[00:00:00] Eric Goranson: It's

[00:00:08] Eric Goranson: around the house.

[00:00:09] Eric Goranson: Fabulous. The other part of that of course, is where's the filter for the H V C system is on the return air side. So that, you know, from my perspective, just as a indoor air quality professional, I've always been trying to figure out some better way to do that because, uh, okay. So let's put all the contaminants in the house and then we'll catch 'em at the end.

[00:00:29] Eric Goranson: Uh, and, and originally of course, the filters on. Of heating and cooling system were designed just to protect the fan motor. They just didn't want big sure. You know, bugs and stuff, jumping in there and, and messing up, put the cat out of that. Yep. Yep. but, uh, from a, from a contamination standpoint and from a health standpoint, that's.

[00:00:51] Eric Goranson: Probably not the best way to run our H C systems when it comes to remodeling and renovating your home. There is a lot to know [00:01:00] though. We've got you covered.

[00:01:02] Eric Goranson: This is around the house. Welcome to around the house with Eric G in Caroline B, where we talk everything about your home every single weekend.

[00:01:12] Eric Goranson: Thanks for joining us. Hello, Caroline, how are you doing today?

[00:01:16] Caroline Blazovsky: Hello everybody. Welcome. Welcome, welcome.

[00:01:19] Eric Goranson: We got another fun show ahead. We're gonna be talking air quality and I'm kind of excited about this one. So we've got Rachel with air answers and Michael with wonder makers welcome to around the house guys.

[00:01:32] Eric Goranson: Thank you. We're well,

[00:01:33] Rachel Reboulet: thank you so much. So excited to be here.

[00:01:35] Eric Goranson: Absolutely.

[00:01:36] Michael Pinto: I'll second that, so

[00:01:38] Eric Goranson: yeah, this is gonna be fun. So let's talk Rachel, a little bit about what is air answers?

[00:01:43] Rachel Reboulet: Ooh, well, air answers is a system. It's a system of, uh, including a device. A device that has a technology to capture, uh, biological particles.

[00:01:54] Rachel Reboulet: Um, there is a cartridge in the device. You send the cartridge into the laboratory and our laboratory does an [00:02:00] analysis for different types of biological particles, like, uh, allergens, uh, microtoxins different types of mold, actively growing mold. Um, well we even do, uh, some things that. Uh, particularly cannabis plants, um, for example, like powdery mildew.

[00:02:18] Rachel Reboulet: So we do a variety, different things. Oh, and COVID we do that as well.

[00:02:22] Caroline Blazovsky: And this is just so people know our audience can't see it, but it's a device. I, I call it sort of like an Alexa, right? It's got the shape of an Alexa that would sit on your desk or sit in your room or office or kitchen or family room.

[00:02:34] Caroline Blazovsky: And it's gonna collect this data. That's gonna give you. Some interesting information about your home and tell you if you're exposed to anything that could be unhealthy.

[00:02:42] Rachel Reboulet: Yeah. Because you don't always know, um, what's in your environment. If you can't see it, or if you can't smell it, you're not really sure.

[00:02:48] Rachel Reboulet: Um, this can kind of help you make the, uh, invisible, visible, so to speak. So, you know, what's in your environment where you're exposed to and, uh, what you can do to reduce [00:03:00] those amounts. That are in your environment.

[00:03:04] Eric Goranson: That's cool. That's cool. So then, you know, what's going on and then Michael, let's talk a little bit about what you do.

[00:03:11] Michael Pinto: Well, uh, we are, uh, indoor environmental consultants and so. We try and help, um, homeowners and businesses, uh, as well with, uh, just about any sort of indoor contaminants. So that, uh, matches really well with what Rachel was talking about with what the air answers does. Everything from, uh, helping to write protocols during the COVID pandemic in terms of proper cleaning and.

[00:03:35] Michael Pinto: Um, maintenance and that sort of stuff to asbestos inspections, lead based paint. Uh, we do a lot of work with mold. Uh, actually, um, I wrote the first textbook on mold remediation all 360 pages. And if you do that, people somewhere expect that you know something about the subject. So , let's just go with that.[00:04:00]

[00:04:01] Eric Goranson: That is awesome. I'm sure you guys got some real world stories about Rachel, for instance, of what are some of the things that you guys run into out there? Wow.

[00:04:10] Rachel Reboulet: Well, it's good that you brought that up. Um, we have been doing some air monitoring specifically at, at different conferences around the country.

[00:04:20] Rachel Reboulet: Um, and. we did one of the conferences we went to, we, we set these devices up and again, these devices are size of like an Alexa, um, or the size of like a, a box of tissues. Mm-hmm . And, uh, we set them all up in high traffic areas, areas like, um, um, the registration area, eating areas, areas where you're gonna get a lot of people.

[00:04:46] Rachel Reboulet: And, uh, we went to one of the conferences. It was, it was an excellent conference. Um, we monitored during the whole time of that conference. And what we found is we found really high amounts of actively growing [00:05:00] mold, like off the charts. Right. And we did find COVID in, uh, some of the areas that were specifically the registration area, um, a pretty decent level there.

[00:05:12] Rachel Reboulet: We found a lot of mold and I'm, I'm saying in the room, you wouldn't smell it. You don't see it. You would have no idea that there's particularly mold there. We found out later on that the room itself, uh, due to COVID had not had any meetings in it for two years. And I guess at that point in time, squatters got in.

[00:05:31] Rachel Reboulet: And squats were living in the room. and

[00:05:36] Caroline Blazovsky: all of this conversation is up Eric's alley. We're talking about Eric is Eric speaks at the national home builder show. He's he's out at K biz. He's a big speaker on the network going to all these conferences. And we're always like. Go. You're gonna get COVID when you go.

[00:05:51] Caroline Blazovsky: And he did get COVID when he came back from speaking. Yep. He also knows that Orlando, which is a place where, you know, a lot of conferences happen in Florida. It's [00:06:00] mold decentral down there. So everything. Tell him about your hotel experience.

[00:06:04] Eric Goranson: So I'm allergic to mold and mildew and that kind of stuff. And it didn't matter if I was walking into.

[00:06:12] Eric Goranson: The hard rock or the Hyatt Regency hotel, which are both nice hotels in Florida. When I walk in, I go, I can't breathe. it's just sense. I it's it's musty. Um, obviously the hotel industry in Florida has no idea what a dehumidifier does. um, but to,

[00:06:34] Eric Goranson: to jump on what you're saying, Rachel is interesting. Two year before COVID. So this would've been the, the 2019 show. I think it was, I was up on a stage and we had, I was working with vex skylights mm-hmm and we couldn't keep the vex skylights closed for our seminars. And it was because they had the. The air monitoring system hooked up to it.

[00:06:57] Eric Goranson: And our carbon dioxide [00:07:00] levels were so high that it was trying to ventilate our displays so they just kept opening on us. And we actually had to disable that so we could keep 'em closed because it was trying to put in fresh air into the house, even though it was mounted. Show space in Vegas.

[00:07:20] Rachel Reboulet: wow, that's crazy.

[00:07:21] Rachel Reboulet: Uh, yeah, you just don't always know what's what's in your environment. You go in and you don't really smell or see anything. You have no idea, really what you're exposed to until you start looking around and monitoring it and, and seeing what's there. Um, but after the squatters, what we did find out is once they moved all the squatters.

[00:07:40] Rachel Reboulet: They set it up for a, another event before the conference we were in. And, uh, that event involved a lot of partying, a lot of, um, maybe getting sick on the floor and what , what we found out, how it was cleaned up was basically taken [00:08:00] buckets of water and dumping it on the floor, I guess. You know, cleans up vomit it, but you know, what can you do?

[00:08:06] Rachel Reboulet: Or

[00:08:08] Eric Goranson: as we all know,

[00:08:09] Michael Pinto: squatters, as we all know the solution to pollution is dilution. And so we just spread it all over the carpet instead of take care of it in a small location. Right. That's

[00:08:18] Eric Goranson: right. Spread equally.

[00:08:21] Caroline Blazovsky: Eric lives in Portland. So he's very familiar with squatters and homeless and all the stuff that's going.

[00:08:27] Caroline Blazovsky: Gone on out there.

[00:08:30] Eric Goranson: Yeah. It's, it's rough. And especially in a building like that, I'm surprised that with all the typical biohazards that you see with living in a space like that, that, that wasn't even a worse problem than what

[00:08:42] Michael Pinto: it was.

[00:08:43] Eric Goranson: Yeah,

[00:08:45] Michael Pinto: I know I'll read between the lines on that one. Thank you, Eric.

[00:08:49] Eric Goranson: we'll just let that go. I'm happy. You didn't do carpet samples, right? yeah. Cool.

[00:08:55] Rachel Reboulet: we'll walk on my bare feet on that carpet.

[00:08:57] Eric Goranson: Yep. No, two second rule on [00:09:00] that. Dropping the food. So, no so, Rachel, what are you seeing with homeowners out there as far as, you know, getting into people's homes? Uh, as far as I'm sure you're getting the whole gamut of everything from mold to asbestos, to everything else out there.

[00:09:15] Rachel Reboulet: Oh yeah. We're finding, um, all kind of things. Uh, we, we specifically, uh, work with indoor air flight professionals that target the homeowners. So they go into the homes, they, they test the homeowners for a variety of different things as well. Um, one of the things, I mean, I have a story about that too. we were testing a home in San Francisco and it, it was a nice home.

[00:09:37] Rachel Reboulet: It was a. Um, you know, really nice condominium. Um, you wouldn't expect to find any problems in a home like this. And the homeowner was getting sick every day. Uh, she would wake up in her room every night and she was sick. And when she was in her room for an extended period of time, she was getting ill. So of course she thought it was mold because, you know, I, I get.

[00:09:58] Rachel Reboulet: First thing comes to mind [00:10:00] for me is mold as well. You know, it potentially mold, but we started measuring looking for all the allergens and it was nuts. We found a crazy amount of mouse allergen in her bedroom. I mean, it was wow. Super high. It's actually the highest we've ever seen thus far still. Ooh. And, uh, what we found was she was living next to a forest preserve.

[00:10:25] Rachel Reboulet: And she had her window open every night. And what we think is maybe mouse allergen was coming in because they did, they looked through the house. Couldn't find a lot of, uh, a mice, but she could see mice out in the fields when she was walking. So there was a correlation between having the windows open and the mouse, allergen that was coming into a room.

[00:10:48] Rachel Reboulet: So it could be something just simple like that.

[00:10:52] Caroline Blazovsky: And I've had that happen with my clients. Like we've had. Cat dog, horse proteins, cow. What else have I [00:11:00] seen? Um, chickens. so these things, like if you live in close proximity and your house is next to a farm, or even down the road, you're gonna pick these things up and they become airborne and then they travel and you open your windows and boom, you get a concentration.

[00:11:13] Caroline Blazovsky: And mice, you know, you, you think they're small and they don't really do much damage, but obviously if you get enough of them, you know, I think they say there's a thing like where there's one, there's a hundred or something sketchy .

[00:11:24] Rachel Reboulet: Exactly. And the mouse allergen is found just like with pet allergens, it's found in the saliva it's found in, um, on dander.

[00:11:33] Rachel Reboulet: um, it's found in urine. So you have a lot of, you know, it's a little animal, but you have a lot of sources of allergen there.

[00:11:40] Eric Goranson: Oh, kidding. That's brutal. And, and from a homeowner point of view, they were opening the window up, getting that fresh mountain air. Right. You know, Hey, I'm gonna blow this fresh mountain air in not knowing that they were contaminating their space with it.

[00:11:53] Eric Goranson: exactly. Yep, man. That's brutal. I know. What do you guys, I wanted to dive into one of the big, [00:12:00] hot buttons out there that are, that's still not being really addressed by building professionals. Like it should be, but can we talk about asbestos for a little bit here? Because I know this is such a hot button with, with homeowners and, uh, we were talking kind of before the show with Michael.

[00:12:16] Eric Goranson: I'm on a bunch of the different social media groups as an admin, we have our own. And I can't tell you how many times that I see people diving into a project that has got a greater than 50% chance of asbestos containing material in it. And they're asking for better help on how to do it. And they're already knee deep into the project.

[00:12:36] Eric Goranson: What are you seeing with asbestos out there when you're doing some of this measuring?

[00:12:40] Rachel Reboulet: Well, actually we're not measuring for ASBE. That would be, oh, really good of a, yeah. That's definitely something that we're looking into in the future because we're constantly expanding our menu and seeing what people want, um, to test for.

[00:12:53] Rachel Reboulet: But, uh, Mike. Yeah, but

[00:12:55] Caroline Blazovsky: Mike, Mike can let us know all that oh yeah,

[00:12:58] Michael Pinto: that's right. I can. And I [00:13:00] would say that, uh, from what I know of that, the air answers that it seems to me, like that would be a, um, Uh, certainly a contaminant that you could add to your profile because basically the air answers is just, uh, grabbing particulates out of the air.

[00:13:14] Michael Pinto: And then it's being subjected to laboratory it's being pulled off of the cartridge or wiped off of the cartridge and then subjected to a laboratory analysis. So they could certainly, I would think in the future, add that to it. And then that just gives it, oh yeah. Another dimension to it. As far as the.

[00:13:32] Michael Pinto: Scenario that Eric was talking about though. Unfortunately we see that all the time I'm involved in one right now, we got called by the insurance company because, uh, there's a water restoration project. A house flooded water restoration contractor came in, did not do their due diligence. Um, assumed that the carpet that was on the floor was the flooring and the carpet that was on the floor was on top of nine inch by nine inch tiles, which, [00:14:00] um, From our own experience in the studies from around the world, if they're nine inch by nine inch tiles, it's like a 99 point 99 point 99% chance that they're gonna asbestos.

[00:14:13] Michael Pinto: We don't even test them. I mean, that's, that's weird for us as a inspector because, you know, we can make a few bucks, uh, taking the asbestos sample, but we just tell our clients at that point, it's, I'm not trying to cheat you here. The one are just going to be asbestos and let's treat 'em as such. In this case, like I said, there was carpet on top.

[00:14:31] Michael Pinto: Somebody made a mistake, they pulled the wet carpet off and. The subflooring was damaged and some of the tiles were loose and came up with a carpet. And instead of stopping right there, as you know, I think contractors for the last 30 years have been told that this stuff is out there, but they just kept moving.

[00:14:51] Michael Pinto: And both the restoration contractor and the subcontractor that was doing the flooring ended up pulling up some of these tiles. Um, [00:15:00] the homeowner was concerned about it. Homeowner actually knew more about it, probably from listening to programs like this than the contractors and questioned them on it.

[00:15:10] Michael Pinto: Once the contractor was questioned, then the sampling got involved and then the insurance got back involved. And then they called us in. We ended up doing sampling around the entire house and found, um, asbestos in, I think, three of the 12 samples that we took. But. The, the sand samples are representative.

[00:15:31] Michael Pinto: So it basically meant that there was asbestos that got spread around the whole house. So right now that house is being cleaned. The one insurance company is trying to subrogate, which means that an insurance company is now suing the subcontractor's insurance company so that they can. Figure out who needs to pay for all this.

[00:15:51] Michael Pinto: And the homeowner's been out of their house for about two and a half months and is just desperately waiting to get back in after all the cleaning's done. [00:16:00] Brutal.

[00:16:01] Eric Goranson: Yeah, brutal. That's almost like having a fire in the home and them having to go through and clean every little piece in the house and, and get that put back together from just a

[00:16:10] Michael Pinto: small kitchen fire.

[00:16:11] Michael Pinto: Oh yeah. You know, in situations like that, the smoke gets out, it pressurizes into some of those wall cavities and stuff. Uh, we had a case in North Carolina just a little while ago where the kitchen fire ended up. Um, pushing up through the attic and, uh, it didn't get clean properly. The first time the homeowner came back in and said, no, I can still smell it.

[00:16:34] Michael Pinto: And everybody swore up and down that there wasn't any smoke residue left or anything. And, uh, unfortunately what happened is, like I said, it got up in those chases and into the cavities that went all the way up into the ceiling. So then it had a, a spot down in the base. where they could, uh, where the air could get in and, uh, upstairs in the attic.

[00:16:56] Michael Pinto: And then it just depended on the season. If it got cold, then the cold [00:17:00] air from the attic would push down through the space and push it into the house. Whereas in the summertime, warm air would tend to rise up into the attic. And so it wasn't so bad, but, uh, we got to help with that investigation. And that was a little bit tricky, but those were always kind of fun.

[00:17:17] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Rachel, are you seeing stuff like that? Where, where ally things can, uh, can be off the charts and then other seasons, maybe it's more under control with some of the contaminants.

[00:17:27] Rachel Reboulet: Yeah, we, we are definitely seeing that. Um, we're seeing that in terms of like, if you're talking about dust might allergen, we're seeing that, um, if you're talking about molds in high human environments, which would make sense, um, we're seeing that more of course, in the summertime.

[00:17:43] Rachel Reboulet: Um, but we do see. Quite a few things that you wouldn't expect, um, outta season. So, um, talking about, you know, people's homes, um, we do quite find things quite a bit when in seasons that you wouldn't [00:18:00] expect, we found pollens before in. You know, off seasons and, uh, I, I don't know if it's just, uh, the particulates get stuck in the home if they're, if they're just still there and, and recirculating.

[00:18:12] Rachel Reboulet: Um, but we do see that quite a bit as well.

[00:18:15] Caroline Blazovsky: That's why I was gonna talk to Mike about Mike. You know, one of the big concerns I think we have is HVAC, right? And what these force forced hot air systems do and having duct work and how this sort of, you know, you've gotten asbestos problem in the basement and all of a sudden it's all over the.

[00:18:28] Caroline Blazovsky: And these HVAC systems work sort of as a, a traveling vehicle, if you will, for all this particulate. So, I mean, how do you feel about HVAC and ventilation filtration and things? I mean, do you have maybe your own perspective on how we can kind of work with these contaminants? Cuz we know that these forced time air systems are not gonna be going away anytime soon.

[00:18:50] Michael Pinto: Well, Thank you for the question, but the fact of the matter is, is that we look at it like the, I know it's a travel pathway and everything, but they're basically the lungs of the [00:19:00] house. And mm-hmm, , you know, if, from my perspective, I don't, uh, necessarily. Recommend that the duct work gets cleaned every year or anything like that.

[00:19:10] Michael Pinto: But you know what, it's a major component of your house. And if you're just like you're gutters or something like that, you know, one, you need to make sure if they get full or if there's some problem with them that you take care of it rather than just ignore it. And then number two, I I'm thinking. Uh, our experience has been about every four or five years, just because of the amount of dust and debris that gets in these systems that they should be cleaned and they need to be cleaned by real professionals.

[00:19:38] Michael Pinto: People who actually understand what they're doing, and aren't gonna do more damage to the, uh, you know, duct work into the systems and things as they go in. But, uh, yeah, there's a real problem. We were talking, um, Rachel was talking about outta season sort of stuff. We get that all the time. People don't expect it.

[00:19:56] Michael Pinto: Uh, the allergens and the molds and everything, [00:20:00] uh, are worse in the fall. And it's, we come in, we do the inspection and we find out that it's in the, uh, H V a C system it's in the drain pan it's then in the duct work and it's gotten all around and the people wanna know why is that? How come I didn't feel this bad during the summer?

[00:20:16] Michael Pinto: When it was obviously dehumidifying, the system was dehumidifying, there's more water in the drain pan. It's like, well, that's probably the case it's actively growing in the drain pan. It's got so much water. It doesn't have to spread spores into the air because it's just physically growing across the, uh, surface of the drain pan, the, uh, coils, the.

[00:20:39] Michael Pinto: Uh, you know, the, the first part of the duct next to the furnace or the air conditioning system that gets wet and has the actual liquid in there from the condensation. And so the mold is quite happy. It doesn't have to spread spores into the air at that point. It can just keep growing. And then when things change in the fall a little bit and a little bit less humid, uh, they [00:21:00] switch between cooling and heat on different days and evenings and stuff.

[00:21:04] Michael Pinto: Things start to dry out. And the next thing, you know, uh, the mold reacts to that and says, okay, I can't just keep growing, uh, physically like this. To survive. I'm gonna send spores, uh, and say, Hey, let's just get out into the air there. And then that's what the people start to sense as it comes through the H V C system.

[00:21:27] Michael Pinto: And they, they get hammered, let's have a house party, right. That's what they're

[00:21:32] Eric Goranson: saying. Hey, let's get around. And. Let's take over the house. , you know, it's, it's like, all right, we're gonna party. Now we're gonna have mold everywhere and

[00:21:40] Michael Pinto: we're gonna have mold everywhere. The other part of that of course, is where's the filter for the H V a C system is on the return air side.

[00:21:47] Michael Pinto: So that, you know, from my perspective, just as a indoor air quality professional, I've always been trying to figure out some better way to do that because, uh, okay. So let's put all the contaminants in the house and then [00:22:00] we'll catch 'em at the end. Uh, And originally, of course, the filters on the heating and cooling system were designed just to protect the fan motor.

[00:22:09] Michael Pinto: They just didn't want big sure. You know, bugs and stuff, jumping in there and, and messing up, keep the cat out of there. Yep. Yep. but, uh, from a, from a contamination standpoint and from a health standpoint, that's probably not the best way to run our H V C systems.

[00:22:28] Eric Goranson: Makes sense. Yeah. Cuz yeah. And you'd have to have something there cause otherwise that fan motor's gonna collect every little bit of junk and contaminate it there.

[00:22:37] Eric Goranson: But at the same point, you kind of want to, I see what you're saying. If you've got mold and, and mildew and other things grown around that, uh, those evaporator coils and stuff, then you've gotta have something there to otherwise you're just catch. Before it comes into it again, and you're not really stopping

[00:22:54] Michael Pinto: it on the way out.

[00:22:54] Michael Pinto: So can I, uh, add just a personal bug AOO here and maybe a warning for [00:23:00] your, uh, listeners and everything. And I'm dive in. I am not trying to, uh, you know, make enemies with anybody in the industry or anything like this, but, you know, there's this whole idea of putting UV lights on the, uh, H V a C systems.

[00:23:16] Michael Pinto: There's a good way to do that. And there's a bad way to do. And of course, if they wanna put, um, ultraviolet lights in, which does help to prevent, uh, mold growth and bacteria growth and, uh, things like that, putting it in the, uh, heating and cooling area. So it shines on the coils and the drain pan to help to keep that clean.

[00:23:39] Michael Pinto: That is absolutely, uh, you know, a reasonable approach in many cases, but these ideas where they take a UV light and. Go down the line and stick it in the duct work and, uh, suggest that, you know, as the air blows by and as the mold spores blow by at, you know, 300 feet per minute or something like [00:24:00] that, that the UV light's gonna kill the mold spores or even the bacteria.

[00:24:03] Michael Pinto: I mean, that's the science on that is so bad that, uh, I would just warn people to be careful of that. That's in my book. Most of those where they're putting it in the duct work, uh, is actually more of a scam than a fix.

[00:24:20] Caroline Blazovsky: Yeah, they have to be, well, I think, I think we wanna be clear though. There are UV light systems, UVC technology that actually does work, but it has to be properly sized to your CFM and it's gotta be properly sized to your flow rate and things like that.

[00:24:34] Caroline Blazovsky: So I don't wanna deter people from UVC technology because there's definitely a lot of technologies, especially now that they're using the long term bulbs. They're also using Eric and I just had a company on called air snip. Um, that's developed outta Canada. Yep. So, but these are specially designed UV light systems that are made for air infiltration.

[00:24:54] Caroline Blazovsky: So, but if you're thinking about getting, let's just say a traditional. Um, HVAC [00:25:00] system may be made by, you know, I don't wanna say brands, but your typical brands that we hear about, if they're installing like this little bulb that looks like it's the size of, you know, a ruler and they're sticking it in there and they're telling you you're gonna have airflow.

[00:25:11] Caroline Blazovsky: Um, and it's gonna disinfect. Absolutely. Right? Like, like it's not working. Oh yeah. I mean,

[00:25:15] Michael Pinto: it's only gonna work on the coil we work with, um, Commercial systems all the time, hospitals use, uh, UVC and to great effect. Exactly. But, uh, like you said, Carolyn, they design the system. So there's enough light energy, and enough time in terms of like a long, straight duct run.

[00:25:33] Michael Pinto: So that. The, the system can do what it's supposed to do, but these, like I said, these kind of, uh, Bolton systems where they're

[00:25:41] Eric Goranson: yeah. Gimmicky bolt on bandages. Yep.

[00:25:44] Michael Pinto: that's just, uh, it's tough. And then the problem then is that we get involved, we do these inspections and the people, uh, in some respects they're just bewildered or baffled.

[00:25:55] Michael Pinto: They said, well, you know, We we put the system in, or the guy [00:26:00] sold us. He told us that we weren't gonna have this problem. Um, if I can do one more, I had, I did this inspection just a few years ago. Uh, very nice older couple. And the wife just started having, uh, a whole sequence of health issues and they, um, did some research online.

[00:26:17] Michael Pinto: They decided that it might be mold. Uh, we ended up getting the call and ended up going up doing this inspection and the house looked. Good and didn't see much of anything. And so I was a little bit bewildered because her symptoms certainly lined up with mold. So, uh, getting to the point where we're looking at the mechanical system, I said, well, let's just make sure we're, you know, got all our bases covered around, look at the coils and that sort of stuff.

[00:26:44] Michael Pinto: And, uh, uh, the husband was, you know, pretty excited about it when I was gonna look at the mechanical issues. Oh, this is it's gonna be fine because, you know, we paid, we've got this special filter, it's an anti mold filter. That's in there, you know, mold [00:27:00] won't grow on it or anything like that. So we're pretty, you know, I'm almost positive that it's not gonna be the mechanical.

[00:27:07] Michael Pinto: Okay, but let's take a look. Anyway, I opened it up they had put the filter in like a year and a half ago and it never changed it. Ooh. And they had about, um, three eights or half of an inch of, uh, debris on the face of the filter. And then, you know, that had slowed down the air, moving through everything. So then there was condensation the front of the filter and all this debris there's mold actually growing on the.

[00:27:33] Michael Pinto: Debris on the face of the filter. And, uh, when I pulled it out and was just, uh, kind of aghast and showing it to him, he's like, well, that can't be, they guaranteed that there's gonna be no mold. That's growing on the filter. And I explained to him, I said, I don't, you know, when I dig down, I don't think there's gonna be molds growing on the filter.

[00:27:51] Michael Pinto: It's growing on the half inch of debris. That's on the filter. So it's like

[00:27:56] Eric Goranson: a woven Mexican blanket sitting right there, you know, like[00:28:00]

[00:28:03] Michael Pinto: oh, so. You know, too many cases like that, where people understand they're trying to do the right thing. God bless them. But either the maintenance and the follow through isn't there, or they don't understand what they're buying or they're just being. You know, sold a bill of goods in some cases. And that's the, you know, the problem of the world today is that people have to be knowledgeable consumers and they have to have a, a better idea of what's going on.

[00:28:32] Michael Pinto: And that's why this show is so important quite honestly, is because you guys cover so many different things and you help people make their way through the, um, you know, list of things that could be, you know, helpful to 'em or things that can. You know, hurtful in some respects.

[00:28:47] Eric Goranson: And

[00:28:47] Caroline Blazovsky: we all know like even learning from Eric, right?

[00:28:49] Caroline Blazovsky: Like I learn from him every day. Home being a homeowner is like a plethora of problems. Like gotta get into it, realizing like it's gonna be 10% joy and like [00:29:00] 90% issues that you're just gonna have to deal with. And it's constant rotating door. I mean, there's never something that isn't going wrong. And I think homeowners kind of think they're gonna buy a home and it's gonna be this.

[00:29:11] Caroline Blazovsky: Pal palace that never has an issue. And it's just not

[00:29:14] Michael Pinto: the way it is. Yeah. And the fact that, you know, we're in many cases when we've got, uh, people who are suffering because of the, from a health standpoint, because of the air quality in their home, we often try to explain to them that, you know, let's. Take one part of the home that we can work with right now and build a bit of a refuge.

[00:29:34] Michael Pinto: You know, a lot of times it's that bedroom. Uh, a lot of times it's supplemental air filtration right. In the bedroom because of what we were talking about with some of the things coming through the H V a C system. Um, you know, but there's just different areas that we can help people with. And I also.

[00:29:50] Michael Pinto: People understand that just because we're professionals and I'm speaking for myself, I don't wanna speak for Rachel, but speaking for myself, just because I'm a professional doesn't mean that my house is [00:30:00] perfect. Uh I do have a basement that looks like an ongoing experiment because I try different sorts of building products and, uh, you know, different things to try and make sure that I'm as mold free as possible since that's what I'm known for as a mold expert and stuff.

[00:30:16] Michael Pinto: Uh, But the

[00:30:18] Rachel Reboulet: fact of, yeah, my house is not perfect either, so that's okay. Yeah.

[00:30:22] Eric Goranson: let me ask you guys. Let me ask you guys, is there a construction method out there? That's healthier. Like you'll see. Great example. You'll see a crawl space or a full basement or a slab on grade. Is there one that you're noticing more troublesome than

[00:30:37] Michael Pinto: the others?

[00:30:39] Michael Pinto: From my perspective, it's any, uh, construction technique that isn't maintained. So it doesn't matter whether it's a basement, a crawl base, a slab, um, or the other aspect of that. Um, if it's just not built properly, uh, we did a case in California a few years ago where. [00:31:00] Uh, they were having a slab on grade, uh, very expensive housing development, uh, should have been, you know, no mold.

[00:31:10] Michael Pinto: And, uh, after just, uh, about a year and a half, there was mold on the underside of most of the carpets and most of the houses in these. In this, uh, subdivision and, uh, uh, you know, I was working with some local people out there and eventually it got bad enough. I went out and did an inspection myself, craziest thing.

[00:31:32] Michael Pinto: Uh, why was the water coming up through the concrete in a relatively dry area of California? And the fact of the matter is they were building the. Um, portion of the subdivision just across the road. And I went over just to see how they were building it. And, uh, as I was talking to the builder, they were using their same subcontractors and stuff.

[00:31:56] Michael Pinto: And he had been telling me about how good the concrete was that [00:32:00] they were using and making sure that it, uh, you know, wasn't poor after it sat and all that stuff. As I go over and watch 'em pour a, a new floor in one of the, uh, buildings that they're building. Again, I see the, uh, concrete coming outta the truck and it's like soft serve ice cream.

[00:32:19] Michael Pinto: It's coming out real slow and gets down into the, um, floor with the rebar and everything. And the people have to drag it all around and they're working really hard. And so. Couple of the workers, jump up on the truck and start using a hose to spray all the concrete down and essentially add a whole bunch of additional water to the concrete, which means that you've changed the whole mix portion of it.

[00:32:44] Michael Pinto: And it's now a slurry and of course it's real easy for them to float cuz they can push it around and everything, but they, they didn't have the quality of the concrete, concrete they were using about a third less concrete in each, um, floor than what they. [00:33:00] Uh, planned on because they were adding water and spread.

[00:33:03] Michael Pinto: So ultimately it didn't seem to make a problem to be a problem to the people who were doing the building, but a year and a half later, that concrete wasn't as sealed and as dense as it was supposed to be. So moisture was coming up and getting onto the back of the carpet and there's the mold. Wow.

[00:33:23] Eric Goranson: That's amazing.

[00:33:24] Eric Goranson: You know, and up here at least, you know, in my area in Portland, Oregon. So we have a lot of water issues like that. Nowadays, when you see 'em doing slab on grade, we have to have foam. We've gotta have vapor barriers. We have to have all that down underneath. That concrete here to me building code. And it sounds like in California that they don't have to follow

[00:33:43] Michael Pinto: that.

[00:33:44] Michael Pinto: Well, uh, maybe they do, but were they in this one? They weren't. So that's I don't wanna speak. Might've been a good idea. Yeah. I don't wanna speak to the law. I'm just telling you what I saw. Exactly, exactly.

[00:33:57] Eric Goranson: That makes sense. Uh, [00:34:00] you know, Rachel, what are some of the things that you're seeing now that are the biggest hottest items out there that you're.

[00:34:06] Eric Goranson: Testing that might be surprising to some of our listeners.

[00:34:09] Rachel Reboulet: Oh yeah. Um, we're testing for microtoxins are, are a big thing that, uh, we're starting to test for. Um, we're getting a lot of people who are feeling ill, ill in their homes, um, who are particularly immunocompromised or people that have any kind of, um, health issues.

[00:34:29] Rachel Reboulet: And, uh, so we are seeing. Mycotoxins in their homes, which we necessarily wouldn't expect, which is, which is interesting. Um, we're also seeing a lot of, we test for different types of molds that indicate a lot of, um, water damage. We are, we are finding those and we're particularly finding actively growing mold in areas behind walls.

[00:34:55] Rachel Reboulet: They'll have somebody who's getting really sick in their bedroom. Um, [00:35:00] particularly in, in stucco homes, um, we, we had a complaint about that, um, bedroom, everything looked good, didn't smell anything, didn't see anything. Um, we detected really high levels of actively growing mold in the home and, uh, they ended up finding it behind the walls.

[00:35:19] Rachel Reboulet: So we are seeing things like that, that you wouldn't, people wouldn't expect to find. Um, we are also seeing. A lot of homes where people buy hypoallergenic animals and they think, okay, well I have this HyperC dog. It doesn't produce allergen. Um, my kid's allergic, but he's still getting sick. How can that be?

[00:35:40] Rachel Reboulet: Well, and then we're finding that, you know, there's, there's no, hyperallergenic, you have animals. There's still gonna produce allergen regardless. Um, so yeah, we're seeing a lot of different things that you wouldn't. You know, normally expect to find, I've gotta jump in. It makes everything really interesting.

[00:35:57] Rachel Reboulet: Let's put

[00:35:58] Michael Pinto: it that way. Well, I, I wanna jump in [00:36:00] for just a minute and see if I can't, um, backfill just a little bit. So when Racha was talking about microtoxins, those are poisons that are naturally produced by mold, as it grows in different areas. Mm-hmm and there's certain types and certain conditions that the mold has to grow in to produce those poisons.

[00:36:18] Michael Pinto: And mm-hmm . Not trying to just throw a plug toward air answers here, but I'm going to anyway because, uh, in the past, uh, as a home inspector I've been able to do, um, surface samples for these mold poisons to help figure out, well, maybe it's not just the allergen nature of the mold. Maybe it's actually the poisons.

[00:36:40] Michael Pinto: That's making the people sick. Um, And the medical community has recognized this for a long time. So you can actually get a urine test and they can, uh, you know, balance that for my toxins as well. But what was missing and what air answers is actually kind of exciting why I am incorporating into more of my [00:37:00] inspections is because the.

[00:37:02] Michael Pinto: Homeowner who's sick can get a medical test to determine if they've got microtoxins okay. Then we can do surface testing to determine if there's microtoxins. And a lot of times we'll test the dust, like from the return error filter to get a, a longer look at what's going on in the house. But this air answers now where they can run a sample for a few hours or a day or two, and then actually detect microtoxins in the air that's brand new technology.

[00:37:33] Michael Pinto: And that is, to me, that's really exciting in terms of being able to help people actually figure out what's going on in their, you know, lives and in their home.

[00:37:44] Eric Goranson: And

[00:37:45] Caroline Blazovsky: a lot of the problem too, with Mike with the blood work is that people will go to a physician or a functional medicine doctor and they'll get back a mycotoxin test and your doctor will say, okay, you have mycotoxins and then the homeowner is left or the client's left trying to figure out where this is [00:38:00] coming from.

[00:38:00] Caroline Blazovsky: And these things can come from food too. A lot of people think mm-hmm . They'll show up, you know, um, at a consultant and they'll say, I definitely have mycotoxin in my home and you can evaluate it. And they don't because they're getting it from food sources. So that's why something like air answers would be great.

[00:38:14] Caroline Blazovsky: Cuz you could put this in your home and, and actually see real time. Okay. Do I have a mycotoxin problem or is it coming from the kale chips I've been eating. I've seen that with clients, like, you know, picking it up and they eat kale chip. 15 times a day. And then all of a sudden they're like, oh, I have a microtoxin problem, but it wasn't their house.

[00:38:31] Caroline Blazovsky: So Rachel provides that. Great. Yeah. Immediate data.

[00:38:35] Eric Goranson: Yeah. That's interesting. And you know, Rachel, you brought up stucco, you know, probably 20 years ago we started seeing some issues out there. There was that big drive lawsuit where you saw it in condominiums and stuff where they had mm-hmm, put the foam and the early stucco on it, out there, and that stuff had problems where it failed.

[00:38:54] Eric Goranson: And you would see. Commercial buildings in downtown cores that were condo projects that were, you [00:39:00] know, 12 stories high with scaffolding around 'em for a year, as they tore the exterior off and put it back down. Those were still used in homes. And many times that never got taken care of like those big class action lawsuits at the time did yeah.

[00:39:13] Eric Goranson: Where the warranty stuff and those homes are still out there and they still. And the problem with the stucco is, is when the water gets behind it, it doesn't show it like it was a wood siding. It kind of that concrete layer hides it. And so many times you don't see it stall starts coming through the dry wall on the inside.

[00:39:31] Eric Goranson: And at that point you've got a massive mess. That's why inside

[00:39:36] Rachel Reboulet: that water, I didn't realize that it was hundreds of thousands of dollars to repair these stucco homes when they have a mold problem. I had no idea that it could cost that amount of money. So, and

[00:39:47] Caroline Blazovsky: EFI. Well, EFI was the synthetic stucco that they saw problems in with developments.

[00:39:52] Caroline Blazovsky: You know, there were like multi, multi multimillion dollar lawsuits where people got really sick because of the stucco. But there were these individual homes, [00:40:00] like Eric saying where they aren't part of this class action, residential community, and people just live with it for years. And I had a client once.

[00:40:07] Caroline Blazovsky: They had EITs um, and they also had high volatile, organic compounds, and they also had microtoxin exposure and the client had cancer and she passed away in the home. Oh. And so the client hired me to come in to investigate the entire scenario, cuz he was completely convinced that she died in the home and she would get cancer.

[00:40:26] Caroline Blazovsky: When she'd come back to the home, they'd go away to a home in Florida. Her cancer would improve. She'd get better. She'd go through treatment. She'd be fine. She'd come back to the home again. And the cancer would Reapp. So, obviously not a case you wanna get called in on, but I did. And that was what I uncovered that there was significant problems.

[00:40:42] Caroline Blazovsky: And so they did go to lawsuit for years to try to go against these builders with, you know, all kinds of, um, liability. But it's very hard with these health situations to actually prove that it came from the sin, you know, the scenario, but she did have multiple factors that could contribute to her [00:41:00] having cancer.

[00:41:00] Michael Pinto: And I'm actually involved in a case. Not the end of this week, but next week I'll actually be going out to a house. That's exactly like Carolyn is talking about, they've got scaffolding around the whole thing. It was a, a EFI sort of situation. And as Eric said, you don't see it. Right. I mean, it's not like the stucco or the outer surface is coming off or anything.

[00:41:25] Michael Pinto: They're hairline cracks. It's around the windows. It's just a failure of that system. And enough water gets in. And in this particular case, it was pretty typical. The sheathing that they used is, uh, Orient strandboard and OSB. Oh, yeah. Is just, um, mold food as compared to plywood or something else.

[00:41:46] Caroline Blazovsky: Eric knows how much I love OSB.

[00:41:48] Caroline Blazovsky: It's just my favorite product. And people, people are always trying to tell me, Mike, how great it is. And for 25 years I've been saying it's junk. Like get rid of it. Exactly.

[00:41:57] Eric Goranson: But. Come on. Carolina keeps you in business.

[00:41:59] Michael Pinto: So [00:42:00] but this whole house is, uh, just like you said, Caroline. It's it's, uh, she in, uh, scaffolding right now.

[00:42:08] Michael Pinto: And, uh, and then the crazy thing is that they're sequencing this so that the mold on the inside, on the backside of the dry wall, they had. Uh, build all their containments on the inside because as they strip the outside off it, put more air pressure and then get rid of the insulation on the inside and all of that.

[00:42:28] Michael Pinto: And it would just, if we, if they didn't have containments on the inside, it would've pushed even more mold into the house and what they had originally, but similar sort of situation. Um, uh, the wife was sick. Uh, didn't quite understand why she was sick and, uh, multiple years. Progressively worse symptoms, just horrible stuff.

[00:42:48] Michael Pinto: And it, uh, most likely I, I'm not a medical doctor, so I can't make that necessarily the connection, but my experience would say that, yeah, her exposure in this [00:43:00] house, uh, most likely contributed to her ill health effects because it's that same pattern that you just described when they would get out of the house for a few weeks for a vacation or something, she'd get better and they'd come back to the house and.

[00:43:13] Michael Pinto: I mean, they kept looking, they had multiple inspectors, but they were looking on the inside and couldn't find it. And that's where, again, the air answers I think is, uh, helpful because it picks up, you can run a longer sample. We've been using sport traps for a long time, but they're 10 minute samples. And sometimes that's just not long enough to get a good look at what's going on in the house.

[00:43:39] Michael Pinto: So the, you know, something like an air answers that you can run for days, or, you know, even just a few hours at a time that gives you a better look at what's going on in the structure. And it starts to answer more of these, uh, difficult questions if it's all visible and it's there on the H V C or it's, you know, [00:44:00] uh, grown on the side of the basement wall, uh, that may not be the, you know, the more difficult ones, but the ones where you can't really see.

[00:44:07] Michael Pinto: It's it's so helpful.

[00:44:11] Caroline Blazovsky: I'm looking at Mike and behind him, our audience. Can't see, but he's got things on the wall and that's how, if you have pictures or photographs or paintings, that's a great way to see if you could have potential problem. And in the house that I was in, the reason I found the mold was I took the, the painting off the wall and behind it, it was completely covered in black mold.

[00:44:31] Caroline Blazovsky: And so for some reason, the moisture had been. And so those are things like, take your pictures down, make sure you're cleaning. So it'll give you a clue as to, oh, I might have a mold problem somewhere hidden, you

[00:44:41] Eric Goranson: know, we've got a big hidden problem here and, and, and again, I'm in the Portland, Oregon area, our climate from about.

[00:44:49] Eric Goranson: Halloween till Memorial day, we can have multiple days of rain each week. And you know, we could have two inches of [00:45:00] rain during the week. The problem we're gonna have here, and I'm seeing it all the time. Cuz I share these pictures with Caroline is that we have a lot of condo mixed use buildings that go up in our.

[00:45:12] Eric Goranson: That are stick built. So you'll see OSB plywood out there. They'll start out by the time they get the roof system going on this where they're gonna start to dry out the bottom two floors. And it doesn't matter if it's OSB or plywood are jet flat black from mold and mildew growing on 'em. And then. By the time you see that you're seeing the house wrap go around the thing, trapping all of that inside now there's materials.

[00:45:41] Eric Goranson: They could be using out there, like some of the zip systems and some of the stuff out there where you've got a waterproof or water resistant surface going on up there at least that you're not gonna have that growth on the outside of it. But each one of these new buildings, which are now meeting all of our new energy standards, which means [00:46:00] they're not breathing, they've trapped all this mold and mildew inside.

[00:46:03] Eric Goranson: I keep looking at this going, man. If I had a, a, a house or a building that's brand new, that was framed in the wintertime, that was more than two stories. I can guarantee you're gonna have some issues in our.

[00:46:17] Michael Pinto: and that's one of the reasons that you're seeing, uh, situations where even builders are being, um, brought to task on this.

[00:46:25] Michael Pinto: And, and of course, in a situation like that, one of the things that we're seeing is that they have to come in and, uh, either soda blast or. Just there's. There's no good way. Once you've got that stuff up short of soda blasting or sandblasting or something like that, you can't really take a wire brush to it because of all the nooks and CRAs, you've just, you've gotta use a more aggressive system and at least do that before they start putting finished materials in.

[00:46:53] Michael Pinto: Get it clean.

[00:46:55] Eric Goranson: Oh yeah. And they're not, cuz I, I go, you know, I'll go around the block

[00:46:58] Michael Pinto: the next time. And

[00:46:59] Eric Goranson: I see the [00:47:00] guys out there, half wrapping the building and you're like, oh, there they go. But it it's, it's gonna be a problem here. I know in my area and any one of our climates that have this, this rain issue with these taller buildings, cuz it just takes 'em long enough to frame it.

[00:47:14] Eric Goranson: that, you know, you might as well have that plywood literally sitting in the bottom of a pond for a month before

[00:47:20] Michael Pinto: they get to it. So do you like it when you, um, see the, um, bunks of the, uh, gypsum board? Just sitting there and, uh, it goes, uh, like three inches into the mud when they drop it off the truck there that oh yeah.

[00:47:34] Michael Pinto: Then

[00:47:35] Eric Goranson: they. Same kind of thing, same kind of thing. It's just like, come on guys. Really? Are we doing this? But yeah, it it's. I I'm great example. I was, I've been a kitchen designer for almost 30 years and I was working in the Seattle area and it was a stormy day. I was going out to measure a kitchen and I walked into this development.

[00:47:57] Eric Goranson: I walk into this, this is a million dollar home [00:48:00] beautiful entry. Second story, big sweeping staircase framed up. This was, they were just sheathing the top roof on this and they didn't even have tar paper up. I walk in. They're doing some touch up framing on the inside because of the seal plate in the construction, there is an inch, a half of water on the floor.

[00:48:24] Eric Goranson: The first floor there is a sheet of water coming off. Like it's a water feature off the staircase coming down below. And there's a guy out at the pole who's running the lights and everything on the inside. That's hitting the GFC. I breaker about every 30 seconds when it shorts out because all the extension cords are underwater and you'll hear, 'em go power, click.

[00:48:47] Eric Goranson: Then they'll have power for a minute or two, and I'm walking there and it's just water coming off. They, that house just got built. Like everything else in there the next week, the electricians were in the plumbers [00:49:00] were in roofing, went on and there's people been living in that house for probably a decade now.

[00:49:06] Eric Goranson: But that's what you see. And it's just blows my mind that that's gonna be any kind of a healthy home down the road. That's scary. And there's

[00:49:15] Rachel Reboulet: could you move in and you think, oh wow, this looks beautiful. You have this beautiful home aesthetically. It's all wonderful. And you don't really know. What you're in for in the future.

[00:49:25] Eric Goranson: Yeah. It's, it's something as a homeowner. If you're having a house built, I would sure wanna be paying attention to that stuff to make sure that you're doing that because that's just ripe of problems. Get an

[00:49:36] Caroline Blazovsky: air answer right now. Just flicking it in right. Soon as you move in, plug

[00:49:41] Rachel Reboulet: it

[00:49:41] Eric Goranson: in,

[00:49:42] Michael Pinto: well, at least plug it in, at least do it while you're under warranty, you know, , I dunno, right.

[00:49:48] Michael Pinto: How long the home warranty is, but you don't wanna wait until after that's over, before you get one,

[00:49:53] Eric Goranson: you know, Michael,

[00:49:54] Caroline Blazovsky: that brings up a really good point. So. I try to advise my clients and I don't know what you tell them too, but a lot of people [00:50:00] think if they have a water damage situation, they're gonna be covered under homeowners.

[00:50:04] Caroline Blazovsky: And that's just not the case anymore. A lot of these riders and these allocated funds that you used to get for, if you had a leak or you had a flooded basement, They don't exist anymore. So do you have any recommendations? Like I usually try to tell my clients to take out a rider on their homeowners to specifically ask if they're gonna have mold coverage.

[00:50:21] Caroline Blazovsky: But what have you seen with insurance companies?

[00:50:23] Michael Pinto: Well, insurance companies since, uh, 2003 and the big, uh, Melinda Ballard case down in Texas have run from mold as fast as they can. So the only sort of mold coverage that you get in a standard policy anymore is, is if it's. Forced on the insurance company, uh, by the state and things like that.

[00:50:43] Michael Pinto: But it's typically limited, um, in most areas. And I'm speaking generally because it is, you know, it's different around the country and everything, but in most cases, um, mold coverage specifically is, uh, restricted to either five [00:51:00] or $10,000 on a standard homeowner policy. So again, it's one of those things, which is

[00:51:05] Eric Goranson: nothing.

[00:51:05] Caroline Blazovsky: I mean, you could blow that. Second. And, and what we can guarantee is these homeowners are gonna have a moisture problem. At some point, whether it's a dishwasher, washing machine, kitchen, bathroom, you're gonna have a leak.

[00:51:15] Michael Pinto: It just happens. And, and the water portion of it, a lot of times is covered. Right? And so the difference or the difficulty comes in, sorting out.

[00:51:25] Michael Pinto: What is the water loss versus what's the extra cost from the microbial contamination, by the way, that's the way they're writing it up now. Uh, so that they're not stuck just with mold in case there's a bacteria issue or some other thing say they're actually writing the policies as microbial contamination and either eliminating that, or as I said, putting a cap on it, so that.

[00:51:51] Michael Pinto: You know, the, the actual leak and the replacement of the damaged drywall from the water or the, um, you [00:52:00] know, got underneath the wood floor and buckled the floor that might be taken care of. But. the subfloor, the area inside the wall cavity where the humidity was before they recognize it, or before the leak got bad enough that it actually showed, uh, all of a sudden you've got all the secondary damage that the insurance companies are saying, Hey, you know, we'll cover it, but we're only gonna cover it up to your policy limits because you didn't buy a rider which are available.

[00:52:27] Michael Pinto: And as you suggested, Caroline, You know, depending on who's doing it or, you know, if we need to get involved and have to document some things potentially for our legal matter, it's not unusual for the, uh, mold cap to be used up by the inspection and then right. Exactly. Nothing left for the remediation.

[00:52:51] Michael Pinto: And that's, that's not something I'm proud of. Or I'm trying to say that, you know, we're trying to take advantage. I'm just saying that that's. There's a lot of these situations [00:53:00] by the time wonder makers gets involved in it. A lot of times we're the second or even the third inspector in because the, you know, the first few folks, not that they didn't do the right thing, but they just, they either don't have the credentials to fight the insurance company or to help the homeowner, or they just realize this is not an, uh, an area of expertise like it is for us.

[00:53:21] Michael Pinto: So makes sense.

[00:53:24] Eric Goranson: Makes sense. Crazy, right.

[00:53:25] Caroline Blazovsky: Eric, that, you know, might not be covered for something that's major.

[00:53:29] Eric Goranson: Yeah. And Caroline, you and I have talked about in the past, and it was years ago when I was on an NHB stage at the, uh, design and construction week that I was talking to builders saying, why aren't you testing your owns before you hand 'em off?

[00:53:41] Eric Goranson: Especially if you're saying it's gonna be something that's healthy or green or anything like that. Why are you not doing air testing? Before you hand the house off because that homeowner could bring in furniture or anything else or, or belongings that are very contaminated. And then they're gonna say that your house is [00:54:00] contaminated.

[00:54:00] Eric Goranson: Why aren't it? Why are you not reducing your liability at the time that you're handing keys off saying, Hey, here's our air test. We're good as gold. Now it's up to you.

[00:54:09] Michael Pinto: Well, I, I would respond to that from my end because you, you do see a little bit more of that in the commercial. , you know, cuz they're, uh, responsible for these lead buildings and they have to have certain energy performance and everything like that.

[00:54:25] Michael Pinto: And you can't control in some respects you can't control when people come in and start messing with the dampers. Right? so the, the builders, uh, in that case, they're measuring the energy performance and even some of the, uh, air contaminants and VOCs, uh, you know, making sure that they don't have a lot coming off from the, um, OSB and the spray foam and that sort of stuff before the clients move in, because then, like you said, Eric, they're bringing in all their stuff.

[00:54:56] Michael Pinto: And part of that stuff is people and you [00:55:00] can't necessarily control the people. So, uh, you know, that's, the builders have to protect themselves and they do that through this, um, pre turnover testing. Yeah. Makes sense. Well,

[00:55:13] Rachel Reboulet: it would be good if they would use particularly the, the air answers and get some of those, you know, mold contaminants in there to be able to detect that

[00:55:22] Rachel Reboulet: Yep,

[00:55:22] Eric Goranson: absolutely. Well, guys, we're starting to run out of time cuz we're blasted through the hour here. Uh, Rachel, for instance, how would people track you guys down and, uh, maybe get an air answers unit into their home if they've got an issue?

[00:55:37] Rachel Reboulet: Great. Well, uh, you could either contact our company it's, uh, www.airanswers.com.

[00:55:43] Rachel Reboulet: Go to the website and fill out a contact form. Or you can contact an in an indoor air quality, professional, and find out, um, Uh, from them, if they can, uh, come into your home and, and, uh, do a monitoring for.

[00:55:59] Eric Goranson: [00:56:00] Cool. Michael, how about you over there? Well,

[00:56:02] Rachel Reboulet: uh, that's right. There you go, Michael?

[00:56:04] Michael Pinto: Yep. Well, sure. They can call us and that's, uh, just like, uh, Rachel, the website is always a good place to go.

[00:56:10] Michael Pinto: So that's www dot wonder makers. Wonder makers.com and, uh, either that or call us. And we've got, uh, 8, 8, 8 3 8 2 4 1 5 4. That will get them in.

[00:56:25] Eric Goranson: So guys,

[00:56:27] Caroline Blazovsky: no excuse, I don't any excuse, excuse everybody, monitors calls.

[00:56:30] Rachel Reboulet: And if you call our company, we will let you know which inal indoor air quality professionals we work with.

[00:56:35] Rachel Reboulet: And, uh, Michael is a wonderful option.

[00:56:38] Eric Goranson: nice. Is there anything we didn't cover guys that we should be touching on here today?

[00:56:43] Michael Pinto: Uh, I was just gonna throw out the, you know, there are also, um, Revolution in some respects is not just with air answers, but some of the actual monitoring systems that are getting mounted in the house that, uh, do, you know, [00:57:00] wifi feedback.

[00:57:01] Michael Pinto: And they actually allow the homeowners to get alerts. So if you're way on vacation and the humidity starts to rise up, meaning that there might be a water leak or there's something else that's going on, almost like a fire alarm, uh, they can. Announcements to that. And they can even have people respond to that.

[00:57:21] Michael Pinto: Except instead of, as I said, for a fire, it's now more indoor environmental contaminant. So I'm watching that there's a number of good systems that are out there. Uh, they don't necessarily replace the inspection, the inspector, the samplers, but. Uh, these are all just different parts and pieces that help to make our health, our houses a little bit healthier.

[00:57:44] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Those things are almost like a smoke alarm. They're gonna tell you, you have a problem. You might not tell you where it's coming for, what the problem so much is, but it'll at least tell you that, Hey, from what I've seen, at least out there in the technology side, that, Hey, you've got an indoor air quality issue.

[00:57:57] Eric Goranson: You should pay attention to it and do some more research on it.

[00:57:59] Michael Pinto: [00:58:00] Exactly. that's cool stuff.

[00:58:03] Eric Goranson: All right, guys. Well, thanks for coming on today. We really appreciate it. Oh my goodness. Oh, well,

[00:58:07] Rachel Reboulet: thank you.

[00:58:07] Michael Pinto: Thanks guys. This was so much fun. I was just gonna say, I've had more fun with you guys looking forward to listening in and, uh, keep up the good work, please.

[00:58:15] Michael Pinto: You guys are doing an amazing job. Thanks so

[00:58:17] Eric Goranson: much. Thank you so much. I'm Eric G and I'm Caroline B and you've been listening to Around the House