I have been racking my brain and searching google to try and figure out the source of the VOCs in my house. I've discovered a few, but they don't quite make sense to me and I'm still confused as to what may be causing the current spikes.
The Furnace
The furnace and blower have one majorly obvious problem to fix. The air intake does not pull air from outside the house and instead pulls air directly from the basement. (furnace and fan only)
I'm planning to have this fixed. However, I ran a test where I opened every single door and window in my house (even in the basement) and ran the blower motor (fan w/ all windows). I would have expected all the inside air to be exchange with outside air and have super low VOCs. Most windows in my home have been open for the past 4 days at this point.
I'm hoping to have an HVAC tech come by this week and fix the air intake so it pulls from outside the house, but at this point I'm not really confident that will help. Something seems inherent to the ductwork/blower that is causing the VOCs.
Night
This is what I can't understand, and I've tried reading many, many sites on Google, but they are all very vague. Why do the VOCs in my house spike at night? I live in a small town and it has been getting to around 40F at night; I can't really figure out where these VOCs come from. Almost all of my windows are open now and if these VOCs are coming from outside my house it won't matter if the HVAC tech fixes the air intake or not.
The sensor is in my bedroom, but I have all bedroom windows open all night.
Help?
I need some idea on how to specifically identify the source of these VOCs. Which chemical is it and from what are they coming from? Is there something non-intuitive where by ventilating the house I'm inviting VOCs in? I don't know.
Addendum
Does mold actually create detectable VOCs? https://www.americanairandwater.com/mold/
