Road pollution (Do you live on a busy road?)

[EEvermore]

Hello,

I’m hoping to get advice from anyone who may live on or near to a busy road.

DH and I have just bought our first house in the city of Edinburgh, and whilst most things are perfect with the house, the road it’s on is MUCH busier than I ever thought. There’s a constant stream of traffic from 7am - 10pm (the house is on the main route to the motorway from our side of the city).

I’m becoming rather concerned about the level of road pollution which is fuelling a growing buyers regret and making me resent this house purchase. I am a very anxious person, and so this is a constant worry in my head - it doesn’t help there’s so many articles online warning about living next to a busy road. I’ve forbidden DH from opening any windows at the front of the house, bought indoor plants and even an air purifier.

It would be great to hear from anyone else who lives on a busy road. Is this a concern you have? Or am I being just super paranoid?

Yes we live on an A road in outer London. It is a concern with the air quality but luckily things are improving. It's the wood burners that you can smell in winter that cause the worse pollution when they're going, cars are getting gradually cleaner.
Probably if you worry, the worry is worse for you than the pollution!

Do you have a front garden? If so you put in certain shrubs/trees which are good for cleaning the air. Look up the Nasa list of best indoor plants for cleaning the air. I agree with the pp - as electric cars become more popular this should become less of a problem.

Our road is a busy road. We've lived here over 20 years and many of our neighbours have lived here 40 years of more.
It isn't something I worry about. I don't stand on my doorstep inhaling the traffic fumes day after day - I get out of the car and step into the house.

We have a 8 foot evergreen hedge at the front of the house which blocks most of the traffic visual from the downstairs (obviously upstairs has a clear shot onto the road).

This may be a silly question, but do you feel like the house offers protection against the road fumes? My concern is having the windows and vents closed at the front enough protection? Also I want to enjoy the back garden in the summer... but I'm wondering if this will put me off... we've just bought this house, so I'm having major worries in these early days.

I'm not sure I really understand what you are asking.
My dc were little when we moved in here. They've all grown up playing in the back garden.
Then moved on to BBQs, parties, sleep outs etc in the garden, or just sitting out there with a beer or a cuppa.

Take a look at this hedge and see if the leaves are dirty and covered with grime on the road side. They might not be as bad as you think. If they are, clean them so they can continue to absorb fumes etc. Other than that don't worry too much. You have to enjoy your house and your garden.

Also you could ask your neighbours about it - have they done anything differently?

This is an interesting comment - the hedge is clean and so are our road-facing windows (we haven't cleaned them in months). Is that a good sign then?

Yes, I would take it as a good sign. 👍

I wouldn't because it has been chucking it down with rain for as long as I can remember.

The local pollution monitoring is probably a lot more accurate than looking at the state of a hedge.

If the windows are still clean I would take this as a good sign, my windows get filthy very quickly I don’t live on a busy traffic road but we have endless building work being done by feels like half the road, doesn’t stop me airing the house daily & spending time in my garden, please don’t let this spoil the enjoyment of your home.

I have raise my DCs in this house which is on an A road, we have had windows open and played in the garden lots over the years. All of us are healthy (so far!)

The rain won't necessarily wash away grime. Usually you need a detergent to do that.

Our house is very close to a major road and I was worried about this when we moved in, so I bought an indoor air quality monitor that measures CO2 and PM2.5 (small particles). It showed that the air was very clean - except when we're cooking!

There's also various online maps like this you can check: https://www.iqair.com/uk

Would you be able to share a link to this device? I can’t see one that checks both co2 and pm2.5 (or are they the same thing?)

Also out of interest, does the monitor increase when you are outside near the cars?

Yep - it doesn't bother me. The times it's bothered me are when they have roadworks going on so we have a traffic queue outside (by the end of it the kids were viewing the queue as some kind of extra family pet) and recently when we had a stonking pothole appear outside so the lorries were banging over it until it was repaired - and we collected a few dislodged wheeltrims as well.

Don't notice the traffic noise if the windows are shut - and during the summer we tend to run a bedroom airconditioning unit anyway so the white noise from that drowns out the traffic noise.

Genuinely don't hear it in the back garden and the kids enjoy being out there, and I tend to have the patio doors out back open.

The nature reserve over the road causes me more problems personally with my blooming hayfever.

I’ve just bought an air monitor, and this is what it is showing, so it would seem that despite living next to a busy road, the air quality is actually fine?

5.5 PM2.5
22 AQI

(We do live in a Scottish city too which may have something to do with it).