6 Easy Steps To Create A Healthy Home For Fall
With changing seasons come changing priorities —and the same goes for your home. From tips on how to make sure your home is clean and safe for your family to relax in to easy paint jobs you can do in a weekend, Canadian Tire and Yahoo Canada are bringing you everything you need for the season.
A healthy home is a happy one. And with the crisp and cool weather creeping in, one way to stay on top of your health during cold and flu season is making sure your home is equipped with the best healthy essentials.
From air purifiers to humidifiers to water filters, ahead, we’ve rounded up the tricks and tips you should know to make your home as healthy as possible this Fall.
Sanitize your phone and accessories with a UV sanitizer
You probably remember to frequently clean surfaces and wash your hands, but what about sanitizing your daily on-the-go essentials like your cellphone, wallet and house and/or keys? According to one study, your cellphone carries up to 10 times more bacteria than a toilet seats. While a disinfectant wipes can be a quick and convenient solution to cleaning your phone, another — and more thorough — way to combat the germs that live on your phone is with a UV sanitizer.
Typically made with special bulbs that emit UV-C light, a strong wavelength known to penetrate the nucleic acid of viruses and bacteria, this cleaning solution is designed to eliminate bacteria (or preventing them from becoming infectious) on smooth surfaces.
From sanitizing boxes specifically made for your phone to UV wands, Canadian Tire has a variety of UV cleaning products to suit whatever your family’s needs are.
Invest in a top-quality air purifier
Air purifiers are great, but if you want the healthiest possible experience, a HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) filter goes to the next level. It’s specifically designed to capture harmful tiny particles in the air for extra protection against allergens and seasonal airborne transmission.
To improve the ventilation in rooms your family spends the most time in, consider a HEPA purifier like Dyson’s Pure Hot + Cool™ HEPA Air Purifier. Made to fit any space in your home, this sleek, state of the art purifier combines an activated carbon filter to remove gasses and a small HEPA filter that captures 99.97 per cent of toxins and pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide, household fumes, pet dander, industrial emissions and more. Also made to adapt with your comfort level and seasonal weather conditions, it also doubles a fan and heater.
Monitor the quality of the air you’re breathing in
On top of cleaning your floors, sanitizing and wiping down high-touch surfaces, another surefire way to ensure a safe and healthy living space is staying on top of any threats that can be lurking in the air, like radon and TVOCs (total volatile organic compounds).
To monitor and detect the air quality in your home, the Airthings Wave Plus Smart Indoor Air Quality Monitor gives you full visibility, using the free Air Thing app, of six indoor air factors including radon, carbon dioxide, airborne chemicals, humidity, temperature and air pressure. You can also wave in front of the device to receive a colour-coded visual indicator of the overall air quality.
Replace your furnace filters frequently
After using your heating, ventilation and air conditioning for a good period of time, eventually, your furnace filter can become riddled with dust, mould, debris and allergens, which can potentially lead to several health issues. Changing your filter every three to six months (depending on the weather), not only prolongs the life expectancy and the efficiency of your HVAC unit but it also improves helps improve the air quality in your home. In other words, a clean furnace filter is a healthy one.
Thinking it’s about time for a filter change? We suggest using Noma Allergen Furnace Filters, 2-pk. Pleated air filter for furnaces and central air systems, these filters are designed for allergen filtration and capture pet dander, dust, pollen and mould spores. Plus, it’s backed up with a MERV 8 efficiency rating.
Bring moisture back to the air
While often known as one way to cure seasonal coughs and congestion, humidifiers also have a solid reputation for other health and wellness-boosting benefits by adding moisture back into the air. Along with helping you breathe better during the colder months, adding a humidifier to the room can help with clearing dehydration-caused acne and can help with better sleep and snoring.
According to studies, keeping indoor air at a relative humidity level of 40 to 60 per cent reduces the survival of flu viruses on surfaces and in the air — which is why we recommend using this Dyson Humidifier Fan. With intelligent climate control technology, this humidifier delivers even, whole room humidification. And to keep air even more pure, it comes equipped with UV technology that kills 99.9% of bacteria in the water before mist is projected into the room.
Update your drinking water filters
You probably don’t need us to tell you how important it is to drink plentiful amounts of water. And to make sure you’re getting all the benefits of drinking glasses of clean, great-tasting water every day, it’s recommended you replace your water filters every four months. Whether that means swapping out the filters in your water pitcher or updating your faucet filtration system, fresh filters help eliminate contaminants, like lead, impurities and chemicals, that endanger your health.
We suggest trying the Brita® On Tap Faucet Filter System for instant access to clean drinking water anytime you need to quench your thirst. Not only does it feature LED filter-change indicators that flash red when the filter needs to be replaced, but it’s super easy to assemble.
