Mainers are becoming more energy conscious. They are sealing up their houses tighter than ever, and that means we are breathing the same air over and over.

We may be saving money, but is it costing us our health?

Ramona Carter lives alone in Old Town, with her cat. The last few years, her allergies have gotten worse.

"Dust, hay, different grass seeds, that's it basically. Sometimes it's a certain time of the year when I have these problems."

Those would trigger the normal reactions of runny nose, itchy eyes, a cough.

Add to that a wood stove, or dust that gets blown through the vents of a forced hot air furnace, or maybe a pet and there are a number of triggers in the air to cause allergies. They have no way to escape your home says Dr. Paul Shapero. "I'm not sure there is any one reason that we all notice more trouble in the winter, but you're right, all those little things that you mentioned I think are all valid, but there must be something else going on."

After suffering through symptoms for years, Ramona decided to do something about it. "I dealt with it and I went to the doctor and I told the doctor the things that I was going through and that I was having and she said you need something for that so she gave me a pill"

Then she heard about an air purification system on the market.
"The winter time is usually the big time," says Randy Renauld, owner of Aerus Electrolux in Brewer. " It is when people usually come to us and have the big problems with asthma, allergies or even just want to get rid of the dust."

Ramona bought one of the units and after just a couple of days, she noticed a difference. A little more than three months later, the majority of her symptoms are gone. "I don't suffer that much now that I've got that machine. It's worth every penny that you pay for it."

Dr. Shapero is one of the leading allergists in the state. He's not completely sold on air purifiers. " They've done a zillion studies on air purifiers. You'd think this would be a no brainer that you put something in your room and it filters the air with a HEPA filter, which is the standard, and half of the people get better and half of the people don't."
"Half of the people finally put them in the closet or in the basement because they don't work so something's fishy right? Why wouldn't everybody feel better if they took all of the crap out of the air?"

Randy Renauld owns Aerus Electrolux where they sell purifiers. He says some do put them in the closet, but there is a reason for that. "The bigger problem that we find with homes is that people are buying air purification systems that first of all aren't designed properly and they are putting them in an application where the unit is too small for the amount of air mass that they have to move, so then they think it's not working and they'll throw it in the closet.

In Part Two, we'll hear from Dr. Shapero that it may not be just the air you breathe in your home that can make you sick. There could be other factors.

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