With the tremendous popularity of crime scene investigation shows on TV these days, we have all become familiar with the process of evidence collection and testing, even if some of that testing is, well, fictional.
But after the CSI folks go back to do their analyses, someone has to come and clean up all that mess.
Enter Crime and Trauma Scene Cleanup Crew!
Crime and Trauma scenes involve all sorts of hazardous materials, both biological and chemical, not to mention other nasty substances that make ordinary people run for the hills. Or at least the bushes!
What Do the Cleanup Crews Wear?
Crime and Trauma scene cleanup crews wear one-time-use, nonporous hazardous materials suits, filtered respirators, gloves and chemical spill boots. This equipment keeps them safe from biological and chemical hazards and makes it possible for them to go into a scene with terrible smells and substances.
What Do They Use to Clean the Scene?
Along with typical cleaning supplies like mops, sponges, buckets and spray bottles, professional clean up crews bring a lot of specialized equipment:
* Ozone machines to remove odors
* Foggers—cleaning chemicals have to reach all the way down into air ducts to get rid of bad smells, too
* Industrial strength disinfectants and deodorizers
* Enzyme solvents to eliminate viruses and bacteria, as well as liquefy dried blood!
* Razor blades to remove portions of carpeting
Okay, now this is getting to be a bit much…
* Putty knives to remove “gray matter” from surfaces, because it dries hard like cement
* Shovels—after a couple of hours, blood can be shoveled into containers
* Steam injection machines to soften substances so they can be removed
* Chemical treatment tank to disinfect matter that has been vacuumed upBack to stuff I can deal with now…
* A truck to transport everything
* Ladders
* Reconstruction supplies and tools
* Camera—for before and after photos and for insurance
If I had a situation that needed this kind of cleanup, I would definitely bring in a team and come back when it’s all gone! Wouldn’t you?
Alliance Environmental Services offers Crime and Trauma Scene Cleanup by our thoroughly trained and protected professional staff. We provide all decontamination services including: disinfection, odor neutralization and total removal of biological and infectious waste, blood, and bodily fluids in residential, commercial and industrial settings as well as vehicles.
Our crews are well-trained, experienced and empathetic. They will take care of your most upsetting messes with professionalism and tact.
If you have an environmental cleanup situation anywhere in California and would like someone else to take care of it for you, please contact us.
Next time: What professional cleanup crews do that you couldn’t (or wouldn’t) do yourself!
Wendy Stackhouse is the Online Community Manager for Alliance Environmental Group and AirTek Indoor Air Solutions. She welcomes your comments! For more news and tips or to ask questions of our experts, Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter! For updates on indoor air challenges, Like us at AirTek on Facebook!
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From all of us at Alliance Environmental Group!
Before we move on from the holiday season, we though you might like to see some pictures from the We Care ELA event that so many of you helped to make a happy day for so many kids!
Everyone at Alliance Environmental Group would like to thank you for giving these kids a Merry Christmas and wish you a very Happy New Year!
Wendy Stackhouse is the Online Community Manager for Alliance Environmental Group and AirTek Indoor Air Solutions. She welcomes your comments! For more news and tips or to ask questions of our experts, Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter! For updates on indoor air challenges, Like us at AirTek on Facebook!
If you think you might have picked up a couple of bed bugs on your holiday travels, we have some advice for you. Bed bugs are tiny and they like to hide in the day time, which makes them hard to detect until an infestation is well established.
A visual inspection, like the one you should be doing when you enter a hotel room, is an essential first step, but there are other ways of detecting bed bugs that can help early on and make a big difference in the amount of treatment your home or apartment needs.
How to Do a Visual Inspection
Early detection of bed bugs is very difficult by visual inspection. Signs of bed bug infestations are not visible until they have had a chance to reproduce and shed multiple skins.
Use a small flashlight to check mattresses and box springs, especially in the seams and corners, for oval, reddish-brown insects. Also look for tiny black spots and light brown discarded skins. Check behind the headboard, behind pictures on the walls and in side table drawers as well.
Just because you haven’t seen anything does not mean you don’t have an early bed bug infestation. If your visual inspection hasn’t turned up any evidence, there are other ways to find out.
Bed Bug Detection Dogs
Professional inspectors are more and more training dogs to detect bed bugs by the pheromones, carbon dioxide and methane that they produce. The smell of a bed bug infestation has been compared to the smell of old raspberries or moldy shoes.
Trained bed bug detection dogs can detect bed bugs within a few feet of the infestation and are especially useful for inspecting large buildings like apartment houses and dormitories before infestations can spread to the entire structure.
New Bed Bug Detection Technology
Bed bug detection dogs will not, however, tell you exactly where your bed bugs are lurking. A new detection device has been developed that can detect bed bugs within an inch of where they are hiding.
The Bed Bug Detective is a small electronic device that detects the odor, carbon dioxide and methane exuded by bed bugs just like a dog’s nose. It even sucks in air in the same pattern as a dog! It can also determine a bed bug’s gender, enabling people to find breeding females.
Detecting a bed bug infestation is only the first step. Eradication is what you need once you have determined that you have bed bugs in your home. Alliance Environmental Group provides ThermaPureHeat treatment for bed bugs, which kills them at every stage of development, egg, nymph and adult, and eliminates the infestation completely in one treatment without dangerous chemicals.
ThermaPureHeat raises the interior temperature of your area, room, or entire structure to over 140 degrees, high enough to kill these insidious pests, but not high enough do damage the contents of your home.
If you are suffering from bed bugs in California, don’t panic! Call on Alliance Environmental Group for help!
Wendy Stackhouse is the Online Community Manager for Alliance Environmental Group and AirTek Indoor Air Solutions. She welcomes your comments! For more news and tips or to ask questions of our experts, Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter! For updates on indoor air challenges, Like us at AirTek on Facebook!
See you on Wednesday!
BedBugCentral.com is a great resource for comprehensive information about bed bugs and they published a new video response to the bed bugs and body hair study done at the University of Sheffield in the UK this week.
The bottom line is that body hair will not protect you from bed bug bites nor make it tolerable to have an infestation in your home. The bed bugs will still bite, they will just take more time to decide where! And they might wake you up in the night by moving around in those sensitive hairs.
If you have a bed bug infestation, you need to eradicate the pests as soon and as quickly as possible and get back your peace of mind. The best way to eradicate bed bugs is by using high heat to kill them all, eggs, nymphs and adults, wherever they are lurking. Alliance Environmental Group offers ThermaPureHeat treatment for bed bugs, which eliminates all infestations in one treatment with no dangerous chemicals, no need to move out for days, no need to bag food or wash linens. The bugs are gone in one treatment and you can go right back in secure in the knowledge that bed bugs are now just a funny story to tell at a family gathering.
Don’t try to get rid of bed bugs on your own! Pesticides are unreliable and need to be applied over and over. Call in a professional!
Everyone at Alliance Environmental Group wishes you a happy, healthy, hairy holiday!
Wendy Stackhouse is the Online Community Manager for Alliance Environmental Group and AirTek Indoor Air Solutions. She welcomes your comments! For more news and tips or to ask questions of our experts, Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter! For updates on indoor air challenges, Like us at AirTek on Facebook!
When I was writing about finding asbestos in your attic, I came across a lot of ironic advertising for products which contained asbestos, some of which can still be found in use! Amazing!
The first product was decorative snow for under your tree or around your Christmas Village or new train set. Get down in there kids!
And it’s fireproof! Yuck!
How about these dish towels? Would you dry your dishes with asbestos?
Super absorbent because the cotton is blended with asbestos! Will dry faster and polish your dishes better than ordinary towels! I always wanted to dry my dishes with ROCKS!
Construction projects used a lot of asbestos—what an amazing product! Shingles:
Pipe insulation—easy to apply!
and more!.
Asbestos was even used in the filters of cigarettes—just to make sure you inhaled your recommended daily dose, I guess!
Since I am a spinner and work with fiber every day, this kit was fasctinating and frightening to me:
I cannot imagine spinning asbestos on my spinning wheel today, but somebody did for that kit! I sure hope none of the fibers we use now will end up being found to be carcinogenic in the future!
It is a terrible shame that the dangers of asbestos took so long to discover, but today you can avoid exposure to asbestos and there are strict workplace rules for companies that still work with it. If asbestos turns up in your home, in stored holiday decorations, insulation, floor coverings or pipe insulation, it needs to be removed.
If you need asbestos abatement for your home or commercial building in California, contact Alliance Environmental Group for assistance. We can remove all asbestos-containing materials safely, quickly, and thoroughly. Our technicians are based in offices all over California, including our new office in Anaheim for our Orange County customers. Give us a call or contact us via our website!
And if you need decorative snow for your holiday display, use the plastic kind, not that old stuff from Grandma’s attic!
Wendy Stackhouse is the Online Community Manager for Alliance Environmental Group and AirTek Indoor Air Solutions. She welcomes your comments! For more news and tips or to ask questions of our experts, Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter! For updates on indoor air challenges, Like us at AirTek on Facebook!
Have you ever wondered why the human body is covered with those tiny hairs? It may be protection from tiny predators!
A recent study done in the UK by scientists at the University of Sheffield and reported in Biology Letters, a peer-reviewed scientific publication, has found evidence that those little hairs discourage insects from biting.
The Experiment
The question they were trying to answer was whether fine human body hair provides protection from parasites that live on the surface of the skin, known as “ectoparasites.” Bed bugs are a perfect example of an ectoparasite in humans.
Did you know that humans have the same number of hair follicles as other apes? We do, but of course the hair is much finer. The scientists were trying to determine whether the fine hair on our bodies provides any evolutionary advantage.
The British scientists tested two basic premises:
1. Does body hair make it take longer for a bed bug to decide where to bite?
2. Does body hair make it easier for a person to detect when they are being bitten by a bed bug?
The research subjects were recruited through Facebook and had one arm shaved and the other arm left unshaven. An area was marked out on their arms using Vaseline, which prevents the bugs from escaping the test area and five female bed bugs which had not fed for a week were placed on one of the subject’s arms for five minutes.
The experiment was repeated a week later using the subject’s other arm and the same 5 bed bugs.
The Results
Bed bugs took significantly longer to choose a bite location on hairy arms of men, but not women. The more hair, the longer they took. And both men and women reported feeling more activity on their hairy arms than their shaved arms. The scientists interpreted their results to determine that fine body hair makes bed bugs take longer to choose a bite site and also helps people to detect a bed bug on their body. There might be a balance however, between improved detection and giving bed bugs better hiding places in body hair.
This might be an evolutionary reason for all humans having the fine body hair, but thick hair all over the body has disappeared through evolutionary changes.
So all that tiny hair has at least one good reason for being there!
If you are getting bitten by bed bugs, slowly or quickly, call in a professional to eliminate them, eggs, nymphs and adults in one treatment with ThermaPureHeat. Heat treatment is the only eradication method known to kill all stages of bed bugs at once, without dangerous chemicals, bagging food, washing linens or worrying about retreatment later.
Alliance Environmental Group offers ThermaPureHeat treatment for bed bugs and other pests throughout California, including from our new office in Anaheim! Contact us for help if you have or suspect a bed bug infestation. We also treat toxic mold, remove lead paint and eliminate asbestos from homes and commercial buildings safely and quickly.
Happy Holidays from everyone at Alliance Environmental Group!
Wendy Stackhouse is the Online Community Manager for Alliance Environmental Group and AirTek Indoor Air Solutions. She welcomes your comments! For more news and tips or to ask questions of our experts, Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter! For updates on indoor air challenges, Like us at AirTek on Facebook!
Anywhere you live on the West Coast, you are at risk for developing mold at one time or another and since we have hit the rainy season where I live, I wanted to find out how to avoid mold growth, and its accompanying spores.
As my 5th grader has learned this year, we have a lot of different climates in California.
Northern California and the coast are damp and often foggy.
Southern California, at least away from the coast, is mostly dry but “when it rains, it pours” isn’t just an old saying!
Anywhere you live on the West Coast, you are at risk for developing mold at one time or another and since we have hit the rainy season where I live, I wanted to find out how to avoid mold growth, and its accompanying spores, since I have an allergic reaction to them.
Where do you find mold?
Mold is everywhere. In the air. In household dust. In workplace dust. On any nonliving organic matter. They are not microbes, but tiny, single-celled fungi which grow in a network, or colony, that is thought of as a single organism.
Mold spores can remain airborne indefinitely and stay alive but dormant in a large range of temperatures. Mold will generally not grow at temperatures below 39°.
If humidity and temperature are high enough, mold will grow pretty much anywhere.
Is all mold bad?
Not at all! In fact, some forms of mold are incredibly important!
Drugs derived from mold:
* Penicillin
* Lovastatin and other cholesterol-lowering medications
* Cyclosporine, a drug for organ transplant patientsMold is also used in food production:
* Sourdough bread
* Soybean paste and Soy Sauce
* Salami
* SakeMolds play an important role in our ecosystem, enabling the decomposition and recycling of nutrients from organic material.
What is Toxic Mold?
Generally referred to as Toxic Mold or Black Mold, the scientific name is Stachybotrys chartarum. This type of mold typically grows on paper, fiberboard, gypsum board, and drywall that has constant moisture. This can be from humidity, leaks, water damage, flooding or condensation. It’s not the mold itself that is “toxic,” it’s the mycotoxins they secrete to stop other organisms from growing.
How Can I Prevent Mold?
Remember, mold is everywhere. The best we can do is inhibit its growth into large networks and get rid of it when we see it!
The Centers for Disease Control recommends these steps to prevent the growth of mold in your home:
* Use a dehumidifier to keep the humidity level between 40% and 60%
* Make sure you are providing proper ventilation, especially in the kitchen and bathroom
* Add mold inhibitors to paint in rooms that will become damp
* Clean your bathroom with mold-killing products—but not bleach or ammonia! Bleach will only hide the mold and, combined with ammonia, creates a toxic gas that can kill!
* Never carpet a bathroom
* If you have had a flood, replace your carpets
If you have a problem with mold in your home in California, give Alliance Environmental Group a call or contact us on our website. Mold can be a serious health hazard when left untreated.
In an emergency situation, after a severe flood or similar circumstances, Alliance can come right away to remove the wet material and provide the ventilation needed to dry out the area. If your building needs serious mold removal, we use ThermaPureHeat to kill it all in one treatment of high heat which eliminates all mold and spores in the structure, leaving it ready for restoration.
Mold is everywhere and you can’t avoid it altogether. Keep your home dry and clean, treat any mold you see right away and, if you have a mold problem, call in a professional!
Wendy Stackhouse is the Online Community Manager for Alliance Environmental Group and AirTek Indoor Air Solutions. She welcomes your comments! For more news and tips or to ask questions of our experts, Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter! For updates on indoor air challenges, Like us at AirTek on Facebook!
We have so much going on at Alliance Environmental Group right now, I think it’s a good time for an update!
* New Office
Although we have already been serving customers in Orange County, now we have an office in Anaheim to provide “locally-based expertise, easier accessibility and quicker response times to meet the needs of our customers,” says CEO Joe McLean.
We are very excited about the new office at 760 East Debra Lane in Anaheim and look forward to many years of helping our Orange County neighbors with mold remediation, asbestos abatement, pest control and other environmental clean-up projects!
If you are in Orange County and need to consult with one of our experts, please contact us!
* Toy Drive
You only have a couple more days to participate with us in the We Care East LA Toy Drive for their Community Holiday Event on December 17th. We will be volunteering at the event on Saturday and are really looking forward to seeing all the smiling faces and knowing that we helped make many children’s holidays happier.
If you would like to help in this effort, please drop off a new, unwrapped toy at any of our offices and we will make sure that they get to these amazing kids!
* Our Latest Project
We received some fun (or maybe not so fun!) pictures from our latest project: demolition and clean-up of a garage that was destroyed in the recent windstorm in SoCal.
The real challenge of this project was removing all of the debris from the garage collapse without damaging that car you can see inside any further!
Did you have a lot of damage from the windstorm? Send us your photos!
* Traveling for the Holidays? Don’t bring home any unexpected guests!
Bed bug infestations are all over the news but there are some new resources to help you avoid them on your holiday jaunts:
University of Minnesota Bed Bug Hotline and Website
Visit their website for guidance on how to deal with these annoying and difficult pests. Or you can call the Hotline at 612-624-2200.
Bed Bug Registry
Before you leave home, check the Bed Bug Registry for your hotel and make sure you’re not walking into a potential problem.
* If You Do Bring Home a Bed Bug
Don’t panic! Call Alliance Environmental Group for a consultation on using ThermaPureHeat to kill all stages of bed bugs in your home before they have a chance to reproduce!
Everyone at Alliance Environmental Group wishes you a happy and safe holiday season!
Wendy Stackhouse is the Online Community Manager for Alliance Environmental Group and AirTek Indoor Air Solutions. She welcomes your comments! For more news and tips or to ask questions of our experts, Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter! For updates on indoor air challenges, Like us at AirTek on Facebook!
CEO Joe McLean alerted me to a story on NPR’s Science Friday segment of Talk of the Nation last week and it was a fun interview about how bed bugs breed—and interbreed!
You can thank me now for not posting more disgusting pictures!
Bed bugs reproduced through a process called “traumatic insemination.”
Although female bed bugs do possess a reproductive tract, it is not used by males in inseminating and fertilizing eggs. Rather male bed bugs will pierce the body cavity of the female and inject sperm into the body of the female, where it uses her bloodstream to reach a storage area ready for her to ovulate. Fertilization actually happens in her ovaries.
As if that’s not weird enough, male bed bugs don’t even care who they inseminate—they will attempt to mate with any bed bug which has recently fed, including other males and nymphs!
Male bed bugs do produce a pheromone to try to fend off the advances of their male counterparts, however.
The story on NPR explains the mating habits of bed bugs and also how inbreeding increases the resistance of bed bugs to modern pesticides and how, although inbreeding in other species is bad because of bad genes which can be reinforced in inbred populations, inbreeding makes bed bug populations more successful. Scientists have found that bed bug populations even in different apartments in the same building will not mate with one another!
You can listen to the Science Friday segment HERE.
Bed bugs go through six stages of life on their way to adulthood and they molt between each stage, which is one of the reasons they leave so much debris where they live for us to detect. They also give off a smell similar to almonds, coriander, cilantro or over-ripe raspberries. Bed bug detection dogs have a tested 97.5% success rate in finding bed bug infestations, and find them much more quickly than a visual inspection. These dogs are becoming more common for use in inspecting large residential buildings like college dorms so that infestations can be caught early.
If you have or suspect you have a bed bug infestation in your home, apartment, or other structure, please call in a professional! DIY solutions to bed bugs don’t work and can be dangers due to introduction of poisonous chemicals into the environment. Heat treatment is the only proven way to eradicate bed bugs at every stage of life in one treatment.
Alliance Environmental Group provides ThermaPureHeat treatment for bed bugs in small areas, rooms, apartments or entire buildings without the use of harsh chemicals. Contact us for more information!
If you would like to see how ThermaPureHeat works, check out this blog post which features a video of Alliance Environmental pest control professionals using our ThermaPureHeat system in Berkeley.
We all hope to never encounter a bed bug, but if you do, don’t panic! A bed bug infestation doesn’t have to be the end of the world or your favorite couch! But if you’re getting new furniture for a holiday gift, be sure to inspect it carefully before bringing it inside!
Wendy Stackhouse is the Online Community Manager for Alliance Environmental Group and AirTek Indoor Air Solutions. She welcomes your comments! For more news and tips or to ask questions of our experts, Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter! For updates on indoor air challenges, Like us at AirTek on Facebook!
Alliance Environmental Group and our amazing pest control experts are featured in this news story about a bed bug infestation in a Berkeley homeless shelter!
Watch for our logo and see how ThermaPureHeat works!
Heat treatment for bed bugs might sound expensive there at the end, but remember:
It only takes one treatment to eliminate all bed bugs, no matter their stage of life!
No harsh chemicals enter your home.
There is no need to bag food or wash linens for safety.
You can re-enter the home immediately after treatment.
Many people spend thousands of dollars on pesticide treatments, only to have their bed bugs return and begin feeding again. It’s much more expensive to treat your home over and over, not to mention the peace of mind you get from knowing absolutely that all bed bugs are dead, dead, dead!
Alliance Environmental Group provides ThermaPureHeat (featured in this story) all over California from our offices in Azusa, Moorpark, Santa Clara, Aptos, San Diego, Palm Desert, and in January of 2012, Anaheim! If you suspect or know that you have a bed bug infestation, contact us right away and eliminate all bed bug problems in one treatment for a relaxing and itch-free holiday season!
Wendy Stackhouse is the Online Community Manager for Alliance Environmental Group and AirTek Indoor Air Solutions. She welcomes your comments! For more news and tips or to ask questions of our experts, Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter! For updates on indoor air challenges, Like us at AirTek on Facebook!
It’s easy to think of lead poisoning as a thing of the past.
Lead was banned for use in house paint, products for children, and dishes and cookware in 1978. But every year children are still found to have dangerous levels of lead in their bloodstream from old house paint and other contaminated products. And every year toys are recalled for excessive lead. Do you check the list before you buy your holiday gifts?
Dangers of Lead
Because they put everything in their mouths, children are most at risk from lead poisoning. Lead can cause problems with: coordination, speech, IQ, ADHD and high exposure can cause death. Pediatricians check children for lead with a blood test periodically at medical checkups, but it is also good to avoid the risk of exposure to lead.
Where Can You Find Lead Today?
Lead is still used in other countries and imported products can contain high amounts of lead. It is used to soften plastics, but when exposed to sunlight and detergents, the plastic can break down and release lead dust.
Lead can be found in plastic and metal toys, jewelry and even lunch bags and books!
What Was That About Christmas?
Artificial Christmas trees made of PVC contain lead, as well as phthalates, another dangerous substance.
The Ecology Center in Michigan found lead at higher levels than is allowed in children’s products on the cords of 4 out of 5 sets of holiday lights. Keep the cords out of reach and avoid using lights on banisters and other places where people will touch the cords regularly.
How About Toys?
There have been at least 7 children’s products recalled in 2011 due to high lead content, including lapel pins from Build-A-Bear Workshop and an American Girl jewelry kit. The complete list can be found HERE.
A toddler book, “Little Hands Love,” also designed for teething, and a toy called Whirly Wheel were found to have excessively high lead levels by the Pennsylvania Public Interest Research Group, which conducts studies on toy safety every year.
It’s a good idea to check for recalls before starting your holiday gift shopping for the little ones. And remember to wash your hands thoroughly after putting up an artificial Christmas tree and/or holiday lights—you wouldn’t want to get lead poisoning for Christmas!
Alliance Environmental Group is certified by the Environmental Protection Agency to provide lead remediation and removal services. We also have extensive information about the impact of lead-based paints on our website. If you are planning a renovation, be sure to use an LRRP-certified contractor. This certification has been required since April of 2010. Certification includes training in safe practices for lead dust, indoor and outdoor painting, holes in walls and floorboards, replacement of doors and windows and other renovation elements.
Wendy Stackhouse is the Online Community Manager for Alliance Environmental Group and AirTek Indoor Air Solutions. She welcomes your comments! For more news and tips or to ask questions of our experts, Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter! For updates on indoor air challenges, Like us at AirTek on Facebook!
I’ve written about Bed Bug Prevention and Treatment, but I came across this excellent video from the National Pest Management Association, of which Alliance Environmental Group is a member, on preventing bed bug infestations and thought you might enjoy it.
Here are the tips from the NPMA, with some commentary from our experts:
1) Know the signs—Signs of a bed bug infestation include black spots between mattresses and in crevices. Remember that even if bugs are biting you, it takes 7-10 days for welts to appear, if ever. You might not know you have bed bugs until the infestation has taken root.
2) Change your linens often—This gives you a chance to inspect your sleeping area and nip an infestation in the bud.
3) Inspect hotel rooms before you unpack—Give yourself the opportunity to avoid bringing any bed bugs home by checking as soon as you arrive for signs of bed bugs. You can change rooms or even hotels if you are uncomfortable with what you find.
4) Check your luggage when you get home—It’s a good idea to take a look at the clothes you packed before you bring them in the house and put them straight into the wash. A hot dryer will kill any bed bug you might have missed!
5) Examine furniture before bringing it in—Even new furniture can be infested. There have been well-documented infestations in furniture stores in New York and other major cities. Be even more careful with used furniture, whether bought or found.
6) New clothes—Check anything you buy at the store just in case. You don’t want to take any chances.
7) Keep your suitcase off the floor—Bed bugs can be found in carpets even if beds and chairs appear clean. The best place for your suitcase is on the tile in the bathroom or the luggage rack.
8) Declutter your home—It’s much easier to know when a pest enters your home if you can see flat surfaces!
9) Avoid denial—If you suspect a bed bug infestation, don’t ignore it or put it out of your mind. The earlier you catch these bugs, the easier they are to eradicate. Don’t go sleep in another room—they will follow you by the carbon dioxide you exhale!
10) Call in a professional—Do-it-yourself treatments for bed bugs don’t work and can be dangerous, causing reactions and even death if pesticides are not used according to directions and safety precautions. Insecticide treatments never work with only one treatment and introduce chemicals into your home that are not good for your indoor environment.
Alliance Environmental Group uses ThermaPureHeat(r) to treat bed bug infestations, raising the interior temperature of an area, apartment, home or other structure to over 140°, killing bed bugs at all stages of development in one treatment, without the need to bag food, wash linens or move out for days. If you suspect you have a bed bug infestation, contact us for an inspection.
Bed bugs are not the end of the world! It only feels that way! Stay calm and call in a knowledgeable expert to help you get rid of them and you will have a happy and relaxed holiday season!
Wendy Stackhouse is the Online Community Manager for Alliance Environmental Group and AirTek Indoor Air Solutions. She welcomes your comments! For more news and tips or to ask questions of our experts, Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter! For updates on indoor air challenges, Like us at AirTek on Facebook!
In fact, keeping the nuclear material—or whatever fuel supply—at the core of a power plant cool is absolutely essential and so maintenance of those huge cooling towers we see in photos and news stories is incredibly important.
Since the catastrophic nuclear power plant damage in Japan earlier this year from an earthquake and tsunami, power plants have been more in the news than usual.
The meltdown in Japan occurred mainly due to loss of power to the cooling systems at the plant.
Types of Cooling Towers
1. Open Cooling Towers - water in these towers comes into contact with the outside air and can pick up contaminants and pollutants.
2. Closed Loop Cooling Towers - the water in these towers does not come into contact with the outside air.
3. Forced Draft Cooling Towers - this type of tower has a fan at the top and other fans in the body of the tower to force air through the system.
4. Mechanical Draft Cooling Towers - connected to a chimney, fans keep air moving.
5. Factory Assembled Cooling Towers - these towers are shipped almost completely assembled. I’d like to see that truck!
6. Field Assembled Cooling Towers - these are shipped in their component parts and assembled on site.
All cooling towers need regular maintenance and cleaning.
The water used in cooling towers collects whatever contaminants that can be found in the outside air: dirt, pollen, bacteria, mold, and since power plants are built near the ocean, salt and algae. The frequency with which a cooling tower needs to be cleaned depends on the level of contaminants in the air where it is located.
Keeping in mind that cooling towers are pretty efficient at cleaning the air, they will still accumulate particles of contaminants in the basin which collects the water droplets left after going through the cooling system. How fast these particles accumulate determines how often the cooling tower must be cleaned.
Possible Effects of Improperly Maintained Cooling Towers
If a cooling tower is not cleaned on a proper schedule, the results can range from lower efficiency to environmental disaster.
* A nuclear power plant’s cooling system already uses a tremendous amount of energy. If scale, salt or dust affect the “fill,” which provides the water droplets for cooling, it takes even more energy to run the cooling system.
* Proper cleaning will keep a nuclear power plant cooling system running for more years, amortizing the tremendous cost of building and maintenance.
* Legionnaire’s Disease is a real danger from unmaintained cooling towers. There is a 50% chance of any cooling tower containing these deadly bacteria, even if it is kept clean!
Methods of Cleaning Cooling Towers
There are a few main ways of cleaning nuclear plant cooling towers:
Draining
In this method, the basin which collects the water droplets is drained fully and the technician goes into the basin to shovel out or otherwise remove the deposit of bacteria, silt and mud that has collected there. The technician must wear protective garments and a full-face shield or respirator.
This method is wasteful of water, since all of the water in the basin is discarded and it has to be entirely refilled with hundreds of thousands of gallons of water.
Vacuuming
Using the vacuuming method means the technician can stay out of the basin itself and only involves draining about 25% of the water, which can be discarded or re-used. This method is less dangerous to the operator and less wasteful of water—an important and limited resource.
Scuba Diving
“Diving the tower” can be accomplished while the cooling tower is at work. Wearing a dry-suit—which is completely sealed and attached to tube for air and communications—divers use a vacuum to clean the tower basin, or inspect and even repair the tower while it is running!
The San Onofre nuclear power plant here in Southern California does not have cooling towers. It uses ocean water to cool the nuclear fuel and a lot of it—plants with cooling towers use 5% of the water that ocean cooled plants use and that is a big savings in resources. The cost of building the cooling towers has been a consideration in the decision about whether to change the cooling system at San Onofre.
Our Indoor Air Division, AirTek Indoor Air Solutions, offers many commercial and residential services, including trained and certified cleaning of cooling towers. Please stop by our website at www.Air-Tek.net!
Alliance Environmental Group hopes that you enjoy our articles on environmental issues. If you have any questions for our experts, please feel free to contact us or leave a comment! If you ask an interesting question, we can answer it on the blog!
A big Thank You to the NADCA for helping with this article!
Wendy Stackhouse is the Online Community Manager for Alliance Environmental Group and AirTek Indoor Air Solutions. She welcomes your comments! For more news and tips or to ask questions of our experts, Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter! For updates on indoor air challenges, Like us at AirTek on Facebook!
Kim W.
Huntington Beach, CA
October 2008
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