Five Ways to create a Healthy Home in Bexley
Have you ever thought of your home as being healthy or unhealthy? While the principle of a healthy home may be new to some of us, it is progressively acquiring popularity with homeowners. A healthy home can include a number of elements from building products utilized to build your home to utilizing non-toxic cleaning products. Below is a list of five ways to help you in creating a healthy home environment.
1. Clean Air and Circulation:
Here are some unfamiliar truths about the air inside many of today’s homes:
Indoor air contaminant levels may be 2 to five times higher than the contaminant levels outdoors.
Indoor air contaminant is one of the top environmental concerns today.
Australians spend up to 90% of their time indoors.
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 Cleanser. You can also set up exhaust fans in restrooms to assist get rid of moisture and chemicals from your home.
Update the air filters on your heater with the pleated filters that capture smaller sized particles. Change the filters routinely as recommended by the manufacturer’s directions.
You can also use indoor houseplants to assist in purifying your home’s air. For instance, Boston Ferns clean 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 may trigger watery eyes, burning sensations in the eyes, nose and throat, queasiness, 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 routinely with a wet fabric.
Dust your wood, tile, linoleum, and laminate flooring routinely with a dust mop or a vacuum made for hard flooring.
Vacuum carpets, rugs, and upholstered furniture routinely. Consider buying a vacuum cleaner with a HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) filter. A HEPA filter is capable of getting rid of a minimum of 99.97% of all particles that are 0.3 microns or larger. In addition, consider utilizing 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 routinely to make sure they are not releasing dust in the air whenever 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 ensure that the fragrances in your home are clean and fresh is to prevent utilizing harsh cleaning products, which can produce fumes that may stick around for days. Try utilizing natural components such as baking soda, vinegar, soda water, and lemon juice.
For instance, 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 eco-friendly products available on the marketplace today:
Organic cotton towels, linens, clothing
Mattresses bediing, pillows
Cork flooring, wool carpet
Sofas, chairs, ottomans
Toys and games for all ages
Pet products
Soap and laundry detergents
Organic candles, home décor accessories
5. Use Safe, Non-Toxic Interior Paints that have really low VOC (volatile organic compounds) contentno formaldehydelow odor
Try utilizing any of the above tips to create a healthy home environment. Although the idea of a healthy home is relatively 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 Rockdale, Banksia, Kogarah, Bexley North, Bardwell Valley, Bardwell Park, Arncliffe, Carlton, Turrella, Kingsgrove and Bexley, call us now!
100% Natural, Chemical Free At Home Dry Cleaning Techniques
Perchloroethylene, much better known as perc, is utilized by 80 percent of dry cleaners in Australia as a solvent to clean clothing that are “dry clean only.” Despite its effectiveness, using this chemical has been linked to a series of health adverse 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 more secure chemical– liquid co2– to provide a green laundry alternative. At-home dry cleaning kits such as are offering the alternative of cost effective & ecologically safe dry cleaning, that cuts down the energy-burning, waste producing procedures that the professionals use.
The primary step to green dry cleaning is replacing harmful 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 risk to our health. Perc is a main nervous system depressant. Exposure to it can happen in the workplace 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 appropriately aired out. Short-term contact can trigger lightheadedness, headaches, queasiness, and inflammation of the skin, eyes, nose, and throat, while long term exposure poses higher risks, including liver and kidney damage and cancer.
Liquid carbon dioxide
Liquid carbon dioxide (CO2) seems 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 adverse 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 really costly, therefore a higher cost is passed on to the consumer.
A virtue of environmentalism is moderation. That being said, green dry cleanind is best accomplished if you do not dry clean at all or restrict 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 refreshed. Professional dry cleaning is a big process that utilizes 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 utilizing perc (it is still allowed in many states), these substances are harmful. At-home dry cleaning includes no greater than a cleaning cloth and your dryer. There are no harmful chemicals involved and no waste.
While perc is the most efficient dry cleaning solvent, using 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 consciousness about the effect that we, as humans, 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 effect that conventional cleaning products and techniques 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 eliminated 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 entering the market.
Conventional Cleaning Products
Many traditional cleaning products contain a variety of potentially harmful chemicals, in part because they are largely uncontrolled and in part because there are couple of labeling requirements. For instance, many cleaning products contain phosphates (which are also a primary component of many fertilizers), which can pollute water and rob lakes and rivers of oxygen. Likewise, many cleaning products with dyes and scents contain phthalates, and most integrate other natural substances into their formulas. Together, these chemicals can have negative effects on the neurological functions, respiration, and reproductive organs of humans 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’ results on our health.
Green Cleaning Products
In response to the growing concern about the chemicals in cleaning products and their negative results on our health and on the health of our planet, green cleaning products are being promoted. Some companies that make green products ban certain chemicals, and others make it a point to totally reveal all ingredients on labels. What they don’t tell you, however, is that it’s definitely possible to have a clean home without utilizing any cleaning products at all. Cleaning without products may take a bit more effort, but water alone will do the trick.
Why Water and a Cloth Functions Just as Well
For the ecologically conscious, among the best cleaning tools is a cloth – some would say the ultimate cloth – that utilizes mirafiber to produce a streak free, spot free, lint free, and dust free finish. Utilizing this kind of fabric means that you don’t have to use paper towels, which contribute to the waste that adversely affects the environment. Additionally, this ultimate fabric is generally guaranteedto last five years, making it extremely eco-friendly. Because it’s washable and bleachable, it can be utilized over and over again on practically any surface, from windows and glass to stainless-steel and Corian. Essentially, you just damp it, wring it, wipe your surface, and leave. This ultimate fabric saves time, saves money, and, most notably, helps save the earth.
Don’t forget that we are based in Rockdale, Banksia, Kogarah, Bexley North, Bardwell Valley, Bardwell Park, Arncliffe, Carlton, Turrella, Kingsgrove and Bexley