Hardwood flooring - A healthy choice if you have dust allergies

One of the most common allergies these days is dust. A study in England showed that 10 per cent of the general population, and 90 per cent of people with allergic asthma, are allergic to dust mites. In the United States, studies indicated that at least 45 per cent of young Americans with asthma are allergic to house dust.

Suffering from a dust allergy can be very frustrating, especially when dust occurs naturally in our homes on virtually every surface we touch. If you have carpet in your home, dust can be even more of a problem for your allergies, because carpet fibres trap dust and the tiny, microscopic dust mites. These remain unseen and can't always be removed during vacuuming.

What's a good alternative? Hardwood - It's a hard-surface floor and doesn't trap dust fibres and dust mites that can set off your allergies. It's also a timeless classic that adds value to your home. When you have a dust allergy, you need to vacuum or dust every week or as dust becomes visible. Hardwood floors are easy to care for with simple vacuuming or dust mopping.

You have two choices in hardwood flooring. You can install "conventional" hardwood but these floors tend to gap during dry winters. Then there's the "new generation" of hardwood floors, guaranteed to be dust and gap resistant. Also, these floors can be easily un-clicked and lifted to check underneath the floor for mould and mildew, and then clicked back into position.

One respected source of these "new generation", gap-resistant floors is TORLYS, a Canadian flooring company www.torlys.com). Unlike conventional hardwood floors their floors are guaranteed not to gap despite variations in temperature and humidity. With hardwood floors dust is more visible and you can better control dust in your home.

If you are allergic to dust, fight it where you can see it, on hardwoodfloors.