Coronavirus Cleaning : How To Disinfect Your House
With the COVID-19 Pandemic hitting world records, we get a lot of questions on how to disinfect your house properly. So how we do our Coronavirus cleaning ? The SARS-Cov-2 Virus, responsible for the COVID-19 disease it’s here to stay and now, more than ever a clean household it’s the key to keep our family members safe.
Cleaning or Disinfecting?
We can mix this two terms easily, but cleaning and disinfecting aren’t the same. When we wash our hands with soap, we are cleaning away bacteria and viruses by let them rinsed off our hands. Properly washing our hands with warm water for 20 seconds allows soap to detach any microorganism we carried with us by touching things outside.
Disinfecting must be the first choice when dealing with surfaces. They work by killing the bacteria and viruses. Household cleaners like Clorox or alcohol based products would do the trick. While using these chemicals, paper wipes are better than sponges.
The key of a proper protection from Coronavirus it’s to keep our hands clean, and surfaces disinfected.
Coronavirus Cleaning : Where To Focus?
There are few spots at home that will need extra care during this pandemic. Anything that is going to be in contact with our skin will need our attention.
- Tablets, phones and electronics. You could feel safe about your mobile phone if you are the only one using it, but reality it’s that it most likely be the one that brings the virus to your face and allow it to enter your body. At home, electronics such as tablets or remote controls are even more dangerous for our family members. Be sure to properly wipe them few times a day.
- Towels, blankets and bedsheets. Most households will likely share these fabrics around all family members. This allows viruses to get in contact with your skin. Using a bleach detergent and high temperature will do the trick.
- Bathroom and kitchen. These are the most common areas of the house where the bacteria will spread easily on surfaces. Be sure to enforce the cleaning and disinfection of sinks, toilets and shower knobs.
How To Disinfect Your House With New Technologies
Among the traditional soap and bleach, this pandemic has awakened the demand of new ways to disinfect public areas. UV light robots are starting to be used on airports and other big buildings to disinfect common areas.
The true is that UV-C light and ozone have been used for long time to kill bacteria and viruses from operation rooms and laboratories. Now, prices allow that any household or small business can get this kind of equipment.
Coronavirus Cleaning Using UV-C Light
UV light waves can be classified by wavelength. According to CIE 1984, CIE 1987:
- UVA light has a wavelength from 315 to 400 nm
- UVB wavelength is from 280 to 315 nm
- UVC wavelength is from 100 to 280 nm
The time needed for UV to kill bacteria or viruses depended on the radiation wavelength. UVC radiation will require a short exposition, even a few seconds are enough. While a similar power UVA will disinfect in minutes or even hours.
Using Ozone To Disinfect Your House
It’s going to be the trend of the next few months. Ozone it’s a harmless element that actually can kill germs. And it does by reaching inside fabrics, under the beds, furnitures, and any other surface in contact with air.
It sounds awesome but, how Ozone disinfection works? Ozone (O3) it’s just 3 atoms of oxygen.
As the electrons are being shared between three atoms instead of two, the resulting molecule is very unstable, and tends to capture electrons from any approaching compound to regain its stability; that is, it is a strong oxidant.
This explains its extraordinary biocidal, deodorant and chemical destruction properties: by capturing electrons from other molecules, oxidizing them, destabilizes them to the point of destroying them if the ozone concentration and / or contact time is sufficient.
Small Ozone production machines can be found on the market nowadays and allow disinfection of cars, rooms and every item on them.