Lesley Burton-Dallas

You might be one of many people seething seeing money going out the window when they try to heat or cool their homes.

But there is a product we've been working with for many years now when we do our energy audits to try and save our customers money and save energy.

They're called: Destratification Fans

Warm air naturally rises in buildings to produce a thermal imbalance floor to ceiling; temperatures in some buildings can exceed floor temperatures by anything up to 25°C or even more. Destratification fans prevent this difference from occurring therefore achieving significant energy savings of between 20% and 50%.

They can also help make better use of cooling equipment by re-distributing cool air much more efficiently throughout building interiors.

Destratification Systems are unique for effective internal warm/cool air distribution; the fans are inexpensive to purchase, very quiet, require near zero maintenance, are easy install into new build or retro fit and have very low running costs.

HVAC-Compatible Destratification Fans

Destratification fans work very well alongside all types of HVAC equipment to make better use of the warm / cool air produced. Wear and tear on HVAC equipment will also be greatly reduced as this equipment will not have to work so hard to maintain required temperature levels.

Ductless Environmental Control

Destratification fans will move warm/cool air more efficiently throughout a building's interior taking the place of normal forms of ductwork therefore saving money on fabrication and installation and also implementing good energy savings as air friction and the need for large fan output is eliminated.

Fans for multiple environmental control applications

The fans can be used in a wide variety of buildings from warehouses, offices, aircraft hangers, manufacturing facilities, schools, sports centres, swimming pools, communal buildings, showrooms, supermarkets and general retail stores etc. Airius fans also benefit buildings with split levels, mezzanine floors and atriums.

Improved internal atmospheres

The fans move air slowly throughout the whole interior of a building eliminating warm/cold spots and improving internal air quality all year round.

Energy saving

Destratification fans will not only make better use of your HVAC systems but will also use ambient heat from the sun, lighting and heat generated by any processes which take place inside a building which will enhance energy savings.

• Our customers typically save 45% and more on their winter heating bill.
• Fan units now being installed by major supermarket chains to save energy and also improve interior atmospheres by eliminating cold air problems in chilled aisle sections.
• Warehousing: A major pharmaceutical company had major problems trying to keep the internal temperature of their main drug storage building within legal drug storage temperature parameters; destrat units were installed which more than solved the problem and at a fraction of the cost of anything comparable.

So definitely check these systems out. Our clients LOVE them!

Hope you had a great holiday and are staying cool out here on the East Coast with 102 degrees and humid!

Luckily I have my fans running now!!

Ahhh, soy. It's a love-it-or-hate-it kind of food. But maybe you would grow to adore tofu, tempeh, and edamame if you knew this: It could help you look younger.

Yep. Eating lean, nutritious soy foods may help smooth fine wrinkles and buoy your skin's snap-back qualities, according to recent research. Those are two big victories for face freshness.

It's All About Aglycone
Soy is packed with a special isoflavone called aglycone, and it appears to be the source of the youth-boosting magic. In a study of middle-aged women, those who took a daily 40 milligram supplement of aglycone noticed diminishment in the fine wrinkles (better known as crow's feet) around their eyes. The women also enjoyed a smoother complexion and a big jump in elasticity. (Add these other foods to your list of elastin- and collagen-boosting edibles.)

Wrinkle Weapons
Aglycone is among several plant estrogens found in soy. Soy estrogens may help counter age- and menopause-related changes in skin by hindering collagen depletion and boosting the production of connective tissue cells in the skin. But soy is not without its drawbacks. Get the YOU Docs' take on all the conflicting information about soy.

Are topical estrogen creams a good idea? Find out whether they can help stymie menopause-induced skin changes.

Ready to fall in love with tempeh? Then check out this Smothered Tempeh Sandwich recipe.

RealAge Benefit:

Training your taste buds to love foods that thwart aging can make your RealAge at least 3 years younger.

References Published on 07/06/2010 Oral intake of soy isoflavone aglycone improves the aged skin of adult women. Izumi, T. et al., Journal of Nutritional Science and Vitaminology (Tokyo) 2007 Feb;53(1):57-62.

By Sheree R Curry

Would you buy serial killer Joel Rifkin's former home, where several of his victims were slain? What about the Amityville Horror house? Both homes are currently up for sale, and the idea of living in either one makes many buyers squirm and decide to look elsewhere.

Most buyers would also probably want to know that the house pictured to the left was built on the same suburban Chicago lot as the home where notorious murderer John Wayne Gacy buried 29 of his victims in the walls and crawl spaces.

Murder aside, quite a few buyers would also opt out of a home where someone died from disease, natural causes or suicide. If the idea of living in such a home churns your stomach, do you know for certain that no one has died in the home or apartment you're currently living in?

There are a few ways to find out; just don't expect to hear about them from the seller.
In most states that have formal seller-disclosure laws, sellers and their agents do not have to reveal if a death occurred in the home if you don't ask. And some states do not have to reveal it if it occurred more than a year or so ago, or if the death was due to AIDS-related complications. Seller-disclosure laws mostly focus on structural and material defects to the home, such as termites, mold and squeaky floorboards.

"In my opinion it would be better if they found out from the broker," a top Hamptons-area real estate agent, Diane Saatchi of Saunders & Assoc. told HousingWatch. Saatchi was the agent seeking renters for an infamous murder house in that area of Long Island, N.Y., a few years ago. Although she wouldn't identify which murder, it was more than likely the home of investment banker Robert Ammon, who was murdered by Daniel Pelosi, the boyfriend of his wife, Generosa Rand.

"Everyone in town knew there was a murder there -- it was the 800-pound elephant in the room -- so if you don't reveal it [the next occupants] would just say, 'Why didn't you tell us?' It is just good business to be upfront about it," she says.

In agreement is California Realtor Valerie Torelli, who has twice sold murder homes in Costa Mesa, Calif. Under California law, a seller must disclose if a murder was committed within the last three years. But she feels a duty to reveal beyond what the state mandates. "We felt that we should disclose for a much longer time-frame because of the stigma," she told HousingWatch.

Torelli's first client didn't care about the murder, which had occurred 18 months before. "There were several families that looked at it and would not consider it because of what happened there. Ultimately the property sold at full market value at the time, $729,000," she said. Her other client has renters in a murder home.

The reason some agents don't want to reveal the deaths is because, as the sellers' agents, their job is to get the home sold quickly and at the best possible price. If a murder is disclosed, the home could take 5 percent longer than comparable homes to sell, and it could price at an average of about 3 percent less, according to an analysis of 100 "psychologically impacted houses" by Wright State University professors James E. Larsen and Joseph W. Coleman.

So if an agent isn't as forthcoming as Torelli and Saatchi, or if they are even unaware because it wasn't a high-profile death, your best bet to uncover this tidbit is simply to do your homework. After all, it is "buyer beware."

Here are some tips to get you started before you sign on the dotted line:

1. Ask the Joneses. Neighbors generally would know if a home had been the scene of a grisly murder. They might also know if grandpa just passed away there and his heirs put the home on the market. So go knock on some doors and ask the neighbors things like: How's traffic in the morning? Are there lots of kids in the neighborhood? And oh, did anyone die next door?

2. Pull police records. Police precincts serving that neighborhood generally would charge you a nominal fee to give you a printout of any police calls made to a given address going back a few years. Discover whether the home was a meth lab, a constant site of domestic disputes, hit by a random burglary, or had body parts stuffed under floorboards.

3. Google the address. Sometimes you'll discover newspaper articles written about the home or incidents that occurred there. In addition to the exact address, also try searching the street and city name with the words "in the block of."

4. Check city records. Just as you might want to know if the cross street is going to be turned into a major highway, you can find out a lot from city records, such as if the plot nextdoor used to be a cemetery, or if the house was torn down and rebuilt. If it was, you should ask why. One house that was demolished was serial killer John Wayne Gacy's suburban Chicago home. After the lot sat empty for about a decade, a new home was finally built there.


If you're the seller . . .

You can do your part to help the sale, says Saatchi. For starters, refurbish parts of the home that might have been revealed a lot in the news. For example, the "Amityville Horror" house became highly recognizable because of its arched windows on a side of the house. A future owner replaced them with square ones.

Also, have someone live in the house until it's sold, she says. "People already think it's creepy that someone died there, but empty houses add another layer of spookiness." A housekeeper remained in a murder house Saatchi had listed until a new occupant was found.

And finally, do all those other things that you should be doing to sell a home anyway: "Don't have dead flowers in the house; get rid of the Kitty Litter smell; make sure there's not a dead bird on the patio. If kids have lived there, the toys and dolls should be fresh-looking, not a pathetic-looking doll. And get rid of memorabilia that could remind seekers of the deceased," she says.

As we get ready to begin the holiday weekend where alot of us will be in our cars with our families, there is something you should consider: Most Cars Contain High Levels of Cancer Causing Benzene!!!

Some helpful tips...

Please do NOT turn on A/C as soon as you enter the car!!!

1. Open the windows after you enter your car and turn ON the AC after a
   couple of minutes.
   
2. Here's why: According to research, the car dashboard, sofa, air
   freshener emit Benzene, a Cancer causing toxin (carcinogen - take time to
   observe the smell of heated plastic in your car).
3. In addition to causing cancer, Benzene poisons your bones, causes anemia and reduces white blood cells. Prolonged exposure will cause Leukemia,
   increasing the risk of cancer. Can also cause miscarriage.
4. Acceptable Benzene level indoors is 50mg per sq.ft. A car parked indoors
   with windows closed will contain 400-800 mg of Benzene.
   
5. If parked outdoors under the sun at a temperature above 60 degrees F, the
   Benzene level goes up to 2000-4000 mg, 40 times the acceptable level.
   
6. People who get into the car, keeping windows closed will inevitably
   inhale, in quick succession, excessive amounts of the toxin.
   
7. Benzene is a toxin that affects your kidney and liver.. What's worse, it
   is extremely difficult for your body to expel this toxic stuff.
   
8. So friends, please open the windows and door of your car - give time for
   interior to air out -dispel the deadly stuff - before you enter.

Those who suffer from allergies wonder what may be at the root of their allergic reactions, so what causes allergies and how can they be stopped?

The things allergies share and have in common is the response of your immune system as it attacks substances that it determines are foreign. These substances are called allergens.

You will learn about different types of allergies, allergy symptoms, and natural allergy remedies in this wellness article for controlling the symptoms of allergies.

Holistic Health Information on Allergies

An estimated 60 million folks in the US alone suffer from allergies. Allergic conditions are not just common, but epidemic in today's world. It's really no wonder the respiratory allergy rate is tremendously high as well when we consider the amount of environmental pollutants we are exposed to such as smoke and auto fumes, chemicals in paints, housecleaning products, pesticides, asbestos, etc. On top of those allergy producers and health reducers, we also all have to deal with nature's brand of allergy stimulant - the spores, pollen and dust mites.

Having sensitivities to more than one allergen, known as multiple chemical sensitivity, is on the rise as well as food allergies and food intolerance. It might be safe to assume that most of us suffer, to one degree or another, from one allergen or another.

What is at the root of airborne allergies and hayfever (also medically referred to as allergic rhinitis)?

When we breathe each breath draws microscopic particles by the millions. The particles contain plant spores, pollen, dust, bacteria, and viruses along with chemical air pollutants. Luckily the nose and our respiratory system does a good job at filtering and removing many of these irritants and invaders.

The immune system of a strong and healthy person then steps in address those that can lead to the invitation of infection from these harmful airborne elements that invade the body.

The immune system normally ignores the harmless airborne bits, such as the pollen, animal dander, etc. But some individuals immune system senses these particles are harmful and responds to remove the dangers from the body by releasing histamines.

When a histamine reaction is triggered it also increases inflammatory compounds which your body generates and this leads to hayfever, which is also termed "allergic rhinitis."

In the warm weather, those who are sensitive and have over reactive immune systems may find there allergy signs and symptoms kick up in windy weather, or during springtime when bees buzz about as pollen is produced by trees, grasses, and flowers. If you are a person who reacts in other seasons, you most likely are dealing with molds, mildew, and also house dust and animal dander.

If you are someone who suffers allergic reactions you are also going to be more susceptible to developing sinusitis, colds, the flu and other respiratory infections because your system becomes compromised over time. This can cause a vicious cycle which weakens your immune system. Then yo many find allergic reaction increases along with progressive fatigue and a weakened body system.

What are the symptoms of allergic rhinitis and hayfever?

• A Runny nose with a clear discharge
• Eyes that are red, puffy, or itchy
• Dark circles form beneath the eyes
• Nasal passages become swollen
• You begin to Sneeze, and the nose itches
• The throat becomes irritated
• You feel tired and fatigued

Here are some tips on how to stop them, and a holistic remedy I have found that is very good...( I have absolutely ZERO affiliation with Native Resources...just like their products!)

Supporting year-round respiratory health

There are many ways to support respiratory health naturally.

• Maintain a healthy lifestyle to promote a healthy immune system. This includes regular exercise, healthy, preferably organic diet and sufficient sleep.
• Eat lots of fresh raw fruit and vegetables which contain rich sources of flavonoids and other nutrients.
• Learn stress management and relaxation techniques.
• Avoid cigarettes, alcohol, caffeine and other recreational drugs. For those struggling to quit smoking.
• Add Vitamin C and A to your daily supplements.
• Keep an eye on the pollen count in your area and stay indoors when it is high.

Maybe ask your naturopath/ alternative doctor about natural ways to treat the symptoms if you are really suffering. The following is what was recommended to me by my doc...

AllergiClear by Native Resources

AllergiClear is a 100% natural remedy developed by experts in the field of natural health and especially formulated to support a healthy immune system as well as respiratory and skin health.

AllergiClear is a compound remedy containing herbal and nutritional ingredients known for their positive effect in maintaining histamine levels within the normal range and supporting clear eyes, noses, sinuses and healthy problem free skin.