I don't want to be featured but I would like to spread awareness of a really insidious practice that is very common in the mattress industry. I was getting terrible rashes on my arms and a really bad constant cough for years. My throat would always feel dry and irritated. I thought the rashes were work related because they would flare up and get much worse around heat. Showers would make my arms extremely itchy. I had to force myself to resist scratching an extremely irritating rash just to get sleep. With mild work burns, large swaths of the skin on my arms would swell and start to peel/melt off and I had to spend hours every morning wrapping and waterproofing my arms before each shift. I put up with it for roughly 3 years, until someone I know stumbled on a tumblr post. It said mattress companies are using fiberglass insulation as a fire retardant material. More commonly found in cheaper memory foam mattresses as a cost cutting way to meet fireproofing regulations. The post said companies change the wording on tags to say things like, "silica based fire retardant" or something similar to hide the fact. This is not even an old outdated practice either. This is currently ongoing to this day. We checked the mattress with a flashlight and sure enough, shimmery little glass fibers were visible through the factory mattress cover (it had a warning to not remove the cover). Even if you follow the instructions to keep the cover on, regular use over the years will cause the factory cover to wear. Sleeping would powderize the fiberglass and spread it into the air and onto surfaces. Spent years breathing that fiberglass dust as I slept, having it embed itself in skin and into bedding/blankets/pillows/clothes and causing so many health issues. Threw it out so fast (with a sign indicating fiberglass hazard), and found a list of companies that do not engage in this practice to replace it. Slept on the couch until the new one arrived, and spent months deep cleaning every possession and room wiping down walls, surfaces, using hepa vacs, dealing with the hazard appropriately, etc. Relief is an understatement when I finally stopped losing the skin on my arms to rashes and burns. I understand the mantra, "you get what you pay for." but products that you purchase should not be actively killing you. Please check your mattresses people. I do not wish that kind of suffering on anyone.
Hi, Im building a small office on the back of a trailer using 75 mm cool room panels. I'm not planning any windows for now and was thinking of using a hrv. Do you have any advice on that or what else I might need? Thank you.
Thanks for your question! I wish I could be of help, I'm not a builder, so at this point my knowledge on projects like that is limited. That being said, there are a couple things I can say: if you're living in a climate where it gets humid at all, I'd recommend an ERV instead of an HRV, for the reasons in this video I made: ua-cam.com/video/LiptsaKmq80/v-deo.htmlsi=zNrfWWm1jZG68ONR
I don't want to be featured but I would like to spread awareness of a really insidious practice that is very common in the mattress industry. I was getting terrible rashes on my arms and a really bad constant cough for years. My throat would always feel dry and irritated. I thought the rashes were work related because they would flare up and get much worse around heat. Showers would make my arms extremely itchy. I had to force myself to resist scratching an extremely irritating rash just to get sleep. With mild work burns, large swaths of the skin on my arms would swell and start to peel/melt off and I had to spend hours every morning wrapping and waterproofing my arms before each shift. I put up with it for roughly 3 years, until someone I know stumbled on a tumblr post. It said mattress companies are using fiberglass insulation as a fire retardant material. More commonly found in cheaper memory foam mattresses as a cost cutting way to meet fireproofing regulations. The post said companies change the wording on tags to say things like, "silica based fire retardant" or something similar to hide the fact. This is not even an old outdated practice either. This is currently ongoing to this day.
We checked the mattress with a flashlight and sure enough, shimmery little glass fibers were visible through the factory mattress cover (it had a warning to not remove the cover). Even if you follow the instructions to keep the cover on, regular use over the years will cause the factory cover to wear. Sleeping would powderize the fiberglass and spread it into the air and onto surfaces. Spent years breathing that fiberglass dust as I slept, having it embed itself in skin and into bedding/blankets/pillows/clothes and causing so many health issues. Threw it out so fast (with a sign indicating fiberglass hazard), and found a list of companies that do not engage in this practice to replace it. Slept on the couch until the new one arrived, and spent months deep cleaning every possession and room wiping down walls, surfaces, using hepa vacs, dealing with the hazard appropriately, etc. Relief is an understatement when I finally stopped losing the skin on my arms to rashes and burns.
I understand the mantra, "you get what you pay for." but products that you purchase should not be actively killing you. Please check your mattresses people. I do not wish that kind of suffering on anyone.
This is fascinating. Would you mind emailing this to me?
you are truly a hero my friend
Aw thank you :)
Hi, Im building a small office on the back of a trailer using 75 mm cool room panels. I'm not planning any windows for now and was thinking of using a hrv. Do you have any advice on that or what else I might need? Thank you.
Thanks for your question! I wish I could be of help, I'm not a builder, so at this point my knowledge on projects like that is limited. That being said, there are a couple things I can say: if you're living in a climate where it gets humid at all, I'd recommend an ERV instead of an HRV, for the reasons in this video I made: ua-cam.com/video/LiptsaKmq80/v-deo.htmlsi=zNrfWWm1jZG68ONR