What most people are not aware of is that US Federal Congress enacted a law mandating the sunset of the incandescent light bulb, the pride and joy of Tomas A Edison and the device that has lighted the night around the world, because it is “too power hungry”.

What congress has told us in ever possible way is that CFL’s will

* Save Energy.
* Help protect the environment because using them produces less green house gasses (CO2).
* Save Money in this time of financial crisis saving and average of $13 per year over a 60 watt bulb.

What the congress has not told us about CFL’s is not quite so positive.

* The bare bulb CFL’s are very fragile and break easily.
* All fluorescent lamps or fluorescent tubes are gas-discharge lamps that use electricity to excite mercury vapor who’s vapors are extremely poisonous. The excited mercury atoms produce dangerous short-wave ultraviolet (UVA) light that then causes a phosphor (also very dangerous to breath or ingest) inside the tube or lamp to fluoresce and producing visible light.
* Unlike incandescent lamps, fluorescent lamps always require a ballast to regulate the flow of power through the lamp. For the most part, dimmers do not work on standard CFLs
* CFL’s because of the long narrow tube construction requires a larger amount of mercury in the tube than the large straight tube bulbs. Many of the older CFL’s had considerably more mercury than the current models do but still much more than the straight tubes have.
* CFL’s often take 5 to 60 seconds to produce full brightness and there is often a 0 to 3 second delay before the CFL turns on at all.
* And as for helping protect the environment, they may reduce the CO2 produced by coal fired electric plants, but what about the truly dangerous mercury released into land fills all over the country from discarded CFL’s.

The bottom line is that if you break a CFL, you are being exposed to some very dangerous chemicals. Chemicals that often require a HAZMAT clean up effort or equivalent to remove the threat. There has been some talk about simply removing contaminated carpet to remove the threat of mercury poisoning. Additionally, the phosphor that actually produces the light is not exactly environmentally friendly either.

The last point today is that if you are exposed to a broken CFL or the area where a CFL was broken even days ago, there is a very good possibility that you can become contaminated with mercury if you tough the contaminated area. The worse part is, if you go to the emergency room of your local hospital for treatment and decontamination, the chances of anyone there knowing what to do to decontaminate you or your child is almost zero. Further, removing mercury or any heavier than water liquids from your body is very very difficult.

As usual the unintended consequences of our ill informed representatives in Washington making bad laws have set the wheels in motion to cause the contamination of thousands of people and thousands of archers of land with mercury and other dangerous chemicals.

If you own and rent/lease real estate you should seriously consider avoiding CFL’s as standard lighting in your rentals. This looks like a law suit waiting to happen.

The reality of the situation is that if you don’t mind you teak furniture looking dingy gray with mold and often moss growing on it you are good to go. However if you want your teak to look like it did when you unpacked it, there is a bit more that needs to happen.

A realization that raw unfinished teak does not look good for very long is a pivotal conclusion. There are some sealing finishes for teak that will look good for a year or so and then they begin to peal off and you have to sand the rest off before you start re-coating. This repeated sanding will eventually reduce you teak to dust!

Further, several of the teak cleaners available at your friendly neighborhood marina or grocery store have either sodium hydroxide or sodium hypochlorite (chlorine bleach) in them. Both will damage the surface of your teak wood by attacking and weakening the micro-fibers that hold the wood together.

Using a water water based degreaser to remove the gray teak resin is a much better solution and it does not damage the wood before coating the teak with what ever you choose to use. Most of the teak coatings are sealers. They do not allow the wood to breath, and as a result, will eventually blister and peal off at least in sections. There are now several teak finishes that do breath. These products are generally made of water based polymer resins that when dry are gas permeable.  This allows the water vapor (that is produced when the sun shines on the wood and finish) to escape without generating the small high pressure pocket of water vapor between the wood (that does not breath) and the finish.

Seems like the last choice is to get one of those air fresheners that hangs from the mirror or spray the interior with a can of new car smell and sell the car.

Well there is another alternative that weighs less than 1 ounce and costs less than $30 including shipping that can remove the mold odor permanently and only takes a couple of days to get the job not while you are still using the car. It uses a gas like ozone called chlorine dioxide that is safer and more effective than ozone and it really kills mold and mold spores too. And if you run a small personal fan in the car when it’s at home, it works even better.

Now if the mold is in the trunk you will need to start the treatment in the trunk to get the bulk of the odor source under control first. Then move the little packet inside the car to treat the mold and spores that migrated into the cab. Sometimes with a trunk job it’s necessary to remove or prop up the back seat for a couple of days to get the mold that is under the seat.

If the mold is from a window left open during a storm, removing the water with a shop vacuum or car wash vacuum is a really good idea.

If the mold was from your car being flooded, use a detail shop to clean out the really bad stuff and then treat the mold when the interior is dry.

Why doesn’t the detail shop use this stuff? That’s a really good question. It’s probably because they have already spent their money on an ozone machine that was supposed to do the job. But by the time the ozone machine has done it job the interior of your car is damaged by the ozone.

What is this stuff that works better than ozone? It’s called OdorXit CLO2 and it’s available on the web at the OdorXit Web Site. And you only need a 5 gram packet.

Additionally, those who work in libraries are also paying a very high price especially if they work amongst the stacks and stacks of books in the storage area that are covered with mold. They often the develop mold allergies that cause all sorts of apparently unrelated health problems.

Up until 2000, mold remediation consisted of Lysol spray, vacuum cleaners with HEPA filters, respirators and hours and hours of manual labor. The results were marginal at very best. Using stronger chemicals to actually kill the mold and spores are liquid and when the solvent evaporated, the powder left was poison and spraying any liquid on paper documents cause damage of its own.

Using the old standard ozone has some very negative side effects like making leather book bindings brittle and crack, oxidizing the binding cord and bleaching everything in sight.

In the December of 2000, Pat L. Weaver-Meyers, Wilbur A. Stolt, and Barbara Kowaleski wrote a paper titled “Controlling Mold on Library Materials with Chlorine Dioxide: An Eight-Year Case Study” that was published in the ” Abbey Newsletter“. Their problem was apparently so sever that they were willing to wipe the books with chlorine dioxide dissolved in water to kill the mold and it worked.

They followed up with a product produced by Aseptrol Technology that produced very small amounts of ClO2 that was catalyzed by the humidity in the air. This product is now very hard to get and was not an efficient or cost effective way to produce ClO2 even in very small quantities. BASF acquired Aseptrol Technologies and dropped the CLO2 gas product line in favor of a water based version.

In recent years, new materials and new thinking has been applied to the problem of producing chlorine dioxide. This effort has resulted in the product available on this web site called OdorXit ClO2. It is available in 4 packet weights ranging from 5 grams to 50 grams and 2 gas production rates. For the purpose of library uses, the slow release products are the appropriate products.

The slow release products produce ClO2 for 20 to 30 days depending on the humidity and when appropriately sized for the area being treated, there is no odor. If an over sized packet is used, a slight chlorine bleach smell can be detected. The remedy is to put the offending packet in a ZipLoc baggie for a day and then place it back in service.

OdorXit CLO2 5 gram packet

The packets measure as little as 2.5 x 2.5 x .25 inches to 3 x 4 x .375 inches. The active ingredients are sealed in a Tyvek packet that has a blue border (the seal). The seal is very special in that it breaths small quantity’s of air containing water vapor and breathing out the resulting ClO2 gas. This Tyvek packet is shipped in a water vapor proof sealed mylar packet which must be removed to activate the process. Additionally a clear peal and stick pouch is supplied with each packet to mount the packet is any convenient place. Since the packets outgas for only 20 to 30 days, it may be necessary to replace them occasionally. The spent packets can be removed and replaces indefinably.

Note: It is not necessary to replace the spent ClO2 packet just because it has expired. Because ClO2 is so effective a killing mold fungus and spores, re-growth and re-population is very slow and based on the ability of the air handling system to filter out new spores floating in the air outside the treated area.

Rubbermaid 60 qt covered tub storage unit

In order to remove mold or smoke odor from hard bound books, minimally you will need a plastic tub with a cover or a metal locker with several shelves and a door that can be closed. For doing more books at a time, a normal closet can be used.

• Stand the book(s) to be treated on end so that the pages can be fluffed open.
• Place the books so that the covers are open between 45 and 90 degrees and about 1 inch apart.
• Stick the self adhering pouch on the side of the tub or near the top of the locker
• Tear open the Mylar outer package without tearing or puncturing the inner Tyvek packet of a 5 gram Extended Release packet for a tub or locker (bigger packets are available for treating larger open areas.)
• Place the Tyvek packet in the pouch
• Use a very small battery operated fan to stir the air in the tub.
• Install the cover or close the locker door without knocking the books over.
• Remove the books in 24 to 48 hours. All the mold will be dead and needs only to be wiped away with a soft cloth.

Stackable clamp hangers

For removing mold and/or smoke from comic books, papers, reports, etc. metal cloths hangers work really will. Even the clamp and multi clamp hangers work really well. Just hang them on the hanger bar, place a CLO2 packet in the upper part of the closet and use a small personal fan in the bottom to stir the air around

The packet will continue to release small amounts of chlorine dioxide for 20 or 30 days during which time the books in the tub or locker can be replaced with new ones for treatment.

Note, when the blue border around the packet has turned white, the packet is finished or nearly finished producing gas and should be discarded in an outdoor garbage container.

If you have questions, call the experts at 1-877-636-7948 or visit the website.

If you are looking for the best way or cheapest way or fastest way to do something, it may take sever attempts to hone your proceedure and even then expecting it to be the fastest or cheapest or best way is a streach. Often the cheapest way is very different from the fastest, and the best way to do anything correctly. So focus on one and go for it. When you find something that works, this is a great place to share it with the world.

Martin Meyer, web host and administrator