Light And Heat

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Bill Lauto is an Environmental Scientist and Energy Consultant who has been teaching how we can save our money, energy, environment, and health, since 1982. Mr. Lauto operates GoingTrueGreen.com and his work has been published in magazines such as: Consumer Report, Kiplinger's Financial and Business Ethics.

Winter time stuffy noses, dry and scratchy throats are upon us. Most of us feel washing our hands is all we can do to prevent getting these symptoms. While that might be true for fighting against germs, there is much more we can do when dealing with a dry nose, watery eyes, and scratchy throat, that is caused by our indoor environment.

If you have a Force Hot Air heating system in your home, the number one culprit for these irritating symptoms is dry air and an excess of particulates in the air. Dust and dust mites, along with mold spores, are a major contributing factor. Opening your windows will not solve the problem, that will only raise the heating bill. Cleaning and dusting is mostly helpful with heat delivered by Hot Water Base Boards or Steam Radiators. Cleaning under and on top of all radiators when they are OFF and COOL is crucial. However, with a delivery system that is Forced Hot Air and uses Ductwork to deliver the heat throughout the house, that ductwork needs to be cleaned out professionally when necessary. A well maintained humidifier on the heating system is also needed.

End results: Healthy inhabitants, lower heating bills, and more money saved in your pocket.

With Indoor Lighting, we finally have long overdue advancements since Thomas Edison’s first light bulb. LED bulbs are meeting all our needs and lowering our lightbulb electric bills up to 95%!

Yet, you may have now seen on the internet various articles that are just money grabbing schemes. Perhaps some of these titles have crossed your email box:

Can light affect your health?
We are sharing the HIDDEN dangers of LED lights!
Major downsides to LEDs!

These articles immediately use Key Words that invoke fear. Such as: EMF radiation, macular degeneration, blindness, and metabolic disorder to cancer.

Then they use large technical words as if to justify the fear. Words such as: Nanometers, lumens, color rendering index (CRI), visible spectrum, infrared, and kelvin temperatures.

However, mixed into this vortex of excess verbiage, which I understand and “correctly” used throughout my career, are the most important words of all: Can, potentially, if, may, perhaps, and maybe. All these words prove that the article is speculative at best and presents no cited cases or proof.

Then when you are about halfway through the article, the Ad pops up in your face. They are selling something, perhaps a lifetime subscription to their newsletter warning us of all the things that can cause harm. Amazing… And all for just $9.95 a month.