The “Dirty” truth about Carpets!
| October 30, 2021
The NHMRC defines indoor air as any non-industrial indoor space where a person spends a period of an hour or more in any day. This can include the home, office, schools, shopping centers, hospitals and restaurants. It is important to take the correct steps to improve the indoor air quality ensuring it is at a high standard to protect the health and well-being of your family, customers and employees.
This is particularly the case as Australians may spend 90% or more of their time indoors. Further, it is generally accepted that exposure to indoor air pollutants such as dust mites, dust, bacteria, pet dander, moulds, and other pollutants can pose health risks and contribute to respiratory disease, allergies and asthma. Many people have allergies that affect their daily living. Allergy to dust mite excreta is one of the most common allergies worldwide.
The most common problem with carpets – dust mites!
Dust mites are tiny bugs that live in your home. They measure about 1/10th of millimetre in length, which is smaller than the full-stop at the end of this sentence. Dust mites feed off of pet and human dander (dead skin cells in the air and on surfaces in our homes), and their waste is a major cause of allergies and asthma. Symptoms of dust mites allergy include sneezing, runny nose, nasal congestion and itchy nose. If you have asthma, dust mites can cause you to wheeze more and need more asthma medicine. You may have more symptoms at night, when you are laying in a bed infested with dust mites. So, cutting down the number of dust mites in the home or is an important step if you or someone in your family has allergies or asthma.
Dust mites love warm, humid areas filled with dust. Carpets are great places for them to live. Regular thorough carpet cleaning can make a slight difference in the number of dust mites in your home; however it is nearly impossible to reduce the numbers in carpets quiet dramatically. Every time someone walks over carpet, dust mites are spread into the air, taking approx 2 hours to settle. Babies and young children crawling on the carpet are surely especially at risk.
While you cannot completely rid your home of dust mites, you can certainly take some steps to reduce their numbers. Recent proven testing had found that the hard surface floor had significantly fewer mites than the nylon, wool and poly-propylene carpets. Consider removing wall-to-wall carpeting from bedrooms and other frequently used spaces and replace with a seamless polished concrete floor. Carpets trap dust, dust mites, skin, pet dander, mould, spores, pollen, and chemicals that can trigger allergies or asthma-like symptoms. Polished concrete is a very economical, low maintenance solution also protecting your family’s health buy improving the indoor air quality. Since removing your wall-to-wall carpet is an ambitious step, balance the cost and hassle with how miserable your allergies or asthma are making you.
My Floor can transform your existing concrete floor into a glass-like finish which is smooth, low-maintenance and cost effective. This process involves no harmful chemicals or coatings, only using state of the art diamond polishing tools and techniques. For new projects, there are an unlimited pallet of different aggregate and different coloured oxides to match any style and colour scheme. So instead of covering your concrete with carpet, tiles or vinyl which increases the harmful bacteria and allergen levels in your home why not protect yourself and your family by appointing My Floor to polish the concrete.
If you suffer from any of the above issues and would like your existing floor coverings (carpet, tiles, timber and vinyl) removed, or if you are engaging in a new project, why not try polished concrete. Take a look at some of our recent project photos and contact us for more information today.
Our highly trained professional team can offer an effortless flooring solution to suit every budget and flooring requirements, servicing all areas of SEQ including, Brisbane, Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast. With our extensive experience and personalised service we will endeavour to deliver the highest quality concrete polishing for your project.