The other day, I spoke with Lou Manfredini about safety in the workshop...
Lee: I think with safety products...if you make it more comfortable, they will come.

Lou: Exactly.

Lee: I don’t know about your age, but I’m old enough where...in my mind, safety glasses are still those goggles with the elastic band, so whenever I put on...sleek, light weight glasses, I’m just delighted and they just seem like a new thing. And I don’t know if you’ve seen...that kind of evolution of safety products also.

Lou: ...So I’ve been a builder and a renovator for over 25 years, and when I was starting out in this business, we did very little safety stuff. And part of it was that you’re young and you’re invincible, right? Nothing’s ever going to happen to me, you know, I’m 22 years old and nothing’s ever going to hurt me.

And when I...progressed in my career and I was...a carpentry contractor and then turned into a general contractor, I used to get stuff in my eyes all the time. And finally I came home and my wife said if you don’t start wearing safety glasses, I’m going to divorce you. So...I’m still married to my wife 23 years later, and so I listened to her because I subscribe to the edict of happy wife, happy life...

And to your point, you know, I was like, I don’t want to wear safety goggles, they’re like the big things I used to wear in my science class when I was dissecting a frog...

And so 3M with their TEKK line has really spent a lot of time in design, fit and comfort, not just in the safety glasses but in the respirators that they make, the ear protection that they make.

And what’s happening is there is a resurgence in people doing it themselves because...partly it’s the economy because, you know, people are saying, "Well, wait a minute, I can’t sell my house because it’s not worth what it was, you know, five years ago, so I’m going to stick around, but I don’t have the money to hire somebody to do this so I’m going to do it myself."

What concerns me, just as someone that...gives advice to people about doing all this stuff...but they do need to take the right precautions. ...The three basics are the eye protection, the hearing protection, and the lung protection with respirators.

...And so the idea is that we want...and this is what 3M wants to do, too, with their tech line, is that you’ve got to...insulate your attic to save money, I want you to go refinish some furniture, I want you to go, you know, do all this stuff in your home. But how about you don’t get stuff in your eye, so you got to go to the emergency room, how about you don’t expose your lungs to the fiberglass fibers as you’re insulating there that can have long term...health effects for you, and that you wear gloves?

Lee: Are there any products you’ve kind of come to lately? Like for me, it’s the 3M TEKK Work Tunes--headphones. You know, I used to occasionally stick in ear plugs--maybe--when I would run the compound miter saw. But this is a very new thing for me and much easier than sticking in soft ear plugs filled with sawdust...

Lou: Yeah, I think the Work Tunes is...really neat. And they’re coming out with a version now that’s more integrated, you can plug in your iPod into it, as well, if you want to listen to your own music. And they’re...coming up with one that you can actually clip the iPod or your music player into it. Before, it had like a cord so you’d have to put it in your pocket, and so that’s really kind of cool. I mean, the ear plugs to me are...an easy thing to do...but I really like the Work Tunes.

One of the things that they have on their respirators that’s kind of an innovative thing is this cool flow valve on the front...

Theirs has a little metal aluminum clip over the bridge of your nose, that once you place it on your face, you pinch that down so that...it really gets a nice tight fit. But if you wear a mask and then you wear safety glasses and you’re breathing heavy or...it’s a humid day and you’re fogging up your safety glasses, well, then you’re like, "Gosh, I can’t see a thing."

So what do you do, you take off your safety glasses. And...you defeat the whole purpose of what we’re talking about. This cool flow valve that they have in the front is literally like a...little swinging gate, that when you exhale it opens up so that all that air can escape. But then when you breathe in, the gate closes so that when you’re breathing air in it’s coming through the filtration system.

And...it’s four bucks. I mean...we’re not talking about a ton of money here, and you keep all that stuff out of your lungs... [I]t makes things more comfortable, easier for people to use, and I think if you do those things, they’ll use them.

Lou Manfredini is host of the widely popular "Mr. Fix-It" call-in program heard Saturday mornings on WGN Radio, Chicago. He also is a regular contributor to NBC's Today Show.