4 projects can help improve home health
Focus on clean water, air and surfaces indoors and mosquito control outdoors
More than ever, as we hear about the health of the world around us, we’re wondering about the health and safety of our own homes.
Perhaps in this stay-at-home, work-fromhome world we all have just a little bit more time on our hands, but the concern is real.
We’ve gone from setting up home offices and learning how to use Zoom to finding ways to get our jobs and our children’s schoolwork done. After wondering if the living room needed a new coat of paint or the patio furniture needed new cushions, we are looking at more serious topics: the quality of our water and air and the cleanliness of the surfaces we touch.
Here are four things we can address right now, either DIY or with the help of professionals: water filtration systems, touchless faucets, mosquito control (yes, it’s that time again) and the simplest home task — changing your air filters.
Safer water
Back in the day, people filled pitchers with water and then poured the H O through big
2 clunky filters for better drinking water.
Now, home water filtration systems are far more sophisticated, despite being laden with scientific and technical terms that make you wonder if it’s all a scam. It’s not. At least most of it isn’t, anyway.
In the time most Americans have lived with stay-at-home and work-from home orders, sales of water filtration devices have grown 336 percent, according to Culligan, which has made water filtration products for
84 years.
Even the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — and, let’s face it, we’ve all been looking at its website a lot lately — has a page on drinking water and reverse osmosis, confirming the water filtration method’s ability to remove protozoa (giardia), bacteria (salmonella and E. coli), viruses (norovirus and hepatitis A) and chemical contaminants (copper and lead).
Reverse osmosis systems may well be the gold standard for water filtering systems — a natural process in which water is pushed through a filter with a pore size of about 0.0001 micron, removing even the tiniest contaminants. (To gauge just how small 0.0001 micron is, a human red blood cell is about 5 microns across.)
Some people install wholehome systems when building a new house, but you can get one that fits under your kitchen sink, and you can buy them on Amazon for as little as about $350, with detailed instructions for installing them yourself.
Even if all you want to do is make your water taste better, consider installing a water filtration system. It’s easy to study what could be wrong with your water, and reputable companies — Home Master, Waterdrop, APEC, NU Aqua and iSpring are some common brands — offer plenty of information about different products and what they do.
Install a touchless faucet
Touchless and voice-controlled faucets have come down enough in price that they’re increasingly the option of choice in home renovations and new construction.
There’s more interest in these than ever, now that we’re examining our high-touch surfaces that require more regular cleaning. In fact, Kohler reports that consumer surveys show that 40 percent of people are more likely to buy a touchless faucet now than they were just a few months ago.
Lee Crowder, Design Gallery and Model Home Branding Manager for Taylor Morrison and Darling Homes — which has built hundreds of homes in the Houston area — said clients are looking at a variety of options to make their homes healthier places to live.
“We did a poll with our designers across the country over all divisions, and the things people want … affect the basic clean-ability of their home,” Crowder said, citing faucet choices, hard-surface flooring with less grout and low-maintenance countertop products such as quartz.
Faucets in kitchens and bathrooms are easy fixes, since we’re more mindful of hand washing and everything we touch all day long.
Taylor Morrison and Darling Homes use Moen products, but you can find touchless options from virtually every plumbingfixture manufacturer.
Kohler is a well-known brand with a lot of offerings, including the Setra (in matte black, chrome and stainless for $299) at Home Depot. It has a single handle for when you like that option, but voice-activated technology allows you to tell it to turn on and give you two cups of hot water, if that’s what you want.
The fancier but still highly popular Sensate model — Kohler’s original touchless kitchen faucet — runs around $800 but also comes in rose gold, oil rubbed bronze and ombre hues that go from polished nickel or titanium to rose gold. Special features shut the faucet off just in case something accidentally turns it on.
High-end brands like Fantini — with super stylish plumbing fixtures that run $2,000-$3,000 — make touchless options, too.
Start mosquito control
Since the unofficial start of summer has arrived, it’s time to plan for the next mosquito invasion. For trusted information, I turned to the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension website, which has extensive information on mosquito control.
First, get rid of standing (stagnant) water in pots or other vessels. After that, you’re looking for ways to kill the biting bugs once they arrive.
Foggers come in aerosol or thermal form, but both may harm beneficial insects such as bees and butterflies, so don’t use them near plants where and when bees are active.
Residual sprays can last for up to a month and you can get them through hardware and garden supply stores. Any that are harmful to bees and butterflies — with active ingredients such as DEET or permethrin — should be sprayed at night, when those beneficial insects are not active and are less likely to be harmed.
Bug zappers that use an ultraviolet light source to attract and then electrocute mosquitoes work, but they also kill beneficial bugs and don’t help control female mosquitoes.
If you go the natural route, try plants that keep bugs away, such as basil or citronella. You can crush fresh basil leaves and then rub the leaves on your skin or just plant them near your patio or places where you sit. Citronella plants, oils and candles work, but not as well as insect repellent sprays, and their effect is also temporary.
Change your air vent filters
For the past few months, it seems like we’ve been talking nonstop about face masks and the air we’re breathing.
So let’s take a moment to do one of the easiest at-home chores ever: change your HVAC air filters. I usually leave that job to my husband, and it gets done on a random basis.
A Facebook acquaintance posted a reminder that it’s something we can all do right now since we’re all thinking about the air around us. When I checked the filter in a vent near my in-home office I had to stop to remember what color it was supposed to be. Mine was dingy dark gray — it’s supposed to be white — so this was clearly overdue. I got a new one from the garage to replace it and it took about a minute — without even needing to consult a YouTube video.
You should check yours right now.