I spoke to Carol Parr, Building Biologist from Mitey Fresh to find out the top 3 tips to help keep your home and family safe from mould and mould disease.
Get to know your indoor air! The best thing you can do for your home is to be well educated. Being knowledgeable about quality air rarely has problems, and if you do, you know how to solve them.
Air circulation inside and air exchange outside your home is often over looked. It’s the most important area of indoor air quality. A room or a building that has good air circulation and air exchange will rarely have issues like odours and stuffiness, poor health and productivity.
Tip 1:
Open windows and doors VERY WIDE removing out particulates and gases that are making your air polluted.
Stagnant areas in your home that have poor circulation can be found behind your curtains, behind your furnishings, against walls like your lounge or bed or desk, cupboards and corners, cluttered rooms.
Tip 2:
I HEAR you girlfriend, sometimes these areas are unavoidable. You can do your best to open cupboards and de-clutter to improve these spaces, but you may just have to take care of these areas manually. This is why it’s important to always have a damp micro fibre cloth handy to dust, wipe over, clean and freshen those areas, vacuum your rooms at least once a week and move the furnishings and hit all the stagnant areas.
For indoor air testing, taking the Breath Test is my personal favourite. It’s easy to do and so primal that we all have built within us – much more instantaneous ‘gut feeling’ this is not right and respond by moving away to safety. This action of breathing in and smelling, feeling, seeing and sometimes tasting are sensory responses well in advance to health responses such as sneezing, tickling throat, can’t stop coughing.
Tip 3:
DO the Breath Test at least once a week in different spots in the room and in your home. I like to check my indoor air every day. Ask other members of your family to sample breathing, sniffing and looking in rooms if you are concerned. And chat about your findings like mould, fragrances and perfumes, off-gassing from old and new materials, stagnant materials, wet building material smells.
Water damage indoors can be due to occupant activities like showering, cooking, laundering, driers. These activities produce water vapour that condenses on cold surfaces the walls, the windows, and the furniture. Or water damage can be due to poor maintenance of the building, gutter overflow as a result of heavy rain, broken plumbing and sewer system pipes overflow or faulty washing machines and fridges leaking and spilling onto the floor. These occurrences produce water flooding, pooling, inadequate drainage and porous materials absorb the water and stay wet for what seems forever.
Priority Tip: Dry up all water spills, leaks, floods within 48 hours! It is the building materials that have been soaked for more than 48 hours that are likely to be contaminated with mould.
Mould simply needs moisture, low ventilation and organic matter on which to grow. You can begin to see how it becomes an issue for many people.
Don’t let your inadequate indoor air quality make you and your loved ones unwell.
Tips from Carol Parr, Building Biologist from Mitey Fresh.
