If you are building or renovating this may be the most important web page on the internet you will ever visit. Read on...

Take a look at the instrumentation inside the car. This photo lent to us by INNOVA, is the same stuff which better automobile manufactures employ to determine how you feel inside their products. Have you noticed how manufactures offer heated (and now cooled seats), put zoning controls in the front and back, made the interiors more sound proof, and the air of better quality?  These features came after doing extensive consumer based research. The results are being used to create the ideal environment for your driving pleasure.

So here's the million dollar question for educated consumers...

Why are you willing to invest hundreds of thousands of your dollars (more than the price of your new car or liposuction) into a home where you will spend most of your time and you don't really know whether you will be  comfortable in it or not?  As odd as it seems, people spend more time researching beds, linens, sports and audio equipment then they do their own environments. If you treated your investment in your indoor environment like non elective surgery you might end up with better results...anyways, the car manufacturers know and care about your physiological and psychological comfort and it shows by their research and the introduction of healthy and comfortable features and benefits - but do your builders or renovators who construct to minimum codes? Surveys say "no". As bizarre it sounds, consumers listen and mistakenly buy into advertisements convincing you that comfort is a piece of mechanical equipment or it comes from lighting, colors, fabrics or textures.  You see, everybody does it but very few really put comfort into real terms...you can buy a heating system from a comfort specialist, sit in a comfortable chair, walk on comfortable flooring, wear comfortable clothes all under comfortable lighting and soothing music but still feel miserable!  The majority of sales and marketing folks selling stuff for your home can't tell you about true human comfort. However, health professionals like doctors, nurses and pharmacists and building scientists know human comfort is a complex physiological and psychological experience - fortunately science has done sufficient research that a special kind of interior design professional is capable of specifying environments regulated by architectural/mechanical systems to meet both North American and European Thermal Comfort Standards.  Yes Standards - bet you didn't know there were comfort standards - don't worry - you are not alone, most veterans in the building industry don't know either.

That's why this is the most important web site you can study when it comes to your new home or renovation - its your money and your decision where to invest it...we know your thermal comfort is worth it.

Learn more about Indoor Environmental Quality

Be sure to read Three Design Rules for Aging Boomers

1. Credit/Reference: Innova AirTech Instruments A/S, Denmark