Yes, the two classes of people who got asbestosis were miners and Navy shipbuilders. There have been zero cases of little children in schools getting mesothelioma, regardless of how many ambulance chasers (Democrats) drone on about it.
Pre-Nomex, I presume.
A guy I used to work with took his .22 rifle to school with him every day. He lived in New York City (yes, a NYC public school).
As has been pointed out, here. Metallic Mercury isn't very toxic at all. The body doesn't know what to do with it. Many Mercury compounds are extremely toxic, however.
Those were the days. We could carry non-concealed Buck knives and our guns could be left in vehicles. My school no longer had a shooting program.
It is all about the vector. I know of a Indian tribe that mined mercury. They died. Liquid mercury does not have an easy vector into the body unless ingested/inhaled. Handling the stuff without protection over a period of years will have harmful effects.
My situation is very similar. I put a CFL in there about 5 years ago and it's still working.
BTW, I started leaving the light on for a few minutes after cooking, as an indication the cooktop may be hot.
So when the bulb breaks, pieces fall in your food? I put it back on (5 years ago).
guess I'm going to die then because my brother and I had a bottle of mercury that we would pour out on the table and play with when we were kids. Rolling from here to there and making little blobs out of big ones and then back to big ones. Someone please come save me!!!!!!
As a kid in the 30's I would rub mercury onto pennies to make them look like silver. My teeth fillings have mercury in them I am told. Because of my great interest in chemistry I knew NOT to heat it as gold miners did and many lost their lives doing this. To the original poster>>> I use the coiled type in our hallway over head fixtures. They are horizonal mounted. Outlast the tungsten type.
Just wanted to thank everyone for their input. This has been interesting. and it was also a trip down memory lane - my brother and I used to play with liquid mercury. My father, a physician, didn't have a problem with that, assuming that he knew. (Honestly, I'm not sure he was aware we did it, although I think there was initially mercury in the children's chemistry set we had). And the local shoe store had the foot x-ray thing. He told my mother not to let us play on that.
I think I'll look for the shatterproof CFL, but if I don't find one, I'll use a regular CFL. Ideally, I should get the overhead fluorescent tube light fixture replaced, but the CFL bulb sounds simpler, ha.
I have an older range hood with a light in it. I tend to use it more for light than I do my finicky fluorescent ceiling light. I've been using incandescents, but since I often leave the hood light on over night, they have a limited lifespan. So I'm wondering if it's OK to use a CFL over the stove? Is the horizontal position a problem? (Asking because I know I've seen discussion about upside down fixtures).
I do very little stove top cooking (I'm a microwave kinda person), so I'm not as concerned about the heat, but I'm wondering about that too. Someone at Home Depot said it would be bad for the electronics inside, but I figured I trust the collective minds here more, LOL. If it makes a difference, it has one of those little plastic snap on covers that squeezes into place.
After reading most all of the replies and the subject sort of changed to deadly other things I wonder why I am still here. WWll Navy and SeaBee. Worked with asbestos. Also on heating ductwork covering. Electronic work asbestos wiring covering. Cut an installed asbestos home siding. Laid asbestos floor tile. And then other things, Worked for Westinghouse transformer rebuilding in the late 40's. Transformer oil had PCB in it. Would have my hands in it. Played with mercury as a kid. Mercury in my teeth fillings. Hope I am still here next week to still be alive and kicking. WW
No, it's about chemistry. Metallic mercury isn't digested. Some Mercury compounds are, quite readily. What isn't digested...
Metallic Mercury isn't found in nature.
I haye them mostly because they give poor light. I have a few in areas that do not require particularly good illumination.
I just cannot believe that no one can prefect LED technology for home lighting. My LED flashlights are great.
They're OK for a basement. Tubes are much better, though. CFLs are a lightbulb designed by committee (Congress).
There's sound technical reasons this hasn't happened. Light bulbs, by their nature, are fairly omnidirectional radiators. LEDs are just the opposite. In flashlights, a directional source is a good thing. For general illumination, not so much.
My sister and I did the same thing. Coated dimes with the stuff. Also melted down lead and made fake coins with a plaster mould.
If you aren't mining the stuff or tearing down a giant room that was insulated with it, it's really not worth worrying about. Even the EPA doesn't care how you handle it when you are dealing with less than something like 20 square feet of "demolition".
No, it's genearlly not a problem when you have it in your house unless you're dumb enough to do something stupid with it. If it's in you siding, how exactly is that going to kill you? If you take a grinder to it and breathe it in extensively, well then maybe you have a problem. If it's in your floor tile and you're dumb enough to take a grinder or sander to that, then you increase you're risk. Even the guys who worked in environments with it so thick in the air you couldn't see, only have a few percent risk of getting cancer from it.
This is gross extrapolation from workers that were exposed constantly to huge amounts of it based mostly on scare tactics.
The exposure to asbestos in a home in most cases is minimal too, unless you do something stupid, like grind up floor tile or siding that has some in it and breath in as much as you can. Kind of like sticking your wang in a 240V outlet. Maybe we should get rid of those too.
I dropped a CFL at my parents house, a couple weeks ago. Mom got the vacuum cleaner. I was going to suggest wisk and dust pan, but she was insistent. I commented to Dad, with all that air flow through the vac bag, any mercury would be in the atmosphere. I also remembered commenting we'd all be mad hatters, and we were all about to die. Maybe that's it? Dad died a day or two after Mom vacuumed up a broken CFL.
The early CFL bulbs were garbage, but most of the recent CFL's I've picked up from places like Home Depot have been great. The same "soft white" color temperature (around 2700K) and equal or better brightness. We use them everywhere except on our dimmer circuits where even the dimming bulbs don't work very well. The only downside to the CFL's is they can be a little dim when you first turn them on if it's a cold morning. Only takes a minute or two to get to full brightness though, no biggy.
I picked up three CREE 60W LED bulbs for our kitchen from Home Depot. I am very impressed with them. Instant on, full brightness from the start, and good color temperature. When I first installed them I thought they produced more glare than the standard incandescent bulbs they were replacing, but haven't noticed since then. I don't know if I got used to the different light, or if the glare went away over time. Either way, it's not an issue now.
I will be switching to the CREE LED bulbs as my CFL's burn out.
Anthony Watson
Lewis and Clark took doses of liquid mercury on their 1804 western expedition as a laxative. Clark lived to be 68; Lewis died, probably of suicide, at 35. One biography says that he suffered from alcoholism, depression and perhaps syphilis or malaria. Was mercury involved? There's some talk of exhuming his body. Maybe we'll find out.
I've been exposed to liquid mercury and mercury vapor for almost 40 years because I worked where fluorescent lamps were tested and manufactured. I've also got several mercury amalgam fillings. Now at 75, there's nothing in my medical history indicating any health issues from mercury. All that I've read says that it's mercury compounds and especially methy mercury that does the damage. The Berkeley dudes who wrote the article at:
Tomsic
Lots of LED fixtures, bulbs and controls are now available for residential applications. There's a catalog of the best ones at
Tomsic
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