Solutions To Household Problems

July 7, 2011

Interview with Jeff May, author of the book Jeff May's Healthy Home Tips: A Workbook for Detecting, Diagnosing, and Eliminating Pesky Pests, Stinky Stenches, Musty Mold, and Other Aggravating Home Problems

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Mike Carruthers:
If you like to burn candles in your home you should be aware of what happens when you burn "jar candles" - you know the candles that come in the glass jars.

Jeff May:
Jar candles produce a lot of soot. If you look at a jar candle at the rim you can see it's all black and that's the soot.
 

Jeff May, author of the book Jeff May's Healthy Home Tips…

And that soot will stain the walls and ceilings in a house and literally there's been millions of dollars’ worth of damage done and there's actually more and more evidence that the soot particles are very, very unhealthy. The small soot particles are associated with increased levels of heart disease.

Why are jar candles such a problem? Jeff says, because they flicker.

When a flame has a nice shape to it you get complete combustion and as soon as you disturb a candle, even a tapered candle, you can see it starts to produce smoke. And it's why people like jar candles because they flicker, because the air changes direction as it comes down into the candle and that causes the turbulence.

Self-cleaning ovens are a great invention but Jeff says you have to be careful.

The way they work is that they get very, very hot and they burn off what's inside the oven and it can actually produce quite a bit of carbon monoxide. So you really ought to have windows open and have the exhaust fan on. And actually the manufacturers even recommend that you take pet birds out, I guess some birds have died from the carbon monoxide.