My Ionic Breeze And I

My generation has heard many promises from science and industry and, to be fair, a few of them have come true. TV dinners do save time in the kitchen, 100 channels do increase the fun of watching, and aluminum chlorhydrate rubbed on armpits does suppress natural body odors. Thanks. Really.

My favorite 20th century slogan, Better Living Through Chemistry, can't be fully explored here (certainly not without legal consequences), but on the topic of indoor air quality, here at the beginning of the pollen season, we have a few thoughts.

Indoor air purifiers, the devices that hum or whirr a bit and sometimes even filter out a little airborne stuff, have fallen on hard times lately. It appears that they don't always work very well, and when they work, harmful ozone levels can result, leaving air worse off than before treatment. Not all retail purifiers are harmful, and some are true to their promises, but there's a huge stink of Caveat Emptor hanging over the marketplace viz. room air purifiers.

We've spoken on the topic of cleaning (see previous post) and filtration (also see previous) and those things help lots. What if the outdoor air quality is poor, driving you to seek safety indoors? During summer months, air pollution (airborne industrial waste, airborne dust and sand, nucular fallout, etc.) reaches dangerous levels, and those of us with established allergies are not the only ones to suffer. Everyone feels it when the smog, pollen and humidity become oppressively concentrated. What to do?

If you've done all you can to make your home clean, dry, unlikely to host mold and dust allergens, you can address the outdoor pollutants that invade your home in several ways to create a safe haven of clean air. This post and those following will reveal a list of things we think are appropriate and cost-effective.

So, first on the list, choose a room of your house, one that can be separated from the other rooms, clean it remorselessly, using non-fragrant cleaning agents, dry it out using either a dehumidifier or an air conditioner, and install a non-ozone air purifier that features Hepa-level filtration and possibly an "ionic" function. Keep the pets out, maintain cleanliness regularly, and spend a few hours in this room each day. Television does not technically qualify as a polluting agent, since the moral and intellectual research hasn't been done yet. And, after a week of this experiment, how do you feel? If your symptoms improve generally, or if you feel better after spending the evening in your special space, you're on the right track. We'll be back next time with more from the list of "good air" strategies.