Carpets And Indoor Air Quality: Why You Should Pay Close Attention To It

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Carpets And Indoor Air Quality: Why You Should Pay Close Attention To It

Indoor air quality of the environments we live and work in is a crucial factor. While surfaces like the ceilings and walls also have an impact, the flooring is the most weighty factor that affects the indoor air quality- especially when it comes to carpets. Why? Dust and particles do not remain permanently in the air. Thanks to gravity, they will quickly fall onto the horizontal surfaces. For hard or smooth floors, a slight gust of wind and they will be redistributed back into the air. However, with carpets it’s different. The fibres trap those particles, locking them in the material. These are held until the carpet gets vacuumed and cleaned. As such, the carpets act like an air filter, sifting out the allergens and pollutants from the indoor air space- but there's a catch: this ability of the carpets is not perpetual. They have a limit to how much dirt can be held within the soft and plush fibres before it begins getting loose- worsening the situation. The more the particles that are held within the carpet, the easier they will be to dislodge. ...
... A simple disturbance, such as people walking on the carpet, your kids playing on it, or the pet taking a nap, will agitate the fibres, and cause the light dust particles to be released back into the air space. This time, the concentration of the indoor pollutants will be higher, putting the occupants in the building at greater risk.

Cocktail of health risks

When there is dirt on hard surface floors, it is rather obvious. However, with carpets, there is more than meets the eye. The material can absorb multiple times its own weight in dirt. Do you have pets? For households with cats and dogs, there will be bits of fur and dander strewn all over the carpet. Some of the sections can be densely concentrated with the dander- especially those points where your pet keeps taking a nap on. Soiling that is tracked into the building also winds up in the matieral, being scraped off the bottom of people’s shoes. The particles gradually break down, adding the amount of dust that is building up within the carpet. Add to this allergens such as pollen that are blown into the building through open doors and windows, which settle onto the fibres of the unit. In case there is a smoker on the premises, the material of the carpet will readily absorb the smoke, adding to your troubles. That's not all.

Dust mites thrive in the carpet in hordes. Their primary food is the dead skin cells that are being shed by persons on the premises. Their faecal waste is an allergen, triggering reactions in sensitive persons. The concentration of the allergens in carpet dust can be 6–14 times higher compared to dust from smooth floors. Speaking of body waste, there is also that which is left behind by insects and rodents that come to feed on the food crumbs that have been deposited onto the carpet. These all mix together with the dust.

Chemical products used within the house can also wind up on the carpet. These are the likes of cleaning reagents and pesticides that are being sprayed into the interior space to keep out the pesky bugs. They get nestled within the fibres of the carpet, adding to the health risks involved for the persons on the premises. The allergens and pollutants cause a wide range of effects, from irritation of the throat and nose, the eyes reddening, persistent coughs and sneezing, to issues like irritated skin for the kids rolling around on the carpet, and difficulty breathing. A deep carpet cleaning is needed to get rid of these substances. That’s where we come in.

Getting The Carpet Truly Clean

Since most of our time is spent indoors- from homes to workplaces, putting in place a proper maintenance program to improve the indoor air quality is critical. The carpet ranks high amongst the list of items that needs thorough and routine cleaning. This is not just about vacuuming. The suction provided just gets rid of the loose particles. An in-depth cleaning is required to extract the grime that is clinging to the fibres of the carpet. Processes like hot water extraction flush out the dirt.
Areas that require special attention include those that handle lots of traffic, like the entrances of the building, the hallways, walkways that are between desks, the employee lounges, carpets on the stairways, to those near the water coolers. The professional carpet cleaning team will incorporate high-capacity machinery, that breaks down the soiling and removes it from the fibres of the unit, getting rid of the allergens and pollutants that have been building up in it. With routine carpet cleaning sessions, you get to enable it to retain a high efficacy in its role of filtering the dirt particles from the air, thus preserving your indoor air quality.

Reducing the amount of dirt getting into the indoor space
Investing in entrance mats- which cover areas of between two to five footsteps at the entryway into the building, will leave more of the dirt behind, preventing it from being spread into the indoor space. The door letting people in from the garage, and the back door that leads in from the backyard, also need mats. In addition, ensure that you have notified the household members on the actual use of the mat- that they should wipe their feet when getting into the house. They should realise that the mats have a functional use, and aren’t there simply for decoration.

A no-shoes policy in your home will also come in handy. Asking family members and guests to take off their shoes is common practice. However, do get a place for them to put their shoes after they walk in. Having a shoe rack, basket or shelf by the door will be an obvious signal to your guests that they should take off their shoes. While on that note, having slippers close to the doorway will be a nod to your guests that you’d like them to make the switch.

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