An IR calibrator (a tool for the office) and a garage door safety stop pressure gauge (a tool for public relations). (Tools for Environmental Health).

The CaliMat[TM] Infrared Thermometer Calibrator 

Trivia question: Do you remember, after Bullwinkle finished his fractured poetry reading, what Rocky the flying squirrel said as a segue to the torrent of ads to follow? Answer: "And now for something you'll really like!" Well, fellow sanitarians, we echo that sentiment in introducing the latest and greatest little device to recently hit the market: an infrared thermometer "calibrator" for under $15.

The device, called the CaliMat, is developed and manufactured by Oakton Instruments and sold through the Cole-Parmer Instrument Company (catalog number: WD-35625-55). * The minute we saw the CaliMat in the Cole-Parmer catalog supplement, we had to have it. We made a quick call to the 800 number, and the calibrator arrived within two days.

To be exact, the device really is not a calibrator, but a validator that checks temperature accuracy. (IR thermometers cannot be field-calibrated.) Since we have always verified the accuracy of our thermocouple, thermistor, bimetal, and infrared thermometers every time we take them to an inspection site, this little device has just made one job a lot easier. We can now check all of our IR thermometers in less than five seconds. Here's why and how it's done.

The CaliMat is so simple that in response to it we gave ourselves a why-didn't-we-think-of-it-first slap on the forehead. It's basically a liquid-crystal thermometer attached to a 5 1/4-by-6 3/4-inch refrigerator magnet with room enough for a blackbody target, easy-to-read instructions, and accuracy data.

The beauty of the CaliMat is its ease of use. We applied ours to a steel file cabinet away from direct sunlight. Initially it takes a few minutes to stabilize, but once it does, it happily changes temperature with the ambient conditions. It is designed for infrared thermometers with an emissivity of 0.95 to 0.97, which is exactly what we use for our inspections. Once the temperature reading on the liquid crystal thermometer has stabilized, aim your IR unit at the center of the blackbody, at no more than 1 inch away. Compare the temperature reading on your instrument to that of the liquid crystal thermometer. The liquid-crystal thermometer has a range from 55 to 88[degrees]F, in 2[degrees]F increments. It is easy to discern 1[degrees]F gradations by the color change of the liquid crystal, a process that is also explained on the unit. The liquid-crystal thermometer has an accuracy of [+ or -]2[degrees]F. When we compared our CaliMat with our usual method of IR thermometer validation (see the October 1999 issue of the Journal) and the ambient conditions as measured by our temperature-standard motorized psychrometer (see the January/February 2002 issue of the Journal) , we found the liquid-crystal thermometer to be remarkably accurate.

All things considered, the CaliMat is one of the least expensive and most useful tools we've seen in a long time. At $14.95, it is a must-have for every practitioner and health department.

Garage Door Safety

Like many environmental health practitioners, we always complain that our constituency does not know what we do--and may not even care. We wear no uniform for ease of recognition, we do our work quietly with little to no public contact, and we cannot trumpet our triumphs about incidents that we have prevented. At the beginning of our careers, however, we were part of an initiative to follow up on childhood poisonings and serious injuries. When invited, we evaluated homes for infant and toddler safety and provided useful information to families on environmental health and safety issues. Now we only see homeowners in response to nuisance complaints and an occasional swimming pool. We firmly believe that personal contact is still the best way to get our message across. To this end, we have found a simple tool to help the homeowner: the Garage Door Safety Stop Pressure Meter sold through Professional Equipment ** in Hauppauge, New York.

Earlier this year, Underwriter Laboratories (UL) issued a press release warning the consumer against an entrapment hazard associated with automatic garage doors. There had been four reports of children getting trapped beneath automatic garage doors that had been left in a partially opened position (deliberately, it seemed, to give access to the family cat). Apparently, the children tried to crawl through the opening and got stuck. When the door controls were activated to free the child, the door continued traveling in a downward direction, thus increasing pressure on the child trapped beneath it. In a panic, the parent continued activation of the door control by pushing the button repeatedly in rapid succession, which did not reverse the direction of travel and kept the child trapped.

The UL press release provided good, commonsense safety instructions, including instructions for using a 1 1/2-inch block of wood or a two-by-four set on its edge to test the door's stopping and reversal mechanism. We have found, however, that by using the Garage Door Safety Stop Pressure Meter, we can provide additional information to the concerned homeowner--without installing an electrical sensing device.

The instrument consists of a pressure gauge that measures 0 to 150 pounds per square inch (psi) mounted to a hard-rubber bladder. When the bladder is placed under the descending door, it measures the pressure needed to activate the door-reversal travel mechanism. We make the evaluation available by invitation. When we test the homeowner's garage door, we use a recommended manufacturing standard set forth by the Consumer Products Safety Commission as listed in 16 CFR Part 1211 and UL Standard 325: The door should reverse within two seconds at a pressure not exceeding 15 psi. We found that this little 2-by-7 1/2-inch device is a nice way to provide something positive directly to our communities, and it gives us an entry to tell our story. In short, the Garage Door Safety Stop Pressure Meter is a great sales tool for our public-health message.

Inspection Tip of the Month

One of the best tools for demonstrating how clean is clean, is the humble wood stick safety swab (Q-tips[R]). The dry cotton tip will dramatically show any surface dust, dirt, grime, and grease; the wood stick keeps the swab rigid when the tip is pressed against a surface.

* Cole-Parmer Instrument Company Telephone: [phone]. Web site: <http://www.coleparmer.com>.

** Professional Equipment. Telephone: [phone]. Web site: <http://www.professionalequipment.com>.

This article is provided by NEHA for informational purposes only. It is designed to better inform our members about topical and relevant goods and services available to the environmental health professional. Opinions expressed about any product or service in this column either expressly or implied are solely and completely those of the author/s and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the National Environmental Health Association.