Priscilla Ouchida’s “energy-efficient” house turned out to be a horrible dream. When she and her engineer husband married a few years ago, they built a $100,000, three-bedroom home in California. Tightly sealed to prevent air leaks, the house was equipped with small double-paned windows and several other energy-saving features. Problems began as soon as the couple moved in, however. Priscilla’s eyes burned. Her throat was constantly dry. She suffered from headaches and could hardly sleep. It was as though she had suddenly developed a strange illness.
普里西拉·乌奇达的“节能”房子变成了一个可怕的梦。几年前，当她和她的工程师丈夫结婚时，他们在加利福尼亚州建造了一栋价值10万美元的三居室住宅。为了防止空气泄漏，这所房子被严密地密封起来，安装了小的双层玻璃窗户和其他几个节能功能。然而，这对夫妇一搬进来，问题就开始了。普里西拉的眼睛被灼伤了。她的喉咙一直很干。她头疼得几乎睡不着。她好像突然得了一种奇怪的病。
Experts finally traced the cause of her illness. The level of formaldehyde gas in her kitchen was twice the maximum allowed by federal standards for chemical workers. The source of the gas? Her new kitchen cabinets and wall-to-wall carpeting.
专家们终于找到了她的病因。她的厨房里的甲醛气体含量是联邦化学工作者标准允许的最高含量的两倍。气体的来源？她的新橱柜和地毯。
The Ouchidas are victims of indoor air pollution, which is not given sufficient attention partly because of the nation’s drive to save energy. The problem itself isn’t new. “The indoor environment was dirty long before energy conservation came along,” says Moschandreas, a pollution scientist at Geomet Technologies in Maryland. “Energy conservation has tended to accentuate the situation in some cases.”
乌奇达一家是室内空气污染的受害者，而室内空气污染没有得到足够的关注，部分原因是国家努力节约能源。这个问题本身并不新鲜。马里兰州Geomet Technologies的污染科学家Moschandreas说：“早在节能出现之前，室内环境就很脏。在某些情况下，节能往往会加剧这种情况。”
The problem appears to be more troublesome in newly constructed homes rather than old ones. Back in the days when energy was cheap, home builders didn’t worry much about unsealed cracks. Because of such leaks, the air in an average home was replaced by fresh outdoor air about once an hour. As a result, the pollutants generated in most households seldom build up to dangerous levels.
新建房屋中的这个问题似乎比在旧房屋中更麻烦。在能源价格低廉的年代，房屋建筑商并不太担心未密封的裂缝。由于这种泄漏，一个普通家庭的空气大约每小时被一次新鲜的室外空气所取代。因此，大多数家庭产生的污染物很少达到危险水平。
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