Be ready for this holiday season with your purchase of a new Blueair air purifier. Blueair is offering a great special for this holiday season. For a limited time with the purchase of a new Blueair unit, you can complete and mail in a coupon to receive a free AirPod! You pay only a $10 shipping and handling fee. The offer is valid from November 1, 2008 to December 31, 2008. Getting your free AirPod is very simple. You purchase a Blueair air purifier for yourself, and you get a free AirPod to keep or to give to someone as a great holiday gift!

Blueair is a company devoted to improving indoor air quality. We live in a world where clean air is a precious commodity. The air we breathe inside and outside contains many impurities. Surprisingly, the quality of air indoors is often worse than the air outside your home or office. To fight poor air quality, the AirPod’s patented HepaSilent filter is the machine’s workhorse. Inside the 6.3-inch square docking station, a 12V DC fan whirrs so silently that you may wonder if your AirPod is turned on. The docking station also houses an electrostatically-charged ionizer and power unit.

With a clean, stylish, and modern design, the AirPod is stripped down to its essential components—the filter and the docking station. This makes it easy to take this unit with you, wherever you go. The sleek shape gives you more room to breathe with no visual clutter. Express your personality. Choose a stylish filter pattern that suits your mood or your environment. Then, you can sit back, relax, and feel the difference in air quality. For better air quality in your personal space, there is no product better than the AirPod.

According to an October article in Indoor Environment Connections, an initiative to improve indoor air quality is set to launch in 2009. Already in use in five states, the package is designed to ensure that energy efficiency is improved without sacrificing health. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will give homes a seal of approval if they use certain building techniques to protect against radon, pests, and pollutants. This program will greatly reduce the lead, chemicals, mold, allergens and pests in new homes. According to Tom Kelly, the director of the EPA’s indoor air program, the new program builds on the EPA’s 1992 Energy Star initiative that promotes efficient electrical appliances.

The first national summit on improving air quality in new homes was hosted in Baltimore by four difference federal agencies. This Healthy Homes Conference presented several studies that showed how the improved building methods lowered the risk of asthma and other health problems. The studies were done in Cleveland, New Orleans, and Seattle. The three day summit drew more than a thousand participants interested in building a consensus among builders, health advocates, and environmentalists. This summit underscores the improvement of indoor air quality as an emerging political and health issue for many Americans.

One area where improvements in new home construction has been seen is in the use of lead. According to Jon Gant, an official with the Housing and Urban Development Office, the number of kids with lead poisoning fell from 890,000 in 1992 to 310,000 in 2002. He went on to say that the techniques used to lower the number of cases of lead poisoning can be used to help tackle other health and environmental issues. The “Indoor Air Package” program is a big step in the fight to improve the air we breathe in new houses and buildings.

Be prepared. Almost everyone knows that is the boy scouts’ motto. But what does that mean? What are they prepared for? The motto means that scouts are trained to be prepared for anything. If someone is hurt in an accident, scouts have first aid training. If someone is lost on a hike, a scout can help them find their way. In a similar way, if you are the cook for a food-allergic child, you have to be prepared to make three safe meals each day of the week. That can be a daunting task. In a recent article on the website Kids With Food Allergies, allergy cooks are given some food prep advice. Here are several thoughtful steps to reduce the stress of cooking and to help you be better organized to cook for your child:

• Plan your menus. Advance planning can make the difference between getting dinner on the table in a calm and timely manner and making a last minute dash to the grocery store with two whining toddlers in tow.
  
  
• Buy in bulk and shop online. Specialty items with specific ingredients can be expensive. Expand your grocery shopping from the local store to online shopping and bulk stores. A simple online search can yield great results for special foods that you might not even have considered. You can save yourself a lot of shopping trips and hard earned dollars by purchasing non-perishable items in bulk.
  
  
• Always have a supply of safe food available. According to the article, you must keep at least a few days’ supply of “safe” foods in your house. Remember, even if illness or inclement weather stops you from leaving your house, your food allergic child still needs to eat.
  
  
• Cook double batches of food, freeze extras, and serve leftovers. Having ready-to-eat hypoallergenic meals in your freezer is like having money in the bank. Any time your menu includes foods that freeze well, you should consider doubling your recipe and freezing the extras. When my uncle barbecues, he cooks a prodigious amount of food and freezes all of the leftovers. Also, on Sunday nights, our family often cooks breakfast foods for the whole school week.
  
  
• Always be prepared for a party. When you have a young child, you are going to have a full party schedule. Whether it is a birthday or a stop at grandma’s house, be sure that your food supply includes some safe cupcakes or other appropriate treats that can be taken to a variety of social functions. Regardless of your child’s age, you should plan to have at least one frozen serving of his or her favorite entrée that can be taken to holiday dinners and other social gatherings.
  

Being prepared and organized can help reduce stress and make meal times great occasions for family bonding.

In the September issue of our newsletter, we examined the issue of HVAC maintenance and ductwork cleaning. This week in an article in the AJC, writer Bill Garwood covered many of the same issues and topics in a story in the Home Section. Basically, he asks the question whether or not it is worth the cost to have your HVAC ducts cleaned this year before the weather turns colder. Garwood does not really answer his question, but he does provide the reader with some good facts that echo our feelings here at achoo! Allergy.

The Environmental Protection Agency states,

If not properly installed, maintained, and operated, HVAC components may become contaminated with particles of dust, pollen or other debris. If moisture is present, the potential for microbiological growth (e.g., mold) is increased and spores from such growth may be released into the home's living space. Some of these contaminants may cause allergic reactions or other symptoms in people if they are exposed to them.

According the article, the EPA recommends duct cleaning only on an as-needed basis. However, if you suffer from allergies and asthma, you should consider the effect that a properly maintained HVAC system has on the air flow and the air quality inside your home. There are at least three circumstances that should make you think about cleaning your ducts. The first reason is finding substantial visible mold growth inside hard surface ducts or other components of your HVAC system. Wet or moldy insulation or insulated air ducts cannot be effectively cleaned and should be replaced. Note that not everything that looks like mold is mold. You may need to have samples professionally evaluated at a laboratory. Also, you must make sure that you correct the conditions that caused the mold growth in the first place. Otherwise, the mold problem will reoccur.

Secondly, if you discover that you have pests living inside of the ductwork, you have a problem. Insects living inside of air ducts can deposit unhealthy debris that may circulate through your system. Thirdly, air ducts clogged with excessive dust or debris release this dust into the home through supply registers. If not properly maintained, your own HVAC system could be contributing to the poor indoor air quality inside your home.

I agree with the AJC statement that other variables contribute to whether or not you should have ducts cleaned and HVAC maintenance done. These other living conditions that increase the chances of duct contamination are smokers in the household, pets that shed a lot, residents with allergies or asthma, and water contamination of the heating and cooling system.

How can you keep your ducts clean?

• Change the furnace filters regularly
• Make sure that filters are installed tightly so that air does not simply pass by them
• Vacuum your home regularly using a vacuum with a HEPA filter
• Refrain from smoking inside the home

A CDC report released today supports a growing belief amongst allergists and pediatricians. Food allergies among children are on the rise, to the tune of a 18% increase over the last decade. Currently, approximately 4% of all children suffer from some sort of food allergy. Milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, soy and wheat account for 90% of these.

What is most alarming about this report is that not only is the occurrence of food allergies on the rise in children, but that children with food allergies are nearly three times as likely to suffer from respiratory or skin allergies as well. Roughly 30% of children with food allergies also suffer from respiratory allergies. Additionally, 25% of children with food allergies also suffer from eczema or skin allergies. Those without food allergies suffer from either respiratory or skin allergies less than 10% of the time.

There is no consensus as to why the increase is occurring in the U.S. What is known is that similar trends appear to be common in countries where the diet is similar to that found in the U.S. One interesting note is that in countries like China, peanuts are consumed nearly as frequently as in the U.S., but the occurrence of allergies related to peanuts is much lower. One possible reason could be in the way peanuts are prepared before consumption. In the U.S. most are dry roasted whereas in China most peanuts are boiled or fried.

What is clear from this study is that food allergies among children is a growing problem. Regardless of the causes, it is an issue that must be met with more research. For now the best advice is early diagnosis and avoidance. Through education and preventative measures, we all can work to ensure our children are safe.

For a full copy of the report, click here.

*The CDC data come from two sources: the National Health Interview Survey, which sampled some 9,500 children in 2007; and the National Hospital Discharge Survey, which includes 270,000 inpatient records from about 500 hospitals.

Here at achoo! Allergy, we have placed great confidence in the Miele brand. For our customers we carry their lines of canister and upright "stick" vacuum cleaners. These products are best suited for our customer base, and they are ones which not only offer superior cleaning ability, but also first class air filtration. For allergy and asthma sufferers alike, these qualities are key elements in environmental control.

However, Miele is not just known for its vacuums. From dishwashers to coffee makers, ovens to laundry appliances, Miele offers a variety of home appliances all built to meet Miele’s exacting standards. In addition to the Consumer Digest Best Buy award for two of their vacuums, Miele was the recipient of the prestigious Robb Report “Best of the Best” product award for its Honeycomb Care™ laundry system. With more than ten patents for the technology used in this system, the Honeycomb Care™ line of products represents one of the finest examples of innovation and overall quality. The Robb Report compiles an annual list of luxury products that exemplify the finest technology and the best overall quality in the industry.

This award is one of many Miele has received over the years, making Miele a home appliance brand worth serious consideration. The “Best of the Best” and “Best Buy” awards are two more reasons why we are proud to be an authorized Miele dealer.

We are pleased to offer the new Dyson DC25 Animal! As one of Dyson’s newest vacuum models, the DC25 offers the same great suction power of the older Animal model with a few significant upgrades. First, the DC25 employs Dyson’s Ball™ technology. While lowering the center of gravity, this technology gives the vacuum much more maneuverability than the DC17 model. The DC25 also weighs much less. This combination of weight with the Ball™ technology creates a much more nimble vacuum than their previous models.

This model offers the same great features found throughout Dyson’s products. The HEPA filter is washable and never needs to be replaced. The Animal employs a sealed, hygienic canister that is easily emptied and that eliminates the need to buy bags. Through independent testing, the Animal has been proven to never lose suction power, and it has been certified asthma & allergy friendly™ by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America.

To learn more or to purchase visit the DC25 product page.

In 2008, the Miele S5280 Callisto and the S163 Universal Upright won Consumers Digest Best Buy awards. The ranking committee was impressed with Miele’s control settings, easy-to-use wand, and overall filtration performance.

For almost fifty years, people all over the world have trusted Consumers Digest magazine to make sense of a vast array of products and services. With advertising schemes and marketing ploys, the amount of information about products is confusing and difficult to navigate. Consumers Digest helps steer people to outstanding values in the marketplace. They define a “Best Buy” as a product that offers outstanding value for its price and that merits special attention from shoppers. Each year, the designation is awarded to nationally available products.

“We are thrilled to have not one, but two vacuum cleaner products in the Best Buy family,” states Paul McCormack, Senior Marketing Manager for Miele, Inc. “We’ve always felt that our high standards of quality, performance, and filtration add up to a great value. Now there’s absolutely no doubt.”

The Callisto is the most popular of all of Miele’s canister vacuums. It offers the conveniences of the S5 Galaxy series with a few notable improvements. The electric powered SEB 217-3 Powerbrush comes standard. This is a significant improvement over the air driven brush. In addition, the Callisto comes with a powered hose. This hose gives you a wider range of more versatile attachments. When I ran this model, I found the SEB 217-3 Powerbrush was better at extracting pet hair from thicker carpet. In contrast, the electrically powered brush cleaned our high pile carpet much easier. Another noticeable upgrade with the Callisto is the handle. The Callisto is equipped with a deluxe handle. The design fits better in your hand and puts less strain on your wrist while you vacuum.

The S163 Universal Upright is great for someone living in an apartment or loft. The vacuum works well on low pile carpeting and smooth floor surfaces. You can switch from carpet to smooth flooring with a flip of a switch. The additional accessories are a crevice nozzle and an upholstery tool. The most notable quality of this vacuum is its versatility. You can operate the S163 as an upright vacuum or you can remove the wand and operate it as a hand-held vacuum to clean steps or under furniture.

The Callisto and the S163 Universal Upright are two of the best vacuums Miele has to offer. They are at different ends of the Miele spectrum, but they represent quality products that have great accessories and provide solid cleaning and filtration performance.

The fight over our changing global climate grows more intense every year. In this year’s vice presidential debate, the causes of global warming were contested. No matter what the causes and if we can slow them down, millions of allergy sufferers already feel the effects. In a USA Today article, journalist Kim Painter writes that growing evidence suggests that an increase in allergies may be linked to global climate change. The premise is that when it is hotter outside, allergy sufferers are exposed to more allergens for longer periods of time.

This idea is especially true for pollen sufferers. Trees, grasses, and weeds (including the ragweed tormenting many people this fall) churn out more pollen over more weeks when temperatures and carbon dioxide levels rise, says Richard Weber, a Denver allergist who helped write the paper on the link published this month in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. “I think we can expect allergy sufferers are going to be suffering more,” says Weber, a professor at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.

Avoiding indoor allergens takes more work and more commitment. If allergy sufferers are willing to take multiple steps, they can and will breathe better. Most research (and we at achoo! Allergy agree) suggests that controlling the environment is more beneficial to allergy sufferers than ever before.

“We’ve got really good evidence now that environment matters,” says Jay Portnoy, a Kansas City allergist and president of the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. “Just taking a pill is not going to solve your problem.”

For the past eight years, our mission here at achoo! Allergy has been to promote allergen avoidance and environmental control. Every product that we offer is focused on helping allergy sufferers win this battle. Here are some environmental control measures that will help you breathe better:

Since achoo! Allergy came into being, we continually have tried to not only offer great products, but also information that best helps you find what you need. There are pages upon pages of information on our site, from buying guides to manufacturers specifications to product reviews by achoo! staffers. One very important addition to our information is the opinion from you, the customer.

It is no easy task trying to collect opinions and reviews from customers. Often when someone is satisfied, you hear little from them unless they order again. Unfortunately, you rarely hear back from a customer unless they are unhappy or dissatisfied with a product or service. Despite this, there are customers who have taken the time to provide us with feedback. Over the years, we have collected over 2,000 customer product reviews. We highly value these reviews since they give us some of the best information as to what items are most popular and most helpful to our customers. Customer reviews give other customers a firsthand opinion of a particular product or service, so they are not only helpful to us, but also beneficial to you.

We at achoo! appreciate all customer feedback, good and bad. It is one of the best indicators of what we are doing right and where we can improve. Each product page has a link to a page where you can submit a review or you can leave blog comments. Customer service is always available via phone or email. Your feedback and opinions are always appreciated. Keep up the good work, and whether positive or negative, we would be happy to hear your opinion on any purchase.

In a few short weeks, children all over the country will dress up and go door to door collecting Halloween candy. Parents will be taking pictures and videos; kids will be making fun memories with friends and family. However, Halloween is challenging for parents that want to balance the fun against the dangers of the holiday. Because of the nature of neighborhood trick or treating, contact with strangers, and dressing up in a variety of costumes, children accidentally are exposed to allergens. Halloween is a very dangerous time of year for food allergy sufferers, but the activities can also affect other allergy and asthma sufferers.

According to recent press release from the AAAI, parents need to stress safety and preparedness. At Halloween, children and their parents must be vigilant, according to Jacqueline A. Pongracic, MD, FAAAAI, vice chair of the AAAAI Adverse Reactions to Foods Committee.

"Candy products frequently include ingredients like peanuts, tree nuts, milk and egg - some of the most common food allergens in children," Pongracic said.

"Peanuts and tree nuts are common causes of severe, life-threatening reactions, and children and their parents need to be aware of this and check ingredients for all treats. This can be especially tricky with Halloween candies, which often do not have ingredients listed on their labels."

Here is a checklist of safety tips from the AAAI. I have picked out a few tips that may be beneficial for you as you prepare for Halloween:

• Do not allow your child to trick or treat alone. Accompany younger children as they trick or treat and send older children out with a group of friends.
• Verify that adults or friends with your child understand his or her food allergies and what to do in an emergency.
• Make sure your child carries emergency medication along on Halloween night.
• Carefully, check all treats’ ingredients on packages or company web sites to ensure that there is no risk for a reaction.
• If in doubt about the ingredients, discard the candy or move to a charity pile.

Remember that small candy bars passed out to trick-or-treaters may have different ingredients than their regular-size counterparts. Even if a certain candy is safe for your child, the 'fun size' version might not be.

Check back tomorrow for some additional Halloween safety tips and fun ideas from our parents and staff here at achoo! Allergy.

October is Breast Cancer awareness month and to celebrate we are offering the Blueair AirPod PINK at 50% off. Additionally, during the month of October, we are running a special price on all our Blueair AirPods. Click here to check out the customer reviews of the Blueair AirPods.

Blueair is making strides in the battle against breast cancer. On April 29th, the Blueair AirPod PINK was featured as an audience giveaway on the morning talk show, the View. This television appearance gave the AirPod PINK exposure to millions of viewers. The AirPod PINK is a proud partner of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Blueair donates $5 from each AirPod PINK sold to this worthy organization. To help publicize this partnership, the AirPod PINK will be featured in a number of breast cancer issues during October including Weight Watcher’s Magazine, Balance Magazine, InStyle.com, Shape Magazine, and Home Magazine. Make sure to check out these publications this month.

We live in a world where clean air is a precious commodity. The air we breathe inside and outside contains many impurities. Surprisingly, the quality of air indoors is often worse than the air outside your home or office. To fight poor air quality, the AirPod’s patented HepaSilent filter is the machine’s workhorse. Inside the 6.3-inch square docking station, a 12V DC fan whirrs so silently that you may wonder if your AirPod is turned on. Also, the docking station houses an electrostatically-charged ionizer and power unit.
With a clean, stylish, and modern design, the AirPod is stripped down to its essential components—the filter and the docking station. This makes it easy to take this unit with you, wherever you go. The sleek shape gives you more room to breathe with no visual clutter. Express your personality. Choose a stylish filter pattern that suits your mood or your environment. Then, you can sit back, relax, and feel the difference in air quality. For better air quality in your personal space, there is no product better than the AirPod.

Other current discounts and our featured products include the Comfort-Aire Dehumidifiers, Allersearch AllerMold, Allersearch ODRX, and the Sinupulse.

The unit pictured above may not look like much, but in reality, this is the precursor to Honeywell 50000 series air purifiers. We recently found this unit and would not have given it a second glance had it not been for the “Enviracaire” labeling on the front of the unit. Currently, all of the room air purifiers we offer from Honeywell also carry the Enviracaire® brand name. What was unique about this unit is that nowhere does it mention Honeywell. Instead, I discovered that it was manufactured by a company called Environmental Air Control Inc. (EACI). This perked my interest.

There was little information I could gather online about EACI. The company has no web presence, and Honeywell makes no mention of acquiring the company or the brand in the history section of their website. What I did discover was that EACI was a company based in Hagerstown, MD. Their business focus was twofold. First, their Enviracaire division produced and sold air cleaners, much like the one shown above. Secondly, their Envirco division provided “ultra-clean air systems and components” as well as air quality testing and monitoring services.

What I could glean from the sparse information online was that in 1992 Honeywell purchased the Enviracaire division. The Envirco division was purchased by Donaldson Company, which develops and produces air filtration and exhaust systems. To this day Honeywell still manufactures and markets the Envircaire® brand with models like the 50250 and 50150.

The dinosaur we salvaged carried the product name of EV-25. Despite its rough appearance, when plugged in, the unit still worked! It smelled terrible, and the control dial was broke, so it blew out dirty air at full capacity. Filters were clogged with dirt and dust, but the unit still functioned, despite what I estimate to be approximately 18 years of service. The label below gives some idea of the age of this unit.


This model had the same basic cylindrical design that you still see with many of the modern Enviracaire® units, and while I wouldn’t necessarily recommend going out and trying to purchase one of these (if you can find one; aside from this dust bucket, I could not) you can still purchase aftermarket replacement filters for this product. While the importance of researching this soon to be extinct air purifier is debatable, it does shed some light onto how Honeywell entered the air purifier market.

Often in the world of online shopping, the only thing that differentiates the vast numbers of online retailers is their level of service. We highly value our customers and are constantly trying to provide the best service possible. In this effort, starting this week we have begun offering free expedited shipping on all in-stock Miele Vacuums. Depending on the vacuum you purchase, your shipment is guaranteed to arrive in one, two or three business days, anywhere in conterminous forty-eight. Best of all, we provide this service at no additional cost!

Arriving via FedEx or UPS, this includes all Meile vacuum orders placed before 3 PM, five days a week. All vacuums and accessories are shipped fully insured, and all vacuums have a signature requirement for delivery. For some, the signature option may be an issue. We require a signature for delivery on these high value items to protect you, the customer, and to ensure that your package arrives safely. For this and any other issue, feel free to contact our customer service department, and they would be happy to assist.

For further details you can go to our Miele Shipping page.

AllerAir, one of the most recognized names in the air purifier industry, has developed a new air purifier called the AirMedic MCS with EcoFlow™ Technology. This air purifier is based on the same technology and inert features as the AirMedic Plus. The AirMedic MCS with EcoFlow™ Technology has been enhanced with an additional three pounds of carbon filtration, superior particle filtration certified by an independent DOP test, and a higher CFM.

The AirMedic MCS is designed without the use of bonding agents and includes the following features: a sealed motor, powder-coated carbon canister, a 100% metal casing, and an organic cotton pre-filter. There is a medical-grade HEPA filter with a metal cap that filters air from a 360 degree intake. The AirMedic MCS D offers a 3” thick, 25 lb. bed of activated carbon coupled with the organic cotton pre-filter and Micro-HEPA filter to better trap not only gaseous chemicals but also tobacco smoke and odors. In addition to the enhanced technical features, the AirMedic MCS units are more compact and more aesthetically pleasing than other AllerAir units. You can now easily adjust the airflow rate with the variable speed control feature.

Many AllerAir fans are familiar with the AllerAir 5000 MCS series. AllerAir will no longer be offering the 5000 MCS Supreme or MCS D. The company will provide parts and maintenance for these units, but the superior technology in the AirMedic MCS series makes it the best line of products available for MCS sufferers.

Sam Teitelbaum, the President of AllerAir, used his personal experiences of coping with MCS (Multiple Chemical Sensitivity) to create one of the best air purifiers on the market for those who struggle with this condition. The AirMedic MCS D is available now. Check our web site for more information in the coming days.