Can’t Stop Sneezing? Get Your Ducts Cleaned

Heating and cooling systems are a necessity, especially for homes located in a place with four distinct seasons and temperature extremes. While these systems are efficient in cooling and heating a home, they tend to collect a lot of dust and dirt despite having filters installed, inevitably bringing them around the house through their vents and ducts.

Along with dust and dirt, your HVAC’s forced air components could be bringing different things with it like dust mites, fungi, bacteria, viruses, mold, pollen, allergens, and more. If you find yourself sneezing uncontrollably and your allergies acting up a lot, then maybe it’s time to have professionals step in and clean up your ducts.

According to the National Air Duct Cleaners Association, having your ducts cleaned helps improve indoor air quality as it removes most of the dust that gets circulated around your home. For example, the NADCA says that in a six-room home, a duct can accumulate up to 40 pounds of dust in a year. This dust buildup would then be re-circulated 5 to 7 times in a day, tickling your noses, making you itchy, and triggering your allergies.

Through duct cleaning, dust accumulation could be prevented, and ducts and vents could be sanitized, eliminating any harmful elements that could harm your health.

Tips for Allergy-Proofing Your House

For an unhygienic household, allergy season is year-round, since bacteria essentially hold a permanent residence just as much as the residents. You need to be able to clean your house in a way that it’s free of most allergens. The first step is to prevent any chances that might make your family members’ allergy act up.

Start with the bedroom, since your family spends and average of six to eight hours a day here. Buy hypo-allergenic mattresses and pillows to replace your old ones. Be sure to wash the sheets often to keep them from becoming a marketplace of different types of harmful bacteria and viruses. You should also have your bedroom checked for bedbugs and dust mites while you’re at it.

If you can, opt for hardwood floors without carpets, since these things attract a whole lot of microorganisms and diseases that might be detrimental to your family’s health. If you don’t want to get rid of your trusty carpet, vacuum it often and have it deep cleaned every few months.

Doormats aren’t just for decorative purposes; they make excellent buffer points between your home and the ground outside. Teach your family to wipe their shoes properly before stepping on your floor or carpet so as to keep them from letting in all sorts of germs throughout your house.

Why Carpet Cleaning Is Important

Carpets enhance the aesthetic appearance of a room when spread over the floor. Along with their visual appeal, however, carpets also absorb dust and dirt. In fact, millions of microscopic dust mites live in carpet fibres. The protein found in the body parts of these tiny creatures is airborne and can trigger allergies in humans, thereby creating health problems.

Therefore, it is necessary to keep a carpet clean at all times to avoid health ailments. Cleaning carpets eliminates offensive odours, prevents the formation of molds and fungal particles in the material, removes dust and allergens and maintains carpet quality. Having a clean carpet also means enjoying clean air and decreasing one’s chances of having skin allergies or contracting diseases such as eczema or asthma. Moreover, proper carpet cleaning means reducing infections that may harm pets.

To ensure clean carpets, hiring a professional and reliable carpet cleaner is a must. Carpet cleaning companies are fully equipped to clean dirty carpets. They have all the tools and machines needed to provide a professional cleaning job. As a specialist, their team should have the knowledge and skills to handle different types of carpets. Whether it’s wool or nylon, these carpet cleaning experts would know exactly what to do to prevent permanent damage.

Why Dirt in the House is a No-No

Homeowners having trouble juggling nine-to-five jobs and responsibilities to their families find it hard to devote adequate time and attention in maintaining the cleanliness of their havens. However, neglecting the dust and filth slowly gathering in every nook and cranny of the home can lead to unspeakable horrors inhabitants may suffer from.

For individuals who like to take pride in living the good life, a home that hasn’t been touched by a rag, broom, vacuum, or any cleaning equipment for the longest time can become a huge liability. Aside from having a low market value, a dirty house can give others the impression that the inhabitants don’t care about hygiene. Grime lurking in the corners of the home will stain not only the once immaculate walls but also the reputation of individuals.

A disheveled home isn’t just an eyesore; it’s also a breeding ground of disease-causing bacteria that can cause more than just a sore. The buildup of rubbish in the home may put the health of the inhabitants at risk, making them more susceptible to many illnesses, some of which can be fatal if untreated.

Don’t place you and your family in danger. Find a way to do general house cleaning on a regular basis. It would surely keep the people you care about away from mortal danger.

Steps to Correct Carpet Cleaning

There’s a way to clean the carpet and a way to properly clean it. A vacuum cleaner, no matter how frequently it runs on the carpet surface, can’t remove deep-seated dirt and odor effectively. The usual recommendation is to call cleaning professionals to give the floor spread some serious disinfection. This could put a homeowner’s mind at ease for several months. However, if you’re up to the tedious task, here are the steps in deep-cleaning carpets.

First, get a steamer or wet cleaner machine from your local hardware or cleaning store. Get the cleaning products out for one intense shampooing of the carpet. Before proceeding to the next course, make sure the carpet has been thoroughly vacuumed.

Once the vacuum cleaner has been stored in its rightful place, spray traffic lane cleaner solution (otherwise known as the pre-spray) on the carpet. Pay particular attention to spots dirtier than the others and spray or, better yet, pour an abundant amount of the solution on them.

After filling the steamer with hot tap water, begin cleaning the carpet using a shampoo product that’s not too harsh to prevent damage to the carpet material. Let the carpet dry overnight and don’t let family members walk on it until moisture has fully evaporated.

Carpet Etiquette: Remove Shoes and Keep Socks On

Rule number one in carpet etiquette: remove your shoes before entering someone’s home. Dirt and grime should be left at the foyer, and should never be transferred to the carpet. However, for health reasons, ask the visitors to keep their socks on while they’re inside the home. At the very least, offer them some indoor slippers to wear while they’re inside. Just make sure to clean them after use.

In many cases, taking off shoes before entering a home is seen as good manners—in addition to keeping dirt and bacteria off the carpet. Without these house rules, outdoor dirt and grime will find its way into your carpet, which will only add to your cleaning burden. In addition, taking off shoes while keeping socks on benefits visitors, as it prevents their feet from contracting lethal bacteria. In Singapore, there was a recent case concerning a woman who had warts growing out of one foot after walking barefoot.

Just imagine how much you’d save on carpet cleaning costs if you’d politely asked your visitors to take their shoes off in exchange for indoor slippers. It’s not a sign of rudeness; since they’re the visitors, they’re obligated to respect your wishes. On the other hand, you’ll need to do your guests a favor by having your carpet cleaned regularly. This will safeguard the health of your home’s occupants as well.

A Quick Guide to Cleaning Your Ducts

The air duct is where the air within your house passes through when you’re using your heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system. Failure to clean it regularly will cause dust to accumulate, which will then be blown into your home. This is the reason why you sometimes notice that your furniture seems to often have dust, and some of you in the house start to sneeze and cough.

To clean the duct, remove the vent cover on the wall or ceiling. The vents are most likely as dirty as your ducts so you need to clean them, too. This is definitely not be a simple DIY cleaning job so it’s better to call professionals in for a more efficient job. Unless, of course you want to go to your crawl spaces to vacuum all the dirt.

Usually, the dirt that accumulates in the ducts are caused by unclean filters on your HVAC system. While cleaning filters will help reduce the dirt, it would be better to replace them with new ones. Simply washing them is not a good idea as they become more susceptible to dust after years of use.

Remember that clean ducts will give you clean air at home, so schedule duct cleaning regularly.

Beware of the Most Common Bacteria in Your Home

A study conducted in May 2013 by microbiologists from North Carolina State University and the University of Colorado proved an old fact: harmful bacteria can be found anywhere inside the home. The study identified more than 7,000 kinds of bacteria on things people touch, areas where food touches, and places that accumulate dust. However, a part of this figure pertains to the most dangerous and most common bacteria that can be found in any home.

Bacillus is one reason why it is a good idea to have water and air filters constantly checked and replaced especially if the home has a humidifier. If inhaled in considerable amounts, this bacteria can cause lung inflammation, sinus irritation, and hypersensitivity pneumonitis which is normally associated with the inhalation of mold spores. On the other hand, streptococcus and staphylococcus, which can be passed through skin contact, are common causes of food allergies.

E. Coli is an interesting example since while majority of E. Coli strains are at least harmless to humans, a few of them (like O157:H7) are very dangerous and can cause food poisoning. The harmful E. Coli strains are usually found in the kitchen and bathroom. E. Coli poisoning is one big reason why it is never a good idea to pick up food from the floor since it can be riddled with microscopic traces of fecal matter where E. Coli thrive.

Cleaning Carpets Can be a Heavy Chore

Once you step inside a carpeted room, you usually feel something different and special which an ordinary flooring does not provide. The soft, expensive fabric and pile, oftentimes with intricate and exotic designs can make quite an impression. In fact, you may even feel hesitant to step on a carpet especially if your shoes are dirty.

Dirty shoes soil carpets much like dust, grime, molds; and there’s the odor from all these. Heavy foot traffic also makes any carpet look faded and worn out such that it’s embarrassing to have them in the living room. Include spilled drinks like soda and wine, and your carpet will look more of a rag than a rug.

However, carpets are usually heavy and made of delicate fabrics that carpet cleaning can literally be a back breaking chore and quite a burden for the uninitiated. Fortunately, there are professional cleaning services that specialize not only in taking out all the dirt from your carpet, but in making it look as good as new.

There are also professional services that use eco-friendly cleaning products and methods to remove allergens and improve air quality in your home. Let these experts do your carpet cleaning for a healthier home.

Reasons to Rely on Professional Carpet Cleaners

As the head of the household, perhaps one of your biggest challenges is how to keep your home clean and free from allergens. This is especially critical if someone in your family has an allergy like asthma. A common outdoor allergen is pollen, and it’s said that this year is one of the worst years for allergy sufferers in Ottawa because of the pollen explosion in the city. Another allergen is dust mite, that’s present in most homes, and can thrive anywhere, from your carpet to your upholstery.

It can help if you regularly clean your home to get rid of dust mites and other allergens. However, you may not have the proper equipment to allow you to reach every nook and cranny of your home, or every thread of your carpeted floor. Fortunately, carpet cleaning professionals can help in this regard.

Professional carpet cleaners ensure a thorough cleaning of every surface and corner of your home using a variety of techniques and methods. When it comes to cleaning carpets, for instance, you typically brush off the dirt and use a vacuum cleaner to suck them out. Professional carpet cleaners use a more thorough process like the encapsulation technology which they finish off with a botanical disinfection process.