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When we think about air pollution, most of us would probably think of occurrences like car emissions, smoke from domestic fires, and pollution from industrial factories. We are all aware of the link between breathing polluted air and increased respiratory symptoms, but what most people are not aware of is that indoor air can be up to five times more polluted than the air outside. Indoor air pollutants are the leading causes of asthma and breathing problems. Understanding and controlling common indoor pollutants can help reduce your risk of indoor health concerns.
Bronze
Our entry-level cleaning process where will provide a deep cleaning service to your carpets (or upholstery).
Silver
The same service as our bronze service plus an added protection or sanitising solution is applied after cleaning. This helps to keep your carpet or upholstery cleaner for longer.
Gold
The same deep clean as our bronze and silver services with the added benefit of an additional protection and sanitising solution, ideal for households with small children and pets.
Platinum
The same deep clean as our bronze, silver and gold services with the added benefit of an anti-allergy protection to help aid people with health issues such as asthma.
Many factors contribute to indoor air pollution. The air in our homes is heavily contaminated with particles such as pollen, food, dust mites, bacteria and dead skin cells. All these pollutants get trapped around the home in items such as fabrics, linen and carpets and can cause serious health problems, especially for children, elderly people and those already at risk of respiratory conditions. These particles float around the air in your home and seriously aggravate allergies, irritate your throat, eyes, and nose, as well as weaken your immune system leading to further cold and flu while leaving you feeling lethargic.
We are encouraged more and more now to seal up our homes from the outside elements. Thicker door seals, triple glazing, super insulation, cavity wall filling and so on. This leads to poor ventilation within homes, limiting the amount of fresh air that can enter a property. Leaving windows and doors open to allow the flow of fresh air isn't always an option. Securing your property nowadays is serious business. Making sure that you do everything to deter wannabe thieves is high on the priority list. No insurance company is going to have much sympathy if you leave a window open wide and allow someone to enter your home so easily. This being said, if maintained and cleaned properly, your home-based carpet can actually improve your family’s health.
Whether you’re a stay-at-home mum, or you work in an office, chances are you spend more than 90% of your time indoors. That's a huge amount of time to be shut inside even the most comfortable of spaces! So how can a carpet help? Well, it stands to reason that most particles end up on the floor, those that do not will find a home on a shelf or ledge of some kind. A clean and well-maintained carpet can actually trap allergens and particles in its fibres to prevent them from escaping into the air and being inhaled. Carpets act as air filters to trap dust, pollen, and potentially dangerous particles to improve indoor air quality and overall breathing.
There are significant health benefits to maintaining clean carpets, especially in homes with young children as they are deemed as being the most at risk. This is because young children spend a lot of time close to the floor and because their immune system is not as robust as that of an adult. Respiratory complications, like asthma, can be triggered by poor indoor air quality, which is why most homeowners notice improved health following a thorough cleaning of their carpet.
Carpets are big business nowadays. They are the most popular kind of house flooring. Given their softness & warmth, they add a sense of luxury and comfort that hard floor surfaces simply cannot offer. As previously mentioned, carpets act as filters within the home but they can also act as a placemat for food crumbs and spilled drinks. They collect dirt, debris, and bacteria from daily life. All sounds great, right? Sure but like all filters, it would need emptying at some stage right?
A clean carpet is the foundation of a cosy, comfortable home. However, a badly kept carpet can be the cause of untold health issues. Regular carpet cleaning, aside from improving the appearance of your home and extending the life of your carpets & rugs, as you can probably tell has numerous health benefits, which include:
The risk of mould and other unhealthy growths developing in dirty carpets is greatly increased in areas of high humidity where the carpet is exposed to moisture. Areas around large pieces of furniture where airflow is reduced can also provide a perfect environment. When it’s raining moisture can track indoors, this moisture sinks into carpets where it promotes mildew and mould growth. Studies have shown that mould is actually more harmful than smoking cigarettes as it produces spores in the lungs leading to serious health and respiratory diseases
Dust mites are microscopic. They share our homes and most of us are probably not even aware of their existence. With this in mind, when an infestation occurs, most of us are probably not even aware it's happening. It's the faeces of dust mites left behind which cause allergic reactions. The microscopic particles are easily inhaled when an infested area is disturbed. Sounds disgusting right? Well, consider this. To put this problem into perspective, about half a teaspoon of dust may contain up to 20,000 dust mites. Then consider how big your carpet space is, even in the smallest room in your home.
When you vacuum your carpet it removes dirty elements from the carpet surface. Some vacuum cleaners may suggest a deep clean but most will ultimately clean the surface layer of the carpet pile. Without getting deep into the pile, these contaminants are left to penetrate deep into the carpet. Deep cleaning your carpets is probably not something you would immediately associate with improved indoor air quality but it does have a very positive effect. Dust and allergens accumulated by not deep cleaning the carpet can circulate in the air when disturbed and can affect the health of asthma patients and ultimately, anyone in the room.
As we have mentioned, carpets retain sources of indoor pollutants. Apart from everyday dust and dirt, carpets contain pollutants, allergens, and pet dander. Toxic airborne gasses adhere to the particulate matter and become trapped in the carpet. When we vacuum or disturb the carpet, these toxic gasses are released into the air, starting the cycle all over again. Using state-of-the-art equipment, here at Xtraclean we use high-powered vacuuming techniques to remove these deeply trapped pollutants.
It stands to reason that keeping our carpets clean will as a consequence improve indoor air quality which can be beneficial to the home. This shows in the following ways:
Whether you cook a lot, have children or pets, smoke or live nearby sources of smells, odours are always a potential problem in the household. Bad smells do have a very unpleasant effect on your mood, thoughts, and behaviours. Bad odours can leave you uncharacteristically grumpy and irritable. Smells can be absorbed into your carpet and released when walking on them.
Good indoor air quality brings about a good balance of humidity. Humidity (measured as the amount of water in the air) affects all aspects of your environment. Too much makes breathing feel heavy and also makes your home feel stuffy and moist. The extra moisture, as already mentioned, causes mould growth and increased dust mite populations while also attracting pests.
Our respiratory rate changes when we’re asleep such that our breathing rate decreases and becomes much steadier. So as important as air is when you’re awake, it’s just as important when you’re asleep. Consider that you probably spend around 6-8 hours a day asleep in your bedroom, that's 8 hours in one room every day, a third of your day!
Breathing is naturally an unconscious action. You do it without thinking much about it, but if your home’s air quality is low, breathing can feel terrible. Surviving on shallow breaths puts a lot of stress on your body, especially your heart and lungs, making even climbing a flight of stairs a physically tiring task. Ever felt fatigued in your home? It might not just be because you are tired, your home might just be making you lethargic.
Normal vacuuming is rarely enough as it only removes loose dirt from the top layer of your carpets, to obtain the health benefits of having a carpet you should both vacuum and have your carpets deep cleaned and treated by a professional cleaner such as Xtraclean. Why not contact us today and see how we can improve the internal environment of your home by providing a deep clean on your carpets?
