so bad? Maybe it's really worth getting rid of the gas stove and installing an electric or induction stove? It's good if there is such an opportunity. And if not? There are a few simple rules for this case. It is enough to observe them, and you can reduce the harm to health from a gas stove tenfold. Let us list these rules (most of them are the recommendations of Professor Yu. D. Gubernskiy) Ilnitskiy, A. Smells like gas. - Be healthy!. - 2001. - No. 5. - P. 68–70. …

An exhaust hood with an air cleaner must be installed above the stove. This is the most powerful technique. But even if for some reason you cannot do this, then the other seven rules in total will also significantly reduce air pollution.
Observe the completeness of gas combustion. If suddenly the color of the gas is not what it should be according to the instructions, immediately call gas workers to regulate the broken burner.
Do not clutter the stove with unnecessary dishes. Cookware should only stand on burning burners. In this case, free air access to the burners and more complete gas combustion will be provided.
It is better to use no more than two burners at the same time, or an oven and one burner. Even if your stove has four burners, it is best to turn on a maximum of two at the same time.
The maximum time of continuous operation of a gas stove is two hours. After that, you need to take a break and thoroughly ventilate the kitchen.
During the operation of the gas stove, the doors to the kitchen must be closed and the window leaf open. This will ensure that combustion products are removed through the street and not through living rooms.
After finishing the work of the gas stove, it is advisable to ventilate not only the kitchen, but also the entire apartment. Through ventilation is desirable.
Never use a gas stove to heat and dry laundry. You won't light a fire in the middle of the kitchen for this purpose, will you?