How To Ensure You Have A Healthy Home
It’s been reported that air pollution can be greater in your home than outdoors, which is a shocking thing to think about.
Fortunately there are simple things you can do every day to keep your home healthy, happy and safe for the entire family.
Check Financial Health
First and foremost, you must check that the home is in good financial health. If it isn’t you will find it very hard to implement any green updates. The process starts before you even enter the home. It begins with checks for mortgage eligibility and affordability. If you are already in a property, you can consider the prospect of remortgaging to get better interest rates too. Meanwhile, before completing any home upgrades, you should check to see if any government schemes are available. In many cases, some of the costs can be reimbursed as your projects support the road to a carbon-neutral society. Any savings can be reinvested into further eco-friendly updates.
Take an audit
Spend time thinking about your own home. Do you use toxic cleaning products that can harm you and the environment such as bleach or powerful drain cleaners? Do you use air fresheners instead of opening the windows? If you’ve been decorating recently, have you used toxic paints or bought new furnishings that are off gassing chemicals like formaldehyde? Is there mould in your showerroom, bathroom or kitchen? All these things can give you clues that your home is not as healthy as it could be.
Get Into A Routine
Routines can feel boring but they help keep us on track. I prefer the ‘little and often’ approach to cleaning and tidying which can feel much less overwhelming. As the popular system FlyLady says – you can do anything for 15 minutes. So pick one item from your audit that you’re going to work on and write a plan for tackling it. Perhaps you’ll research safer air fresheners or look at options for removing mould.
Contact A Professional
There will be people out there that can do things you can’t. If you ever become a little stuck with what you’re doing, you shouldn’t hesitate to call up a professional. There are lots of different domestic professions out there: Pest Control services, window cleaners, plumbers and many more that can solve your problems for you. All you’d have to do is hand over some money and put your feet up!
Go Green
An eco-friendly home is one that brings better health to your home whilst contributing positively towards the outside world, too! And bringing some green into your home can be one of the best things you do. Research by NASA has shown that some houseplants, such as the Peace Lilly or Boston Fern or English Ivy can remove chemicals like formaldehyde and benzene from the air.
Stay On Top Of It
Once you’ve made some good changes, such as switching to eco friendly cleaning products, finding less harmful paints and furnishings and removing mould, it’s important to stay on top of things. The last thing you’ll want to do is have a big pile-up of errands again. Being responsible and keeping a keen eye on everything should ensure that you have a well maintained and fresh home for the whole family to enjoy