[00:00:00] Ross Trethewey: It's around the house to, to have, you know, uncles like Tom Silva nor Abram, you know, uh, Kevin O'Connor, you know, you know, these guys are, are tremendous to me. You know, I've known him my entire life. You know, my dad's been the show since, uh, I think he was like 22 or 23. My grandfather was on the first season.
[00:00:22] Ross Trethewey: Mm-hmm. . Um, and so, you know, to be able to, you know, see it firsthand, the filming process, but also learn the tricks of the trade, um, and those tips, uh, I was probably, I don't know, Even know, like six years old when I learned how to sold her pipe. Um, you knows That's right. So just being a fifth generation plumber.
[00:00:41] Ross Trethewey: Um, and, um, and just seeing, you know, my dad was, he's big into
[00:00:53] Ross Trethewey: this is around
[00:00:54] Eric Goranson: the house. Welcome to the Around the House Show. This is where we talk everything about your home every single [00:01:00] week. Thanks for joining us. We have a special guest in the studio today,
[00:01:06] Ross Trethewey: Ross Trai, founder,
[00:01:08] Eric Goranson: lead engineering over at TE two Engineering. But you might have seen him on this little show called Ask This Old House, or This Old House is their technology expert.
[00:01:20] Eric Goranson: Thanks for coming on today, brother.
[00:01:21] Ross Trethewey: Yeah, thanks for having me. This is exciting.
[00:01:24] This
[00:01:24] Eric Goranson: could be a lot of fun, man. And, and, Technology and, you know, healthy living inside the home is a passion of mine and mm-hmm. , you do such a great job on a much bigger scale and from the engineering side of it versus me just being a connoisseur, knowing exactly how to do this stuff.
[00:01:42] Eric Goranson: So, uh, it's, it's refreshing to have a conversation like that with somebody that, uh, really knows their stuff.
[00:01:47] Ross Trethewey: Yeah. Well, thank you for having me on. You know, we try to talk about, you know, indoor air quality in our everyday life, you know, whether it's on this old house or whether it's, you know, in our, you know, kind of my day job with TE two.
[00:01:58] Ross Trethewey: You know, just really trying to promote [00:02:00] indoor air quality, making sure that the, the air quality inside of our buildings is healthy to breathe. Um, and it's, you know, promote, you know, us having longevity, uh, and all the other good things that come, you know, from good. You know, people focus on what they eat, people focus about what they drink, but they don't really think about what they breathe.
[00:02:19] Ross Trethewey: And so that's kinda the last, kind of, the last kind of frontier as far as what people need to be focused on. As far as ingesting you think about right. In the typical, you know, human, it's crazy to think about this, but the typical human drinks about eight pounds of water a day, and we eat about four pounds of food a day beyond much air.
[00:02:43] Ross Trethewey: We breathe in terms of pounds,
[00:02:46] Eric Goranson: I have no idea. I'm trying to even think of cfm, little on pounds, .
[00:02:50] Ross Trethewey: So it's about 30. So a typical human at, you know, at normal conditions, steady state will breathe about 30 pounds of air a day. And, uh, [00:03:00] you know, that's, you know, just comparing that to what we eat in terms of four and what we, you know, drink in terms of eight, that's, uh, that's quite a bit, you know, in terms of difference.
[00:03:08] Ross Trethewey: So, and
[00:03:08] Eric Goranson: think about what's in your air filter when you change it. My, that's all. What's entering your body, right? It's
[00:03:13] Ross Trethewey: crazy. Yeah. I mean, there were a bunch of studies done that show that the air quality inside of our houses is four, you know, typically four times worse and sometimes up to a hundred times worse than the outdoor air.
[00:03:24] Ross Trethewey: So like, we think of our houses being healthy, you know, clean environments, you know, but a lot of times it's the Petri dish, it's the exact opposite that they, we've locked in all these, you know, contaminants and it gets, some of it gets trapped in the filter, of course, and some of the higher quality filters obviously do a really good job of capturing the small stuff.
[00:03:41] Ross Trethewey: But, uh, but yeah, the rest of it's going into our lungs, you know, and, and the logs into the bloodstream, you know, tiny, tiny particulates. Um, they call PM 2.5 is the, is the term that they call it. And that's the really, really small stuff, the fine particles, um, and, uh, more science and more, you know, research is being done on what that does to our [00:04:00] bodies.
[00:04:00] Ross Trethewey: But, um, it can't be good. It can't be good.
[00:04:02] Eric Goranson: No. And on top of it, we can't even get building codes straight across the us. This is my little soapbox here. We can't even require kitchen ventilation, hoods and homes. Oh, you got a window that's close enough. And it drives me absolutely insane as a, a nearly 30 year kitchen designer that we can't even get that right, right now.
[00:04:22] Eric Goranson: Oh
[00:04:22] Ross Trethewey: my goodness. That drives me bonkers. Yeah, it's an exhaust is one of those things. It's like, yeah, but I have a recirculating hood. Or, you know, it's like, it's like a circulating toilet. How well is that one that we could do here? ,
[00:04:33] Eric Goranson: I, I, it blows me away. And this again, so box. How can I walk into a home center and buy a recirculating
[00:04:40] Ross Trethewey: hood?
[00:04:40] Ross Trethewey: I know that shouldn't be on the market. Shouldn't be allowed. Shouldn't be allowed. Yep. Yep. Or hey, I just cracked the window. I have no hood at all. , or I have, I put the microwave above it, you know? And, uh, even though a lot of those microwaves can be vented to the outside, they just choose not to. Yeah. You know, it's just, it's crazy.
[00:04:56] Ross Trethewey: Um, I agree with you on that one. So, yeah, it's,
[00:04:59] Eric Goranson: it's [00:05:00] wild. And then, you know, I like using new technology. I've got, uh, I'll use the name out there cause it's worked well, but it's also kind of starting to scare me now. I've got one of those Aris, um, , you know, they're one of the air scrubbers in my house, but mm-hmm.
[00:05:13] Eric Goranson: I'm starting to get a little worried about it, and I'm gonna do some more research on it in, in full disclosure, I've talked about it for a couple times, but my wife can't bake bread in the house with it. So bake, bake bread. Okay. No, it kills the, kills the yeast. So when she goes to rise bread, it won't rise.
[00:05:27] Eric Goranson: So she has to go take it outside. And I'm like, wait a minute. Okay. That's making me a little nervous. I know it's really doing a great job of scrubbing the air, but it's killing the yeast, so I don't know if I want that in me either.
[00:05:38] Ross Trethewey: Right. I'm not familiar with the exact machine you're referring to, but, um, you know, there's a lot of, uh, products that are on the market today, especially coming outta covid that are focusing on, well, they call plasma, plasma technology or negative ions and all these other things.
[00:05:53] Ross Trethewey: And to be honest with, with you and with everyone that asks me, I say, you know, just put in a HEPA filter. [00:06:00] Um, and, uh, or a really, really good, you know, air filter in your house as, as good as you can get. Um, but just that, that doesn't have any additional kind of chemical reactions taking place because we don't know what those, the chain of reactions that gets created.
[00:06:15] Ross Trethewey: We don't know what that does, uh, downstream. And so when you're introducing, you know, uh, plasma and you're ionizing air and stuff like that, uh, there are a lot of things that we just don't know yet in terms of what that does to the air quality entire buildings. And so you might solve for one problem, but you may have created a hundred other problems.
[00:06:36] Eric Goranson: that's kind of where I'm at cuz I mean this thing uses that uh, you know, uses that kind of hydrogen peroxide type technology where it kicks it out in the air. You're familiar with that? And, and, and I, mine's unplugged right now cuz it kind of making me nervous the more I look.
[00:06:49] Ross Trethewey: Yeah, I mean, so we did a lot of, uh, diy, what I'll call, um, I dunno if you heard about the co the Corsi Rosenthal Cube Yes.
[00:06:57] Ross Trethewey: Or Colorado Cube. So it's a [00:07:00] diy, you know, air cleaner. Mm-hmm. , uh, has four filters on it that are all merf their teen or higher with a box fan, less than a hundred bucks materials. You build 'em yourself. I build 'em for all my ki my kids classrooms at schools. Um, and um, and it was, you know, have 'em in my house, et cetera.
[00:07:15] Ross Trethewey: And it's just an awesome, you. You know, um, media filter for capturing the small stuff and the big stuff that's inside our house. So it's instantly making our quality better. And everyone inside my family, you know, felt a difference, you know, from running those machines. Um, and, um, and so, yeah, so my, my viewpoint on most of this is just put in the best air filter you can, um, do it in the rooms that you're going to be living in.
[00:07:39] Ross Trethewey: Um, and whether it's one, a hepa, one that's for a thousand dollars off the market, or whether it's a DIY a hundred dollars one, of course there's gonna be different ranges in that, but at the end of the day, you're making the air quality better and your house not worse. And there's, there's no debate on that one.
[00:07:53] Ross Trethewey: Yeah. And
[00:07:54] Eric Goranson: in, in full disclosure, I put a brand new system in about a year and a half ago. I put one of the, uh, just carrier Infinity [00:08:00] systems in Yeah, the multi-zone old seventies house with their good filter in it. Yeah. So I've got that in the uv in that. Nothing else. Crazy, you know, big six inch type filter.
[00:08:10] Eric Goranson: Yeah, it made day two. I was like, oh my gosh, I'm breathing so much
[00:08:14] Ross Trethewey: better. Right, right. Oh my goodness. Yeah. I can actually breathe .
[00:08:18] Eric Goranson: Yeah. I didn't know how bad it was until I, it's better. And you're going like,
[00:08:22] Ross Trethewey: oh, wow. Yeah. You know, it's a, that's a great system. You know, I always say Merf, uh, MERF 13 is the minimum that I would recommend for everybody, and four inch all the way up to six inch thick.
[00:08:32] Ross Trethewey: The thicker the better, right? Yeah. The deeper depletes, the more surface. Here you have. Um, a lot of people don't realize this, but you know, when you have a pleated media filter, um, the difference between like, you know, a four inch and six inch is the size of the plates. And so the way I think about it is, if you were to unroll that accordion and you were to unbox it and flatten it, how much area would it take up?
[00:08:52] Ross Trethewey: So if I have a six inch versus a one inch, you can, the six inch is gonna be covering much, much more area. So that means lower pressure drop, [00:09:00] that means more filter life, uh, time, life expectancy, um, uh, less resistance on the air motor, you know, the lower motor inside your air handler. Um, a lot of good things that come out of it.
[00:09:10] Ross Trethewey: And so, um, so yeah, the thicker, the better. And MER 13 is, uh, is or higher is where we're at.
[00:09:16] Eric Goranson: And those cheapy one inch ones, the little fiberglass ones, those are there to keep animals out of the, outta the, outta the blower motor. And that's all they do .
[00:09:25] Ross Trethewey: Exactly. Maybe catch some cat hair, some dog hair, maybe that at best maybe
[00:09:29] Ross Trethewey: Yep,
[00:09:29] Eric Goranson: yep. Exactly. That's, that's where it is. But at the same point, and we're gonna get into more technology here, but I also warn though, of taking some old 30 year old system and jamming in a MER 13 filter. Mm-hmm and making sure that that actually will flow enough air for your system, cuz you can freeze up AC units and everything else by reducing too much intake on that.
[00:09:49] Ross Trethewey: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm glad you brought that up. There are a lot of situations where homeowners say, oh yeah, I just ripped out my one inch, you know, MER four and I threw in the Merf 13 and all of a sudden now I'm not getting heating [00:10:00] or cooling or whatever something happened, I'm gonna call my HVAC guy, da da da da da.
[00:10:04] Ross Trethewey: And so I don't recommend, you know, homeowners just going out and just trying to, you know, replace filters left and right and not knowing what they're doing, of course. But yeah, if you don't have good, properly sized duct work, In your house already. That means that that fan motor is already strained. It's already pushing cuz you think about it, right?
[00:10:21] Ross Trethewey: The the duct work is, um, the, the highway system for the air movement in your house. And so you are moving air along this highway. That's the duct system. If the duct system or the highway in this example is small, that means you're trying to jam a lot of cars and it is traffic jam, right? And it's gonna slowly back up and it's gonna create more strain on that motor.
[00:10:41] Ross Trethewey: And so you don't have the ability to add a high nerve rated filter, um, in a system like that because the blower motors already constrained. It's already at its maximum. Um, and so, uh, so that would be a really bad thing. It's like drinking a
[00:10:56] Eric Goranson: thick shake through a little tiny coffee straw. It just doesn't work.
[00:10:59] Ross Trethewey: Doesn't [00:11:00] work well. Uhuh, Uhuh. No. Well, it's
[00:11:02] Eric Goranson: gonna be interesting, man, and talking about technology and, and I want to get into some of this and you do some really cool, you know, more high end residential stuff, but mm-hmm. , the more I'm looking into January of 2023, we've got some huge changes coming in the world of H V A C and heat pumps and technology.
[00:11:20] Eric Goranson: Mm-hmm. , it's, it's amazing what's gonna be happening. Now. It's, it's gonna change the world of how we look at.
[00:11:25] Ross Trethewey: Yeah, yeah. I mean the future, um, who, who knows the future, but I will say that heat pumps will definitely be a part of our future , no question. Whether it's geothermal heat pumps, whether it's air source heat pumps, but the real push right now is air source heat pumps, right?
[00:11:38] Ross Trethewey: Going to higher efficiencies, um, going to more cove climate, inverter driven compressors, going with a electronic expansion valves, going to all these really cool technologies that let us get more heat when it's colder outside and get more cooling when it's hotter outside, and be able to give us cruise control for our house.
[00:11:57] Ross Trethewey: And in terms of the H V A C systems, that is, uh, that's [00:12:00] coming, you know, and, um, well, that's here, I should say. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:12:03] Eric Goranson: Well, it's amazing just in, in my system with variable speed, what that did, you know, I know some people go, oh, I can get a single seed speed system for this, but variable speed is X. Yeah, man, I will never not put in a variable speed system in anything ever again after having.
[00:12:18] Ross Trethewey: Yeah, I, I mean, we talk about it with homeowners all the time and different clients. It's like, would you rather have a, uh, you know, in the car analogy, would you rather have a car that's either on or off at a hundred miles an hour or zero, right? Or would you rather have a car that could go 50 or a hundred or zero?
[00:12:33] Ross Trethewey: Right? So two stage compressor in that analogy. Or would you rather have a car that can modulate from 20 miles an hour to a hundred miles an hour and anywhere it needs to, whether you're going uphills, downhills in traffic, you know, da, da da da. So it's, it's a no brainer. It's a no brainer. And the cost for this equipment is coming down.
[00:12:51] Ross Trethewey: Um, it's, you know, it's becoming more ubiquitous and, um, and yeah. And there's all these other benefits, right? Part load efficiencies go up. [00:13:00] Mm-hmm. , um, the, um, the deification capabilities go up the um, um, the. You know, the, the, the comfort level inside the house goes up. Oh. Because now it's not huge. Slammed on.
[00:13:14] Ross Trethewey: Slam off, slam on, slam off. It's,
[00:13:16] Eric Goranson: you don't hear it. I mean, I never hear unless it's, you know, we get extremes here and, you know, I'm in Portland, Oregon, so, you know, our, in the last two years I've had it be, you know, 10 degrees outside, which is cold for us usually. And I've had it 117 degrees outside, which is way hot for us.
[00:13:33] Eric Goranson: Yep. And 117, I can hear that thing cranking cuz it's, it's trying to do what it can. Yeah. You know, it's well beyond its designed capability and it's doing what it's can, but that variable speed. Before that you just don't hear it running.
[00:13:47] Ross Trethewey: I know you don't hear it. You don't have drafts blowing, you know, where they don't need to be blowing.
[00:13:53] Ross Trethewey: You know, the temperature is right. Coming outta all the vents you actually wanted to run at all the time at a low speed. That's what you rather, [00:14:00] you would rather have it be per perfectly load, batched and running and cycling and just sipping a little bit of energy all the time versus the on off cycles.
[00:14:10] Ross Trethewey: Yeah. Right. You, you know, people say, oh, my heat pump's been running all day. It's like, that's okay, cool. That's okay. That's a good thing. That means it's load matching your entire building all the time. It's always putting in the right amount of heat or the right amount of cooling into your building. And you, I go, do you feel comfortable?
[00:14:24] Ross Trethewey: I go, yes. Do you hear anything? They're like, no, you know, except when I go outside to the unit. But other than that, you're like, that's good. That's a good thing. You know, like, yeah, that's ex, it's doing exactly what it should be
[00:14:33] Eric Goranson: doing. And even the outdoor units now talk about a difference in quiet. Oh yeah.
[00:14:38] Eric Goranson: I mean, it used to be, it sounded like a jet engine out there going bur, you know, or a diesel truck starting up and now you hear the air.
[00:14:47] Ross Trethewey: Yeah, yeah. The, the fan motors are being redesigned. Um, the, the, the physical fins are being redesigned in the outside units. Um, some of the, you know, uh, Asian manufacturers are going [00:15:00] to the kind of the vertical suitcase style units that have like one or two fans, um, blowing horizontal discharge versus vertical discharge.
[00:15:07] Ross Trethewey: Um, and so they're getting into, you know, mix flow style fans, I dunno how technical we wanna get, but basically, yeah, they're getting into all these different things that allow us to get more air with better efficiency, with more, with less. And so the decibel ratings, to your point, the DBAs on these units have gone down dramatically.
[00:15:25] Ross Trethewey: Um, and so it's, uh, you don't even, it's on half the time. I have to actually put my hand on the, uh, on the outlet, be like, is that on?
[00:15:33] Eric Goranson: Same? And I can be outside and I can be 20 feet away from my outdoor compressor when the ACS going out there. And I'm like, Is that running?
[00:15:40] Ross Trethewey: Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing. That's, yeah.
[00:15:43] Ross Trethewey: There's
[00:15:43] Eric Goranson: no more fighting in the city where, where you're putting your, your compressor and the neighbor's like, that's next to my bedroom, Jo, that thing away from me. Right. And now it doesn't matter.
[00:15:52] Ross Trethewey: It doesn't matter. Yeah. We have a lot of towns in city, in areas around us that have noise audiences. So you have to have certain DBA level at [00:16:00] the property line to make sure that your neighbors are, you know, that you're, you know, compliant with the, with the zoning and the, in the local town bylaws.
[00:16:06] Ross Trethewey: And so that's, that's really a non-issue. The only thing that, you know, generators, fossil fuel generators obviously are still kind of an item that we, that comes up on these projects, but from an HC standpoint, it's, these things are so darn quiet. It's, it's a non-issue. It's a really a non-issue.
[00:16:20] Eric Goranson: It's really non issue.
[00:16:20] Eric Goranson: It's great, you know, and it's just one of those things that, and you know, we've got a lot of people in, in the northern climates here that listen to the show as well. You know, we're on the radio a lot, even up in Maine. But long story short, heat pumps are working and so much colder climates. I mean, when I was.
[00:16:35] Eric Goranson: You know, in the eighties I remember my parents doing an addition to the house and putting in a very first generation heat pump. And in the wintertime my mom would walk by the thermostat and, you know, kind of be doing the, uh, Christmas story square at the furnace thing, seeing the red light on it cuz emergency heat was on.
[00:16:50] Eric Goranson: Yep. And, and now that just is a rare occurrence with some of the new
[00:16:54] Ross Trethewey: stuff. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean the, the inverter compressors, um, the electronic expansion valves [00:17:00] and the large surface area, uh, some of them are microchannel, but the, the, the, the thin design, uh, of the outdoor unit in terms of the coil, all of those things have really unlocked the ability and even the, um, vapor injection, I'd say, I should say it was probably the, the number one recent criteria that, that has allowed, uh, these units to heat when it's minus 13 out.
[00:17:21] Ross Trethewey: Some of 'em go to minus 25 Fahrenheit now. Yeah, I mean, we're talking about ridiculously cold temperatures and they can still pull heat out of the air, and that, that to me is still. Magic, you know, I talk about, you know, you know, absolute zero. Yeah. In negative 400 and you know, I think it's 67, you know, Fahrenheit,
[00:17:40] Eric Goranson: that's about what it is up in my, uh, my son just moved to North Dakota and I think it gets close to that, but just jokingly , they
[00:17:47] Ross Trethewey: might as well feel like that
[00:17:49] Ross Trethewey: But yeah, I mean these things are amazing. The, uh, the ability to scrub the heat out at those really, really cold temps and to do it, um, energy efficiently is, is remarkable. You know, and
[00:17:59] Eric Goranson: I, I love [00:18:00] that that new technology is now in the heat pump water heaters as well on those hybrids. Cuz again, that's another place that we're seeing energy efficiencies that are amazing.
[00:18:07] Eric Goranson: I put in one about 18 months ago, and I, I regret, I was questioning it, putting an ad, I'm like, ah, getting rid of my gas and putting electric in. Why would I ever do that? And then I did it and went, why did I not do this a year? Right.
[00:18:20] Ross Trethewey: The ability to do an all electric home now is, is possible because of the heat pumps, right?
[00:18:25] Ross Trethewey: So whether you're talking about air source heat pumps outside for heating and cooling, the building and what, and what you're talking about air source heat pumps for delivering domestic hot water, that has really changed the game. And so, you know, if you think about electric resistance tank type water heaters mm-hmm.
[00:18:39] Ross Trethewey: You know, you might have two, four and a half kilowatt electric elements that are just chugging and you know, the c o P on those units is one, right? Yeah. Point nine five, you know? Mm-hmm . And if you look at a heat pump on a lot of those units, depending on obviously the air temperatures in the, you know, in the location and vicinity of that heat pump, it's typically at least double, you know, so CS and [00:19:00] those units go usually around 1.75 to like 2.25, somewhere around.
[00:19:04] Ross Trethewey: So basically swap out electric tank type water heater for an air source heat pump water heater. You immediately just made that twice as energy. Yeah,
[00:19:12] Eric Goranson: I mean, I love it cuz when I have to go to backup power, we lose power. My water heater on heat pumps only using 500 watts to heat 80 gallons
[00:19:19] Ross Trethewey: of water. I know, I know.
[00:19:21] Ross Trethewey: And it's incredible, the 4.5 kilowatt element, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's absurd. It's, it's amazing. Yeah. One thing to keep in mind that they do have a compressor in them, right. So that makes a little bit of noise, a little vibration there. And you can't jam these in a small, small closet No. That they need air to actually, cuz they're, they're actually stealing heat from the, from the basement or from the closet, wherever they're located.
[00:19:42] Ross Trethewey: Um, and then making that room cooler and deified. Yeah. So,
[00:19:46] Eric Goranson: um, I've got one here in my, uh, my garage studio here where it's at. It's. 12 feet that way, and it's quiet enough. I mean, you hear it a little bit, but it's, it's like a, a refrigerator running,
[00:19:57] Ross Trethewey: you know? Yeah. It's like a refrigerator. Exactly. Yep. That's [00:20:00] exactly, I mean, it's effectively what it is.
[00:20:01] Ross Trethewey: It's a refrigerator that's just taking heat and putting it into the tank versus refrigerator is taking heat out the box and rejecting it to the, to their surrounding air that way, so, yeah. Yeah. It's it's a glorified refrigerator. Exactly. Right. Yeah. It works
[00:20:13] Eric Goranson: out well. So technology man, we are seeing such over the last five years when it comes to everything inside the house.
[00:20:22] Eric Goranson: So the air quality, and I mean, we're talking HRVs RVs, you know, we're gonna get into the weeds a little bit here, but mm-hmm. , , these whole systems now are starting to become whole systems versus six things working at my house, and I know this is something that you specialize in with your, with your company.
[00:20:41] Eric Goranson: Let's dive into that a little bit because we're kind of in this new age of where the smart home technology is actually starting to be smart. Yeah.
[00:20:49] Ross Trethewey: Yeah. It's actually starting to work for us, you know, as opposed to just a little widget that does some maybe cool things. Now it's all integrated, you know, in the house.
[00:20:57] Ross Trethewey: And so yeah. To focus on, you know, taking the air [00:21:00] quality for a ride a little bit, you know, because the air quality in a lot of the houses is so poor, right? We typically recommending in E R V products, sometimes in rv, but mostly an RV product to get that energy exchange and air circulation from inside to outside.
[00:21:14] Ross Trethewey: And so we're getting fresh air into the house and getting that sta layer outta the house. So the always the question is, how do you run it? Mm-hmm. . So we can size it to Ashray standards, we can size it to building code standards, um, and we can size it to ventilate those houses. But you know, what we're finding is that those rates in some cases are too high.
[00:21:32] Ross Trethewey: In some cases they might be too low, and it really depends on what's going on inside the house, right? Is it a party with 50 people in there and everybody, you know, going nuts, you know, around the holidays? Or is it two people you know that are barely there and coming and going, going to work all the time and stuff like that.
[00:21:47] Ross Trethewey: So like, you have completely different use cases in these types of homes. And so what we like to do is say, well, let's measure some of the stuff that's going inside the house and let's boost [00:22:00] these, you know, variable suite fans when we need to. So we call it demand control ventilation. It's no different than what they do in commercial buildings, it's just kind of applying it more to a residential setting.
[00:22:10] Ross Trethewey: And so we could run the, you know, erv in, in, in a house, for example, low speed, continuous at a really low rate, so that it's always just getting a little bit of exhaust getting out and a little bit of fresh air in. So it doesn't, you don't pay a huge energy penalty for doing that. And you get good air quality even when you're not there.
[00:22:25] Ross Trethewey: So you don't have a stuffy house. Yeah. Especially in an airtight, you know, super well insulated home. But now if you go to cook or you bring in people, so you bring in particulate matter or create particulate matter from the combustion process of cooking, let's say on a gas cooktop. Or you bring in 30 people for a party and everyone's breathing out co2, um, or you have, you know, VOC levels that are spiking for the new carpet that you just installed or whatever it might be.
[00:22:53] Ross Trethewey: The new couch, whatever. Yeah, the new couch. Exactly. So any of these trigger points, Can trigger the fan to go to [00:23:00] a higher level and we can then measure it over time to see, hey, how are we doing? Where are we? And we can compare these average levels over the typical day, uh, to EPA levels and other, um, you know, standards to make sure that, uh, that the house is, you know, well ventilated and it's healthy for us.
[00:23:18] Eric Goranson: Yeah. So, um, that's, my house is a perfect case study for that cause it's a 1500 square foot, 1977 kind of contemporary house. So it's, it's not sealed up that well. I mean, it's got 30 pound felt on studs with T one 11 siding. That's, you know, everything's sealed up well, but it's not that great. I've got a nice H V A C system in it, but I also have a 1200 CFM range hood.
[00:23:43] Eric Goranson: I have, you know, two bath fans that are 120 CFM cuz one bathroom has a steam shower in it, for instance. Sure. And then all of a sudden, if I've got 15 people over for Thanksgiving. I've got a whole different story that just a simple little makeup air isn't gonna take care of, for [00:24:00] instance. Right,
[00:24:00] Ross Trethewey: right, right.
[00:24:01] Ross Trethewey: So do you, is your kitchen exhaust system, is it fed by a, um, a passive makeup bear system, meaning just a motorized damper that opens to allow air into the carrier system? Or is it a dedicated unit? What's the makeup bear look like? I have
[00:24:14] Eric Goranson: a, uh, 18 by 24 dog door right now that's doing a really good job for my makeup air.
[00:24:19] Eric Goranson: Okay, . Cool.
[00:24:20] Ross Trethewey: Perfect.
[00:24:21] Eric Goranson: Perfect. So is it conditioned? No. But is it something that I, that's next phase of my project? Yeah, we're gonna do, I gotta do something serious cuz you know, I, I just, if I go look at a simple makeup air system, I'm, if I turn that fan on and it's running 900 cfm. I'm really pushing just a normal over the shelf makeup, air system's not gonna work that well.
[00:24:42] Ross Trethewey: Right, right, exactly. Yeah. To get 900 CFM or more, uh, you know, in a house, especially if it's airtight. That's another question I was gonna ask you about your blower door. If you ran a blower door test, and you know what that number is, but basically, um, if it's a, if it's an airtight building, uh, you're not gonna get 900 CFM or more into the house, you [00:25:00] know, and so you're gonna be pressurized that house.
[00:25:01] Ross Trethewey: Yeah. So then you run a risk of depressurizing, you know, um, you know, gas, combustion, you know, water heaters, whatever. You know, I, I don't think you have that, but you, there's situations where, You can create a negative pressure, and that's gonna be bad for a variety of reasons. Sure. Um, you know, maybe not safety if you don't have carbon monoxide and gas combustion byproducts, but, um, but yeah, so the ERV would help you with general ventilation.
[00:25:25] Ross Trethewey: Mm-hmm. , it could be tied into your bathrooms as an exhaust point, so you don't have to run the 1 25 CFM baths if no one's there and you're, you know, uh, and you just want general ventilation. You can put an exhaust point in the kitchen to get some, you know, exhaust point from there. Um, get that outside and then you can run those on, um, on a variable.
[00:25:42] Ross Trethewey: Output, you know? Yeah. To, uh, to make sure you're getting the right amount of air. And you can use that based on a variety of IAQ sensors. And so that's the thing where it's the, the market is starting to get into more standardized, you know, you know, procedures and protocols around this, but it's still a little bit of [00:26:00] a, um, not a Jerry rigged solution, but it's still, uh, it still requires, uh, different kind of off shelf components to have to.
[00:26:08] Ross Trethewey: Tie them together. There isn't like a standard control. I can do all of this. You're
[00:26:12] Eric Goranson: starting to see, you know, retail companies like Bro Newton that are starting to touch into it, Panasonic, that are starting to touch into it where they're, okay, we can put a sensor that'll plug into this room that'll run my e r V or my Bath fan for instance.
[00:26:26] Eric Goranson: You know? Exactly. So we're starting to see those solutions come out on the retail level at least. That's right. Yeah. So,
[00:26:30] Ross Trethewey: uh, Panasonic actually, uh, just partnered up a little bit ago with, uh, SWIT. And so sw it's a company that's coming up with, um, kind of smart home products related to smarter electrical outlets like receptacles, uh, countdown timers for bath fans and ERVs and stuff like that.
[00:26:47] Ross Trethewey: And then VOC sensors and other types of air quality sensors, um, in the house. And so those can tie in to an erv. And so we've used that on a couple cases where we have a, I'll just, I can throw out some brands I guess if you want, [00:27:00] but go ahead. Like, you know, you know, in one case we're using an air things.
[00:27:03] Ross Trethewey: Monitor. Mm-hmm. , the Air Things Monitor is a battery controlled, uh, device that basically just senses, um, temperature, relative humidity, VOCs, particulate matter rate on. Um, I believe there's one more that co2. Okay. So it senses like, I would say six really key IAQ factors. Um, and then it talks, uh, through either wifi, um, typically, but you can use it through Bluetooth and some other ones, uh, to the widget.
[00:27:33] Ross Trethewey: It, um, uh, countdown timer and the countdown timer is tied into an ERV or a Bath fan or multiple bath fans. And so you could say, Hey, if there's an IQ event, hey kick my fan on and bring it up to high speed or something like that. Nice.
[00:27:47] Eric Goranson: That's great. Over the holidays when you got the family over and all of a sudden everybody's getting sleepy cuz they've been there for four and a half hours and Yeah.
[00:27:53] Eric Goranson: Everybody's blaming the Turkey and it ain't the Turkey folks. Somebody crack a window or something. Exactly. Yeah. [00:28:00]
[00:28:01] Ross Trethewey: exactly right. Yeah. Everyone saw sluggish, you know, it's, uh, and lethargic. It's not the trip defend, you're right, it's not the Turkey. Yep.
[00:28:09] Eric Goranson: Don't blame that. And it's funny, I, I remember, geez, it had to have been four, maybe four plus years ago.
[00:28:14] Eric Goranson: I was on stage down at the IBS at the International Building Show. And we had, um, we had a a, um, who was, oh, it was, uh, it was a Skyline manufacturer that had one of those sensors on. Sure. And all of a sudden we couldn't shut the skylights on the display cuz it was so full of CO2 in the, in the hall that it was an emergency ventilate mode and we couldn't get it to shut cuz air, indoor air quality in the hall was so bad.
[00:28:41] Ross Trethewey: Can someone turn these rooftop units on? Cause someone turned ventilation on. Yeah. I mean, call me. That's funny. I've walked around with IQ monitors like on my backpack or my pocket at those conferences, you know, IBS and Yep. HR and CES and all, you know, all the, all the acronyms. But um, [00:29:00] you know, and depending on the trade shows and where it's located, some of them are better ventilated than others.
[00:29:03] Ross Trethewey: Some of them are poorly, poorly, , uh, you know, we, I saw it was over 2,500 parts per million CO2 at at one. Yeah. Wow. So, yeah. Crazy. I mean, you added those people if you don't have ventilation going, if you don't have those rooftop units going on, those, um, you know, on those convention centers, You're hyper loading co2.
[00:29:25] Ross Trethewey: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, yeah,
[00:29:28] and,
[00:29:28] Eric Goranson: and I guess that's one of the, you know, in those commercial buildings, that is gonna be one of the, the, the bonus effects of Covid is that all of a sudden these places are starting to be forced to look it indoor air quality, where before it was a temperature thing and that was it.
[00:29:42] Eric Goranson: Oh, can we keep it 75 degrees in here? Okay, cool. Good. We. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:29:47] Ross Trethewey: One of the, you know, I hate to say this, but one of the really good things that came outta Covid is a high focal point on iq, you know, and it's, I hate to have a pandemic, create that sense of urgency, but, um, but it's [00:30:00] true. You're absolutely right.
[00:30:01] Ross Trethewey: You know, now that people have gone through that process and start to understand a little bit more about aerosols and virus transmission and respiratory ailments, those kind of things, now it's more front of mind than ever before, and people are now starting to focus. So we're getting quite a bit of phone calls, um, from different types of clients that are all now focused on iq, whether it's in the office, in the workspace environment, or whether it's at home, um, kind of all of the above.
[00:30:23] Ross Trethewey: And so, uh, so that part is a really good thing. It's gotta
[00:30:26] Eric Goranson: be interesting for you cuz you work on some larger luxury homes out there and now that can be so much different than a even a, a 4,000 square foot traditional residential space because sometimes all of a sudden you got the sport court or the swimming pool or the workout room.
[00:30:42] Eric Goranson: And that changes the, just the world and how you're gonna deal with that stuff because of humidity or CO2 or some of the other stuff.
[00:30:49] Ross Trethewey: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, we're doing a project right now that has a, has an indoor hot yoga room. So they have a room that has to go from 70 degrees up to 105 degrees in [00:31:00] less than 20 minutes.
[00:31:01] Ross Trethewey: Um, and then there's a, you know, a spa with steam showers, et cetera. Mm-hmm. , you know, and then an indoor. Off of that. So
[00:31:09] Eric Goranson: like you and the wine room's in between 'em. All right. That's gotta stay 50. Of
[00:31:13] Ross Trethewey: course. I mean, it's fantasy land. Some of these projects that we do get involved with it is, it's, it, they're crazy.
[00:31:19] Ross Trethewey: Yeah. But, um, you know, but they, for us, they create really interesting engineering challenges. Sure. You know, to your point, how do you deal with I eq how do you deal with temperature and humidity control, um, in these, uh, such differing rooms, right? Yeah. Pools, indoor, what they call auditoriums, indoor pools.
[00:31:35] Ross Trethewey: They are very, very complicated to actually get right because you have, you know, a constant exhaust requirement cuz you have odors and chemicals in the pool, whether it's chlorine or salt. Yeah. Then you, you know, so it's caustic environment to begin with. Mm-hmm. , you gotta get your building shell, you know, your building enclosure around that space.
[00:31:53] Ross Trethewey: Nailed down. Make sure you got your, you know, talking about vapor barriers and, you know, vapor, vapor retarders and different perm ratings. We gotta make [00:32:00] sure we have air and vapors, you know, treated correctly. But then you have all the mechanical systems that have to deal with the ventilation of that. But you also, you have to heat that air, you know?
[00:32:07] Ross Trethewey: Yeah. You have to provide, you know, cooling and deification, you know, otherwise it's gonna be raining in there. Yeah. Or you get, or you
[00:32:14] Eric Goranson: get, uh, condensation on the backside of the drywall.
[00:32:17] Ross Trethewey: Not good. Not good, not good. Not good at all. Yeah. So those are the, all these things that, you know, these challenges that come up with the, you know, whether it's a hot yoga room, whether this indoor pool, what, you know, whatever it might be.
[00:32:28] Ross Trethewey: Um, and so it, uh, it's, it's fun to be able to think outside the box and get into these unique, you know, applications. Um, but yeah, they are definitely challenging, no question.
[00:32:37] Eric Goranson: And we're starting to see that with, with. Bathroom trends right now because for instance, you know, I did this at my house. I put in a really nice thermo saw steam shower system in my house, which I love.
[00:32:50] Eric Goranson: But we're starting to see more and more steam showers go in. One of the problems I do see though is, is that people aren't planning for them. Right? Even in contractors not doing 'em right [00:33:00] or they're not, you know, and they're not thinking about the vapor that's being released or if they're using some of the, uh, different aromatherapies where they're loading up VOCs by putting in all these essential oils and everything else that they're dropping into these things, they go into the steam.
[00:33:15] Eric Goranson: Yes. And so I see that being something that's really cool on the healthy front, but also on the unhealthy front because now you have to deal with that within the, the building envelope. Cuz now you're throwing a whole bunch of extra either humidity or contam. Yeah,
[00:33:29] Ross Trethewey: there's a, like my viewpoint on that is from a ventilation standpoint is what we try to do is have a general ventilation in, let's say you have a typical bathroom, but you add that steam shower component to that bathroom.
[00:33:42] Ross Trethewey: I like to put in, uh, inline fans to deal with the ventilation, with dedicated pull points. Yep. But I usually with, when, as soon as I hear steam shower, that immediately tells me that we need two bath fans. And the reason I say that is because I want to. A general ventilation that's done to handle the water closet, you know, the toilet, the [00:34:00] odors, and if there's a bathtub or any other kind of, um, you know, outside the steam shower that needs to be ventilated.
[00:34:06] Ross Trethewey: So that space is handled separately. The steam shower itself has its own dedicated pull point with its own fan. Yep. Um, that runs, um, when it needs to, so when you're actually using the STEAM shower, you don't want the fan to run, you wanna fill it up with steam Of course. Yeah. But after you're done, there either has to be a user switch to be able to start a 40 minute or 30 minute timer to basically make sure we can get multiple, at least one full air change of that space.
[00:34:32] Ross Trethewey: Yep. Um, and we try to shoot for a, you know, two to three just to make sure we can get all of that out in a certain amount of. Um, um, and then from there then you, you make sure that you have, uh, the humidity under control and the, you know, the, the aromatherapy and all the other things is not migrating to other parts of the house.
[00:34:49] Ross Trethewey: And we don't have humidity issues after the fact. One thing I'll note on steam showers is that a lot of times they drew them with sealed doors. Yeah. And that is also troublesome because if you have a [00:35:00] dedicated pull point in a sea shower and you don't have either, um, you know, almost like a clear story, uh, or opening or some type of, um, ability to get air into that, you have, you create an airlock effectively.
[00:35:12] Ross Trethewey: I solved
[00:35:13] Eric Goranson: that. So what I, I, here's how I solved it. So I put my 120 CFM bath fan right outside the door. Yep. And I put an opening transom in that transom window. Beautiful. So we can just put that over the door. Yeah. And then I put the aada drying system in the shower. Mm. So that has mine. I designed in, it's got 12 different points of air coming in that dry the walls ceiling floor in, in the glass.
[00:35:39] Eric Goranson: I don't have to squeegee yet. Yeah, yeah. But when I walk out of the shower, I can hit that and it goes into a 40 minute drying session. So it'll get that shower bone dry. Nice. And then I have it so the fans on for 40 minutes as well. So now any of that humidity that I'm pushing in through that, and then it comes right out through that fan that's right out there and it pushes it right out that transom [00:36:00] and right outta the
[00:36:00] Ross Trethewey: building.
[00:36:01] Ross Trethewey: Yeah, no. So the transom window is key and that timer is key. Right? Making sure that you run the timer so the fan will continue to run cuz you don't wanna turn it off. Once you leave, you have to make sure it keeps going to exhaust all that moisture. And the transom window gives it a path to get the air and moisture out of there and into the, you know, into your exhaust.
[00:36:18] Ross Trethewey: That's a great way to do it. Great way to, it's
[00:36:19] Eric Goranson: literally, that fan is, that fan is eight inches away from the transom. I just went, okay, it's gonna go right here. I don't need it. The rest of it I've, I've never steamed that mirror that's, Four feet away from that. I've never steamed it up.
[00:36:31] Ross Trethewey: No, that's great.
[00:36:32] Ross Trethewey: That's great. No, that's perfectly well done. You know, and that's the whole point of perfect design and execution, right? That it works and it works great. You know, that's, you know, I always talk Jacque, talk about with my team in engineering, we are only noticed if we don't do our job right, , right. So it's like a thankless job.
[00:36:50] Ross Trethewey: Like if we make sure that there's no moisture, you know, collecting on any of the inner surfaces of any mirrors in the bathroom and making sure that everything's perfectly temperature and humidity controlled, if we do all [00:37:00] of that perfectly fine. It's just what the customer expects. Yeah. You know, and it's, it's, you know, and it's so, yeah.
[00:37:06] Ross Trethewey: It's an interesting job. It's an interesting job. The only problem I
[00:37:09] Eric Goranson: have on it, and you'll laugh about this, is that I gotta change this up a little bit, is I have a nice three quarter inch gap under my door. The heated tile floor, I'm pulling so much air in that it cools about the first 24 inches of tile because of the airflow coming in under the door.
[00:37:25] Eric Goranson: Wow. So I'm gonna actually go in and put up another little spot where I can vent out, grab the hallway air and bring in there so I can balance that out a little bit so I don't create this cold spot on the heated tile floor. Yeah, yeah.
[00:37:36] Ross Trethewey: Yeah. And would you ever consider a, um, almost like a traverse duct or a transfer duct?
[00:37:42] Ross Trethewey: Yeah. Do they, so sometimes what we do in projects is we. Uh, transfer grill, transfer duct. There's all different versions of it, but basically it can be done in the door, it can be done in a wall, it can be done from a ceiling, like a jump duct. Mm-hmm. , they do that a lot in Florida where it is basically from one room to another with, uh, you know, um, a duct system that basically allows [00:38:00] air to pass without the door being open or closed.
[00:38:02] Ross Trethewey: Yeah. And so, um, that's another way to to that's a good way to do it. Yeah. Okay.
[00:38:06] Eric Goranson: See, now, now now you got my head going. I might just grab out of the, out of a different spot now, cuz that would be kind of cooler. Yeah. .
[00:38:12] Ross Trethewey: Yeah. You got different
[00:38:13] Eric Goranson: options. You got different options for sure. Absolutely. Well, it's fun now, you know, it's, it's interesting, you know, out here on the West coast, I see this a lot now and it's funny because I get mail probably once a week from my local utility saying, Hey, we wanna send you.
[00:38:29] Eric Goranson: A brand new smart thermostat. Yep. And what's hilarious is, is that if you want the smart home thermostat that we can control, it's free. But if you want the one where you can turn off that feature, it's $25. Yep, yep. It's being a debate out here, Doug. Cause I'm getting so many questions on this and I love being able to go from that really dumb thermometer, 1970s thermostat into something that's given you some humidity.
[00:38:56] Eric Goranson: But uh, I know there's some concerns out there with energy usage, [00:39:00] especially out here on the west coast. Yeah. Where they've been having blackouts and all of a sudden you come home and why is it 80 degrees? Oh, my utility changed my thermostat.
[00:39:07] Ross Trethewey: Yeah, it's big. I think that's a growing trend on the, starting on the West Coast.
[00:39:12] Ross Trethewey: Of course it's making its way east, but um, but yeah, the ability for utility companies to control your heating and cooling, you know, as far as adjusting the, the set point of the thermostat when they want to, you know, that, you know, it's, it's an interesting, you know, time, you know, where people can opt into these programs, they get some financial benefit by doing so, and it does reduce, you know, the chances of a blackout and putting in more gas peaker plants and other things like that.
[00:39:38] Ross Trethewey: So there are definitely some good things that, that are coming out of it, but at the end of the day, it's like, do you really want somebody else being able to control your heating and cooling your house? And that's, that's the part that I fundamentally have a, you know, a challenge with. Yeah. I,
[00:39:51] Eric Goranson: I cringe at that just personally and, you know, teach your own, but I, I, I wanna have full control of that.
[00:39:56] Eric Goranson: I'm paying for electricity, I want to be able to do it, but I totally get [00:40:00] that them going, Hey, um, yeah, we could have a blackout. So, uh, do you want to control it or do you wanna have it. Right,
[00:40:05] Ross Trethewey: right, right. Exactly. I mean, you don't want a blackout of course. Right, right. So it's like, but at the same time it's a tricky situation cuz then, you know, why is my, you know, temperature not what I thought it was.
[00:40:16] Ross Trethewey: Why am I uncomfortable? And so there are definitely trade offs there. Um, and, um, I don't have a good solution to that. I, I hear about it more and more though, and it's, it's coming. I'm hearing the same thing from water heaters and a lot of different municipal, uh, electrical utility, you know, um, you know, town and, and local areas of different, you know, areas across the United States where they have the ability to change the water heater set point.
[00:40:38] Ross Trethewey: So if you have an electric tank type water heater, an air water heater, instead of maintaining the temperature at a hundred twenty, a hundred twenty five or 130 degrees, they're gonna make an adjustment and they're gonna adjust it down so that they're gonna cut out your electric, you know, elements, for example, in your electric tank type water heater to prevent that from, from that, uh, that peak occurring.
[00:40:56] Ross Trethewey: Yeah. And also time of use rates, you know, that is also starting to, you know, [00:41:00] um, to go across, you know, it used to be that you paid a fixed rate of electricity every kilo one hour. You paid a certain fixed amount for, it didn't matter whether you used it at noon, four o'clock in the afternoon or at midnight.
[00:41:09] Ross Trethewey: Yeah. Uh, but now that's changing, you know, time of use rates is, is becoming more and more of a thing. And so, and I think it's gonna
[00:41:15] Eric Goranson: time. It's gonna swap times now too, cuz you have people that are gonna be coming in with their, their Teslas or their F-150 lightnings and plugging in and taking so much more electricity off the grid than their water heater or their electric furnace was.
[00:41:32] Eric Goranson: Yes.
[00:41:32] Ross Trethewey: Yes, exactly. The electrification movement does have, I mean, it has amazing pros and I'm a big advocate for it. But there are definitely some negatives or some downsides that people need to be aware of. You know, as we electrify our homes and as we electrify our cars and everything like that, that's gonna put an enormous amount of, uh, demand on the grid.
[00:41:50] Ross Trethewey: Sure. So how does that get navigated? Um, that's gonna be a challenging part for us moving forward. You know, solar and batteries is definitely hit or stay, the battery costs are coming [00:42:00] down. Solar has come down dramatically, so that is gonna be kind of a big part of it. But, you know, beyond that, um, the sun isn't always shining right.
[00:42:08] Ross Trethewey: So, you know, um, yeah, there's, there's, there's situations where, you know, um, if you plug in your EV vehicle, you know, and you have all that going across the grid all at the same time, that's an enormous amount of load that, you know, um, it has to be absorbed somewhere. Yeah. The other thing to keep in mind too, Um, you know, there's a huge push right now for vehicle to grid or vehicle to home technology to electric vehicles, and I'm really interested to see where that shakes out.
[00:42:34] Ross Trethewey: Where you have a hundred kilowatt hour battery in your, you know, electric vehicle, like a Tesla or whatever. Yeah. It's just sitting there in your garage or sitting there in your driveway. If the grid goes down, the power goes down's. You know, why wouldn't we or shouldn't we be able to pull the energy, pull electricity from the battery, go the reverse direction and power up your house.
[00:42:53] Ross Trethewey: Yeah. So, so to make sure that your heating can run so pipes don't freeze, or to run your domestic hot water so you can take a hot shower. You know, you, you're, you're [00:43:00] trading obviously the ability to move with your car, you know, but you're effectively keeping your shelter, you know, uh, going, you know, in terms of heat and, you know, all the, you know, the critical loads of a building.
[00:43:11] Ross Trethewey: Yeah.
[00:43:12] Eric Goranson: Well, you, you went after some of that stuff in that future. Series that you did. Mm-hmm. and, you know, the solar stuff's fascinating to me, but it's not a be all end all. Just because like at my house, I've got a half acre here, but I've got 150 to 400 year old, you know, 200 foot tall fur trees here, so I have no direct sunlight, so, right.
[00:43:33] Eric Goranson: It would take me two years through my city to get a permit to take a tree down if they'd let me . So it's, you know, solar is not gonna be an option anytime soon, if at all. But you're right, storage is gonna be the big thing I think coming forward and, and that is getting cheaper and I think that we're gonna start seeing some new battery technologies that maybe aren't even using as many of those, you know, rare earth, you know, minerals and things like that, that are gonna be a little bit.
[00:43:58] Eric Goranson: Yeah,
[00:43:58] Ross Trethewey: I, yeah, I think [00:44:00] that's a, that's a big part is the battery technology. Yeah. So we're limited right now. Lithium ion can only be so good. And, uh, lithium ion has a bunch of, a lot of it has, you know, hazardous chemicals, you know, that are in there. Um, you know, the cobalts, um, you know, manganese, uh, yeah.
[00:44:15] Ross Trethewey: You know, other types of situations like that. So I would, you know, where I see it going is someone's gonna unlock the battery. Equation right there are different, uh, there are fly wheels and iron air batteries and all these other different tech, you know, technologies that are being experimented with at the research, you know, university level and someone's gonna unlock it.
[00:44:35] Ross Trethewey: Um, it's, I think it's just a matter of time. Lithium eye, like I said, can only get us so far. Um, but, uh, it's, it is really interesting point in our future. Um, and also, you know, I'll mention that we are doing a, um, upcoming segment on Assets House at a company in Cambridge, mass, uh, that was spun out of mit.
[00:44:54] Ross Trethewey: Mm-hmm. , that's wireless charging for electric vehicles. Oh, that's so. Yeah, so one of [00:45:00] the big push backs on a lot of homeowners is that they don't want be able to have to plug in their car when they come home. They just wanna pull into the garage or pull into the driveway. This company's setting up to solve that.
[00:45:10] Ross Trethewey: Similar to what you have when you do induction charging of your cell phone. Right. And when you put your cell phone on a pad and you charge it, that's same technology. Exactly. Yep. That same technology is now being deployed for cars and, um, and they've already unlocked some of the, a couple deals with Hyundai and some other manufacturers.
[00:45:29] Ross Trethewey: So once these manufacturers get on board, it's gonna be really cool. You literally just drive into your, your garage and you, you can walk away and the, the car
[00:45:36] Eric Goranson: charges itself on So logically then could you put that in a highway down the road?
[00:45:43] Ross Trethewey: Now we're talking, now we're talking as you now you
[00:45:46] Eric Goranson: got, got the pavement as you're driving.
[00:45:47] Eric Goranson: So you're not using up that battery power in that freeway. You can actually charge your vehicle as you're going. Yep. What
[00:45:52] Ross Trethewey: about like, if every, you know, couple miles there was a charging station that was embedded in the highway slap Yep. For a mile or two [00:46:00] to quick charge. Yeah. So you a quick charge in this area and then you can continue going for the next couple miles or whatever it is.
[00:46:05] Ross Trethewey: And then you have another charging station. So you know, the idea of having the, you know, the old school trolley systems that had, you know, cables that were connected to the top of the trolley. It's the same idea, but it's wireless, you know, and um, they still have that in
[00:46:17] Eric Goranson: Seattle for the bus system up there in downtown.
[00:46:19] Eric Goranson: I used to commute that way all the time and they'd, you know, you had the cables going up and it was just a regular looking city bus, but it was all electric and they had the cables up there. But this would just be the
[00:46:29] Ross Trethewey: opposite version. Exactly. Exactly. So it's gonna be really, really cool. You know, I feel like I'm, you know, to me this is, I, I love this stuff.
[00:46:38] Ross Trethewey: I breathe this stuff every day, but the next like 20, 25 years is gonna be so, so cool for, you know, on the technology front, from the electrification movement to transportation to homes, heat pumps, you know, s smart home, all of the above. Cambridge really
[00:46:53] Eric Goranson: has some great technology stuff. I've got another group that I work up there, the Sense Labs, people that do the home [00:47:00] energy monitoring have been up and hung out with them in their studio up there in Cambridge.
[00:47:03] Eric Goranson: And, and that is cool up there, that whole
[00:47:06] Ross Trethewey: neighborhood. Yeah, we film with them. Yeah. I met, uh, Mike Phillips, you know. Oh yeah, you guys over there. Oh yeah. Great people. Yeah, great people. And, um, I've got one in my house, and so it's, you know, it's so cool to just see the insights that you get out of, you know, measuring what you're using and how you, yeah.
[00:47:21] Ross Trethewey: Just to see the movement of your electric usage based on. A shower or based on, you know, a heat pump kicking on or whatnot, you can just see the bubbles, you know, pop open, you know, drop off. Um, really cool stuff. And
[00:47:35] Eric Goranson: then I get that new, new device detected and I'm like, what was that? Yeah, ,
[00:47:40] Ross Trethewey: I, I mean I've had that thing in for, I don't even know how many years and it's still detecting new devices.
[00:47:45] Ross Trethewey: Yeah,
[00:47:46] Eric Goranson: mine's gotta be three, probably three or four. I mean, it was a pretty early adopter and I saw a lot of videos for 'em on their how to stuff, you know, for 'em. Nice. And, uh, just great people. What was fascinating to me, and some of our audiences heard me tell the story, but [00:48:00] I was in there and we, we pull up my account, I give them my login details to my account so they could look at it and they're sitting there, they look at it and at the time I had a GE front load washer and dryer, and he just looks down and goes, oh, ge, front load.
[00:48:14] Eric Goranson: What that
[00:48:16] Ross Trethewey: little,
[00:48:17] Eric Goranson: yeah. And I'm just like, okay, man, you, you know that that electrical motor and that gives off. And you knew that was a GE product. That's freaky
[00:48:25] Ross Trethewey: cool. Yeah, I was talking with one of their engineers. I was like, so what do you guys see, like, you know, five years, 10 years from now? And, uh, she goes, um, she goes, we can start to see, um, the ignition cycles on like a furnace or on like, you know, or a washing machine turning on or turning off.
[00:48:41] Ross Trethewey: And so we can now see how many cycles did it start to actually ignite the furnace? Or, um, how many, you know, uh, how does the electrical signatures look in the washing machine? That's probably close to the end of its life, you know? Yeah. Or maybe you need to check the bearings or maybe, you know. Yeah. So the whole [00:49:00] predictive.
[00:49:01] Ross Trethewey: Um, maintenance that could come out of something like that to say like, look, it took three times for your furnace ignition cycle, your boiler ignition cycle to take place when it normally takes one ignition cycle to start. You know, you probably want to get it serviced and cleaned, etc, et cetera. We
[00:49:15] Eric Goranson: caught a bad capacitor on a, on a heat pump there, on the startup motor on that while we were there.
[00:49:20] Eric Goranson: Wow. And somebody else's thing. They were going through it and, oh wow. Look at that. It tried to. And it didn't, and we gotta get bad capacitor. And I was like, okay, that's the cool part of this is now that you're starting to, you know, start to do something with that, which is super cool, I mean that's, that's where it starts saving you money when you start, you know, cuz many times with, with many things in your home, whether it's a bearing going out in the washer or, or a, or a heat pump that's not working correctly, that's costing you money before you realize it's failing in many cases.
[00:49:51] Eric Goranson: Right,
[00:49:52] Ross Trethewey: right. People don't know that it's not working correctly and you could literally short cycle itself to death, or it could be, you know, it could, you know, [00:50:00] shorten the life, like you said, significantly because it was never, you know, commissioned properly maybe from the start or maybe, you know. And so the, to be able to see inside the box, You know, is what I envision something like sense can do.
[00:50:13] Ross Trethewey: Yeah. And, uh, and that will, like you said, you know, it'll provide us with the ability to service things before they, before they fail or let us know, Hey, something's wrong, you gotta gotta take a look at it. You know? Yeah. There
[00:50:24] Eric Goranson: are so many smart home things out there, and I know you see 'em all too, that are, that are changing the world of that, you know, from, from that ting sensor now that can check for electrical shorts in your electrical system.
[00:50:35] Eric Goranson: I mean, there are so many things and you know, the leak detection's a little bit interesting. You know, as far as that, uh, I, I thought first thought, okay, I want to have it close to my house, but, uh, I was talking to my buddy Roger Wakefield, the expert plumber, and he's like, no, you want it out by your meter, by the street Yeah.
[00:50:51] Eric Goranson: To save some
[00:50:51] Ross Trethewey: money. You, yeah. You're talking about the water meter, right? The water meter ones?
[00:50:55] Eric Goranson: Yeah. The water flow
[00:50:57] Ross Trethewey: close to the utility as po or the, [00:51:00] you know, the water supply as possible. You know, cause you wanna absorb and see. How the entire plumbing system is, is working. Yeah. So usually I'll tell people is right after the meter, right after your water meter, put this thing in.
[00:51:13] Ross Trethewey: And uh, I have one in my house. Uh, we've used a variety of them over the years for different, you know, clients of ours. They're phenomenal. Yeah. They are. They, to be able to sense the temperature, the pressure, and the flow of the water, and for it to be able to do leak testing, let's say at midnight or one in the morning when no one's using any water.
[00:51:31] Ross Trethewey: Mm-hmm. , um, is really, I mean, it, it's saved a couple of our clients. Big.
[00:51:36] Eric Goranson: Oh yeah. Yeah. My neighbor right now is fighting that right now. They've got a, I'm happy that they're not doing it today as we're recording this because they have 130 foot driveway that goes back to their house and their water line is underneath that and it's been leaking for about two months cuz they've been trying to figure out how to do it and not mess with the trees.
[00:51:54] Eric Goranson: Oh, okay. So they're gonna have to line bo that. But, uh, They were getting thousand dollars water bills for two [00:52:00] months before they went. What's going on? That's
[00:52:02] Ross Trethewey: crazy. That's crazy. That pays for a system really quickly. Yeah, I mean a lot of these are $300, you know? Yeah. $400 something in that range. You know, it's like that pays for itself really, really quickly.
[00:52:12] Ross Trethewey: And the number one insurance claim in America is water damage. Yep. It's like if a pipe leaks, if you have a leak, if some somebody's hanging a picture on the wall and they put a screw or nail right through a water pipe you've done on that wall, you'd be amazed how much if you ever had that happen to you.
[00:52:29] Ross Trethewey: Yeah, exactly. Done it. Yeah. It's amazing how much water comes outta that. It's absurd.
[00:52:34] Eric Goranson: Absurd. Yeah. About six years ago, uh, we were moving into a rental house, uh, for about a year as we're kids. Were getting outta high school, that stuff before we moved and wanted to stay in the district, but it got a good deal on the other place before.
[00:52:46] Eric Goranson: So we went into a rental for a year and I was putting the TV up using the stun finder. Oh great. Double stud. Nope. That was a three quarter inch ea water pipe there instead. And across this little den I had the window open cuz it was a nice spring [00:53:00] day. Went through with the leg bolt, pre-drilled it, it blew the screen outta the window cuz the window was open across the room.
[00:53:08] Eric Goranson: And, uh, luckily I knew where the water was. So that was a, that was a little more of a, a plumbing slash drywall repair. Yes. Water goes fast when that happens. Yes.
[00:53:19] Ross Trethewey: Yes. That's crazy. Yeah. I tell everybody, if you don't know, figure out where your water shutoff is. Where your electrical shutoff is. If you have gas where your gas shutoff is, those are the three most important things.
[00:53:29] Ross Trethewey: If you don't know where those three are, go find them in your house. Cuz you never know when they're gonna come in in handy . Um, a plumber, a friend of mine was doing a radiant heating job, so they installed radiant tubing and they, um, and they set it up. Everything was ready to go. The flooring guys came to put the flooring on top.
[00:53:46] Ross Trethewey: Of course, they put a nail right through all the pipes. Nobody knew it, but it was small enough of a leak that it wasn't a com, like a significant burst. Mm-hmm. . So the waters continued to leak and leak and leak. And this is on the first. All of a [00:54:00] sudden they were down the basement and there's a huge bubble.
[00:54:03] Ross Trethewey: The whole shoe rock ceiling in the basement had started to swell and bursts and water just went everywhere. Um, and it, you know, it flooded a good portion of the basement and the entire first floor, you know, the cabinets had all capillary had wicked all the water up. It, um, it was just an absolute nightmare.
[00:54:21] Ross Trethewey: Nightmare. Yeah. Show, show me the photos. It was, yeah,
[00:54:23] Eric Goranson: that's, I had the worst case. I had one like that where they, um, the, they had a three story house, so it was kind of a daylight basement. Uh, it was on a hill, so first floor is where the steps went up to, but there was a daylight basement. And then the second floor is where the, the master suite was and stuff with the laundry up there.
[00:54:41] Eric Goranson: And the washer hose failed when they went to Europe and the neighbors figured it out when it blew up the sliding glass door cuz it filled. The basement high enough to blow the sliding glass door off its track. Oh. And that was a year and probably half to three quarters of a million dollars of renovation because [00:55:00] water ran down everywhere, touched everything.
[00:55:02] Eric Goranson: It was a down to the stud project. I have
[00:55:05] Ross Trethewey: to assume that they were rubber hoses on the washer. Always. Always. Every time. Yeah. My dad always trustes. I stay in the steel braided. Yeah. Always for every washing machine. Please, please. The rubber ones, they just don't last, you know,
[00:55:19] Eric Goranson: I gotta ask, since you brought, since you brought your dad up, what's it like growing up with that legacy as a father and the television show?
[00:55:30] Eric Goranson: Cause I mean, your dad is one of my favorite people in the world. I've chatted with him a bunch of times cuz I'm, you know, pretty decent friends with Kevin and, and all that. I was there for the big and they had the, uh, The 40th anniversary party at the station. I was Kevin's guest there for that. Nice, for that party there.
[00:55:47] Eric Goranson: So, uh, when they had just that q and a session, I was there in Boston for that. But, uh, yep, yep.
[00:55:53] Ross Trethewey: Yeah, I mean, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm extremely fortunate to have, you know, uncles like Tom Silva, nor [00:56:00] Abram, you know, uh, Kevin O'Connor, you know, you know, these guys are, are tremendous to me. You know, I've known him my entire life.
[00:56:06] Ross Trethewey: You know, my dad's been the show since, uh, I think he was like 22 or 23. My grandfather was on the first season. Mm-hmm. . Um, and so, you know, to be able. You know, see it firsthand, the filming process, but also learn the tick tricks of the trade. Um, and those tips. Uh, I was probably, I don't even know, like six years old when I learned how to solder a pipe.
[00:56:28] Ross Trethewey: Um, you know, that's right. So just being a fifth generation plumber. Um, and, um, and just seeing, you know, my dad was, he's big into education, so it was all about, you know, you know, I'm gonna teach you not only how to do it, but why we do it a particular way. And I think that part, um, you know, has that def that the why question is a big part of how I went on to do it, you know, engineering and going to, because why do we do certain things a certain way, or how do we make them better?
[00:56:57] Ross Trethewey: You have to know the why. And so, uh, he [00:57:00] definitely instilled all of, you know, that hard work ethic and a bunch of things. Um, and, um, yeah, just learned a ton from him. So, yeah, it's been an absolute blessing, you know,
[00:57:09] Eric Goranson: very, you were living a masterclass.
[00:57:12] Ross Trethewey: It's true, it's true. High expectations, big shoes to fill, you know, a lot of other things that come with it.
[00:57:17] Ross Trethewey: But yeah, of course. I mean it's, well, I'm not saying that was
[00:57:19] Eric Goranson: easy, my friend. I'm not saying that was easy at all, you know, cause you know, when that bar is high, it's like, Ooh, I, I'm supposed to exceed that bar cuz that's the pressure of a kid. Right. And that's right. That's right. That's a, that's a high, high bar.
[00:57:32] Eric Goranson: But, uh, that's
[00:57:33] Ross Trethewey: smarty proud of, but you're absolutely right. It's a masterclass. You know, my entire childhood was, you know, learning all about the systems of buildings, you know. Yeah. Um, and so, uh, tremendous opportunity for sure.
[00:57:46] Eric Goranson: And, and that show is just the, the. You know, gold standard of television as far as it goes out there of just being, you know, every other home improvement show out there.
[00:57:58] Eric Goranson: No matter how long they've gone, they [00:58:00] have their kind of ebbs and flows of not, sometimes it's great, sometimes it's a little bit less great and, uh, man, that that whole franchise has just somehow been able to keep that top shelf through the entire time. And it's probably one of the hardest as somebody that works in TV now, the hardest to film because you have to follow all the, the PBS rules and public broadcasting rules.
[00:58:22] Eric Goranson: Mm-hmm. and doing that in home improvement is an art form just before the camera turns on. Yeah.
[00:58:28] Ross Trethewey: Yeah. I mean, credits to Russ Morash, right? The creator of the show. Yeah. He was the one that had the, the kind of the, the insight and the, the, you know, the ability to see, hey, people wanna know what's going on inside their house and how a home approving project should go.
[00:58:41] Ross Trethewey: And the fact that it went to pbs, I think is one of the main reasons why the show has lasted as long as it has. I mean, this also thing is in its 43rd season, something like that, going into 44th next year. Um, you know, and so one of the things about PBS guidelines is that you can't really show brands, right?
[00:58:57] Ross Trethewey: Mm-hmm. . So you can't really talk about a particular [00:59:00] brand. And so, um, that makes it more authentic, no question. You know what I mean? It's not focused on, Hey, here's, it's a, here's a marketing advertisement for this brand, and so on, so and so forth. It's small, but the process and the why of how to do so. Um, and the fact that, um, it's, it's gone through PBS with those PBS guidelines, I think has a lot to do with the success.
[00:59:24] Ross Trethewey: And then, not to mention, you know, the people on the show we're not actors, you know, no , you know, nobody, nobody is an actor. Nobody, you know, everybody's a contractor or an engineer or, you know, in their skilled trade, whatever that might be. Um, and so, you know, there's, uh, that gives act, you know, more authentic authenticity to the brand.
[00:59:44] Ross Trethewey: Um, and that these are professionals that are doing, doing their stuff. And that's the brilliant what we do every day.
[00:59:49] Eric Goranson: Yeah. I mean that's why they brought Kevin on and Kevin's been on the show multiple times and, and Kevin O'Connor, I mean, he was a homeowner, he was a guest off, asked this whole [01:00:00] house, right, that they said, Hey, do you wanna take over Steve's job?
[01:00:03] Eric Goranson: And, you know, he would, he didn't know. And that was the great part cuz he could actually go ask the questions that the typical homeowner would ask versus just having it being a full trade only show.
[01:00:15] Ross Trethewey: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, his whole story of how he got onto the show and all that, it's amazing. It's amazing. It really is amazing, and he, he's unbelievable.
[01:00:22] Ross Trethewey: He. He, he doesn't, I mean, I dunno if he comes off on camera this way, but he is one of the smartest guys in the room. You know, he comes off as asking maybe dumb questions or what questions, you know, homeowners might want to know. But he's really a brilliant guy. He's really, really smart. Um, and so he has the ability to, and I almost think he has like a photographic memory where he can, uh, we can have a quick conversation about what the segment that we're gonna be filming is.
[01:00:46] Ross Trethewey: And then it just ingrained in his head and he asks all the right questions at the right time to keep the conversation flowing, you know? Um, you know, a lot of us are not, like I said, we're not actors, so sometimes we need a little coaching and we need a [01:01:00] little bit of, you know, uh, hey, throw us a, you know, you know, give us a lo, you know, let us hit a home run here.
[01:01:06] Ross Trethewey: You know? So he is, he's
[01:01:07] Eric Goranson: pretty good for a finance guy. Right. You
[01:01:08] Ross Trethewey: know, , he's a finance background. I know, you know, um, he was working for different banks, you know, previous to that. Fixing up a, you know, a rental, you know, building that he had in the Boston area with his wife, uh, asked the house came knocking and um, you know, my understanding is that Russ Morris was like, yeah, what about that?
[01:01:26] Ross Trethewey: Like, you know, that Irish looking kid, you know, that was really good. Or you know, good talker on camera. Do you think he would wanna host? And uh, the rest is history. Yeah. So
[01:01:35] Eric Goranson: it's awesome. Well, hey brother, we're running outta time. What did we not cover here? I mean, you and I have so many rabbit holes that we can jump down here that I'm happy we didn't get into too deep in the woods on some of these cuz you and I could have made this very interesting conversation for at least you and I.
[01:01:49] Eric Goranson: Not sure about everybody else, but
[01:01:53] Ross Trethewey: a lot of rabbit holes to go down for sure. I try to keep it high level so that we're not letting people's eyes glaze over or, you know, ears, you know, [01:02:00] turn off. But, uh, um, yeah, I mean, we talked about a lot. Um, yeah, I don't, I mean, nothing stands out to me as like, you know, we,
[01:02:10] Eric Goranson: I think people should just, you know, my, my goal in all of this is just to have people be aware of their indoor air quality and start making decisions based on that.
[01:02:17] Eric Goranson: Right? I mean, you know, it's not just, oh, you know, if you see that the sun coming in and that dust in the air, you could probably do something about a lot of.
[01:02:26] Ross Trethewey: Right, right. Yeah. Making oid more of a focal point for people is, is definitely a big part of, of what I try to do. Um, and talking with, you know, you know, on the show with clients, et cetera, you know, just trying to make it more front of mind for people.
[01:02:39] Ross Trethewey: And it's not that, my goal is not to have it as a scare tactic, right? Mm-hmm. , you know, that's not at all. It's just more to let people know, you know, what the implications are of bad indoor air quality inside your house, right? Yeah. And you know, when you look at like, things like, you know, asthma rates of children over time, you look at certain things like that, you know, [01:03:00] there isn't a direct, you know, we can't say that poor indoor quality in house cause this, but it's course not.
[01:03:06] Ross Trethewey: There's enough things around it that say, Hey, that's probably not helping, that's not helping the situation here. So, you know, make this stuff more front of mind. Make sure people are more focused on ventilation of the building. Make sure people are focused on, you know, the, uh, the contaminants and the particular things that, the actions that we do inside our house that make the air quality and it suffer.
[01:03:24] Ross Trethewey: Um, You know, crack a window, run the makeup, air, run the erv, you know, that's Change the filters. Change the filters. Yeah, exactly. All good
[01:03:33] Eric Goranson: stuff. All right brother. Thanks for coming on today, man. I really appreciate. Can't wait until next time.
[01:03:38] Ross Trethewey: Yeah. Thank Eric. We'll see you soon. All right.
[01:03:40] Eric Goranson: Thanks again. And you've been listening to Around The House.