5 Ways to create a Healthy Home in Abbotsford
Have you ever thought about your home as being healthy or unhealthy? While the principle of a healthy home might be brand-new to some of us, it is steadily gaining popularity with homeowners. A healthy home can include a number of elements from building materials utilized to build your home to using non-toxic cleansing products. Below is a list of five ways to assist you in creating a healthy home environment.
1. Clean Air and Circulation:
Here are some little known facts about the air inside many of today’s homes:
Indoor air contaminant levels might be 2 to five times higher than the contaminant levels outdoors.
Indoor air contaminant is among the top environmental concerns today.
Australians spend up to 90% of their time inside.
Indoor air contaminants such as tobacco smoke, pollen, mold, dust, and animal dander have the ability to create asthmatic and allergic reactions.
Listed below are a few ways to improve the quality of your indoor air:
Consider an Indoor Air Purifier. You can also set up exhaust fans in bathrooms to assist get rid of wetness and chemicals from your home.
Upgrade the air filters on your heating system with the pleated filters that capture smaller particles. Change the filters regularly as recommended by the manufacturer’s instructions.
You can also use indoor houseplants to assist in purifying your home’s air. For example, Boston Ferns cleanse formaldehyde from the air. According to environmental experts, formaldehyde is a colorless, strong-smelling gas. When present in the air at levels above 0.1 ppm (parts in a million parts of air), it might trigger watery eyes, burning feelings in the eyes, nose and throat, nausea, coughing, chest tightness, wheezing, skin rashes, and allergic reactions. Formaldehyde can be found in insulation, particleboard, paper products and many cleaning products.
2.Dust-proof Your Home:
Dust your rooms and knickknacks regularly with a damp cloth.
Dust your hardwood, tile, linoleum, and laminate flooring regularly with a dust mop or a vacuum made for hard flooring.
Vacuum carpets, rugs, and upholstered furniture regularly. Consider purchasing a vacuum cleaner with a HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) filter. A HEPA filter can eliminating a minimum of 99.97% of all particles that are 0.3 microns or larger. In addition, consider using a bag-less vacuum to avoid the direct exposure of dust when you change a bag.
Frame pillows, mattresses, and box springs in an airtight, dust-proof cover.
Dust/clean ceiling fans regularly to make sure they are not releasing dust in the air whenever you run them.
Change dust-collecting blinds and long drapes with window shades or washable curtains.
3. Use Natural and Non-Toxic Cleaning Products:
One way to assure that the fragrances in your house are tidy and fresh is to prevent using harsh cleaning products, which can create fumes that might remain for days. Try using natural active ingredients such as baking soda, vinegar, soda water, and lemon juice.
For example, to make a natural glass cleaner, mix:
2 teaspoons white vinegarone quart of warm water
Mix ingredients together and pour into spray bottle. Spray on surface and wipe dry.
4. Fill Your Home with Natural and Earth-Friendly Products. Below is a little list of environment-friendly products available on the marketplace today:
Organic cotton towels, linens, clothing
Mattresses bediing, pillows
Cork flooring, wool carpet
Couches, chairs, ottomans
Toys and games for any age
Pet products
Soap and laundry detergents
Organic candles, home decoration accessories
5. Use Safe, Non-Toxic Interior Paints that have extremely low VOC (volatile organic compounds) contentno formaldehydelow smell
Try using any of the above ideas to create a healthy home environment. Although the idea of a healthy home is relatively brand-new to many, there are numerous resources readily available consisting of books, articles, and sites, where you can find additional info.
If you need environment cleaning services in Wareemba, Chiswick, Henley, Russell Lea, Cabarita, Five Dock, Canada Bay, Huntleys Cove, Breakfast Point, Huntleys Point and Abbotsford, call us now!
All Natural, Chemical Free At Home Dry Cleaning Techniques
Perchloroethylene, better referred to as perc, is utilized by 80 percent of dry cleaners in Australia as a solvent to wash clothes that are “dry clean only.” Regardless of its efficiency, the use of this chemical has been connected to a range of health side effects and has recently come under heavy public scrutiny. With heavy regulation from relevant agencies, professional dry cleaners are looking for the use of a safer chemical– liquid carbon dioxide– to provide a green laundry option. At-home dry cleaning kits such as are providing the choice of economical & ecologically safe dry cleaning, that cuts down the energy-burning, waste producing processes that the professionals use.
The first step to green dry cleaning is replacing hazardous chemicals with natural cleaning products. Perchloroethylene (perc) is a synthetic chemical that is made from a reaction between ethylene and chlorine. Like many syntheitic chemicals, it positions a hazard to our health. Perc is a main nerve system depressant. Exposure to it can take place in the office or in the environment when it is released into air, water, land, or groundwater. It can also occur when people use products consisting of perc, spend time in dry cleaning facilities that use perc, live above or adjacent to these dry cleaning facilities, or bring dry cleaned garments into their home before they are effectively aired out. Short-term contact can trigger dizziness, headaches, nausea, and irritation of the skin, eyes, nose, and throat, while long term direct exposure presents greater risks, including liver and kidney damage and cancer.
Liquid carbon dioxide
Liquid carbon dioxide (CO2) appears to be the most practical green dry cleaning solvent to replace perchloroethylene. It is cheap, plentiful, naturally occurring and can even be recycled from the industrial wastes from the manufacture of chemicals such as ammonia. Most significantly, direct exposure to carbon dioxide has no health side effects. The only disadvantages for dry cleansing with CO2 are that it does not clean as well as perc does and the machinery required to use it is extremely costly, therefore a greater rate is passed on to the consumer.
A virtue of environmentalism is moderation. That being stated, green dry cleanind is best accomplished if you do not dry tidy at all or restrict the use ofprofessional dry cleaning by utilizing at-home dry cleaning kits for garments with smaller spots and stains or that need to be freshened. Professional dry cleaning is a large process that uses a great deal of energy and produces a great deal of waste in the form of powder residue, sludge and wastewater. If the dry cleaner is still using perc (it is still allowed in many states), these compounds are dangerous. At-home dry cleaning includes no more than a cleaning cloth and your clothes dryer. There are no hazardous chemicals involved and no waste.
While perc is the most effective dry cleaning solvent, the use of natural cleaning products and at-home dry cleaning can only be beneficial to our health and our environment.
Green Cleaning Gets a Boost with the Ultimate Cloth
No one would argue that there’s a growing awareness about the impact that we, as people, have on the environment. While much of the media’s focus has been on greenhouse gas emissions and the ways we can reduce our carbon footprint, less attention has been paid to the impact that standard cleaning products and methods have on our health and on the environment. Although chlorofluorocarbons have long been acknowledged as contributing to the exhaustion of the earth’s ozone layer, and have been largely removed from consumer products, conventional cleaning products continue to have a destructive effect on the environment. To that end, there has been a wave of “green cleaning” products getting in the market.
Conventional Cleaning Products
Most traditional cleaning products contain a variety of possibly hazardous chemicals, in part because they are largely unregulated and in part because there are couple of labeling requirements. For example, many cleaning products contain phosphates (which are also a main element of many fertilizers), which can contaminate water and rob lakes and rivers of oxygen. Also, many cleaning products with dyes and scents contain phthalates, and most incorporate other organic compounds into their formulas. Together, these chemicals can have adverse results on the neurological functions, respiration, and reproductive organs of people and wildlife. Our use of several different cleaning agents at once (a window cleaner, a basin cleanser, and a toilet bowl cleaner, for example) can intensify the products’ effects on our health.
Green Cleaning Products
In reaction to the growing concern about the chemicals in cleaning products and their adverse effects on our health and on the health of our world, green cleaning products are being touted. Some companies that make green products prohibit certain chemicals, and others make it a point to fully reveal all ingredients on labels. What they don’t tell you, however, is that it’s definitely possible to have a clean home without using any cleaning products at all. Cleaning without products might take a bit more elbow grease, but water alone will do the trick.
Why Water and a Cloth Functions Just as Well
For the ecologically conscious, among the very best cleaning tools is a cloth – some would say the ultimate cloth – that uses mirafiber to produce a streak free, spot free, lint free, and dust free finish. Utilizing this type of cloth means that you don’t have to use paper towels, which add to the waste that adversely impacts the environment. Furthermore, this ultimate cloth is usually guaranteedto last five years, making it extremely environment-friendly. Because it’s washable and bleachable, it can be utilized over and over again on essentially any surface, from windows and glass to stainless steel and Corian. Generally, you just damp it, wring it, clean your surface, and walk away. This ultimate cloth saves time, saves money, and, most significantly, helps save the earth.
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