Moving into a new home

The first month in a new home is unusually high-signal. Off-gassing from new furniture, freshly painted walls, recently shampooed carpets, and any renovation done before move-in can take weeks to die down. The VOC index will not show that as a steady high number: it compares the air with the sensor's own recent history, which it relearns over about a day, so a level that stays high soon reads as normal again. Expect a jump each time something new starts emitting (a sofa unwrapped, a room painted) and a return toward 100 within about a day, and don't read too much into the first month's patterns.

PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ rise during unpacking (dust on box contents, settled particulate disturbed during furniture placement) and decay over the first week as the new arrangement stabilizes. Humidity often runs high for the first 2 weeks (cleaning, opened-up materials releasing absorbed water) before settling to the home's steady-state pattern. CO₂ patterns appear once occupancy stabilizes; Terrestream needs several nights of history before it knows a bedroom's usual overnight CO₂ pattern.

Practical guidance for the first month: ventilate aggressively (open windows whenever outdoor air permits), run HEPA filtration continuously, delay placing new furniture in bedrooms (give it 2-3 weeks to off-gas in a less-occupied room first), and avoid additional cleaning-product VOC pulses on top of the existing load. New mattresses are notable; vinyl flooring is notable; any wood product with CARB Phase 2 or TSCA Title VI labels is significantly less notable than the same product without those labels.

After the first month, Terrestream's baseline stabilizes. The 30-day median by parameter is a reliable representation of your steady-state home. If a parameter is still notably elevated at the 30-day mark, that is your structural baseline, not the move-in effect: time to investigate sources rather than wait.