5 Ways to create a Healthy Home in Annandale
Have you ever thought about your home as being healthy or unhealthy? While the idea of a healthy home might be brand-new to a few of us, it is steadily getting popularity with house owners. A healthy home can include a number of elements from building products used to build your home to using non-toxic cleaning products. Below is a list of 5 methods to help you in developing a healthy home environment.
1. Clean Air and Circulation:
Here are some unknown truths about the air inside many of today’s homes:
Indoor air contaminant levels might be 2 to 5 times higher than the contaminant levels outdoors.
Indoor air contaminant is among the top environmental issues today.
Australians spend approximately 90% of their time inside your home.
Indoor air toxins such as tobacco smoke, pollen, mold, dust, and animal dander have the ability to create asthmatic and allergies.
Listed below are a few methods to improve the quality of your indoor air:
Consider an Indoor Air Cleanser. You can also install exhaust fans in restrooms to help eliminate wetness and chemicals from your home.
Update the air filters on your furnace with the pleated filters that catch smaller sized particles. Change the filters regularly as recommended by the manufacturer’s instructions.
You can also use indoor houseplants to aid in cleansing 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 cause watery eyes, burning feelings in the eyes, nose and throat, queasiness, coughing, chest tightness, wheezing, skin rashes, and allergies. 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, carpets, and upholstered furniture regularly. Consider purchasing a vacuum with a HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) filter. A HEPA filter is capable of 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 exposure of dust when you change a bag.
Encase pillows, mattresses, and box springs in an airtight, dust-proof cover.
Dust/clean ceiling fans regularly to make sure they are not launching dust in the air each time you run them.
Replace 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 home are clean and fresh is to prevent using harsh cleaning products, which can create fumes that might linger for days. Try using natural active ingredients such as baking soda, vinegar, club soda, and lemon juice.
For example, to make a natural glass cleaner, combine:
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 eco-friendly products available on the market today:
Organic cotton towels, linens, clothes
Mattresses bediing, pillows
Cork flooring, wool carpet
Couches, chairs, ottomans
Toys and games for any age
Pet products
Soap and laundry cleaning agents
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 recommendations to create a healthy home environment. Although the concept of a healthy home is fairly brand-new to many, there are numerous resources readily available consisting of books, articles, and websites, where you can find extra info.
If you need environment cleaning services in Forest Lodge, Lilyfield, Leichhardt, Camperdown, Glebe, Stanmore, Newtown, Enmore, Rozelle, Darlington and Annandale, call us now!
All Natural, Chemical Free At Home Dry Cleaning Methods
Perchloroethylene, much better called perc, is used by 80 percent of dry cleaners in Australia as a solvent to wash clothes that are “dry clean only.” Despite its effectiveness, making use of this chemical has been connected to a series of health negative 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 much safer chemical– liquid co2– to provide a green laundry option. At-home dry cleaning kits such as are offering the alternative of economical & environmentally safe dry cleaning, that reduces the energy-burning, waste producing processes that the professionals use.
The primary 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 threat to our health. Perc is a main nerve system depressant. Direct exposure to it can happen in the office or in the environment when it is released into air, water, land, or groundwater. It can also take place 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 properly aired out. Short-term contact can cause dizziness, headaches, queasiness, and irritation of the skin, eyes, nose, and throat, while long term exposure presents greater hazards, 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, abundant, naturally occurring and can even be recycled from the industrial wastes from the manufacture of chemicals such as ammonia. Most notably, exposure to co2 has no health negative effects. The only downsides for dry cleaning with CO2 are that it does not clean as well as perc does and the machinery required to use it is extremely expensive, hence a higher cost is passed on to the customer.
A virtue of environmentalism is moderation. That being stated, green dry cleanind is best achieved if you do not dry clean at all or limit the use ofprofessional dry cleaning by using at-home dry cleaning kits for garments with smaller sized spots and stains or that need to be freshened. Professional dry cleaning is a big 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 the majority of states), these substances are hazardous. At-home dry cleaning involves no greater than a cleaning cloth and your clothes dryer. There are no hazardous chemicals involved and no waste.
While perc remains the most efficient dry cleaning solvent, making 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
Nobody would argue that there’s a growing awareness about the effect that we, as people, have on the environment. While much of the media’s focus has been on greenhouse gas emissions and the methods we can lessen our carbon footprint, less attention has been paid to the effect that traditional cleaning products and approaches 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 customer products, traditional cleaning products continue to have a destructive impact on the environment. To that end, there has been a wave of “green cleaning” products entering the market.
Conventional Cleaning Products
The majority of traditional cleaning products contain a range of possibly hazardous chemicals, in part because they are largely unregulated and in part because there are few labeling requirements. For example, many cleaning products contain phosphates (which are also a main element of many fertilizers), which can pollute water and rob lakes and rivers of oxygen. Also, many cleaning products with dyes and scents contain phthalates, and most incorporate other organic substances into their formulas. Together, these chemicals can have negative effects on the neurological functions, respiration, and reproductive organs of people and wildlife. Our use of several different cleaning agents at the same time (a window cleaner, a basin cleanser, and a toilet bowl cleaner, for instance) 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 negative effects on our health and on the health of our planet, green cleaning products are being touted. Some companies that make green products ban certain chemicals, and others make it a point to completely disclose all ingredients on labels. What they do not 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 effort, but water alone will do the trick.
Why Water and a Cloth Works Just as Well
For the environmentally mindful, among the 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. Using this kind of cloth means that you do not have to use paper towels, which contribute to the waste that negatively affects the environment. Additionally, this ultimate cloth is typically guaranteedto last 5 years, making it extremely eco-friendly. Because it’s washable and bleachable, it can be used over and over again on virtually any surface, from windows and glass to stainless steel and Corian. Essentially, you just wet it, wring it, wipe your surface, and walk away. This ultimate cloth saves time, saves money, and, most notably, helps save the earth.
Don’t forget that we are based in Forest Lodge, Lilyfield, Leichhardt, Camperdown, Glebe, Stanmore, Newtown, Enmore, Rozelle, Darlington and Annandale