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5 Ways to create a Healthy Home in Hurlstone Park

Have you ever considered your home as being healthy or unhealthy? While the principle of a healthy home may be new to a few of us, it is gradually getting popularity with homeowners. A healthy home can include a number of elements from building materials used to build your home to utilizing 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 little known facts about the air inside many of today’s houses:
Indoor air contaminant levels may be two to 5 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 indoors.
Indoor air contaminants such as tobacco smoke, pollen, mold, dust, and animal dander have the capability to create asthmatic and allergies.
Listed below are a couple of methods to improve the quality of your indoor air:
Consider an Indoor Air Purifier. 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 furnace with the pleated filters that capture smaller sized particles. Change the filters regularly as recommended by the manufacturer’s instructions.
You can also use indoor houseplants to aid 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 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 wood, 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 buying a vacuum 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.
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 guarantee that the fragrances in your house are tidy and fresh is to avoid utilizing harsh cleaning products, which can create fumes that may stick around for days. Try utilizing natural components such as baking soda, vinegar, club soda, 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 small list of environment-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 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 utilizing any of the above recommendations to create a healthy home environment. Although the concept of a healthy home is reasonably new to many, there are numerous resources available including books, articles, and sites, where you can find additional information.

If you need environment cleaning services in Canterbury, Dulwich Hill, Ashbury, Earlwood, Lewisham, Summer Hill, Marrickville, Ashfield, Turrella, Petersham and Hurlstone Park, call us now!

All Natural, Chemical Free At Home Dry Cleaning Approaches

Perchloroethylene, better called perc, is used by 80 percent of dry cleaners in Australia as a solvent to wash clothing that are “dry clean only.” Despite its effectiveness, making use of this chemical has been linked 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 much safer chemical– liquid co2– to provide a green laundry option. At-home dry cleaning kits such as are providing the option 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 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 danger to our health. Perc is a main nervous system depressant. Exposure to it can take place 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 effectively aired out. Short-term contact can cause dizziness, headaches, queasiness, and irritation of the skin, eyes, nose, and throat, while long term exposure poses higher threats, 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 importantly, exposure to co2 has no health negative effects. The only disadvantages for dry cleaning with CO2 are that it does not clean as well as perc does and the machinery needed to use it is extremely pricey, hence a greater price is passed on to the customer.

A virtue of environmentalism is moderation. That being said, green dry cleanind is best attained if you do not dry tidy 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 refreshed. 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 many states), these substances are dangerous. At-home dry cleaning includes no more than a cleaning cloth and your clothes dryer. There are no harmful chemicals involved and no waste.

While perc remains the most reliable 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 consciousness 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 decrease our carbon footprint, less attention has been paid to the effect that standard cleaning products and techniques have on our health and on the environment. Although chlorofluorocarbons have long been acknowledged as contributing to the depletion of the earth’s ozone layer, and have been largely removed from customer products, traditional cleaning products continue to have a damaging 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 traditional cleaning products contain a variety of possibly harmful chemicals, in part since they are largely unregulated and in part since there are few labeling requirements. For instance, many cleaning products contain phosphates (which are also a primary 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 integrate other natural compounds 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 a number of different cleaning agents simultaneously (a window cleaner, a basin cleanser, and a toilet bowl cleaner, for example) can exacerbate 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 world, green cleaning products are being touted. Some companies that make green products ban specific chemicals, and others make it a point to totally 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 may take a bit more elbow grease, 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 kind of cloth means that you do not have to use paper towels, which contribute to the waste that adversely affects the environment. Furthermore, this ultimate cloth is generally guaranteedto last 5 years, making it decidedly environment-friendly. Since 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. Generally, you just wet it, wring it, clean your surface, and leave. This ultimate cloth saves time, saves money, and, most importantly, assists in saving the earth.

Don’t forget that we are based in Canterbury, Dulwich Hill, Ashbury, Earlwood, Lewisham, Summer Hill, Marrickville, Ashfield, Turrella, Petersham and Hurlstone Park