Healthy House Planner- Part 1

Is your home a healthy home?

Whether you have a castle or a cottage your home is your sanctuary. It's a place for your family. It's where you live and more often these days where you work. Americans spend an average of 65 percent of their time at home, at what is usually viewed as a safe haven.

The bad news about indoor air quality is that it often contains higher concentrations of hazardous pollutants than outdoor air. The good news is there are a few things you can do to reduce indoor air pollution.

Home pollutants such as dust mites, animal related allergens and mold are known asthma triggers, while high accumulations of carbon monoxide and radon in inadequately ventilated homes are serious health hazards.

Preventing home environment problems can be as easy as changing furnace filters more often and as complex as changing the flooring to wood or tile in main areas of the home.

Here are some essentials to healthy housing:

• Occupant health: which includes high efficiency ventilation systems, hardwood and tile floors, and storage rooms ventilated to exterior.
• Energy efficiency: Increased insulation levels in walls/attic, high efficiency windows and doors, energy efficient appliances and lighting, generous windows to reduce lighting costs.
• Resource efficiency: Low flow toilets and plumbing, use of rapid growing woods like spruce and maple, use of recycled building materials.

Also one of the other potential problems you may hear more about is Radon.

**The Surgeon General has warned that Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States.

Radon is a radioactive gas. It is formed by the natural energy of uranium in rock, soil and water. Radon is colorless, odorless, and tasteless. Once produced, radon moves through the ground to the air above. It can be found in all 50 states. Unless you test for it, there is no way of telling how much is present. Contact your local state Radon contact or try www.radongas.org

Here are a few great links for more information on healthy housing and our source for some of the content used for this article.

• http://healthhouse.org/iaq/checklist.htm - This site has a great healthy home checklist.
• http://epa.gov - Great source on air quality and environmental issue

If you would like more articles like this let your Worldreferrals.com Residential Specialist know.

Joseph Talbot, ASA
Sales Representative
Remax Clearview Inc. brokerage
705-733-5821

Check out more at
josephtalbot.ca

This article was provided by www.worldreferrals.com