[00:00:00] Intro: It's around the house. When

[00:00:17] Intro: it comes to remodeling and renovating your home, there is a lot to know the We got you covered.

[00:00:23] Intro: This is

[00:00:24] Eric Goranson: around the house. Welcome to the Around the House Show. This is where we talk home improvement every single week. Thanks for joining me today. This is the midweek special.

[00:00:34] Eric Goranson: That thing that goes out every middle of the week. We put it out Tuesdays, so everybody has some home improvement in the middle of the week besides our Saturday show. Well, thanks for joining me today. Really appreciate you hanging out here now. Today I wanted to talk a little about, uh, ventilation in our homes.

[00:00:54] Eric Goranson: And this is such a big deal now that we're going into winter. So many parts of the country are, are cold, They've [00:01:00] got the doors shut, they got the windows closed. Even the people down south are getting some nights that get to be cold. So this is something that we should be really talking about today. Now I'm really happy, you know, it's election day to day here in the United States, and I'm so happy.

[00:01:18] Eric Goranson: I can finally be able to start watching YouTube videos and television without 42 million ads. I can't wait for that to happen here this week and, uh, get back to normal life without political ads. I know all the media places, TV stations, my radio stations that I'm on, I know you guys have made a great amount of money from these things and you should be cuz you have to put up with it.

[00:01:42] Eric Goranson: But, uh, I'm happy political season is over for a bit. Then we can move on together. Well, today I wanted to talk about ventilation. Let's start out in the kitchen. Now, this is one of those things that gets really interesting. Most [00:02:00] people out there have poor kitchen ventilation. I can't tell you how many times I see on Facebook, Instagram posts, you know, construction videos of people.

[00:02:14] Eric Goranson: They're kitchen together and they have a really bad ventilation system going on. And interesting. Uh, in California they did an i a Q, you know, air quality study here in 2016. Only 13% of homeowners frequently use the exhaust fan when they're cooking. And the study found that most of us don't turn it on the fan because we don't think it's necessary.

[00:02:39] Eric Goranson: 48% or we find it too noisy, 21%. So it's super easy. First off, here's what I want to talk about, That range should, should always vent to the exterior. It should not be one of those [00:03:00] recirculating hoods. Those are completely. Those recirculating hoods, don't remove carbon monoxide. They don't remove all the nasty stuff, and it will be the largest pollution of indoor air quality in your home.

[00:03:18] Eric Goranson: Hands down, that'll be worse than the pets. That'll be worse than the dust. That will be your number one thing that's gonna hurt you the most. Of all indoor air quality. Think about that. So first of all, you want to have that go all the way outside. So it needs to go out exterior, not into the attic space, cuz you're gonna put all that moisture and grease and stuff up there.

[00:03:42] Eric Goranson: Needs to go all the way out outside wall roof. Now in some situations people used to put in downdraft ranges and that's the one that has the fan kind of built into the cooktop or oven and it sucks the air down. Those [00:04:00] work horribly. They do, and if you've got a gas stove top, they have a tendency to pull the flame back towards the fan.

[00:04:11] Eric Goranson: So if you're sitting there cooking an omelet or got something in the stove pan, the back pan gets hot and the front pan is cooler. So you tend to burn things on the back of the. So I'm not a fan of those. You can now, and it, it, in most cases you could make this work. They do now make, like Zephyr makes one, I think Mila makes one as well.

[00:04:36] Eric Goranson: They make a vent hood that is flush with the ceiling above so it doesn't stick down, doesn't get in the way of the view and it'll vent outside. I've used those in a couple projects. They work really well and they get that, uh, oil grease, contaminants outside of your. So that's a huge thing, getting that outside.

[00:04:57] Eric Goranson: Now, I'll be honest, microwave range hoods, [00:05:00] unless you're in a condo or something like that, I rarely recommend those to clients. In my almost 30 years of designing kitchens, I have said no to those 95% of the time. The only time I haven't really is if they're in a condo and they've got such tight space.

[00:05:19] Eric Goranson: It's just, that's the best option for you. But 99% of the time, I'm gonna tell you to take those out and put in a real vent hood that vents, and then there's, for a couple reasons for that. First, I don't like putting one cooking appliance over the top of another cooking appliance, so I don't wanna have a, a hot cook top that you have to lean over.

[00:05:42] Eric Goranson: So let's say you've got something, You've got water boiling with the gas cooktop and now you're leaning over to get the bowl of soup outta the microwave of the top. If you've got a a shirt that's loose, you know, something like that, long hair, even the chance of that getting over next to that flame is [00:06:00] decent.

[00:06:00] Eric Goranson: I don't like that. That is a hazard waiting to. So make sure that that vents outside. I don't like the microwave there. You can put it over. I'd rather see it on the counter to be honest, than up there over the range. Hu But that's me. And then they don't vent well either cuz there's no capture area. Think about it, when steam rises up, right, it kind of billows up and what happens is, is when a micro hood, it hits that vent space right on the bottom of it and it tends to roll out and go around the unit and up.

[00:06:31] Eric Goranson: So it has to move a lot more. Just to do the job. So they just don't work well, not a fan of those. And so those are the biggest ones. So when you're gonna cook and you've got that vent hood, use it, turn it on, turn it on. You know, turn on the range, turn on the hood. Then when you're done cooking, leave it on for a couple minutes afterwards.

[00:06:55] Eric Goranson: You know, maybe dinner's, cooling, people are coming over there. Let it run for a. [00:07:00] That way you get that air and it, maybe you've got a, a cast iron pan that you were cooking something in. It's still smoking a little bit. Let that do its job. Kinda like with a bathroom. Bathroom vents just as important cuz that is the, the humidity monster.

[00:07:18] Eric Goranson: Right? That's the thing that's putting all that humidity in your house. And if you have over 60% humidity in your house, you are asking for mold in places that you don't want. So make sure you've got a great VIN fan in that bathroom that's going outside, and I wanna see a timer in most places, code requires it anyway, but I wanna see that fan run at least 20 minutes after you walk out the door.

[00:07:42] Eric Goranson: Now I've got a, went a little farther with mine. Mine has a humidity sensor, so I have it set off. When I turn it on, it's gonna run until it gets down to the humidity level that I want. Now if you're in an unconditioned space, like you just have a heater, no air conditioning [00:08:00] and you're in a humid area, those can be a problem.

[00:08:03] Eric Goranson: I've had issues with those before because if you have a fan that's wants to keep it down at 55% humidity in that room, you have a very humid house with no dehumidification and the whole thing's at 60, that fan can sit there and run. Because it's searching for Dr. Air. So I've had that happen before and it's not good, and it's not good with that unhealthy of a home anyway, but making sure that that bathroom gets vented out, that's a big deal.

[00:08:34] Eric Goranson: For instance, in my bathroom, you've heard me talk about it. If you're listening to the show regularly, my bathroom, I have a steam shower in it, that steam shower pumps out the. Literally, if I didn't have a fan on in there, I could open that door in 30 seconds. That thing is gonna be steamy. But you know something with the right fan in the right location, that thing puts [00:09:00] out 110 cfm.

[00:09:02] Eric Goranson: So it's 110 basketballs of air every minute. And now make sure there's two things with ventilation here as well, that you need to. Makeup air, for instance, in my bathroom we have an issue because I need to create some more air in that bathroom to come in. But for instance, on a cold winter day, if I have the fan going, that space under the door, that area by the door there, that heated floor gets cold cuz it's pulling air and cool.

[00:09:33] Eric Goranson: That floor right there. So it's something to consider. I'm gonna put in another little vent that goes out that way I'm not pulling all of that across the floor and stealing the heat outta the floor right there and making a cool floor. So something to consider. Make sure you've got enough space under the door in coming in and in neither one of these is a window considered ventilation.

[00:09:55] Eric Goranson: It's just not gonna work. So make sure you spend [00:10:00] some time with that and that bathroom. That should be hard ducted or insulated ducted, depending on what your building code is in your area, and that should be vented all the way outside through the side wall or up through the roof, and then you're good to go.

[00:10:15] Eric Goranson: Those are two big things you can do to your house. They're gonna make it smell fresher, cleaner. I mean, literally in my home, I can sit there and be cooking fish and steak. And 20 minutes later, you can't tell what I was cooking because the ventilation did the job. Now, makeup air is something to consider.

[00:10:38] Eric Goranson: If you are doing this big, big remodeling project and you've got a nice tight house, make sure you've got makeup air, because here's what can happen. You need to make up for the air that you're putting out. You know, let's say you've got a dryer in that house that's running clothes dryer and that's pumping out, let's say it's pumping out 400, cfm, [00:11:00] probably not that much, but it's pumping out a bunch of cfm, so that's 400 cubic feet per minute, so that's 400 basketballs of air.

[00:11:10] Eric Goranson: And then you've got a fan in the kitchen cuz you're cooking, you've got that on high. And let's call that 800 cf. You are now creating a vacuum inside the house and where that can be a problem is if you have a gas water heater, it can be sucking back the carbon monoxide outta that water heater cuz you're doing laundry, right?

[00:11:29] Eric Goranson: So it's create warm water and you can pull that back into the house and thus create. A very unsafe condition with carbon monoxide. So you need to have a system that's gonna put air back in at the pace that it's going back out. So they make things called makeup, air kits. So you can put in with your heating and cooling system, and your HVAC professional can help you with that.

[00:11:52] Eric Goranson: And that will actually let that come back in and it'll condition it. So if it's cold or it's hot, it'll bring air [00:12:00] back in. That won't be of a different temperature and you won't be fighting it inside the. So those are really important things to consider when you're doing this right, because this is stuff that, uh, if you wanna have that at your house, smell better, feel better, and be healthier for you.

[00:12:19] Eric Goranson: Ventilation is a key to getting this back in check and where you want to be. Now, there are other places you should be thinking about having ventilation sometimes. Garage needs it. If you've got a nice sealed up garage and you've got a space in there where you're bringing in wet cars, closing the door, it's all insulated.

[00:12:45] Eric Goranson: It's part of the house. Might be something to consider. Having ventilation in there or an ERV and energy recovery ventilator could be good to keep that from getting moldy in there. So, Not a bad place to put one. And then in most [00:13:00] places, a laundry room is a place that, uh, is required as well. So event fan in there.

[00:13:06] Eric Goranson: And, uh, that's another place that, uh, with humidity, if you're drawing clothes, if you've got a washing machine that the doors open. Having ventilation's, not a bad thing either in those spaces. So again, something to consider when it comes to those spaces. And that garage is a new one that's coming in because, you know, now we're seeing homes being built.

[00:13:26] Eric Goranson: With a really tight envelope, including that garage with an ENS insulated garage door, and it's all sheet rocked and lit and the furnace and everything's out there. I don't wanna see that get to be a moldy space. So, uh, one little tip that I'll give you here before we go out in a second is to get one of those cheap weather stations.

[00:13:48] Eric Goranson: Usually those have a outside sensor you put. You have an inside sensor with the little display screen with those, so you can go around and move that sensor to different places in your [00:14:00] home and check that humidity. It'll also check where the display is so you can move that around in certain spots, and it works really well to tell you.

[00:14:09] Eric Goranson: Now, the last place that I think is one of the most forgotten out of all of it is your crawlspace. If you have that crawlspace make. That is not humid down there, cuz that in that attic space is gonna be a moldy mess if you don't have proper ventilation. So if you're gonna encapsulate that crawl space covered up with plastic sealed up, then you need to either condition that space or put in a dehumidifier.

[00:14:36] Eric Goranson: And sometimes that dehumidifier. Is its own beast that you really need. So again, something to consider when you're thinking about your house and keeping it nice, ventilated, and of course dry. All right everybody, If you could do me a favor, make sure you subscribe to however you're listening to the show out there.

[00:14:55] Eric Goranson: And then, uh, during the week, feel free to go. We have 900 episodes now [00:15:00] up on around the house online.com. Now, of course, Apple Podcast, they only let you put out 299. But if you go over to around the house online.com and check out the podcast there, that is where we have the PO Gats hosted from. So that is where we have all the back catalog of, uh, basically the last 900 episodes there.

[00:15:20] Eric Goranson: So you can go way back and research a project if you're thinking about doing something. So make sure you're, uh, following us there and, uh, really excited to show you some new stuff coming up. We've got so many. Discussions ahead before we get into 2023, so stay tuned for a lot of fun, new topics and informative stuff, all for you and your home.

[00:15:42] Eric Goranson: All right, everybody, Have a great rest of the week. Happy Election Day today. Thanks for listening to Around the House.