Your home is somewhere that you should leave you feeling safe and comfortable. It should be somewhere that, after a long day at work, you can come in, close the door, put your feet up and relax, safe in the knowledge that you are safe and healthy and free from home.

However, in many homes, this is not the case. It isn’t a safe haven. It is a place that is making them ill, without the knowledge of the people living in them.

What is it about houses that could be making the inhabitants unwell? How are you sup[osed to spot the signs or know what to do about it? Let’s take a look,

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Asbestos

If your house was built between 1920 and 1978, it could contain asbestos, which was then commonly used as a building and insulation component. Exposure to small quantities of asbestos should not affect you, but elevated concentrations of breathing it in can increase your risk of developing cancer and lung disease. Our specially trained and licenced Asbestos Consultants can cast a professional eye over and see if the material is present in your home. 

Carbon monoxide poisoning

Often referred to as the silent killer, the effects of carbon monoxide on you and your family can start almost straight away and even the smallest amount of it can be devastating.

What makes carbon monoxide so dangerous is that so often, people do not realise that it is an issue until it is too late. It is odourless and invisible so it is almost impossible to pick up on unless you have a carbon monoxide detector set up. This should be placed near your boiler and will sound an alarm, just like your smoke alarm, at the first sign of carbon monoxide being present in the air. Other things to look out for are extreme fatigue in multiple members of your household, flu-like symptoms, headaches and issues with the respiratory system.

As well as having a carbon monoxide detector in your home, other ways of preventing it from becoming an issue in the first place include never using a camping stove or other form of combustion burners inside the property, cleaning and maintaining your chimneys every year and make sure they have adequate ventilation.  If any of your gas appliances are showing signs of damage or leaks, call out a registered gas safety engineer immediately who can find the cause of a leak and fix it or isolate it if necessary, Regular boiler checks are also a great way to keep an eye on the health of your boiler. 

Lead paint

The purchase of lead paint is now, thankfully, prohibited, but up until the late 1970s, it was used widely. However, it can cause lead poisoning and does to almost a million children in America every year, If you are unsure, you can have blood tests done to identify the levels of lead in your blood so you can make changes straight away.