 Hey, I'm so glad you guys joined me today. I am here with Michael Rubino and he is an expert in indoor air quality And this is a topic we have X exercise for many many years We've had lots of questions We've had lots of conversations about this one-on-one, but we've never done a show like this today So Michael has written a book called the mold medic and one of the interesting things about it It's coming out. They're doing a revision of the book right now It's going to be out in a couple of months. One of the most interesting things is many of us have indoor air quality that we are Suffering from it's causing health problems in our lives, and we don't necessarily know that it's caused from air So we're going to unpack that today And we're going to find out some of the things that we need to be aware of because remember when we are aware We have choices right so if we can create a better lifestyle for ourselves by Evaporating the badness in the air that we're breathing and we can create cleaner air quality We can live a cleaner healthier life. So please help me welcome Michael Rubino. How are you today? I'm good Thank you so much for having me here. Thank you I'm going to ask our guests if you have any indoor air quality questions throw them out to us today We're going to answer as many of them as possible Michael if you will tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got so passionate about indoor air quality So my name is Michael Rubino. I am a council certified microbial remediation supervisor so I've been fixing homes for about the last 12 years and It was really Hurricane Sandy that kind of got me into things my dad has been a restoration contractor since I'm five So I've been around construction and remediation and restoration pretty much my entire life after Hurricane Sandy Was right after I finished college moved back home and started working for my dad and going in door-to-door and What I saw after this hurricane was really what would pique my interest it's it's the first time that I ever realized that our homes impact our health and How I came to that realization is as I'm going into people's homes there was this pattern of people complaining of illness and They swore it was going on in the house and again at this time I was you know clueless to this concept You I've heard of mold and bacteria before you know like most people but growing up it was you you know you threw bleach on it you painted over it right no one really understood the the effects that they understand today and After seeing literally hundreds of people being sick inside the home and then figuring out Different protocols and procedures that I can create and follow to make sure that they're getting the relief that they're looking for That was really what transformed into you know this mission that I'm on today Well, I'm so glad that you're willing to join us today because from the other side of it I've been on the house cleaning side of it and as we've gone into many homes Some of the homes are sealed up so tight that air is not getting in or getting out And then we have mold that's building up inside showers Or we have the pink slime that that ends up around the rings of wherever the water drains out Whether it's a bathtub. It's a toilet. It's inside sinks And so we have dealt with a lot of that because the air in the homes is sealed and that there's not proper ventilation So if you will tell us some of the risks that are inside people's homes We'll just start with a broad scope and then we'll start narrowing it down What are some of the things that people should be looking for as far as air quality in their homes? What are some of the triggers that that? Come up. Yeah, so I think the big things with air quality inside the home mold and bacteria those are probably you know Primary evil number one because water damage creates this ecosystem where mold and bacteria start to grow and thrive and They are insidious. They could be hidden and they duplicate quite rapidly They also can get into the HVAC system over time and contaminate the HVAC system And so, you know, you know, it this is something that can spread pretty quick and affect the air quality pretty quick We also have things like VOCs for maldehyde, radon, lead, asbestos Other components inside the home and especially talking about ventilation Just the human body produces bacteria into the environment. We have chemicals that we use especially, you know in cleaning All of these things can accumulate in the environment and if we don't have enough ventilation as you just mentioned Unfortunately, these things accumulate and our body becomes kind of the air filter if you will for what's going on in the home And so it ends up being a totality of what are we looking at in the environment and how do we make improvements to it? And that's kind of my role when I when I'm brought into a home Well, there are different kinds of homes that I've personally cleaned in and there are homes that just have mold Isolated to the showers and the tubs and then there are homes where maybe clutter has gotten out of hand so much to the point that we're tripping over our Stuff to try to get to the appliances and oftentimes there will be things that go awry There's a leaky faucet or there's a leaky washing machine or a bathtub or something and sometimes the the water drips down behind The the faucet itself for example or there's a leak in a pipe or something and without getting that taken care of it Creates mold and the mold starts to appear on the walls in the ceiling And so sometimes I've gone into homes and just walking into the home You can smell a musty smell sometimes It's a musty basement where there is no ventilation down there Can you talk to us for a second about ventilation and the power of ventilation and what we need to know to keep our Home safer and then we'll talk about some of the cleanup Possibilities. Yeah, so there's a great saying in the scientific community and it is the solution to pollution is dilution And what they're saying is is that when you start bringing in fresh air You're diluting the amount of particles that are in the air that are then getting into the body You know, we have to remember that we take 20,000 breaths per day That's a lot of air that we consume It's actually enough air to fill up a normal-sized swimming pool every single day and what's in that air is really really important And so if we don't have enough ventilation and that stagnant air is just accumulating particles You're gonna be breathing in a higher concentration of particles than if you had more ventilation, right? So that's why when you have odors and things, what do you typically do you open up windows, right? What does that do that brings in more fresh air and it dilutes the amount of particles entering the body? What's interesting about our olfactory senses, which is you know, the one when you're smelling how you're actually smelling They're detecting particles and those particles then represent a specific smell that your brain recognizes What's interesting about that is the less amount of particles that you are actually breathing in the less you will actually smell That's why opening these windows and diluting the amount of particles present Is very helpful However, if we have all of these things growing in our environment, we can't leave windows open 24 7 of course, right? We're gonna have different climate changes We're gonna have raining outside and more humidity that we might not want to add into our environment so we want to look at where are the sources and how do we properly remove them and that's really a big part of the equation so Ventilation is definitely very very important so that particles do not Accumulate and enter our body in higher concentrations Especially in things like bathrooms where we need to get that moisture out of the way in basements We need to get that moisture that dries to the drier side, which is inside the basement up and out of the house So these are really important points What would you say to the person that lives inside a home that doesn't have let's say a bathroom window that opens? And so let's say there's stink or whatever in the bathroom and so they just add a spray to spray down that smell Well, most likely you're adding some sort of chemical To add to fuel some fuel to the fire here that you're gonna be consistently breathing in Really the best thing to do if you don't have a bathroom window Get a bathroom fan. I know you have to hire somebody and put it in and there's a cost to that But that cost is a massive investment for you because every time you shower or bathe Every time you use the facilities, you know You're creating a bunch of bacteria a bunch of moisture, etc That you want to get out of the environment so you're not living with that and breathing it in or creating an environment Where mold and bacteria begin to thrive So would you say that if the bathroom already has a fan that every time you go in there to take a shower or use Facilities that you turn that fan on and let the air start circulating That would be an amazing thing to do, you know, we have these fans We want to use them for a reason that reason is to get the moisture out to get any bacteria or any particles that are accumulating out of the the you know through the bath fan. It typically is going to be routed outside Which is what you want sometimes they route into the attic by the way And if yours routes into the attic, please check that and have that properly routed outside because you don't want to add all those that Moisture that bacteria, etc into the attic Okay, so tell us about the ventilation fan that's inside the bathroom. How does that work? It routes somewhere and Then what happens does is does that circulate through your house when you flip on the air conditioning or the heater system? Or does that just like escape into a funnel somewhere is it trapped through your air filters? Like tell us as if we have no idea what happens when we turn that fan on Okay So it's essentially a box that mounts into the ceiling and it's got a fan on it and that fan actually blows the air Away from the bathroom. There'll be a duct that's connected to it That duck will run typically outside. The only time you don't see it run outside is if it runs into the attic If it doesn't have a duct at all, that's a bigger issue That just means it wasn't installed properly, but that duck then runs outside and What it does it takes the moisture the air any particles along with it from inside your bathroom to the outside of the home That essentially it's like a vacuum. It's pushing all that stuff outside and that's what you want And so I know that in the house there are air filters we can change But I don't think there's one you can change in that vent fan So is that is that a problem or is is other or are other vents going to remove? Particles from the air like how does it work in tandem with the whole HVAC system? So it is not part of the traditional Central HVAC system as we know it like the the thermostat that we go over to and change the temperature it's it's a standalone component and The only thing you really need to worry about is cleaning it, you know Probably once or twice a year just like you would your dryer vent As I'm saying this if you're like, what are you talking about? I have never cleaned my dryer vent, please Clean your dryer vent. These are this is another mechanical ventilation system But it's separate and apart from what we traditionally know is HVAC HVAC typically has filters This bath fan does not have a filter so it's pulling the particles and pushing it outside But that does mean that over time the fan blades of the motor will get caked up The duck work itself can get some dust residues stuck inside of it And so just like when you clean your your HVAC machine or your HVAC ducts You'll want to also look at cleaning your bath fans your bath fan duck work your dryer vents, etc Now is that something that a homeowner is expected to do or is that something that the HVAC company does? That is something that a homeowner is expected to do I can't tell you how many homeowners. I've talked to That when you start telling them all the different things that they're supposed to be doing the first question They ask is my HVAC guy doing that. I bet you he is not because You know, they come over and they'll do this tune up and they'll change some filters But most of them aren't even cleaning the coils. They're not cleaning the duck work Unless you specifically asked them to and of course, they'll be you know, some fee associated with that But you want to definitely find out what your HVAC guy does do when he comes over and Make a list of those things because odds are this is probably not part of that list So you mentioned cleaning the duct work. Tell me more about that All right, so as we just mentioned right over time We have dust that gets sucked up into this duct work and that's true for the bath fans It's true for the HVAC itself. It's true for dryer vents, etc, etc We want to actually clean and remove the dust that accumulates in this duct work Reason being is because if it doesn't any time that fan shuts off it can blow back into the house Anytime the HVAC shuts off it can blow back into the house So you want to really be mindful of that and we're trying to have a dust-free environment And the reason being is because within our dust, we're gonna have mold. We're gonna have bacteria We're gonna have all these different toxins and particles that we don't want to be breathing in consistently That's why I want to try to really make dust and everything else kind of public enemy number one here and get rid of it Thank you so much for that answer and I want to say thank you for all of you That are asking questions in the comments bar on the side. I want to jump in real quick And I want to say hi to you guys. I'm super glad that you're here We have Mackenzie Ryan This is how often or at all would you recommend professional duct cleaning if recommended What are some green and red flags to look for in duct cleaning service providers? That is an excellent question That is an excellent question. So what I typically recommend, you know in the spring and in the fall these are two critical time periods where you want to service your ventilation equipment and Change filters and all of that and it's mainly because you're gonna be switching over from cooling the heating and from heating the cooling Etc. Etc through that time different components of the HVAC system itself get utilized and At that point we want to make sure that they are clean because with that coil Which is really one of the bigger issues with mold and bacteria if that dries out and it's not cleaned now those Bacteria particles or mold particles that maybe they're they die off They'll actually become brittle and become a lot easier to spread around the house and then enter the body with each breath So we want to those are the two times you want to clean it So twice a year would be ideal if you know if for some reason it's not in the budget at least do it once a year and I would probably pick that time of year to do in the winter time right in that fall period and I think that's gonna be the best thing for you as far as red or green flags I'll tell you the best certifying body that I find for duct cleaning and HVAC servicing would be Natca which stands for the National Air duct cleaning Association and I'm a little biased It's the only Real association that has anything to do with mold and because I see so much mold is such a big problem I I tend to find the most thorough people with with knowledge of microbiological activities Well, thank you for that and thank you for letting us know a little bit more about the importance of having your coils cleaned and stuff like that tell us about what what should we budget for having an HVAC cleaning and having it includes stuff like the vent in the bathroom and All the things that might not be added to our services. I would say you should probably budget about a thousand dollars a year and That's for each system So some of you may have one system in your house Some of you may have two or more you want to budget about a thousand dollars per system And that should help you with filter replacements cleaning the system and just making sure that you're staying on top of the maintenance of that And I'm glad you said that because that sounds like a lot of money And I want to stop for just a second and say when you don't take care of your health and when you can't breathe The the challenges that you have on a medical side will cost so much more than the maintenance on your air conditioning unit And that is really really critical because I've seen so many people that live in environments where they are becoming I don't know. What do you call it respiratory victims and they're they're using like They have emphysema and they have all different kinds of breathing Apparatuses and oxygen tanks and things like that to try to replace the breathing that's been damaged that Could have been cured by other things that have added to the the breathing Problems in their lives and I know the people that I'm thinking of they have greenhouses attached to the side of their homes And they just can't breathe. They've brought in a lot of moisture and a lot of air that is not monitored We were talking before the show began about wine rooms where people have wine rooms and they got to have humidity at a certain level Can you address some of these issues Michael and tell us some of the things that maybe we're not we're not aware of even that are causing Breathing challenges in our homes with too much moisture in the air Well, that's just it so mold can start to grow in as little as 60 percent relative humidity alright, so Based upon the building materials utilized typically in North American construction We have to really be cognizant of that a wine room for example Most people want to keep the humidity at 60 percent or even maybe even slightly above 60 percent Well, that can create a problem with condensation because you're gonna have obviously duct work You're gonna have temperature controls if they're as you change the humidity you really change the Actual dew point that's easily to develop Which you have to be concerned about things like metal vents right where they can condensate pretty easily when the humidity is that high You also have to be concerned about things like drywall, you know Most of our houses are built of drywall and they have porous insulation behind that And so if the drywall and insulation are absorbing too much moisture You're allowing this ability for mold and bacteria to start to grow and thrive So it becomes a bit of a challenge, you know in comes ventilation So ventilation if you want to have a wine room at 60 percent relative humidity It's gonna be really important to have Ventilation controls in place that will take that humid air out exchange it with fresh air in and control that Just that air movement controls is gonna help things from becoming too stagnant and allow mold and bacteria to really start to grow and thrive so Unfortunately, the reason I brought up wine rooms in the first place is because I've had so many clients where they have wine rooms Or they're trying to create wine rooms and they don't think about this and then all of the sudden We're having to rip apart their wine room and completely remediate it and fix it up Just because of that aspect. This is the same thing for greenhouses. If you have an attached greenhouse You know to your property. I mean think about how much moisture is going to be in that air If you open the door between your interior and your greenhouse you can create an issue Also, it's pretty hard to create a hermetic seal meaning a hundred percent sealed space So that means if you've got it attached You might be having some cracks and crevices that just can't be a hundred percent sealed Where essentially that moisture is getting into the house And so, you know, we're creating this recipe for Disaster potentially if we don't have certain things in control now if I had an attached greenhouse again I would be looking at what are ways I could ventilate this space and get get some airflow movement in here So I'm not worried about having, you know, this this ability for mold and bacteria to grow which is very very important we had a client that had an indoor swimming pool and the I Don't know it wasn't it wasn't ventilated properly it was a house that had a swimming pool in the basement and Unfortunately, the whole entire house took over really quickly with mold and it should have been condemned and and you know Started over again, but they kept trying to sell the house and then somebody would come in and they would live there for a Couple months and then they would try to sell the house and it would sit on the market for a year And it it was just really kind of a disaster because of the indoor swimming pool and they ended up Filling in the swimming pool with cement just to try to like end it all and try to but but they ended up Literally redoing big chunks of the house to try to get rid of the mold Can you tell us about what happens when mold takes over a house and the damage that it can do to the property? Yeah, so it gets pretty pervasive pretty quickly, you know So if I've got an indoor swimming pool, for example, and I don't have proper ventilation controls And there's no way to really protect it from developing mold and bacteria Well, has that mold and bacteria starts to grow in the basement. Unfortunately, it's not gonna just stay in the basement It is first off air does rise, right? So we have something called the stack house effect 30% of the air that you're breathing on the first floor of your house comes from the lowest point of your house Which in this case would be a basement sometimes it's a crawl space if I have mold growing there Those particles will emanate up into the actual living space Now if I have little moisture issues in the first floor those spores Think of them as like seeds from a weed Will then migrate into these just through natural air pressure and aerosolization will migrate into these moisture areas And then start to grow into organisms there and then reproduce Now it gets into the HVAC system and it contaminates the HVAC system that evaporative coil Which is the piece of the unit by the way that that constantly Consonates now that starts to grow mold and bacteria and that thing becomes a mold and bacteria factory now You know, I'm looking up right now. I've got vents here I encourage you to do the same thing think about how many vents are in different rooms of your house right now That stuff is going to be leaking out of every then and every room I mean now you've just literally impacted you can't go anywhere in the house without breathing in this contaminated air at that point That happens all too often and I'll tell you I work with celebrities. I work with Families I work with people it with low income I mean at the end of the day it does not discriminate if this stuff wants to if this stuff has the capability of growing It has the capability of getting everywhere if you don't get it under control And that's why I always say when I look at you know air quality inside of a home I mold and bacteria these things Because of how quickly they can reproduce How small they are so small you can't even see them it really gets to this point where it can take over pretty quickly unfortunately Tell us about some of the health concerns that are associated with mold and and breathing Mold and the sickness that it causes Well, there are so many that it's actually scary You know, I think a lot of us think about respiratory issues Right when we think about mold and bacteria and air quality and things of that nature And it's just because it obviously impacts our lungs, but actually mold and bacteria are so small They typically bypass our self-defense mechanisms like our lungs and they enter the bloodstream and that's where they can really wreak havoc because certain species of mold for example like Penicillium Produce what's called mycophanelic acid. If you have never heard of mycophanelic acid, you'll find this interesting Mycophanelic acid is what is used to make immune-suppressant drugs out of Specifically for people who are getting organ transplants or major surgeries where they you know They're worried about the organ being rejected because it's a foreign entity Well, if you think about it from that perspective if this if this is actually used to Suppress your immune system on purpose when it's in your home and you're constantly breathing it in it's suppressing your immune system on accident and When you have a suppressed immune system now you become more susceptible to viruses and back other bacteria and things of that nature Where you can get sick more frequently You're dealing with chronic fatigue typically You could be dealing with things like rheumatoid arthritis skin issues gut issues Sebo eczema, I mean it really it really is just such a wide reaching thing we also have the work that dr. Dale Bredesen is doing on the Inhalational Alzheimer's and early onset of dementia. So now we're getting more into, you know How it affects our brain and mental health? It is very far wide reaching to make things even worse Certain species of molds can produce a toxin called mycotoxins and different toxins can be carcinogenic Create all sorts of systemic issues inside of our bodies disrupting path, you know pathways It's more than just an allergy It's more than just some respiratory things and we are learning new information Believe me every single day on the different things that it affects. I'll tell you another interesting thing just from the health standpoint I've been I've been I've worked with thousands of people. I've seen people from Lyme disease At any autoimmune disease you can think of POTS. I've seen in pans and pandas with kids All of these different autoimmune disease issues The one thing I've noticed is for some reason I don't understand why exactly but every single person With an autoimmune disease seems to be wildly susceptible to mold illness meaning they will they they will have some sort of symptom symptomatology or reaction to mold that someone else might not normally have and even I'm talking even smaller Amounts of mold that an otherwise healthy person might feel find around and that's why it's so interesting because I can walk Into a house of a family of four and I'll have maybe two of the four complaining his symptoms the other two are saying I don't know I I feel fine, you know, and There's a lot there to unpack from the clinical side of things But it's worth mentioning because I think there's still so much. We don't know yet That's why I think don't be the guinea pig, you know, get your air quality in order now So you don't have to worry about these things happening to you Well, I think and I'm not just trying to scare you guys But I want us to be aware because when we are aware we have choices I know that during the dry parts of the year many people will go out by humidifier And they just pump up lots and lots of water through the house. How do they know when enough is enough? Well, we need hygrometers. So a real Inexpensive thing to do would be to you know, just get a humidity monitor. It's the technical term would be hygrometer Amazon sells them for 10 15 bucks Put them in the room because once you reach a certain threshold in this case I would say set your threshold at 50% You could shut it off. I could tell you horror stories of people that left that thing running forgot You know, there's no no sort of humidity stat on it and they came back home And the walls are literally sweating and then they start getting you know, like almost literal mushrooms growing on the walls So these things can be pretty problematic if you're not in control I mean, there's also obviously too little humidities is no good either So we want to kind of have this sweet balance of 35% to 50% Because once you get over 50% you get a little too close to comfort for where mold and bacteria can start to grow Tell me if you will about the air filter units in our house I know that many of us have air filters, but we have no idea like the Merv ratings We don't know what we're supposed to put in there We know that the size it's right the right size But they sell so many different types of air filters like how do we know what what kind we're supposed to have in our house? Yeah, so there every single filter has what's called the Merv rating and it's essentially an efficiency rating and There's great charts you guys can Google up online right now But essentially the higher the rating that you have the smaller the particle that it can remove at a higher efficiency rate So I'll give you an example like I think it's Merv 8 only removes 50% or so of some of these smaller particles We're talking about when you jump up to like a Merv 13. It gets up to 75%. That's a big jump And that means that 75% of the time it's removing these smaller particles I have a Merv 16 in my house and in Merv 16 removes those same particles. We're talking about 95% of the time Unfortunately, you can't go above Merv 16 right now. The technology just isn't there yet in a residential setting But it is available for things, you know commercial properties hospitals, etc So we want the best rating that money can buy and that our system can handle and I think that's a big thing So the particular piece of equipment I have it's a Merv 16 But it only has the pressure drop of a Merv 8 now That's really important because if you just buy like a Standard Merv 16 filter would probably be somewhere around a few inches thick This is gonna create a lot of friction. So you're gonna need something probably you have to install into your system to get that high of efficiency This really does matter, you know when you go to Costco or wherever and you want to buy the cheapest filter possible That comes at a great cost, you know the cost of your health is really on the opposite side of things and I'll tell you for a few pennies more or a few dollars more Upgrading that filter is gonna be a very very smart decision. Otherwise, you're gonna get more allergies You're gonna get susceptible to more illness because you're you're not gonna be removing particles from the air You're actually gonna be letting them accumulate and just continuing to redistribute them from one room to the next room So that filter really makes a difference I know that when we closed on our house The air filters were like see-through they were green and they were like just kind of like this will pass the test But when you compared it to everything else on the market, there was no comparison The other ones had little ripples in them and they had wire across them and they had all kinds of you know So just by looking at it, you can't tell you have to go with the Merv rating. Is that correct? Well, I mean if you could see holes in it, you know, I bet you that Merv rating was was awfully low I mean, I think the what one you're talking about, you know, they're blue or they're green, but they almost look like criss-crosses Yes, yes, almost like a little tennis racket material. Yes Those those filters really are good at doing one thing Removing massive particles the size of a long piece of hair Maybe everything else dust and all the microbiological particles were concerned about and toxins and bacteria that stuff will bypass that Like nothing actually if you were to zoom in on that under a microscope 25 to 50 times smaller Because that's about what the size like mold or bacteria would be by the way It'd be like a theme park entrance. It'd be saying come on in. There's just no resistance So we we you know, we want to be mindful of those types of things get get better filters You know, just remember even though it looks like it's completely, you know pleated or opaque if you will If you were to really think about expanding it out You wouldn't you would notice there'd be some holes and stuff because it has to have something to let the air pass through and You know something so small that can bypass it and just go right in that's really what we want to be concerned about There's a term in the air filter industry that's called HEPA Can you tell us about HEPA and what that is and is it as important as the hype? Yeah, so HEPA is basically a standard that in order to meet this standard You have to get at least three microns in particle size You have to have a certain Proof of sealage so that you don't have too much Pockets of bypass if you have pockets of bypass then particles are entering those pockets and they're passing through the filter making it Not not efficient. So that's it's pretty much a standard So you could have HEPA right and you reach a certain standard But then nerve rating also tells you a little bit more information in terms of okay What particle size am I removing at what efficiency whereas HEPA is just as long as it gets the three microns? That's that's it. That's the standard the HEPA standard was created in the 1940s by the way and You know, we're in 2024 right now And I'd say we could certainly do better with the technology we had today to do way better than HEPA And that's what we're really looking to strive for So if I'm an average household and let's just make this up Let's say I have one cat and two dogs. What kind of a nerve rating do I need for the air filters that I put inside my house? Listen, I tell everyone if you can if you can swing it if it's feasible because you know, you typically to get a Merve-16 you have to install some sort of apparatus. It's not just a simple filter change Get the Merve-16 if it's just too big of a headache too big of a hassle or too expensive Probably the best you will be able to get that doesn't require any sort of parts that go into the HVAC system would be the Merve-13 and I would say get at least the Merve-13 please because at least you're getting a you know a Pretty high enough percentage of these tiny particles. It's gonna do a much better job Every time you go below that Merve-13 if you google one of these charts, I'm telling you about you'll see side by side The levels of efficiency drop dramatically to the point where you might only be filtering out 25% of the time Some of the particles you might be concerned about and so when you get to that level, it's it's a bit You know, it's a bit scary. So I'd say get get the Merve-13 at a minimum And how often should we be replacing our air filters in our homes? Well, that's a great question, you know part of it depends on what filter you have and the manufacturer's recommendations You know, like the filter I have it actually lasts a year and a half to three years. It's amazing Most filters they don't they last about anywhere from two to three months and So if you have like a Merve-8 or 13 standard one-inch filter, you've got to change that every two to three months and Let's be honest because I've been there myself. We don't change them frequently enough. I know that for house cleaners, we have a special package that we offer and it is an update package and it's for people that forget things like changing the batteries on your carbon monoxide filter replacing your air filters Replacing the flapper in the back of your toilet and some of the little odds and ends household things that we do because we're inside the homes on a Regular basis and can update those on a regular basis when the HVAC system might only come out twice a year to do the maintenance And so I'm a really big believer because of the sickness and the illnesses that we've seen that you've touched on today That a lot of that is triggered by the indoor air quality that we have Can you tell us a little bit about dust and how dust can also affect the indoor air quality that you breathe? Yeah, and by the way, I love what you said because prevention is honestly the cheapest way to deal with these things I mean once they become problems they become very expensive to deal with Dust is really really important Having a routine cleaning regimen in place is extremely important because We we think of our dust as just our dead hair and skin cells, right? the if you've ever sat near a couch on a sunny day and You know your bio window and that ray of light peeks through and the first thing you see is all this dust in the air That's refracting off the light And what's really interesting about that is that's probably the first time you ever said oh my god I have a lot of dust in my air right now And that's probably the last time you ever thought about you're the quality of air you're breathing but yes, you're you're just consistently breathing in dust all day long and The amount of dust that you're breathing in really depends on how well And how often you are cleaning and the dust is not just your head your dead hair and skin cells Unfortunately, it's also an accumulation of mold and an accumulation of bacteria and viruses and toxins and chemicals and all of the things that essentially escape into our environment and Then attached to our dust while it's in the air become a part of the dust and then settle back down on the floor so I would say Dust is a is a big deal When we're when we're talking about our health and well-being it is definitely something that we want to stay on top of removing otherwise You know if if if you let your home get caked in an inch of dust and I've been to homes like that You know, I know life happens and then it can get difficult, but you are definitely Impacting your health by letting that much dust accumulate in your environment. So please please please take this cleaning regimen important Well, and thank you for bringing that up. I know that also as we've gone inside people's homes Sometimes there are issues where we have dust we have pet dander We have mold issues and then we have chemical issues and the chemical issues are cleaning Supplies on top of cleaning supplies on top of cleaning supplies And a lot of times people say my house smells icky and then they just spray We won't say any brand names, but they spray things in the air that are supposed to make their house smell fresher And so you walk in and literally your eyes will just turn red like instantly when you walk in and your nose kind of like And you just you're like whoa what just happened to me I I I feel really bad and I hate to say this because I'm not trying to be ugly But I've I've cleaned people's homes where after I've cleaned their home I've gone home and I'm ill for 24 hours. I'm physically sick from the stuff That was in the air that I breathed inside the home and it's a compilation of things But you go inside a home and you get to a point I get asked this question every day because we have clients and and I represent house cleaners across the country Well many countries, but I represent house cleaners who go inside people's homes and they're like I'm so sick at the end of the clean that I just did That I I have to take a day off in between so I can recover before I go to the next cleaning job Can you tell us a little bit about chemical sprays that people are spraying in their homes to? Make the house smell fresh again, or their little sprays that you plug into the wall and it shoots stuff into the air Yeah, I mean we have to remember first that if the house smells it smells for a reason There is a source of something growing Producing particles the particles are what you're actually smelling so that is step one right you could spray all the chemicals in the world But you are not actually getting rid of the problem you are masking it and so now you're breathing in the original particles and then all these chemicals at the exact same time and that's not great because that's kind of Just introducing more particles to the body that the body has to fight hard to remove and Some of these particles depending on what they are could be immune disruptors that are weakening the immune system so when you're living in the house you have guests over or if you're cleaning the house and You're disrupting all of these things And adding another cleaning product into the mix to then get rid of the other cleaning products You see how we're compounding this There is a smorgasbord of particles and chemicals and things that we are breathing in at that point that would make anybody not feel well after that and You know just to give people's a visual here Yeah, you could be the healthiest person in the world But if I drop you in the middle of a dust storm and you're inhaling dust for Hours right? That's how long it takes to really clean a house. You're not gonna feel well, right? And the reason being is because you're just overloading your body with particles it has to fight to remove them You're gonna be coughing snoopy your your mucus membranes are gonna be caught up like all the self-defect defense mechanisms that you have To capture these things will become extremely overloaded because it's just there's only so much it can do in a specific amount of time and That's not good and imagine, you know, if you're living in that 24 7 that's not good either And so if you see somebody come over and just get sick in a few hours and white be wiped out the next day I mean think about what that's doing to your body 365 days a year and over time. I mean that that that can definitely Take time off the end of your life Well, the reason one of the reasons that I wanted to have this conversation today is because a home is a safe place For somebody it's their home of it's their place of refuge. It's where they go to find solace from a Tough day and a tough life and all the things and so when they go home I want them to go home to a clean home And I want them to go home to a home that makes them fill well not fill ill And many people are like I feel sick all the time and I don't know why and if you've watched TV lately I don't know why I know it's on my TV But there are all these just diseases and problems and ask your doctor if this is right for you And we got this new medication for this that and the other and whatever our bodies are sicker than we've ever been before I feel like our systems are breaking down Even though we're we're trying to be healthy I feel like we're we're less healthy than we've ever been But I do think there are things we can do about it starting with our homes And so I believe everybody deserves to live in a clean place. I believe that and I want that for you guys I really want that But I think that we have to start taking responsibility for our own health Starting with our own homes and I think the indoor air quality that we breathe is one of those ways That we can say hey, wait a second. I can pay attention and I can change my my air filters more frequently I can watch for the signs of mold. I can start checking my humidity levels inside my home I can remove the dust from my home Are there any other things that we can be doing at a Personal level to start improving the indoor air quality of our homes Yeah, I think home maintenance is really key You know, we have to maintain our homes when Windows leak or a plumbing leak happens You can't just wait till next month and deal with it then you've got 24 to 48 hours to clean it up properly and make sure it's dry But before mold and bacteria can start to grow I mean it happens that quick and then it just grows and grows and becomes a bigger and bigger issue So I'd say that is that is a really important thing and do routine inspections on your home You know check the roof before it leaks see how the integrity of the roof is check the windows and doors before they leak You know is if you're if you're taking action over it and you're proactive You're gonna save so much money in the long run, you know dealing with some of these things Maintain your HVAC system well get that clean twice a year like we talked about change those filters upgrade the better filters if you can All those things make make a major difference. Make sure you have better ventilation, you know, if your home is built too tight You know a lot of these modern homes are there's something called an ERV system where you can add mechanical ventilation to your home To make sure that you're bringing in fresh air All of that could be scientifically calculated and improved upon Get your cleaning routine down pat, you know, not only do we need a cleaning routine as an everyday basis We need spring cleaning too, you know, I feel like spring cleaning is kind of gone out the window I can remember growing up as a kid Every spring my mom would put me to work and I'd be working in the house cleaning up the house right alongside of her and That part is so important because now we're cleaning all of the stuff that we don't typically clean where dust can accumulate over time and so we want to get rid of that those things too and Air purifiers are great. We purify our water. We should be purifying our air It's essentially a vacuum with a filter on it. So the more filters trapping particles in the air, you know The cleaner the air is so I think a lot of those things are really important I also helped develop a at-home mold test Using PCR technology testing the dust the test is called the dust test They're real simple there and that's a great thing to have because honestly Sometimes we have problems behind our walls behind ceilings in the HVAC and we have no idea. We can't see it we don't have x-ray vision and These mold inspectors that people call, you know from Google and things of that nature a lot of them just want to set up an air test in the center of the room And they miss stuff because the problems likely aren't in the center They're likely on a next-year wall and into your plumbing wall near a window, etc And this is much more a much more affordable way to actually get the scientific documentation that you need with all the different data points and From there, you know if our home does have a lot of mold guess what now we have the information We could take the next step to do something about it. You know, I love what you said earlier about, you know this information Allows you to make choices it does and you know, there are two ways to live life. It's Sometimes bad things happen, right? Things that that we consider not optimal And it sucks when those things do happen, right? And we have two options at that point We could be the victim Or we could do something about it and get ourselves into a better situation, you know and it's how do you do that you do it one step at a time and I I think people need to be empowered and feel empowered to take those steps and you do that through information So I love what you said about that because hopefully if you are listening to this or watching this You are getting the information you need to take those steps and they're not hard to take Well, I want to say thank you for that and I also want to say hi to all of our friends here I got people that are saying hi so hi Kami. It's good to see you guys and she says hello Michael. Hello Kami It's good to see you CJ says how much odor does a product such as Fabrice eliminate or does it also just mask? Thank you. Great question It just mass it unfortunately So a particle cannot be created nor destroyed I don't know if you've ever heard that scientific terminology, but it essentially When you have particles in your environment, you have to remove them when you have sources of microorganisms Creating particles in your environment. The only way to get rid of them is to remove them So when you think about what are we doing when we're mopping our floors? We're removing the residue We're removing the dust from our floors when we vacuum we're removing it I'm gonna give you a really good example Okay, so if I had a ton of you know grudge and Crumbs and stuff all over my kitchen countertops Would I just spray a product like for breeze and just walk away? No I'm gonna get it get get some sort of Surfectant solution that degreases. I'm gonna wipe it down probably with some sort of sponge towel Whatever, I'm gonna remove those things put them in the garbage Now the reason I'm doing that is because I need to remove those particles There is nothing on the planet that I could use that would just dissolve it all away And I would never have to deal with it, right? If it did exist it would just break them down into smaller and smaller and smaller particles till I couldn't see them So we have to be really mindful of these things, you know We nothing is going to kill these particles or remove them or dissolve them or destroy them It's impossible. All we do is break them down into smaller and smaller particles So therefore think about it from any brand anything that I just said it is unfortunately just masking it Well, that is really interesting information Thank you for sharing that and also hi to El Sandra Brackens who says hello Angela and Michael Thank you for the information We have McKenzie Ryan who asks a great question for lower income clients Is it worthwhile or possible to attempt DIY service on coil cleanings versus not doing it at all? Hey listen anything is possible, you know, I had to start somewhere I didn't become an expert in my field until I actually started to study it learned about it tried it trial and errored it and then Evolved and adapted, you know, you might have never cleaned a coil before in your life But we have YouTube today, right? We can go on YouTube. Look at how do we clean the coil? We could try it There are ways it doing something is 100% better than doing nothing I will tell you that and don't let price and your ability to buy something stop you from doing something That's going to help provide a tremendous amount of value in your life, you know You can learn how to remediate you can learn how to clean a coil Just like you can learn how to do anything in your life And so, you know, I please encourage you that don't let that be a barrier for you and take the time to learn and take some action on it Awesome McKenzie also asks a question McKenzie. Thank you for the great questions today Is there a waste of money to have my HVAC system service every spring even though I change the filters myself every 30 to 90 days? McKenzie, I will say that entirely depends on what this quote-unquote service actually is if you are if they are just coming to Replace the filters and they're not really doing much else is probably a giant waste of money If they're going to be cleaning the coil and cleaning the blower housing unit in the cabinet And tuning up the system making sure it's charged then. Yeah, it might provide some value But it really depends. I mean a lot of these guys They do just charge money to come in and change the filters and tell you everything is good And yeah, you already did that just two months ago, right? So if that's the case there's not enough value there I think asking what they actually are doing and having them explain it to you In simple terms that you can understand because sometimes they'll use jargon that you have to be like in the HVAC profession to really understand Tell them to break it down for you. You want to know what does that exactly mean? What are you physically doing and better yet? Watch them next time they come over and actually see what they're doing and that'll help you understand Is it a waste of money or not? I Appreciate that. Thank you for for giving us that inside scoop Wendy Wright said we had our our 100 year old basement skim coded by the owners The guys were down there in the winter for three weeks and never covered the heating vents So the house was the entire house was full of fester Can you address this and tell us what maybe the next steps would have been? Yeah, so You know, I'm not sure exactly what they skim coded it with or what that process was like But any sort of skim coding anything is going to add unfortunately a tremendous amount of moisture in the air because it's got to evaporate and cure With that being said you'll need something like ventilation or de humidification to control the amount of moisture that's growing in the air From that point, you know having these vents down there Of course with returns that are sucking the air from the basement in and that moisture and any mold or bacteria that might have grown Not ideal what I would do in your situation is first off I would probably do some sort of test to make sure that you don't have mold growing in This whole skimming action that they did because that would be a problem that you would want to resolve with them The second thing that I would do is I would clean the ducts clean the coil Because whatever moisture or mold might have gotten from there into the system Unfortunately, it's going to continue to grow out of control unless it's dealt with now Here's the tricky part if you still have mold in that basement because Unfortunately, whatever they did and they didn't have the right equipment set up to handle it while it was curing If you left that alone and just clean the system well, then it can get back into the system, right? So I would say, you know in tandem you want to really understand what happened with that basement What's what sort of damage needs to be undone and then put it together with the HVAC system so that it's done in the proper sequence One of the things that we haven't really talked so much about but I would like to bring it up again because we've got just a couple more minutes left is Calling a remediator when you see leaks inside your house to get your house tested for moisture I know that a lot of insurance companies have rules and regulations about how long you have to you know Within a certain window you have to file an insurance claim if there is damage to your property Otherwise, they'll consider it neglect and they won't cover it Can you talk to us for a little bit about what happens if let's say a pipe busted in your house and you Turned off the water and you dried up the water, but maybe there's damage that you can't see Yeah, so I mean if you have let's say a water leak, you know, and you have home insurance One of the things you want to look at your policy They will actually tell you stipulations in your policy of when you need to contact them by or at the very least when you need to take action to get somebody there to to help dry the place out and if you don't do that within that time period, they now have a Cause to essentially deny your claim is you want to be very careful about that if you own a home right now And you know you have home insurance Odds are you got it once and maybe it was years ago and you haven't looked at it since Call your broker ask for your copy And make sure you read it so you can educate yourself on it because when you have a water event It could get really costly really quickly And so you want to make sure you're covered for those things you have a statute of limitations, so you might have had a leak let's say a year and a half ago and You know you brought everybody in at the time you dried it out a year and a half later You're starting off feeling well you get an inspector in you find mold in that exact location where that leak was if you're within that two-year statute of limitations You actually have a good shot at calling your insurance company and saying hey I have this leak It was a year and a half ago. It's within the two-year period at that time the very next day I had you know this company come out and dry the whole place out I thought they did a good job. I thought all was fixed Unfortunately, I just found out that through this mold inspection because I haven't been feeling well It wasn't fixed and so I want to open a claim here Here's all my documentation showing that I fixed it at the time and everything I got the right people in now You've got it an actual claim and so Unfortunately for so many of us we don't know our Details of our insurance until we actually need it which causes us to do things in proper sequences or You know make some mistakes where they have an ability to deny us coverage The other thing is, you know, some of us don't have good documentation of what happened. We don't have any photos We didn't save the receipt from when the the person did come out Really important anytime you arrive at water damage situation You reread your policy make sure you're taking the proper steps Document everything take photos and videos and everything you possibly can Call the people you're supposed to call as per your agreement with the insurance company and make sure the place gets dried out properly the last thing Push for a mold inspection After the fact because look sometimes it takes three to five days to dry a structure and mold already started to grow You'd want to know about it while things are open You could take care of it easily if you just let them build back over it That's where you start to see issues happen It starts to become a bigger problem over time and now it's impacting your health And it's two years later and the insurance company does won't even listen because it's past two years of statute of limitations So I've seen a lot of people, you know make some mistakes in that area. It's a tricky field I don't know if it's designed that way on purpose or not But the reality of it is is we have to be armed with the information so that we can never be told the word no by our homeowners insurance Thank you so much for covering that for us when we get sick We go to the doctor and we hope the doctor can help us get well again and with this Conversation, I'm hoping that we will look at our homes as the opportunity like we got to go get some outside help Sometimes to determine whether or not we have gobs of dust in our home or whether we have mold in our home or whether we have moisture too much moisture in the Home where it could trigger mold or whether we have water damage or some of those things Lots of our homes have you know, they're active households They're there's stuff that happens and I've been in homes. I've cleaned in homes where there were water issues There was a water event I like the way you said that where there was a water event something leaked and we Cleaned it up and it looked like the water was gone Okay, but it leaked through the floorboards or what what happened in one of the homes There was so much build up from a water leak the ceiling collapsed to the room below the whole ceiling fell in Okay, that's that's not just a little tiny thing that we can fix ourselves We got a call in specialists at that point and have them remodel our whole home And so if we can stop those problems from escalating to being Ginormous household repairs, that's where we're trying to catch it, you know, it's like when we go to the doctor We're like, hey, can you fix this little thing before it turns into a huge life event? So I again, I want you to live in a really beautiful home And I want you to live in a clean home and a healthy home and we have to start taking responsibility For that with Michael Rubino's help. I think all of us are better prepared today to do that Thank you Michael for your time today. Please tell our listeners where they can go to find you Thank you so much for having me here today if you are looking to understand a little bit more about air quality and the different services and products to get you the best air quality you can get Please go to home cleanse calm if you want more information about me or upcoming podcast books, etc. Please go to the Michael Rubino calm and If you're inspired by anything I talked to you about today, I do have a 501 c3 nonprofit called change the air Foundation org which you can check out as well about what we're trying to do to change the Systemic issues in our society that allow us to get sick in our own homes And we will leave links to all of that in the notes below. Thank you so much today Michael for joining us Thanks, everybody that tuned in today and for all of your questions There are questions We did not get to answer today and we will come back and answer those in the comments below after this is over So thank you for joining us and we'll see you guys again same time same place next week. Take care