Healthy Indoors Magazine - USA Edition

Jeffrey C. May, CIAQP (Certified Indoor Air Quality Professional), combines his education as an organic chemist (B.A. Columbia College; M.A. Harvard University) and his twenty-five plus years of experience as a building consultant to specialize in residential indoor air quality. He is founder of May Indoor Air Investigations LLC, located in Tyngsborough, MA; is a former Adjunct Professor in the Department of Work Environ- ment at U MA Lowell; and author or co-author of four books on indoor air quality, all published by The Johns Hopkins University Press: My House is Killing Me! The Home Guide for Families with Allergies and Asthma, The Mold Survival Guide: For Your Home and for Your Health, My Office is Killing Me! The Sick Building Survival Guide, and Jeff May's Healthy Home Tips. A nation- ally recognized speaker and author, Jeff is a member of the American Chemical Society, the New England Chapter of the American Industrial Hygiene Association, the Association of Energy Engineers, the Indoor Air Quality Association, and the Pan-American Aerobiology Association. He is also a former member of the AAFA national board and a current Board member of the Mas- sachusetts Association of the Chemically Injured (MACI). Jeff is a Certified Indoor Air Quality Professional (Association of Energy Engineers) and a Council-Certified Microbial Consultant (American Council for Accredited Certification). He holds a B.A. from Columbia in chemistry and an M.A. from Harvard in organic chemistry http://MayIndoorAir.com Share YOUR comments about this article on our LinkedIn discussion by clicking the button below! cannot be salvaged (unless re-cushioned and re-upholstered), and should be discarded. Mat- tresses, box springs and bed pillows that are musty or have been damp should also be dis- carded. Air purifiers. Some of these devices can foul the air. Ionizing air purifiers produce ozone: a gas that may smell like fresh, outdoor air, but ozone can be irritating to inhale. This gas is also one of the chief components in smog. Keep the surfaces in your home or office clean, rather than trying to "clean" the air. Even if the air purifier doesn't produce ozone, it can never clean the air of all the irritants and allergens, as long as the sources of these contaminants remain in the space. Fragrances: Don't depend on pleasant smell- ing sprays or plug-in fragrance emitters. They just cover up the problem, plus they introduce chemicals into your indoor air – chemicals that can be irritating to in- hale. It's always better to remove whatever is causing the bad smell through thorough clean- ing, than to try to cover it up with fragrance. See our book The Mold Survival Guide for further tips on cleaning; available on amazon. com. Healthy Indoors 43 May's Ways Continued from previous page

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