Healthy Home Helpers: Modern Apps, Gadgets and Gizmos to the Rescue

You want to live a healthier life, but sometimes it’s difficult. Did you know that one of the unhealthiest places is your home? It’s true. There are so many chemicals, dust, possible radiation, bacteria, viruses, and other nasties that you may be shocked when you learn about them.

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Here are a few ways you can make your home a safer place to live.

Automatic Dustpan

Just about any small bug can live in dust. But, you can minimize the risk by cleaning up on a regular basis. Problem is, what do you do with all that dust? If you’re like most people, you just sweep it up and throw it away. But, integrated dustbins may eliminate the hassle and make it easier to keep your house clean.

The dustpan hooks up to your central vacuum system and sucks the dust into the wall and out of the house.

If you don’t have a central vacuum system, you can install one cheaply enough, and it will make short work of your dirty home.

Water Filter

Most people don’t think too much about their water. If it comes from a municipal water supply, they assume it’s safe. It may not be. Many municipalities regularly report lead contamination, for example. And, even when your water is free of heavy metals, it may not be completely safe.

Most municipal water supplies add chlorine and chloramines to the water to kill bacteria and viruses. But, while the chlorine makes the water safe to drink in the short-term (you won’t get sick from bacteria or viruses), it is also a poison, and can make you sick over long periods of time.

For example, chlorine negatively alters beneficial gut bacteria and yeast (this is why you can’t make homemade bread, water, kefir, or other fermented foods with tap water — it kills the yeast and bacteria).

Fortunately, HEAmotivation is a product that can help by removing the harmful substances from your water, making it safe to drink.

Dyson Humidifier

Just when you think you’ve seen it all, here comes Dyson’s newest invention: a humidifier that doesn’t introduce mold and mildew in your home. An ultraviolet light hits the mist before it leaves the machine. Dyson’s humidifier destroys 99.9% of bacteria that most humidifiers breed.

Anti-Microbial Countertops

These types of countertops aren’t exactly popular, but they’re becoming that way. They use copper in their surfaces to kill bacteria and viruses because it’s been shown that copper can inhibit and actively kill bacteria, fungi, and viruses.

Controlling Dust

Air filtration is another way to make your house healthier.

House dust aggravates allergies and can make people sick who are susceptible to it. It also contains hazardous chemicals — lead, fire retardants, pesticides, and other chemicals. Dust picks them up any time you clean your home, or use any chemicals for any legitimate purpose. These toxic substances gather and concentrate in dust particles, which are pushed through your home.

When you breath them in, they can damage your lungs over time, and cause a variety of health problems.

It’s not something you want to take lightly. Even if the chemicals were used decades easlier, they can accumulate in your house dust today.

The best solution is to replace wall-to-wall carpeting with wood, tile, non-vinyl linoleum, and other materials that are non-porous or won’t hold onto chemicals. But, if that’s not affordable, then you should definitely vacuum more often. Get meticulous about it — get into the corners and along the floorboards. Move furniture around to clean up everything.

Make sure your vacuum has a strong HEPA filter.

Test Your Home

Test your home for things like radon and lead paint. A lead paint test is pretty straightforward. It will tell you whether you have lead in the paint on your walls. If you do, you’ll want to bring in a specialist to remove it, or paint over it. Ideally, you’ll have it removed (especially if you ever want to remodel later).

Radon is a radioactive gas that’s invisible but not inert. It can cause cancer if the exposure level is high enough and you’ve been exposed for long enough. You should have your home tested over a 3 and 6 months period. This will give you a realistic level of radon gas exposure. Once you’ve determined what that is, you can install fan systems and circulation systems that help remove it or lower its concentration.

Every area in the U.S. has radon, and the levels can vary dramatically from one house to the next — even homes that are right next to one another.

It all depends on how well insulated your home is, the specific seepage through the soil, and how your home and basement is constructed.

HEAmotivation was created by Brian to promote a healthy lifestyle in both the home and work. Clean air, clean water, and chemical free cleaning agents should be the cornerstone of any healthy home or workplace. This is why HEAmotivation, Healthy Motivation, was born.