[00:00:00] Eric Goranson: It's around the house. In this episode, we've got one of my favorite interviews. We just did with my buddy, Andrew Pace, green building expert, and this is going to be a lot of fun, but here's the thing. It can't all fit into the radio show. Cause it was over an hour. So make sure you hit our premium membership over there where you can catch the whole thing, commercial free and 10 days free for that.

[00:00:24] Eric Goranson: So head over to around the house, online. com and sign up there. This is an interview you don't want to miss. And. We're on the house shows brought to you by pyramid heating and cooling serving in Oregon, the Portland metro area and Bend, Oregon. They are your one stop shop for heating and cooling and indoor air quality.

[00:00:43] Eric Goranson: Head to pyramidheating. com, Oregon CCB 59382. When it comes to remodeling and renovating your home, there is a lot to know, but the House. Welcome to the Around the House show, the next generation of home improvement. [00:01:00] Over at Monument Girls to find out more head to monumentgirls. com and we have a fabulous show today.

[00:01:08] Eric Goranson: One of my good buddies that every time he comes on here, we get off on sidetracks. We have a lot of fun talking about everything healthy home and maybe a little whiskey even if we can slide that into the conversation. Andrew Pace, Andy Pace, my friend, welcome back to Around the

[00:01:24] Andy Pace: House. Thank you, Eric. I'll tell you what I've been looking forward to this conversation since I found out about it again, because yeah, you and I always get into these great conversations.

[00:01:33] Andy Pace: A little bit of some side tangents that are always enjoyable, but this is fantastic. Great. Great to see you again.

[00:01:40] Eric Goranson: Ah, great to have you on here. It's been way too long. Let's talk about you for a minute for all the new people out there. You've got the green design center. You are my, one of my probably two people that I reach out to when I'm like, okay, I got to figure a healthy solution out here.

[00:01:55] Eric Goranson: And usually get my emails or LinkedIn messages gone. What do I do about this? And it's

[00:01:59] Andy Pace: [00:02:00] always something

[00:02:00] Eric Goranson: strange.

[00:02:01] Andy Pace: Yeah, that's actually my, my career has been made on answering those tough questions quickly. I work with people all around the world who have. Allergies, asthma, chemical sensitivities, mold sensitivities, pretty much anybody who has a, an immune system disorder that doesn't allow them to live in the current state of our home buildings.

[00:02:23] Andy Pace: And so anything that could cause a reaction just for somebody would be chemical off gassing, mold, bacteria, you name it. So I help folks remodel. Design and build healthy homes.

[00:02:36] Eric Goranson: And there are so many, I'm going to use this cause it's politically incorrect. And I don't care cause that's my style, but. There are so many old wives tales out there of how to deal with things that are completely the wrong answers only answer to do stuff.

[00:02:49] Eric Goranson: And it's shocking where people like, Oh, go do this. And it's like, what are you talking about? Making that worse like that?

[00:02:55] Andy Pace: That's it's funny. You mentioned this right away because the hot topic [00:03:00] lately has been if your house has a lot of chemicals coming from the building materials, what you should do is do what's called a bake out where you heat up the house.

[00:03:08] Andy Pace: And that, uh, excites all the chemicals in the materials and it, it allows them to off gas faster. And I'll tell you folks, that's the absolute worst thing you want to do in your house. Because, yes, you will get more chemical release, but you'll also get new chemical compounds being formed that wouldn't be there unless you heated it up to that, uh, temperature.

[00:03:28] Andy Pace: Not to mention, this is only effective If you do this at a hundred degrees for two weeks straight, and by that time you have now voided every warranty for every building material you use. So that's good on the list, right? Exactly. Exactly.

[00:03:44] Eric Goranson: And the funny thing is, is maybe all of those plastics in your house and finally the oils on the outside have finally off gassed and they're slowed down.

[00:03:54] Eric Goranson: You are hitting the control alt, delete, restart on those as well, right? Common sense says that. For

[00:03:59] Andy Pace: [00:04:00] sure. We know that. A lot of building materials that are used, let's say materials that finish or cure on site, paints, stains, adhesives, caulking materials. Those can off gas anywhere from about two and a half to four and a half years after they reach a full cure.

[00:04:14] Andy Pace: Other materials like plywood and plastics. The off gassing never really is fully complete, but the majority of it will release within those first few years. If you now expose it to this new temperature that it's not supposed to be at, it can then start the process all over again. So, yeah, I just, I just, I hear that all the time from customers.

[00:04:35] Andy Pace: I think there was a, an article written about 25 years ago by a scientist in hell, Levin wrote this article on how you can do a bakeout, but then he came back out with an article right afterwards saying, but don't do it because you can't do this effectively in a home without causing a whole host of problems.

[00:04:52] Andy Pace: So don't even try.

[00:04:53] Eric Goranson: I think the only thing you might do is kill some bedbugs and that's probably you might do

[00:04:57] Andy Pace: that. Yeah. It'll certainly increase your energy [00:05:00] costs for a while. It's just, it's, it's a bad idea.

[00:05:02] Eric Goranson: Oh man, I can, I just, I'm thinking of the, the different systems in your house that are going to go sideways with that.

[00:05:08] Eric Goranson: And that's just not good. Not good at all. It's the same thing about on social media posts out there people just going. Oh, yeah Just take that bleach and wipe down all the mold and you'll be good to go and you can cover it right up and go Right over the top of it And i'm just like I don't care what you're using guys.

[00:05:25] Eric Goranson: Let's just put the bleach away I don't really have a good cause for bleach to be used There's so many better products out there, even if it's on a hard surface

[00:05:34] Andy Pace: All right. I think that we get to the situation and where, because somebody does something for a living, they can call themselves an expert. I hear this all the time.

[00:05:44] Andy Pace: Look, to your, to your point, contractor says, Oh yeah, just bleach the wood. It'll be fine. I've been doing this for 30 years. I've never had a problem. That's my favorite line. My response always is, I've been golfing for 30 years and I'm still absolutely horrible. Just because you do something doesn't make you [00:06:00] at it.

[00:06:01] Andy Pace: Just because somebody gives you money for something you do does not make you an expert. There are so many of these old, as you say, wife's tales, and people just assume work. Otherwise they wouldn't be still saying this. There's, there are so many of these issues that keep on getting perpetuated and these ideas, they do not work.

[00:06:19] Andy Pace: They cause bigger problems. Bleach, especially makes mold worse. So do never bleach mold.

[00:06:25] Eric Goranson: Yeah. And, and what's bad is there's some, I think there's even some EPA documentation out there saying, oh, it works good on. On non porous surfaces, but I'm like, why make it worse? Maybe it does kill some of it. There's like I said, many better products.

[00:06:38] Eric Goranson: And I just wish the government would take that page down. Cause it's misinformation in my mind. It's just, it's I'll get

[00:06:43] Andy Pace: information in today's consumers. And this is not to rip on anybody in particular, but generally speaking, people skim information. So you, you download this, this sheet on how to get rid of mold.

[00:06:56] Andy Pace: Oh, it says I can use bleach. Okay. I can use bleach. It says you can [00:07:00] use bleach on non porous surfaces. No, you didn't read that next line. And so I, I would rather err on the side of safe and let's just not talk about it at all. Let's talk about what works in everything and you don't have to worry about it.

[00:07:12] Eric Goranson: Yeah. And there's so many good preventative measures out there. Stuff that you got me lined up with out there in the past with, with stuff is, is okay. You got the problem fixed, but you still going to coat something over the top of it. Don't run down and get the hardware store primer that says it's good for mold.

[00:07:30] Eric Goranson: Go get something like Caliwell or something. And I got that from you.

[00:07:33] Andy Pace: Yes. Yeah. And that the Caliwell product has, has been an absolute lifesaver. The true method of remediating the mold situation without going down into a deep rabbit hole here, but the true method is to, they open up the wall, they do containment, they open up the walls, you're vacuuming, you're scraping, you're sanding, you're cleaning, you're cleaning Then when it's dry, you encapsulate, you put a coating on so that, uh, this situation can happen again.

[00:07:58] Andy Pace: Callowell is a little bit different. [00:08:00] Callowell, after you encapsulate and you vacuum to get rid of the loose material, you literally paint two coats over the moldy wood and that's it. You're done. It saves 75 percent of the labor and the way it does it, it's not by using some toxic science, scientific, noxious chemical.

[00:08:18] Andy Pace: And that's, it uses lime. It uses calcium hydroxide, natural mineral. And it raises the pH of the surface so high that it kills mold on contact and it stays active for a minimum of five years, which is unlike anything on the market.

[00:08:33] Eric Goranson: Yeah. pH is science. And when it gets to the point where it's going to not.

[00:08:37] Eric Goranson: Nothing's going to grow on it. You've created something without off gassing and sending it in your healthy air off into the, into the stratosphere with bad contaminants.

[00:08:46] Andy Pace: And we've got, we've literally have hundreds and hundreds of years of, of experience using lime. Uh, farmers use lime, lime, wash the barns to get rid of the mold.

[00:08:56] Andy Pace: Villages throughout Europe. Since the plague have been using Lyme [00:09:00] on their, on their homes to essentially stop the spread of, of disease. So we know it works. So the, that another old wives tale, if it's not broke, don't fix it. I believe that one, it just works. It's a natural material that works. Let's just stick with that.

[00:09:15] Eric Goranson: It's basic science. Let's go ahead and use it. It's something we learned in fifth grade and it works. It's so smart. And I think topically, because we've had not, it's not been a bad hurricane season for most. But we've had a lot of storms on the East Coast and across the South that have been really hitting people.

[00:09:32] Eric Goranson: That maybe have been in homes for five years that have never had to deal with water intrusion issues Whether it's in a first floor a crawl space or a basement And these are some really good tried and true ways to deal with it Don't change that dial around the house. We'll be right back with more from expert andrew pace.

[00:09:48] Eric Goranson: We're talking healthy homes

[00:09:49] Intro: I'll show[00:10:00]

[00:10:10] Eric Goranson: the next generation of home improvement brought to you by our friends over at monument grills You If you're looking for a new grill, check them out at money, mcgrills. com. Now we're going to talk with Andrew pace here. Now this whole interview did not fit into the radio show or podcast. So you make sure and hit our premium episodes so you can grab it over there.

[00:10:28] Eric Goranson: First 10 days are free. Now let's get back to talking with Andrew. Cause so many people, I see it on social media. Hey, I had 18 inches of water in my basement and it's finished. So I'm going to take the drywall out and put new drywall on. Am I good? And it's just like, you're not dealing with this correctly.

[00:10:41] Eric Goranson: And it's, it's one of the things that we see here in the Pacific Northwest. Cause we have a lot of basements and crawl spaces, house flippers go in and take an unfinished basement. It's been unfinished for 30 years because of water intrusion issues. And they go in there and say, cool, let's go add another thousand square feet to the house.

[00:10:58] Eric Goranson: They finish it off [00:11:00] incorrectly and people move in and eight to 10 weeks. They're going, why am I coughing? Why am I not feeling well? Right. And then you go down and start peeling back some drywall and see, wow. White on this side, black on this side. And, and it starts to get to be a hot mess.

[00:11:15] Andy Pace: It comes down to that.

[00:11:16] Andy Pace: We just talked about before, this is the way we've always done it. So let's just continue to do it this way and everything will be just fine. Whichever side of the coin somebody is on about climate, the climates, the fact of the matter is we realize that weather patterns are changing and then areas of the country that used to get a lot of rain may get less, may get more.

[00:11:37] Andy Pace: And this has a cyclical as well. We see this every 10 to 15 years. I know here in my state here in Wisconsin, it's about every 10 to 15 years, we get these summers of absolute torrential rainfalls. And then a summer like now, which we haven't had rain for two weeks. It's just, it's, this is what happens, but it's always safe to err on the side of.

[00:11:58] Andy Pace: Let's protect from the moisture [00:12:00] because at some point in the hundred year existence of this home, moisture is going to be an issue. So why wouldn't you protect against it?

[00:12:09] Eric Goranson: Yeah, so simple. And the science is out there. The materials are out there to do this correctly. And I just like to see people doing it right, because depending on the location, as there are some crazy rules for basements and stuff across the country, what is that in Colorado where they get frosty and they've got to have an adjustable floor by six inches on the, there's a lot of weird things that happen that all of our friends down in Florida and California are going, what are you talking about?

[00:12:35] Eric Goranson: Right. Really? There's not one rule that fits everything, but there is one rule for controlling moisture. Making sure that that is a dry space down there and not

[00:12:45] Andy Pace: growing mold. And then you throw into this whole equation, the fact that in every state, you have a different set of building codes, energy codes, you bring up Boulder, Colorado, I'm working with a customer in Boulder right now, a large [00:13:00] contractor.

[00:13:01] Andy Pace: And the things he has to do just to meet the energy codes, literally causing health issues for his customers. Yeah, because. There's the unintended consequence of trying to do the right thing. And this is what we're, we're in right now in the middle of code officials around the country, trying to make our homes more energy efficient.

[00:13:19] Andy Pace: I understand that everybody loves energy efficiency, our bottom line, our wallets, love energy efficiency. However. If it's, if it's happening in a way that's making the, the occupants less healthy, let's reevaluate what we're doing. And so why would we use spray foam throughout the entire house if we know spray foam is problematic for a majority of people who have asthma?

[00:13:41] Andy Pace: And, and then others who just don't like chemical off gassing. And so let's look at these things and say, what makes sense? Not for necessarily just the environment, but for us who live within the environment, we should be working and working this together.

[00:13:57] Eric Goranson: Yeah. It's almost backwards right now. It's, it's like [00:14:00] the energy efficiency right now is graded higher on the scale of building officials than the health of the human living inside the house.

[00:14:07] Eric Goranson: By like four to one. And then people like you have to go back and go, okay, we have this mess that was created, that was building code was followed in this construction process, but how do we go back in and get fresh air? How do we get this stuff cleaned up? How do we make this happen? And that's a tough battle.

[00:14:24] Eric Goranson: It's a hundred percent avoidable.

[00:14:26] Andy Pace: And, and when you ask the code officials, if we can do something different, because we're dealing with health of the occupant issues. They'll say, yep, sorry, it won't meet the code. So there are builders now that I work with around the country and I won't name names, but they're looking at this.

[00:14:41] Andy Pace: They're saying, we're going to submit based upon the codes, but we're going to build what we know works and what we know was healthier. And you gotta, you gotta be careful with that because you don't certainly don't want them to cheapen up the process to pad their own pockets, but they're the ones who have to deal with the angry homeowner when [00:15:00] they come back and say, listen, everybody in the house is getting sick.

[00:15:03] Andy Pace: We're not getting enough fresh air. The material that are supposedly eco friendly are all off gassing toxins. How did, and then now it's the builder's fault. Why did you put us in this situation? So the builders are trying to nip that in the bud and say, here's a better way to do things. Most importantly, I want to give you a home that is.

[00:15:23] Andy Pace: Aesthetically pleasing meets the budget. It's going to last a very, very long time and as healthy for you and your family.

[00:15:30] Eric Goranson: Amen. And that's one of those things. And it's one thing that whenever I've been teaching seminars, as far as home tech and healthy home stuff that I do, and I haven't done as many over the last years, cause I've been doing the media thing like this, but I always brought up a thing when you're dealing with contractors and you're building new homes.

[00:15:48] Eric Goranson: You should be doing air testing before and after, before you hand it over to your consumer, to that end customer. So they know where you left it. So there's a baseline. And quite frankly, if you start seeing some bad air results, [00:16:00] you go, Oh, what product is causing this? Cause when Mrs. Smith comes in with her, you know, cheap wayfarer couch or whatever that came from wherever that's all filled up and off gassing for the next two years.

[00:16:12] Eric Goranson: It's not on you, it's on them. And you can help, you have at least a baseline to protect yourself, at least when the house was handed over.

[00:16:20] Andy Pace: It's, it's, it's one of those things where some, some of the builders we work with will say, if what we don't know can't hurt us. And the more, the more, the more you want to know, the more you need to know, and then it opens up a whole Pandora's box of, of issues.

[00:16:33] Andy Pace: Sometimes it does. But I'll tell you if if there was a way and there is a way using different methods of air testing to actually do it at certain steps of the construction process to say at this point, we're good to go from this point back. Everything was that we've done is good. And now we know between this checkpoint, this checkpoint, something has caused this massive raise in the, the VOC levels in the house.

[00:16:59] Andy Pace: So the formaldehyde [00:17:00] levels, we can then look back through the construction schedule and the materials to say, it must have been one of these two or three things. And then those are obviously things we'll avoid in the next job, of course, but I've been involved in houses throughout the country where I get, I get brought into somewhat remediates the, the chemical issues in the home.

[00:17:18] Andy Pace: And we'll look at these air tests. A house that's just been completed before the family moves in is testing out between seven and 15,000 grams per liter of VOCs. Wow. And these are supposedly homes that are built to green built standards. Oh. So people say, how can that be? Understand that all these GREENBILT standards are predicated on the EPA.

[00:17:45] Andy Pace: Requirements for VOCs, VOCs or volatile organic compounds are chemicals that can contribute to outdoor air pollution. This is the definition of what a VOC is inside of a home. There's not enough nitrogen new V to create low level smog. [00:18:00] So. You look at VOCs and say, some are dangerous. Yes. Some are dangerous for humans.

[00:18:03] Andy Pace: A lot of them are completely harmless, but if, if you use materials that might be considered zero VOC to meet the regulations, it doesn't mean that there's zero toxin there, there are over 92, 000 chemicals used in the production of building materials and home goods. Out of that, a couple thousand of them are considered VOCs.

[00:18:21] Andy Pace: The rest of them are either not regulated as VOCs because they don't contribute out to air pollution or they're not volatile organic compounds at all, there are other things. And so I just I don't understand why we just Why do we strive to do low voc when if I peel the skin off of an orange for breakfast?

[00:18:38] Andy Pace: I've just released 850 grams per liter of vocs

[00:18:41] Eric Goranson: Don't change that dial more with Andrew pace as soon as around the house returns. Don't go anywhere[00:19:00]

[00:19:02] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to the around the house show the next generation of home improvement brought to you by our friends over at monument grills If you're looking for a new grill, check them out at monumentgrills. com now We're going to talk with Andrew pace here. Now, this whole interview did not fit into the radio show or podcast.

[00:19:17] Eric Goranson: So you make sure and hit our premium episode. So you can grab it over there. First 10 days are free. Now let's get back to talking with Andrew.

[00:19:24] Andy Pace: Why do we strive to do low VOC? When, if I peel the skin off of an orange for breakfast, I've just released 850 grams per liter of VOCs. It's not going to poison me.

[00:19:33] Andy Pace: It's not going to hurt me. Yeah. It's nourishment. So we need to stop chasing these, these numbers and actually look at the details, how these materials are made, how our houses are built. So we're not relying on some esoteric score to tell us thumbs up or thumb down.

[00:19:49] Eric Goranson: Yeah. I was doing some research the other day and I saw that there are 11, I think it's current it's within a year or so current, which is always hard when you're doing research, but it looks like there's [00:20:00] 11 States in the U S that don't have state wide.

[00:20:04] Eric Goranson: Building codes. And so they're more city or, or county or township or whatever. And that's part of the problem too. Like I got a buddy being, having a house built down outside of Phoenix, Arizona, and I've been watching this thing get built. And I've been just, cause he lives up in the Pacific Northwest up my way.

[00:20:26] Eric Goranson: And I'm watching this thing get built. And I'm like, are you kidding me? We couldn't do that. So great example, the house has been open air outside in Phoenix and for the last four weeks they've had this crazy windstorms and stuff that's been going on down there. There's no windows or doors in it, but they've already got the drywall and it's textured but not primed.

[00:20:50] Eric Goranson: It's just been sitting there soaking in whatever.

[00:20:55] Andy Pace: Yeah. Oh boy. So that is. Oh, that's scary. And I know people say, yeah, but [00:21:00] Arizona is a dry climate folks. Mold exists everywhere. It doesn't have to be just in the Pacific Northwest or, or in Atlanta, Georgia, mold is everywhere. And so once it gets onto a surface like plaster or an acrylic, an acrylic based texture or what have you, that becomes a food source.

[00:21:19] Andy Pace: And eventually that mold will, will come back and it'll come back very, very strongly. It's interesting because yeah, there are a lot of locations that don't have building codes. And then, then there's the other, on the flip side of the coin, there's a lot of locations that have building codes, but they don't have code officials to actually enforce them.

[00:21:34] Andy Pace: Right. So it's like, what good is having them? And we all know building code is, is basically the bare minimum. Absolute. That's what you need to, to hit just to get your permit and, and to make sure you can get a certificate of occupancy that you built to those standards. It's, it's the bare minimum. And if there's nobody there to actually do any inspections, then why even have them?

[00:21:54] Eric Goranson: Yeah, it's been interesting. I've been working on a few projects around here. I'm not going to say what part of the state where it's at and [00:22:00] and I did Helping out some friends and my brother and knocking stuff out And inspector walks in and goes, looks around, looks good and heads out. And I'm like, you didn't even walk in the room that I went, I'm following the rule of the law.

[00:22:15] Eric Goranson: And that's the thing with building codes, right? You're like on section this, it says this, but four paragraphs later in my instance, it actually goes against that. So it, you have two rules, which one are you going to use? And this is international building code and it's like absolute insanity. So it's hard to navigate, but.

[00:22:32] Eric Goranson: We sent, we had to literally ask five or six questions because we're below the right permits on this and the billing department had to come back and say, let me get with the rest of the people in the office because I don't actually know that answer.

[00:22:45] Andy Pace: So you are, you are probably one of the few people who wants to ask those questions because you want to know for sure.

[00:22:52] Andy Pace: There's a lot of the people in the industry would not want to ask the question because it's like calling the IRS and ask him about your taxes. I don't want [00:23:00] to open up that Pandora's box. And so if nobody, Hey, if it's not mentioned, if it's not notated, I guess we're good. Move on. Yeah.

[00:23:08] Eric Goranson: These are

[00:23:08] Andy Pace: all

[00:23:09] Eric Goranson: just conflicts within code.

[00:23:10] Eric Goranson: We were

[00:23:10] Andy Pace: like,

[00:23:10] Eric Goranson: ah, that says that, but that says the other thing. Which one is it?

[00:23:14] Andy Pace: Yeah. Yeah. And then look at an existing home and you're going to be buying an existing home and hiring a home inspector. I've had two situations now, just in the last couple of weeks where. People have come to me saying we hired a home inspector when we bought this monumental dream home and within a year of, of, of moving in, everybody got sick.

[00:23:33] Andy Pace: I have one in particular where her kids developed these very rare neurological issues because of mold exposure. And it's all because the inspection never, never dug deep enough to figure out if there's a mold problem. Um, in a place like the Carolinas. Where mold is prevalent, but also their building methods absolutely stink.

[00:23:57] Andy Pace: And, and sorry to my South Carolina [00:24:00] friends, you need things like vapor control barriers, people, just because you don't do it doesn't mean that it's the right thing. Yeah. So in any event, I think that we could avoid all of this if we just had a way to educate the professionals themselves so they know what to look for.

[00:24:16] Eric Goranson: Yeah, yeah, such a great call because it's crazy like great example out of the project. I've been working on my brother out on the Oregon coast out here building code said, okay, it's an old 50s house. We went through and and we removed most of the material that was moldy exited. I'd literally had water leaks for 20 years inside of it.

[00:24:35] Eric Goranson: It was known as the blue tarp house in there. And so we went through and probably reframed 50 percent of that just to start over in that. But going through it, when we put stuff back in, we did vapor barriers in the right spot. We put in a, uh, a rock wool insulation in the walls when we re insulated just to do stuff that was going to be as durable as we could moving forward.

[00:24:57] Eric Goranson: We used 5H drywall [00:25:00] inside instead of half inch. And Here's the thing, and this is one of the things that I've noticed with new drywall, for instance, and this is the light drywall that we're seeing. If you talk to firefighters and people that are out there testing this stuff, this new lightweight drywall drops down in a fire about 10 minutes earlier than it ever did.

[00:25:19] Eric Goranson: Because they've aerated the drywall mixture. So the screws don't hold. So technically the fire departments are saying, Hey, when you're putting up drywall on a ceiling, you should either be using glues and adhesive or twice the amount of screws. Wow. Just to keep the ceiling up

[00:25:35] Andy Pace: there. So this is the problem that exists.

[00:25:39] Andy Pace: How does that information get disseminated to the trades and then make it into a set of plans and have to be dealt with by the code officials? Because we also see the same thing with TGI Joyce and, and firefighters will tell you, I don't want to enter a home that's fully engulfed. If we know it's TGI, cause it's going to collapse.

[00:25:58] Eric Goranson: Same with trusses, [00:26:00] trusses, where you have the metal plates, five minutes of flame contact on those plates and they go curl, curl, curl, and then you've got all these sticks there and you see these now a new construction where they actually built those trust joists for four systems. And I've talked to a few firefighters here on this show where they walked into a room, they're walking into a room and they could see that the carpet was holding up and it was the tack strip that had still held on the outside, but the center had floored.

[00:26:27] Eric Goranson: So they were basically going to walk into a room, there was a trampoline, but the tack strip was still holding the carpet, but that had actually fallen in. Wow. And so, and the crazy thing is, and again, this comes down to building code, that if those truss manufacturers put two screws in those joints, Holding them together.

[00:26:44] Eric Goranson: You wouldn't have that issue. It would still hold together during that time, but that would be such a simple code thing and take a trust manufacturer and extra two minutes of trust and put those in there, but it just doesn't happen.

[00:26:59] Andy Pace: It [00:27:00] doesn't happen. And this always makes me think about the way homes used to be built, right?

[00:27:04] Andy Pace: With, with full cut dimensional lumber and why these homes, some of these homes still exist today is because of how well they are built with such good materials. Yeah, they had to deal with, with lead and asbestos and so forth. And we know how to deal with that now. The methods of how they did things. And the materials that they used last so much longer than what we we have now.

[00:27:25] Eric Goranson: I think part of it was the homes were insulated. They could breathe. They could dry out. We didn't we weren't trapping everything in I think that's where we started to go sideways if I was going to make a make a guess on this and i'm not a scientist by any means, but it seems like As soon as we started throwing up tar paper in places and, and the plastic on the inside.

[00:27:44] Eric Goranson: And before we put the drywall up and started making all these mold sandwiches, trying to be more efficient. That's when these house things tended to go sideways.

[00:27:51] Andy Pace: Yeah. And so when I give presentations on this, the subject, I always talk about how the industry really changed vastly in the early seventies with [00:28:00] the OPEC oil embargo.

[00:28:02] Andy Pace: And it, it caused commercial buildings and residential builders to start tightening up spaces. To save energy because energy costs were so high in the early seventies. In the eighties, we had that mentality of, of keeping things nice and tight, but then was the explosion in synthetics and plastics. Yep.

[00:28:21] Andy Pace: And so through the eighties, so side note, if you're going to be buying a new, an existing home, I would avoid homes built in the eighties. That's just, that's a general thought. Yeah. There are exceptions, but that's generally speaking.

[00:28:33] Eric Goranson: Don't change that dial around the house. Be right back with more from expert Andrew Pace.

[00:28:38] Eric Goranson: We're talking healthy homes. Welcome back to

[00:28:59] Eric Goranson: the [00:29:00] around the house show, the next generation of home improvement brought to you by our. Our friends over at monument grills. If you're looking for a new grill, check them out at monument grills. com. Now we're going to talk with Andrew pace here. Now this whole interview did not fit into the radio show or podcast.

[00:29:14] Eric Goranson: So you make sure and hit our premium episodes. So you can grab it over there. First 10 days are free. Now let's get back to talking with Andrew.

[00:29:21] Andy Pace: And there's a lot of adhesive used to when they apply this back or push this back together again for shredding it, that there's much more of a chance, especially of the edges of moisture getting in and swelling.

[00:29:31] Andy Pace: And then it turns into a structural issue. It turns into a mold issue. And then you use a CDX plywood in lieu of that. And that eliminates a lot of that problem, but then it's double the cost. And so then I look at it and say something like a zip wall system, which has that WRB is built in that green coding that's built in, which if that's done correctly with the tapes and so forth, it's probably double the cost of OSB as well.

[00:29:56] Andy Pace: Yeah. But in, in, in any of these situations. This is just [00:30:00] one part of the of the entire system. It's one component. So it's one. It's one. It's one cup of water in the lake, right? Right, exactly. And so what you do on the outside of that, on the inside of that, this is where it makes a difference. If you have Uh, an air gap or rain screen between the sheathing and your siding, that's going to eliminate 95 to 99 percent of the moisture working from condensation and wind driven rain.

[00:30:26] Andy Pace: So then it doesn't matter what you

[00:30:27] Eric Goranson: have back there in the sense of water damage, because you've now stopped it and you've given a path for the water to go.

[00:30:34] Andy Pace: Exactly. And then also keep in mind then from a chemical standpoint. Whether it's OSB or plywood, they still have to use adhesives to push them all together, to glue together.

[00:30:45] Andy Pace: These adhesives that are being used now for moisture resistance, exterior grade use, are not urea formaldehyde based. Urea formaldehyde based adhesives can only be used interior because they're not moisture resistant. For [00:31:00] moisture resistance, OSB and plywood, they use what's called phenol formaldehyde or phenolic resin.

[00:31:06] Andy Pace: And this resin is about 200 times less likely to ever become airborne. Matter of fact, in the 30 years of in this business and testing materials, I have never had a phenolic. Resin based panel ever off gas formaldehyde. Nice. So I recommend it all the time.

[00:31:22] Eric Goranson: Yeah. So great example. I just made a, for my around the house, Northwest TV show.

[00:31:26] Eric Goranson: I just made outdoor for my outdoor kitchen. I made countertops at a paper stone.

[00:31:32] Andy Pace: Nice. Love that stuff. It's awesome. It's great. And that is, that's the original phenolic based panel materials. This is. If you remember, if those of us who are old enough to remember Bakelite from way back in the day, Bakelite used for, for candles, for pots, and then like this, what's on top of the electrical poles, the wires wrapped around.

[00:31:52] Andy Pace: Yeah. So basically it's layers of paper soaked in a phenolic resin, and this is what is done now for Paperstone and Rich Light and all these other companies that make [00:32:00] wonderful products. Yeah. It's completely inert. It's incredibly dense, very durable. You can cut directly on it. And while you might scratch the surface a bit, that could be renewed.

[00:32:09] Andy Pace: No big deal, but it won't dull your expensive knives. Yeah. So it's a great product

[00:32:13] Eric Goranson: and I can use it outside. It's heat rated. So I can use it up to, I think it's heat rated up to like 375 degrees. So if I put it next to a barbecue or next to my outdoor pizza oven. I'm not ruining it. It's just so good. And I can cut it like wood.

[00:32:27] Eric Goranson: So I don't have to have a fabricator do it, which I think is the other part. And the thing I liked about paper stone is the stuff I got was FSC certified. So it's clean. It's clean.

[00:32:38] Andy Pace: And I've used that material for exterior cladding, commercial buildings. It's unbelievable. I got a piece outside my office window.

[00:32:45] Andy Pace: And that is a cutoff from one of our jobs. It's been there for, I think, 12 years in the rain, in the snow. I'm in Wisconsin, but it's 20 below zero in the winter and a hundred in the summer. It hasn't changed at

[00:32:55] Eric Goranson: all. Yeah. And if you want it to look really good, throw some of that spray wax on it, [00:33:00] wax, spray wax on it, and man, it looks like it's brand new day one again.

[00:33:04] Andy Pace: Exactly. Yeah. Beautiful material. Yeah, it's great. It's

[00:33:07] Eric Goranson: great. So what do you think now? Here's my question for you. How do we deal with this today? And we're getting so much new information as far as healthy air inside our homes. I think people woke up. About indoor air quality a little bit when they were home during the COVID years here and people started paying attention, but there's, it seems to be a little bit of the wild west.

[00:33:31] Eric Goranson: I put an air scrubber in my house. I'm not going to say the brand name cause I'm going to say something bad about it. But what I don't like about it is, is when my wife is going to go bake, I have to go turn it off and unplug it because it will actually kill the yeast and her dough will not rise. That's wild.

[00:33:50] Eric Goranson: So I'm like, wait a minute. And it's given, it's one of the hydroxyl type systems, right? But I'm like, health wise for me, I'm like, Wait a minute. How [00:34:00] healthy is that for me if that yeast that's sitting there in a bowl on the countertop We just did won't rise and if I take it outside right away and put it outside on the outdoor kitchen counter And it's the same temp.

[00:34:13] Eric Goranson: It does great

[00:34:15] Andy Pace: again. This is like the unintended consequence of trying to do the right thing We're trying to make our inner air quality cleaner, but there's no I should say there's very few ways right now You That we can filter what we want to filter. It's like an RO system for water, right? Yeah. And our reverse osmosis system for water takes everything out of the water.

[00:34:34] Andy Pace: It doesn't just take the bad stuff, but it takes the good stuff out too. And I think like these, these hydroxyl type cleaning systems, they, they sanitize so well that it sanitizes out the good yeast. Yeah, I can definitely see that. And I think that this is where having a good healthy home consultant in the project to say, To ask those questions.

[00:34:56] Andy Pace: It's like having a good interior designer to me. I love working with [00:35:00] really good interior designers because they ask the questions that an architect won't answer. I ask, or a contractor doesn't necessarily ask. They ask, how do you live in your house? So if you told me we like to bake bread, okay. I can't use an air purification system.

[00:35:14] Andy Pace: That's going to kill off all the good yeast as well. So yeah, it's, it's, but we're learning this as we go. And you're right. It's the, because of COVID healthy home. Topics are now top of mind. Yeah. I think that it was a big awakening. Our homes can be the cause of a lot of our problems, not COVID, but all these other things that are happening that.

[00:35:35] Andy Pace: And also in the last five to 10 years, there has been so much research coming out about our, about genetics and about how. There are, there's about 25 percent of the population that has the genetic predisposition to have mold sensitivity and mold sensitivity is what leads to chemical sensitivity and electromagnetic sensitivities.

[00:35:56] Andy Pace: This is all just coming out in the last few years. I think we're on the tip of [00:36:00] the iceberg.

[00:36:00] Eric Goranson: Absolutely. I can walk into a house and being a interior designer, kitchen, a bath designer for 30 years, I could walk into a house because of my mold allergies. I can walk in and go, where's your mold problem? Yeah, I can.

[00:36:14] Eric Goranson: I am like the canary in the coal mine. I can walk in and go, you've got a problem in here. Let's not talk about the kitchen. What's rotting. It's not about I'm, I smell mold. Where is it? You're the human mold dog, right? Yeah. I can get it in five seconds. Literally. I just, wow. I just do that. And so when I was out looking at homes to buy, it's bad.

[00:36:33] Eric Goranson: I can walk in and go, Nope. Don't wanna deal with it. Don't like the house that well, to even go farther. We're out. And what do you mean? So it's

[00:36:39] Andy Pace: ing you, you probably are then in that 25% where you have, um, mold sensitivity. Mm-Hmm, . But you probably also have a very good immune system where it doesn't necessarily affect you quickly.

[00:36:50] Eric Goranson: Yeah, but I'm noticing more great example, and this is something sawdust. If I'm out cutting hem for lumber [00:37:00] all day working on a project and I get it all around my collar and stuff, my neck is all red from broken out. So I'm noticing different sensitivities now at age 53 that I didn't have before.

[00:37:13] Eric Goranson: Because I'm exposed myself to that enough. Right. So that's

[00:37:17] Andy Pace: it. And somebody becomes sensitive to these things usually by long term exposure. Little small exposure, but long term or it's a massive exposure. You, you walk into a house where they just sprayed pesticides or you've been exposed to something at work or whatever the case was, even something like a massive health issue, like.

[00:37:38] Andy Pace: Major surgery or a car accident or childbirth. It can change the body chemistry. So these things can actually change the, how your immune system responds. And so, yeah, I I'm at 53 myself. I'm finding that I am, I am now. Uh, sensitive to things that I'd never thought would be a problem. And I'm in this business, I'm surrounded by healthy materials [00:38:00] all the time.

[00:38:00] Andy Pace: And maybe that's one of the reasons why, because I'm not inundated myself with the garbage all the time that when I do come in contact with the, with the real lousy materials, it instantly hits me,

[00:38:10] Eric Goranson: how do people track you down? Because the green building is such a thing. That should be a normal thing out there.

[00:38:17] Eric Goranson: And for people remodeling, there are people that are building homes. They need to know how to track you down for this kind of stuff, because You're such an amazing resource nationwide for people.

[00:38:27] Andy Pace: Oh, thank you. Best way to find me is our website, thegreendesigncenter. com from that you'll find links to not only the products that I've curated over the years to be the healthiest of the healthy, but also links to consulting to I do a podcast called nontoxic environments.

[00:38:45] Andy Pace: Slowly trying to figure out YouTube and get videos up on YouTube. So that's linked on there. And then I also have a private, what's called a circle community, which is made up of customers and clients that are truly trying to find answers to how do I make this [00:39:00] aspect of my home healthier? What do I do in this situation?

[00:39:02] Andy Pace: It's not, it's not like social media. Or somebody can come on and basically blast you for whatever opinion you have. This is actually people helping people. And I absolutely love it. I do that as a free service for all my, my followers.

[00:39:15] Eric Goranson: Nice, man. I appreciate it, buddy. Thanks for taking the time today, man.

[00:39:19] Eric Goranson: It's been way too long. I'll have to do this again soon because I think we just scratched the surface on this today. Exactly. Thanks, Scott. I appreciate it, Eric. All right. All right, guys, go back and make sure you listen to this one again. Cause there's a lot of information here for you. I'm Eric G and you've been listening to Around the House.

[00:39:36] Eric Goranson: That was a fast hour.

[00:39:38] Andy Pace: Good work. That was fun.