Dear Jim: My children have allergies to mold. I want to make my house more airtight for better energy efficiency, but I heard this can exacerbate mold problems. What safe efficiency improvements can I make? - Karla S.

Dear Karla: People often think airtight, musty, mold-ridden indoor air quality is the price one has to pay for greater energy efficiency. Actually, making your house more energy efficient can positively affect air quality.First test your house for mold. Several laboratories offer home mold test kits. For a "viable" test, you grow your house test samples in a petri dish. At IMS Laboratory, it costs only about $10 for the kit. If you find mold growth, they charge about $35 more to analyze the mold types. Some types of mold cause few problems, while others are quite toxic.A better test is "nonviable" test, where the sample is analyzed for many types of mold.

Reborn Library Reconnects With City

If you think of the city as a human body, parts of the city can easily be seen as various organs or limbs. Atrain station is a metaphor for the feet, its roads and streets make up the circulatory system, parks are the lungs, an art museum might be the eyes, the ears are a concert hall. Hartford's higher functions — the brain and the life of the mind — are now housed in a beautiful new library on Main Street.

"New" library? Hasn't the city's library always been on Main Street, first housed in the Wadsworth Atheneum and, for the past 50 years, in its own building between Arch and Sheldon streets? I say "new" because the library's transformation over the past eight years has been so complete as to render it reborn, emerging from its cocoon of scaffolding a new building of light, views and civic welcome.

Looking for solutions to the carbon conundrum

We would consume less energy to heat homes and business therefore less pollution.
. We would have a longer growing season, less crop failure, maybe two crops a year.,
. We would reduce imports of food products grown in the south, we can grow them in Canada.
. We could move crop production further north.
. We could finally open the North West Passage Posted 01/02/08 at 10:04 PM EST | Alert an Editor | Link to Comment .

Inglewood market clerk shot while standing inside store

Metro police are searching for an unidentified man who shot an Inglewood convenience store clerk last night.

Speaker talks energy savings

ESCANABA — Energy audits and energy-efficiency upgrades are a great way for businesses to save money as well as positively impact the environment, said a guest speaker at Escanaba's Economic Summit at city hall Wednesday. “Energy audits are a great investment because you need to learn, in all these areas, where you can save," said Kevin Cook, president of G-ENERGY and a board member of Michigan Green. Cook said right now is the “perfect storm of energy" because economics are really important, people are interested in the green movement, and businesses are seeking energy independence. “Energy's going to always be a major issue," he said. “It's a great way to save." Cook said energy audits are a way that businesses — including stores, restaurants, warehouses or industries — can save energy which results in bottom-line savings.