Almost Everything Falls To The Floor

As we move about in our homes we are constantly creating dust and microbial which end up on the floor surface and we cannot help redistributing them.

This has resulted in a great increase in flooring awareness as it relates to airborne dust and potential allergens.

The Question that arises is, which type of flooring is best for controlling the indoor air quality?

To answer, let's talk about our washroom floors. In these areas we usually choose a hard surface floor covering be it tile, vinyl sheet goods or the like and we do this knowing that cleaning should be easier and contamination is going to be much less.

So now we have made a selection of flooring we quite like and have now lived with it for a few days and we see that the dust accumulates around the outer edges in a pattern that the traffic flow creates.

This consists of hair lint and dusts, most of which is really our shed skin cells.

We come to the realization that our cleaning, although not so difficult, is going to be a regular concern.

The same is true when we chose hard surface flooring for other areas of the home.

Traffic patterns will eventually tell us how often hard surface cleaning will be required in these areas of the home to keep all our dust concerns to a dull roar, so as not to have these potential allergens in our breathing space.

We all know that the first to receive the dose of dust will be the little people who are laying, crawling or even walking across, or on our floors.

Studies show that hard surface flooring allows for the quickest redistribution of particulate into our breathing space. It is noted that dust can reach five to six feet just by passing over a hard surface area once, or that just the air movement of opening a door can do the same.

Research tells us this is true no matter how much dust is visible on the hard surfaces being crossed.

Therefore it stands to reason that hard surface flooring will take constant effort to keep a living space allergen clean.

Appearance is another issue when it comes to hard floor surface choices.

Hardwood floor cleaning for example, needs to be done on a regular basis so as to keep the foot printing under control. This controls how often, from a visible standpoint, that we need to address the issue of maintenance, sometimes much sooner than dust will indicate.

Vinyl and ceramic tile win here in most cases as the finishes are designed to hide these problems. Now again, we are going to be gauging the amount of attention we need to devote to these areas by the frequency of visible dust around the outer edges of our traffic areas. Of course one does not have to wait for the visibility of perimeter dust accumulation, but you get the idea on how to come up with a cleaning frequency at minimum routine for these areas in your home.

So now as almost everything falls to the floor, how do we keep it there and not have it affect our breathing space so quickly so that we can do more living in our home and reduce cleaning to a routine that busy life styles can work with.

The possible answer is textile floor products.

Studies show that properly maintained textile flooring reduce the ability for possible allergens to be redistributed into our breathing spaces by keeping particulate trapped in the fibres.

This brings us to the need for the final part of the equation for successful dust or allergen control.

We need to have at minimum, a high filtration vacuum or vacuum system. This is one thing that is most overlooked in the proper care of textile products.

Textile products also include furniture. Couches, love seats, chairs, ottomans, mattresses, drapes and the like, all need to be dry extracted on a regular basis.

The nice thing about all of these is, it is not necessary to clean these textile products everyday or more than once a day as it is for a lot of hard surfaces depending on the traffic flow.

Carpet holds the dust and potential allergens down like a large filter system until you the homeowner or cleaning personal can attend to the removal of them.

A good routine is to vacuum traffic areas well every two days or as traffic dictates and a more wall to wall approach weekly.

The final part of this routine for a healthy indoor environment is to have your textiles hot water extracted by qualified services.

In another blog I will address how to hire an ethical service.

So the answer to the question of which flooring products are best is best decided on by the informed home owner. It comes down to what routine of maintenance we are willing to work with, how severe the allergy concerns are and what level of comfort we desire to have in different areas of our healthy homes and the type of cleaning products we will ultimately end up using to care for our choice of floors.

So as the cookie crumbles, almost everything falls to the floor, even our decision on the best floors for our healthy home needs.