Air

Clean Air In Your Car (Rhea - Tacoma, WA)

I do live in the big city, and commute on Interstate 5. I did not want the two hours a day that I live in my car to be a time to inhale horrible air. So I bought a great air filter for my car. And now, I don't smell the exhaust and fumes. It's great.

The filter was $120 from Real Goods. (www.realgoods.com, 1-800-762-7325). It has some kind of three-stage filter and runs off the lighter. It mounts out of the way, on the back of the driver's seat.

They say it completely changes the air in the car, and filters out all the gunk, in five minutes. It sure works for me.

Thanks, Rhea

Filters (Sarah Jones - Coeur d'Alene, Idaho)

I have to be careful about the air I breathe, due to my asthma condition.

And now we live in North Idaho, just east of the agricultural fields of Eastern Washington, where the farmers burn their fields after harvesting. Then the smoke comes over our houses here in Coeur d'Alene.

When the smoke comes, I go inside. I shut all the windows and turn on the air conditioning. We got a new air conditioning and heater combination installed, replacing our old forced air furnace with a new very efficient natural gas furnace. The new furnace uses the same ductwork.

Instead of the old funky fiberglass mat filter, we paid about $300 extra for a top-of-the-line electrostatic filter. That was a good investment. The new filter really cleans the air.

And when it comes time to clean the filter, we do not have to throw away some funky fiberglass thing and buy a new one. Instead, we just pull out this spacey metal box with a bunch of lightweight fins inside it. Then we can clean it in our diswasher, or if the weather is good, clean it with a garden hose on high spray.

I really suggest looking into a good filter to protect your family from airborne particles.

Thanks for listening. Sarah

Formaldehyde (Mary Jane Butters - Moscow, Idaho)

I can't remember where I read the following tip, but the source was reliable. Aloe Vera plants filter and eliminate at least 75% of the formaldehyde fumes in your air. This past winter I told my family and friends that I wanted Aloe Vera plants for Christmas. Now, I have 7 beautiful plants in my home filtering my air.

My Humidifier (Beatrice Glidden - Puyallup, WA)

When my daughter was about 18 months old, she had a severe rash around her mouth. I assumed it was from her binky (the pacifier she sucked).

Then I took her on a visit to the southeastern part of the US. This was in winter, and when we flew into Atlanta, the rash almost immediately cleared up.

I realized that the problem was humidity. In our house, we used central natural gas heat, and it was very dry. The drying out of her skin caused the rash. And when we visited the southern states, the air was humid, so the rash cleared up.

So, when we returned to the northwest, I talked to the company that had recently installed my central forced air furnace. For $400, they installed a humidifier, connected to the house water. Now, when the air in the house gets too dry (I have it set to come on at 35% humidity), I hear this spritzer sound, as the humidifier mists wet air into the heater ducts. This humidifier keeps the air in the whole house constantly and consistently moist and pleasant.

I love my humidifier. This was the best $400 I ever spent.

For both me and my daughter, we don't get sick as often, since our noses and skin does not dry out and get cracked and provide places for nasty germs to get into our bodies. The humid air helps my allergies and calms the static electricity that used to be a problem. Also, we feel warmer at a lower temperature (68 degrees in humid air feels as warm as 72 degrees in dry air).

Scents That Make Cents (Robyn Oro - Raytown, Missouri)

Take care with candles (Nancy Ravise-Noel - Norfolk, VA)