LESLIE: Rene in Ohio has an interesting question about getting out odor. How can we help?
RENE: Hi, Leslie. Hi, Tom. Thanks so much for taking my call.
LESLIE: You’re so welcome. What can we do for you?
RENE: My husband is a cigar smoker and I’m trying to clean the air in my house and keep it fresh. And I’m going through all these little disposable air fresheners (laughing) and wondering (beeping sound) if there might be a better way to keep the air in my …
LESLIE: Rene, are you backing up? What’s going on?
TOM: (laughing) Rene, can you get your husband to move out?
RENE: Well, that’s an option, I suppose. (laughing) Maybe as a last resort.
TOM: Let’s work on that husband, first. Let’s get him to smoke those nasty cigars in the garage …
LESLIE: (overlapping voices) Outside.
TOM: … or outside somewhere.
RENE: (overlapping voices) He does do that now ….
TOM: Yeah.
RENE: … more so.
TOM: Well, it probably wicks its way in nonetheless. Well, you know there … there’s a lot of ways to attack this. The odor is usually because it settles into the furnishings and that sort of thing.
LESLIE: Even onto the paint and fabrics.
TOM: Right, so …
LESLIE: It builds up in there.
TOM: There are really two things to do. There’s the physical cleaning of the carpets and the upholstery and the walls. And then, secondly, there’s the cleaning of the air. Now, masking it with fresheners and things like that is probably not the way to go. Portable air cleaners may have an impact, if you do them in a limited way. But, probably, the best thing for you to do is to have a whole house air cleaner installed.
LESLIE: Do you have a forced air system?
RENE: I’m not sure what that means.
LESLIE: Do you have central air conditioning or heating or cooling?
RENE: (overlapping voices) Yes, yes. Yes.
TOM: Alright, so you’re going to have a ducted system that goes through the house. A whole house air cleaner gets mounted into the ducted system and it’s a far more efficient way of scrubbing the air in your house. Probably the best quality one out there is Aprilaire. They have a product that’s an electronic air cleaner. I think it’s their model 5000. And Consumer Reports had ranked this particular electronic air cleaner number one for the last three years. So a good air cleaner and a good cleaning is really the best thing here. I say, get the husband to smoke outside. But if he’s going to insist upon smoking in the house, make him do the cleaning and pay for the new electronic air cleaner.
RENE: Sounds wonderful.
TOM: Okay, Rene?
RENE: Thank you.
TOM: You’re very welcome. 1-888-MONEY-PIT. 888-666-3974.
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