Five Ways to create a Healthy Home in Edgecliff
Have you ever thought of your home as being healthy or unhealthy? While the concept of a healthy home might be brand-new to some of us, it is steadily getting popularity with homeowners. A healthy home can include a number of elements from building materials used to construct your home to utilizing non-toxic cleaning products. Below is a list of 5 ways to assist you in creating a healthy home environment.
1. Clean Air and Circulation:
Here are some little known realities about the air inside many of today’s homes:
Indoor air toxin levels might be 2 to 5 times higher than the toxin levels outdoors.
Indoor air toxin is one of the top environmental issues today.
Australians spend approximately 90% of their time inside your home.
Indoor air pollutants such as tobacco smoke, pollen, mold, dust, and animal dander have the ability to create asthmatic and allergies.
Listed below are a couple of ways to improve the quality of your indoor air:
Consider an Indoor Air Cleanser. You can also set up exhaust fans in bathrooms to help eliminate wetness and chemicals from your home.
Update the air filters on your furnace with the pleated filters that capture smaller sized particles. Change the filters regularly as recommended by the manufacturer’s guidelines.
You can also use indoor houseplants to aid in cleansing your home’s air. For example, 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 might trigger 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 fabric.
Dust your wood, 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 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 bigger. 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 regularly to make sure they are not launching 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 guarantee that the fragrances in your house are tidy and fresh is to prevent utilizing harsh cleaning products, which can produce fumes that might linger for days. Try utilizing natural components such as baking soda, vinegar, soda water, 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 small list of eco-friendly products available on the market today:
Organic cotton towels, linens, clothing
Mattresses bediing, pillows
Cork flooring, wool carpet
Sofas, chairs, ottomans
Toys and games for any age
Pet products
Soap and laundry detergents
Organic candles, home décor accessories
5. Use Safe, Non-Toxic Interior Paints that have extremely low VOC (volatile organic compounds) contentno formaldehydelow odor
Try utilizing any of the above ideas to create a healthy home environment. Although the concept of a healthy home is fairly brand-new to many, there are numerous resources available consisting of books, articles, and websites, where you can find extra info.
If you need environment cleaning services in Darling Point, Rushcutters Bay, Double Bay, Elizabeth Bay, Paddington, Woollahra, Potts Point, Darlinghurst, Woolloomooloo, Point Piper and Edgecliff, call us now!
All Natural, Chemical Free At Home Dry Cleaning Techniques
Perchloroethylene, better referred to as perc, is used by 80 percent of dry cleaners in Australia as a solvent to clean clothes that are “dry clean only.” Regardless of its efficiency, making use of this chemical has been connected to a variety of health negative effects and has recently come under heavy public scrutiny. With heavy regulation from relevant agencies, professional dry cleaners are seeking the use of a safer chemical– liquid carbon dioxide– 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 lowers the energy-burning, waste producing procedures that the professionals use.
The initial 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 properly aired out. Short-term contact can trigger dizziness, headaches, queasiness, and inflammation of the skin, eyes, nose, and throat, while long term exposure poses greater hazards, 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 importantly, exposure to carbon dioxide has no health negative effects. The only drawbacks for dry cleaning with CO2 are that it does not clean as well as perc does and the equipment needed to use it is extremely expensive, hence a greater rate is passed on to the customer.
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 sized spots and stains or that need to be freshened. Professional dry cleaning is a large 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 most states), these substances are harmful. At-home dry cleaning involves no greater than a cleaning cloth and your clothes dryer. There are no harmful chemicals involved and no waste.
While perc remains the most effective 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 ways we can lessen our carbon footprint, less attention has been paid to the effect that traditional 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 customer products, traditional 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 marketplace.
Conventional Cleaning Products
The majority of conventional cleaning products contain a variety of possibly harmful chemicals, in part because they are largely uncontrolled and in part because there are couple of labeling requirements. For example, many cleaning products contain phosphates (which are also a primary component of many fertilizers), which can infect water and rob lakes and rivers of oxygen. Likewise, many cleaning products with dyes and fragrances contain phthalates, and most incorporate other natural substances 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 instance) can intensify the products’ impacts on our health.
Green Cleaning Products
In response to the growing concern about the chemicals in cleaning products and their adverse impacts on our health and on the health of our planet, green cleaning products are being promoted. Some companies that make green products prohibit specific chemicals, and others make it a point to completely reveal all ingredients on labels. What they do not tell you, though, is that it’s absolutely possible to have a clean home without utilizing 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 ecologically conscious, one of 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 type of fabric means that you do not have to use paper towels, which add to the waste that negatively affects the environment. Additionally, this ultimate fabric is typically guaranteedto last 5 years, making it decidedly 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 fabric saves time, saves money, and, most importantly, assists in saving the earth.
Don’t forget that we are based in Darling Point, Rushcutters Bay, Double Bay, Elizabeth Bay, Paddington, Woollahra, Potts Point, Darlinghurst, Woolloomooloo, Point Piper and Edgecliff