Pure Genius smart hardwood flooring, from $5.50 per square foot, Lauzon Distinctive Hardwood Flooring. Photography courtesy of Lauzon Flooring.

21st-century homes tend to be sealed as tightly as submarines, and although that's good news for your heating bill, it could also pose some serious health risks. In addition to trapping heat, air-tight homes can also trap  pollutants and toxic contaminants like formaldehyde that can compromise indoor air quality, resulting in allergies, fatigue and respiratory problems like asthma.

Although proper ventilation plays a vital role in ensuring adequate air exchange, there's a new air purifying tool on the market that I've never heard of before today:

Air-purifying hardwood floors.

Yep, you read that right. A hardwood floor that *actually*  breaks down airborne toxins to improve air quality in the home.

Pure Genius Hardwood flooring by Canadian manufacturer Lauzon uses a patented titanium dioxide technology that decomposes bacteria, viruses and moulds, and reduces potential carcinogens by constantly transforming toxic airborne particles into harmless water and carbon dioxide molecules.

"The purifying effect is so strong, that for an average 1,377 square-foot Canadian home installed with Pure Genius, it's like having three trees in your home," says Lauzon's Nathalie Lambert.

How's that for hardworking hardwood?

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