166: The Mold Inspection Bible with Brett Bowersock, We Inspect Inspection Supervisor

Hello again, everyone, and welcome to today's show. If you're one of the 130 million people that are dealing with Sirs Lyme disease, autoimmune disease, or other conditions that are impacted by mold on a daily basis, and you need to learn how to eliminate that exposure, then you're in the right place. My name is Brian Carr, and you're listening to Mold Finders Radio.

Hey, everybody, what's going on? We are here another day, another episode. Today is cool. I say this all the time. And then I also say I say this all the time, so maybe I should just stop saying it. But today's. Today's episode is cool. I do have a guest, but it's not a health guest. It's not a doctor. It's not one of those people. It's actually somebody within weinspect who was one of our very first hires that came in in the early days. His name is Brett Bowersock. He's our field inspection supervisor. This is the person that is in charge of every inspector on our team to make sure that we are doing things the we inspect way, if you will, and make sure the quality control is always on point and to make sure our standards are in place. And I thought that this would be a really cool episode to do to kind of get a look behind the curtain. Like it's not always Brian looking at everything all the time, right? We have a team, we're all over the place. Everyone is trained directly by us through this process, through our standards that we have created. And so, you know, I know sometimes I've seen questions come up. They're like, well, how can you be everywhere? You must be like subcontracting and outsourcing people in different places. And that's like a hundred million percent not true. In fact, the onboarding process, even get somebody allowed to go out into someone's house on their own is a multi month process. So it's, it is a very big investment that we put into our inspection team upfront. I mean, thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars we pour into our inspectors and training before they're even allowed to step into your house. And Brett is the mastermind behind all of that happening. And so I thought Brett and I could have a talk today and, and just, you know, kind of talk through all of that and maybe highlight some of that stuff. And then at the end, we had some questions that came in through the last Q and A I did on Instagram. So I pulled some of those out. I'm gonna throw Em at Brett and see what his answers are, and hopefully they're good. So, everybody, this is Brett. How's it going, man?

I'm doing really, really well. I'm really excited to be here and talk through everything. That was quite an introduction. So very excited for this episode.

I am very excited, too. This is Brett's first time on the show, so he's. I don't know if he's nervous or not, but he's going to be fine. He knows his stuff. Hands are shaken.

So, you know, Brett, like I mentioned, you, you were with us very near the beginning. You weren't necessarily the first person, but I actually think you were the second inspector that we had, I believe. And so I. I would love to just kind of share a little bit about your background. You know, I remember when you, when you interviewed, I was like, dude, this kid is a genius. Like, this is. Get this kid in here right now. Get this guy in here. So I'd love to just hear about your background and how you came across us and even, like, what about the opportunity? Even at the beginning was something that you felt like you wanted to do.

Yeah. So let's see. It's been. It's been a couple years. I have to think back.

So I studied biology and in college to start. I guess we'll start there. I started pre med. I was really interested in health and medicine. However, I had a formative experience at an internship at the medical school at iu. I hail from Indiana, and I learned that I did not want to go into medicine. And so my interest kind of shifted to environmental. And so I studied environmental science for the latter period of my college career and ended up graduating with bachelor's degree in environmental science and a bachelor's with biology with a minor in chemistry. And so ultimately, where I found myself at the end of my college career, having graduated, was that while I'm still interested in science, I'm still interested in biology and, you know, like, health. But I knew medicine wasn't for me. And so I kind of tied that together with my study of environmental science and learned that environmental health happens to be a thing, quite a popular field of study. And so that kind of started my track towards finding we inspect. And so I really wasn't super.

In the loop in terms of mold and just environmental contaminants, indoor air quality, and kind of what that can mean for your health, especially if you're sensitive to those types of things. So I saw, you know, that this was an opportunity. I started, applied for the job, interviewed With a few people, spoke with Brian and Corey, and learned a lot more about what it is that we do, what we inspect. And it was honestly something that kind of checked all my boxes. Like, it's, you know, we. We travel around investigating the interior environment for our clients who happen to be sensitive to these types of indoor contaminants. And then we get to, you know, investigate and put together a report to help them identify their problems. And that's something that I found to be extremely rewarding. You know, one thing in my time in college, I studied. I spent a lot of time studying, like, climate change and stuff. That was kind of what a lot of my, like, later coursework was tailored to. And I was like, oh, wouldn't it be cool to be the person to, like, find the energy source to save the planet? You'd help so many people, but I wouldn't get to see or meet any of those people. And so what I did at Weinspect is I would meet clients face to face and help people, you know, one person at the time, at a time. But it was so much more intimate as well. And I really got to, like, fully from beginning to end, see the fruits of the service that we're able to provide for everybody. And I think that's, like, what kept me around.

Yeah, you know, I had the same feeling, um, when I started, like, I went in, went into people's homes for everybody listening knows that, you know, I was with Mark and he was teaching me everything. Um, and the first time that you see someone and you see the reaction and you see, like, the benefit, it. It's almost like a drug at that point. It's like, whoa, I can do this. Like, it. It really, really is. And, you know, I know a lot of people struggle with, like, finding meaning in their life and in their work. And, you know, I go on every day and I punch this clock and I do this thing, but what am I really doing? And, like, you know, for me, what you're saying is the same thing happened with me. Like, that was the thing that. That. That hit for me. So it's. It's. It's. It's cool to hear it, you know, from your perspective, too.

I actually have a really funny story. My very first inspection that I ever did, I got to the house, and the. The homeowner walked outside. And it was really funny because the very first words out of their mouth, it was not hello or hi, how you doing? It was, thank God you're here. Finally, somebody who knows what the bleep they're talking about.

And that kind of, you know, everything that I learned about our process and how it, you know, kind of differs from the industry standard in a lot of ways, and how, you know, thorough we try to be and really provide that deep level of service. It was exemplified on my very first day. And so it's, it's just, it kind of got the ball rolling from there and hasn't slowed down.

We gotta make sure that every client does that for every person on their first day. That's the next, that's the next goal. If that doesn't lock you in, I don't know what does. You know, what's interesting is you give this, you know, your whole, like, school background. I was really surprised to see your resume come through. I, I don't know why. I just, like, I was like, dude, this, this guy is smart. Like, this guy's really smart. And, you know, I, I, I think, you know, as you're starting a business, you learned so many things, like, along the way and, you know, your, the way that you've, you know, adapted to stuff and have just, you know, grown and, and added so much value.

Made us see that, like, this is the type of person that we probably shouldn't be looking at here, right? Like, like, we, we like, internally joke around. Like, there was like, the template of the perfect inspect, and it was Brett. It's like, well, how do we, how do we find more breadths? We used to say this all the time in the background. We need to find more breaths. Um, and oddly enough, like, our team now has a lot of people with, like, similar educational backgrounds, which is amazing, right? You know, you go and, and you, you know, it's not meant to, we don't talk about other companies, but like, a lot of times, you know, the people that come into your house, they're almost like technicians in a way. Like, they're not really, you know, they're not on, like, the same level almost as, as maybe the person who owns the company or the person who's overseeing the project or whatever might be going on. And I, I, I'm just like, so proud of the team that you've helped put together because, like, the, the people that we have are, like, smart people that have really interesting backgrounds and aren't just somebody that, you know, you pick up and you get some sort of labor job, right? And while this job isn't easy, right, you gotta travel, you gotta, you know, it's physically demanding. There's a lot that goes to it. There's still like this intellectual sort of like powerhouse that we have behind it, which is so, so cool. And so I guess we did figure out how to get more breaths.

It's written down on a board one day. Find more breaths.

Let's. I'd love to, I'd love to talk through your early days of like, what it was, like, what, what your, you know, just kind of what your experience was at the beginning. Cause I think a lot of people, you know, we, we show up to their house, right? It's like, hey, we're coming to your house, or show up at your house sometimes, you know, there's a lot that goes into it and there's a lot, you know, I almost want to take this, this opportunity to like, shout out our, our inspection team, our field team, because of how difficult of a job this is. And on top of it, how we're going to get into next, like, how there has to be such a. Like, just focus on accuracy and process and thoroughness. And like, those two things are, are really what makes this role in the company the most important role that we have. You know, even, you know, beyond our senior level consulting and all that stuff. Like, you've got to have the people that are able to get into the spaces and navigate them and communicate back and forth and understand all this stuff and be able to check all the boxes and do all the things. And that's really what your team is just doing every single day. So I'd love to hear like, some of your, like, summarized feedback of what it's like to, to be one of our people, one of our field people.

Oh, wow. So definitely a lot of travel. We popped up all over the place. You know, back in the day when I first started, because I was tied to one of our other inspectors, we had like two people running around the entire country doing these inspections. And so it was a lot of flying and just a lot of, you know, travel from place to place to place to place to place. You know, four states in a week. Those days or those weeks, excuse me, where it was like, oh, you're going to spend two days working in, you know, this particular area. It's like, oh, oh, yes.

One day where I'm going to have another flight.

Yeah. So, you know, it's, it's really taxing, for sure. Um, and the way that the kind of the day plays out is, you know, you fly out to where your inspection's going to be the next day and you stay the night. You wake up, you do your inspection, depending on what time Flights can get booked. You know, if the earliest flight's at 4pm and you're three hours from the airport, probably going to fly you out the next morning. Uh, but if there's, you know, a 9, 9pm flight or something and we have the time to accommodate that, then you'll fly out that night. So it kind of depends on how the travel shakes out. But you could say that most days you are inspecting and flying on the same day, maybe like most to half of the days.

So it was, it was really taxing, you know, I mean, you kind of get up at 7 or 8 in the morning and you get to do your inspection, grab some lunch afterwards, see where you're at, you know, explore where you've traveled. And then you have to catch a plane and you know, you are, you, you were laying down at, you know, 10:00pm, 11:00pm sometimes like 3:00am if you have, you know, the travel gods are not in your favor, deplaned quite a few, you know, the whole laundry list of like all the worst things that could happen to a person while traveling. Like they've all just, statistically I have experienced all of them, you know, sprinting through airports, getting all the way out to the Runway and then having to go back and change planes and doing all this stuff. But enough about the travel. I could keep talking about that, but no, in regards to the inspections, you know, we, we get to the job and you know, you really have to kind of wake up and get your game face on and, you know, walk into the inspection knowing that, you know, it doesn't really matter how, like.

How.

How hard the road has been on you. I guess, like you and the people who support you from behind the computer, the lead consultants, you guys work together and conduct a highly thorough inspection. And then if there's any situation where you think you might not be able to fully conduct a highly thorough inspection before, say your scheduled flight leaves, then we bump the flight, you know, and we stay at the house for as long as we need to stay in order to conduct the most highly thorough inspection that we can provide.

Definitely, definitely the wild west back in the day when we had fewer people, though, I will tell you that much. It's been a little bit of cross country, you know, all four time zones in one week, type of weeks sometimes. Thankfully now, you know, we have a larger team and we're a little more regionalized so people aren't flip flopping all over the entire country anymore. But yeah, it was, it was quite an insane period of time being one of the, you know, once I was finished training and set loose on my own, it was me and one other guy and it was, it was the whole country. It was just a lot to do, a lot of ground to cover.

I mean, it was, it was a lot. And you know, looking back at those days is, you know, we were a much smaller company then, right? We were.

Four or five times the size probably that we were at that point in time. And so all of us were just like, we, no matter what you were doing, it's like we're staying up, we're burning the midnight oil on any role that we're in to make sure that we're getting things done the right way. Right? And I think that was, that was always the thing and the thing that I always appreciated about you. And to be frank, there are people that, that haven't cut it and when we see that they're not going to cut it, they don't, they don't work here anymore. Like, that's just it. It has to be that way. Because, you know, I've told you this before and I think I've even said it on the show. It's like the, the risk. Risk isn't the right word. If we miss something, there's a real consequence, right? Um, you know, it's not like, oh, I missed this thing, but eh, it's not a big deal. Everything's fine. I mean, we're going into houses where people's kids are sick and their brains are on fire and like all of these things that are going on. And if you miss something, that is the potential repercussion that that continues, right? That you missed the thing that would have been the thing that actually solved the problem. And you know, not to say that, you know, we're always perfect. Nobody's ever always perfect, right? But that's the goal that we strive toward, is that we don't miss anything. That's always the goal. Which is really how the, our standards got developed, which we'll get into in a minute. But you know, seeing that in you from the beginning and seeing that kind of work through and permeate through the business is really important across all levels of the business that everyone, you know, all the different roles that exist. But when you talk about the people that were here early on, like, and you're one of the key people that were here early on, that's where that culture and that sort of.

I keep like losing words. I don't know that that's where like, that's that personality that the. Just the need to do that, like, that's where it came from. That's what permeates through the business. And it's, it's why you're sitting in the seat that you are now, because there's nobody else we'd rather have to be shaping the crop and continuously helping to educate the team than the person who was there at the beginning doing it and showed that. Right. And that's why it's so, you know, we didn't have this role. You were the. We created this role for you because we were looking and we're like, ah, we're growing. We have. The team is bigger and we need somebody who has one done it so they can understand and relate, but then two has that, you know, precise eye for detail and thoroughness that's there and can relate it in a way that can be, you know, taken in by the people who are traveling, because that is the lifeblood of the business is, is your team and how it all works. And so it's, you know, you know, I'm excited that we were able to, to. To get you continuously moving through and figuring out this, this new role for you, which you're have been amazing in. And it, it actually brings us to the next piece, which is, you know, when we were smaller and it was. And I was still running every inspection, there was really no need to document standards because they all came through me. I was the standard. And if I didn't like it, I would just say to do it different. Right. And. But as you grow a business, I can't do every job. Right. I can't do every inspection. And so we needed to get everything that was kind of out of my head onto paper in a way and create what's ultimately our inspection bible on how you go through a house, room by room, space by space, order what you're looking for, where you're looking for the different types of ways it can look like, like literally everything. And you know, at first I started. I started jumping into it before, before I brought you into help, and I was just kind of like spitting everything out. I almost felt like it was just like stream of consciousness writing everything down. And you were really able to help organize it and expand on it and, and really turn it into something that, that really is like the foundational purpose of what we do. I'd love for you to kind of explain what the standards are and what they kind of what they look like in your mind and, and how they're portrayed down to the team.

Yeah. So that was one of the things I was most excited to be able to lend a hand on once I got into this position and out of the field. It's just. It's really interesting to take something from kind of like tribal knowledge unwritten and then putting it into a written form. Especially something like an inspection where, like, on one hand it's so technical and, like.

You know, there's a lot of details that you need to be thinking about when you're going through a home. And. But at the same time, there's also a lot of nuance. You know, you can walk into a home expecting one thing and then it's. You just get blown out of the park by, like, what you see when you enter the home. And I'm not talking about, like, mold problems necessarily. It's just like, maybe I have history notes of, like, a particular water event, and I have it in my head like, okay, I'm going to, like, conduct this type of testing strategy when I get to this house, and then I walk in the door and the entire home is like.

Wood paneled, so I can't like puncture a wall, for example, to do a wall cavity sample or something where it's like, you have to just totally adjust your testing strategy and way that you go about going through the home. So it's kind of juggling the two things, right? Where it's like, okay, if you come across this type of scenario, then this is how you would address it. And so in the standards, we have a lot of.

Different categories. And so, you know, we have, like.

Documentation, which I will not bore you with the details of the fine.

You know, this is how you document it.

Take these photos in this order. Yeah, but we have, you know, it's. So there's. There's documentation, but then there's also inspection flow. The standards of, okay, you are in this type of room. Here are the landmarks that you're going to see. Oh, we're going to talk about showers. Okay. Like, where do we want to look when it comes to a shower? Or we want to look here, here, here, and here. These are the types of places that are most likely to have problems. These are what those problems might look like. And any area of concern that we would potentially find when we walk into a home, we kind of have a guide, so to speak, for, like, what to look for in those areas kind of as a starting point. And then you as the investigator, you know, can take that starting point, run with it, and then really be able to kind of put together a holistic Inspection. Because in addition to just, you know, where do we look or sort of like where do we start? Then you have to think to yourself, okay, well, I am also, you know, not just an inspector, but an investigator. I really like the word investigator. And so you kind of think to yourself, okay, like, I see water damage here, for example. So then my next thought is like, what is the origin of the water and what is the scale of the problem? And so that can start to, you know, I'm no longer limited to one room now I'm now like investigating other rooms from opposite sides. But with the standards, I keep going off on these tangents. I'm just so, so pumped, so jazzed to talk about all this stuff. But yeah, so, you know, we have these different areas of like, here's where you start. This is where we look. This is where you should moisture map. This is how to use the tools that we use. This is how to test. These are the standards that we want when collecting tests. This is what to look for to get the highest quality tests. This is how we want to label it to make sure that, you know, however many labs that we use can understand what it is that we're sending them.

Et cetera. So there's, there's a lot to it. And so being able to work with Brian on it, you know, we get everything down and, and written and, and then we can go over it and say, oh, well, there's also like these things that can happen or there's these nuances. And so it kind of like it could almost branch infinitely. So you kind of, we, we.

Cut it kind of to a point where it's like, it's a great, it's a great guide to really orient you to be able to conduct the most high quality inspection while adhering to our core standards and techniques.

Yeah, I mean, it's a really good explanation.

There is a lot in this, I, I call it the bible to myself. We've not, we haven't labeled it that, but it's like the inspection bible. Like, that's what it is. This is the word of. And this is how you do it. There's a couple areas in here in specifics. You're right. There's a lot that people probably don't care about, like how we take photos specifically for our lead consultants to make sure they're seeing what we are seeing. Like, clients never see that. But the reason that this whole situation works is because you have our lead consultant working in tandem with our field investigator. I like, I like that you Call investigators.

And we all need to be seeing the same thing, right? So you know, sometimes questions come up. It's like, well, how does the person that's not here, who's the lead, who is the person that the client is communicating with, how are they going to see everything? Well, it's because we spent months putting together exactly every single photo that they see. Right. And so, you know, I don't know if I ever told you this. This whole process of, of this started. I had a client that I was working with years ago before we inspect existed and she was moving to Hawaii and I had inspected her house in Santa Barbara and she, she's like, Brian, I need to fly you out to Hawaii. I need to, I need you to look at this house that I'm about to buy. And I was like, as much as I would love that, my wife is pregnant and I, it's not allowed. Basically like I'm not going to be allowed to do that. And so I kind of did this. What, what turned into this with her. And I was like, okay, tell me about what you know about the house. Tell me about how many, you know, the different rooms that you have. Send me these, send me these pictures. I'm just literally just describing what pictures I wanted her to send me. And off of it, found so many problems in the house just from a visual that she backed out of it. And she's like, you've inspected three of my houses. And I didn't even know to look at any of this stuff cuz I'd, I'd done multiple places for her. So like, and, and then it was just email me like a couple pictures or text me a couple pictures or whatever. And then what? Then off of that she took that and went and looked at four other places on her own, just using what I had like worked through with her and found a place. Didn't even ask me any more questions. So like I had kind of instilled a stand the standard with her of like, here's how you look through these areas. You don't want to see this. Show me this, show me that. I went through it with her once and then she was able to find a place. And that was when I saw that happen. I was like, oh, so you can teach this? I used to think that you couldn't teach this. I used to wonder like, how are we going to get people that are going to be able to like look at a place the same way I would look at it or with the same way Corey would look at it? How do you do that? It's a family business. We've been around it forever. Like how do you train that in. And I was really skeptical about our ability to even figure that out, frankly, because I just didn't even know where to start. And then this happened. I was like, oh, you can do this. I like in my mind it started like clicking a little bit. That became the basis for molefinder's method. That became, you know, and, and then ultimately what turned into our internal standards and everything here. So here's what I'm doing for everybody listening. I'm going to just call out a couple types of areas in a house and I'm going to have Brett tell us what, how we look at it. I'm going to. It's an open book test. You can look at the Bible if you want.

And this will just give people listening kind of an understanding of how we like look at particular areas and all the things we're looking at around. How about you mentioned, you mentioned showers earlier. So let's, let's do showers. So let's talk through what we look at at the minimum. Now keep in mind, and you said this, you said this really well. This is the minimum starting point of what we look at in a particular area. And then if you were, you know, if we were told there was a history of a problem somewhere or something else, you know, that might expand. If we see something that leads our eyes somewhere that might expand. But this is like the bare minimum of how we look at a shower or a tub. So go ahead and run through it.

All right, I'm gonna, you know, maybe I'll try not to cheat and use the, the Bible. Um, so generally speaking, you know, when I see a shower tub, it kind of depends first on the material of the, of the shower. Um, so if it's like a tile shower versus like a fully fiberglass stall like that, that will change the way I look at it. Um, so depending on what it is I'm looking at, let's just say we'll ignore the interior of the shower for now and look outside of it. No matter what the shower's made out of, I'm always going to look where the shower meets the walls, where the baseboards run up right up against it, you know, walls next to, adjacent to shower, slash tub. And then in addition to that, I'm also going to naturally look at the floor that's directly in front of the shower. Again. It, you know, it could be a walk in shower, it could be a tub shower combo. Whatever it is, I'll looking at the floor out in front of it.

Can I pause you right there?

And then can I pause you. I'm also going to look at.

I pause you right there. So why are you looking outside of the shower in those two spots?

So. Well, for one, practically speaking, we see damage there all the time.

You're taking a shower.

Why does that happen?

That's the short answer. Um, so, you know, when you're taking a shower.

You know, I mean, you are getting water everywhere, and depending on what your shower is, like, depending on how disciplined you are at wiping things down as well, you know, I mean, water's gonna get out and it's going to, you know, affect the building material that's directly adjacent to it. You could have a leak in kind of your plumbing behind your shower, which could be manifesting visibly where the shower meets, you know, the wall or the tub. Or you could maybe, if it's a bath and you have kids and they're splashing around all the time and, you know, getting water all over the place, or even if you're just taking a shower and your shower liner's not.

It's like a kid. You're just showering like a kid and.

You'Re just closed off against the wall.

Or you're just splashing.

Yeah, or maybe I'm just showering without a curtain and depressed and what. You know, there's. There's a million reasons, but, you know, like, water's going to get out of. And so you can have. You can have those issues. You know, there's. There's definitely. There's, you know, you could go on in terms of the reasons why there could be water kind of exiting your shower while you're. While you're taking one. Um, but, yeah, so we, you know, we see those areas. We look for signs of water damage. You know, where the wall meets the shower on the floor at, like the. Either caulk or grout, whatever you have, kind of connecting like your tub or shower to the floor. You know, if we see something like that, where that's compromised in any way, like if it's cracked or broken or there's just, like, suspect growth there, especially if it's cracked or breached. Then all of a sudden we're going to start talking about other rooms. Like, what does the ceiling look like below this? If there's water getting down there? Right. There's. There's a lot of layers to this, but that will just stop right there. That is kind of the exterior of the. Of the shower within the bathroom. But then if there's a plumbing, you know, with the shower, plumbing. A lot of showers and baths have plumbing access points. You know, there's like a little panel on the wall opposite to your shower or tub. And, you know, I would look in those areas and take off that panel and see if there, you know, you can access the plumbing. A lot of times, you can see the bones behind all of the building material, and so you can identify issues there as well. So, you know, there's. You're. You're looking completely surrounding the shower, both in and outside of the bathroom itself. So there's. There's really a lot to it. Cause then, you know, I could. I could continue on the. Like, on the opposite side of a bathroom or a shower, you could lift up the carpet and, you know, you could potentially see, like, oh, this isn't sealed particularly well. Like, the. The carpet tacks along this wall that's shared with the shower from, like, the bedroom side. The carpet tacks are all dark and wet and moisture's elevated. That tells me there's a problem with the shower. Right? So, you know, you say, inspect the shower. We haven't even started talking about the inside of the shower yet.

I was just gonna say the same thing. I mean, this is all just the out. You haven't even gotten in the shower yet. It's the walls, the floor surrounding it, underneath it. If you see cracking and damaging grout and water can go down. What room is below the shower? Right. Am I looking at the ceiling over there? You're looking on the wall on the other side to see if there's water damage on the baseboard or if you pull up the carpet and they're stuck. We haven't even gotten inside yet, Right? And, you know, we'll get inside here in a second. But I think this is just such, like, a. A good example of the difference between, like, how we look at something versus how, you know, Yelp inspector does an error sample in the middle of a room, right? And they walk out for five minutes. But let. Let's get. Let's keep going to the inside.

Okay? So if it's, you know, it's the. The conversation is short. If it's kind of a single stall fiberglass shower, there's really not a ton to look at. There's only one place for the water to go. Um, but, you know, I'll. So I'll just start talking about, like, tile showers, for example. We're always looking at the grout, looking at the condition of the tile. Moisture mapping, trying to identify if there's any elevated moisture, especially where the tile meets the floor or if you have like a shower tub situation, like where the tile meets the tube. Um, you know, we like to kind of squeegee our water down the, the walls and if it all collects there and you don't take it the whole rest of the way all the way down to your drain, then water can accumulate where the tile meets the tub. And that grout or caulk, whatever's used will degrade over time. So we're looking for any damage there with, you know, those kind of connection points within the grout or where the grout meets the tub. In addition to that, if we have those, those like fiberglass showers where it's, it's all like that fiberglass material, but it's kind of like two or three pieces where those joints are between those two pieces. We see stuff there all the time. We always are looking in the cause water, you know, as it, as it travels down the surface, then it kind of goes down. I'm trying to find a way to describe this with the words, but like it'll defy gravity and it'll go down the wall and then it'll just curve under and go down into that, into that space and it'll just accumulate there and it'll just be moist and nasty there.

Yeah, for people that, for people that are having a hard time picturing this, there are these like single unit stalls that just kind of. It's almost like you just place it in like a single unit and there's no connection points anywhere. Then you have the kind that are still the single type of unit thing, but there's actually two units to it. There's like a lower and upper and so you end up having like a horizontal line where the upper part connects to the lower part. And then that line, that joint where those two parts meet. A lot of times it's not sealed like because those types of showers, you know, especially when like contractors are putting em in, it's like, oh, it's one piece, let's just stick it in here.

Right.

And a lot of times they don't get sealed properly. So you literally have like where two pieces meet where there's no grout and there's no ceiling and water just gets in there. Like it drips down the wall and that just continues to move in there. Or the, the shower head points at it when you're showering and it's just shooting water into it. Right. And and yeah, so that's, you know, those, those types of showers.

I wouldn't say I see like the multi joint, like single stall kind of shower too super often. But like, if you have one of those, make sure that that joint is sealed. Cause if not, like, there is very high probability of an issue behind the shower stall. Anyways, I didn't mean to jump in to you. You can continue.

Um, so beyond that, you know, we're so other aspects of the shower itself or tub. If your tub has like jacuzzi jets, that's another thing we always look for. You know, once you finish running those, the water just sits there, it stays moist. We see issues in those all the time. Product shelves, benches. I. If you have a shower bench that kind of overhangs, I look under those all the time and can identify problems that just kind of gets a little dank under there.

And. But in addition to that, you know, there's also like, if your shower has a lot of windows, we see issues there. And then the last thing I want to call out would be the ceiling of the shower, which, you know, sometimes there will be. It's like a fully tiled unit. But you know, nine times out of ten it's just like drywall on the ceiling and we see, you know, cracking up there. Really. I mean, pretty often I would say, especially if there's not good like exhaust controls within the bathroom.

Yeah, there's a lot of times you'll actually see mold growing up there and it'll be like really small spots. And it's because of what you said, right? Because when you're in a shower, you're pumping up the humidity in there, right. And you're also, if the airflow's not moving really well, then it's like staying there. Right. So you're setting, you're setting the stage for surface growth from doing that. And it could be an issue on the ceilings. A lot of times we go in, water comes down, you look at the walls, you look at the floor, you don't look at the ceiling. Next thing you look up and there's spots everywhere. And it's an area you have to look. So I'm just going to recap real quick. We have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 limbs, 13 different areas. That's just base standard for us to be looking at in every single shower. And then that's not counting if something, you know, triggers our, our spidey sense to be looking somewhere else, basically, so.

We don't have to go through more that Took a while, but I'm gl. You know, I'm. I'm glad that it did because it kind of demonstrates, like, what this is and how we go through it. And, you know, for those of you listening, that is one of many areas in the standard Bible thing here that are specifically bullet pointed out in what we look for, how we look for it, what we're looking for. There's even the cool thing that Brett did in this is he then went in and started getting, like, pictures and things to show, like, the different examples of stuff. Not even just what you see in terms of, like, what water damage remold looks like. Like, if you take a shower apart and you can see it before it's finished. There are certain things in the construction of the shower, for example, that can spike a moisture meter and give you a false positive, right? And so then it's like, okay, if you're running your meter here and it's like giving you a reading of X, and then you move it up, you know, just an inch or two and the readings, you know, completely plummets down. Then likely it looks like this behind the shower, which is really. There's a metal component back there most times, and if that's happening, you're going to get a false read on a multiple moisture meter. And like, there's so much in this thing, it's crazy. And really proud of you for putting this together and how thorough and in depth it is. And it is really like the. The standard for how we go through every single space and thought it'd be fun to kind of talk through it a little bit so people could sort of hear what's under the hood and. And how we. How we do all this stuff.

So before we wrap up here, I did an Instagram Q and A and pulled out some of the questions to ask you instead of me. So. So I'm gonna. I'm gonna throw some of these at you. Um.

I smell a musty mold, but I don't see it in a bathroom. We just kind of talk through this. So, like, that was literally the question. So, guys, if you ask questions, like, maybe ask a little bit of a better question or a better. A better, like, expanded question so we could get more detail on it. But all that we have is I smell musty mole, but I don't see in a bathroom. I'm assuming they're asking, how do I figure out where it's coming from would be my guess.

So tell me. You walk in.

You smell something, you start looking around, what do you think the main culprits are. And let me just say real quick, that you don't see mold in the bathroom doesn't mean there's not mold in the bathroom. Right. So basically what this question is saying is that there's just not black stuff growing all over the place, basically. Right. So where does your head go if you walk in and there's a, there's an odor in there?

Yeah. So. Well, to quote you, if you look for mold, you'll never find it. That's something that I've kind of taken and run with. You know, most of the time the mold's hidden. And I think that the subtle signs that we're looking for are often, you know, even more subtle than people think sometimes. So there's a lot that we're, you know, looking for when we go into a bathroom. I could tell you a thing or two about showers, but you already know that. But there's, and you know, there's a lot, there's a lot going on in your bathroom besides just your shower. There's other water based appliance like, you know, toilets, sink cabinets, any water source is automatically a candidate that I'm spending extra time looking at with a list of, you know, 8, 10, 12, 15, 19, 20 million things that I'm trying to investigate with that particular appliance. But then further, you know, I'm also looking at other aspects of the room. You know, when I go to a bathroom specifically, like the first thing I'm looking for is whether or not there's an exhaust fan. You know, if there's, if there's no exhaust fan in a bathroom, then, you know, I mean, you can open a window, run a fan. Those are all things I would recommend doing. But you know, like if you have door closed, no exhaust fan, and you're taking a hot shower, you know, you're turning that entire bathroom into a steam sauna. And that can, you know, that can affect the odor in the room especially. I have tons of like, you know, linens and stuff in there that don't really move. But you know, water sources are big in terms of what I'm looking for. If there is no exhaust, I mean, even if there is exhaust and it's just not that good, I'm still looking at the exhaust fan itself, taking a peek in there, looking at if there's supply vents in there, looking there. Um, I often look on all the walls to see if there's any excessive, like water streaking, water damage, towel walls. You know, as we talked about walls adjacent to like, like behind a toilet or, you know, next to the showers, within the toilet tank. That's another place that I often look for. Issues around the base of the toilet underneath the sink. Pro tip, you can see a lot of that's going on under your sink. If you kind of clear everything out and take a look down there, there's, you know, sometimes there can actually be pretty significant problems under sink. So it's worth taking everything out and taking a peek down there every once in a while.

Looking at the floor moisture, mapping the floor around all the moisture areas using the infrared camera. But in terms of physical things that like, you could do, aside from the appliance stuff that I mentioned, like clearing out your sink, you know, everything we talked about with the shower, when we're looking for water damage anywhere, and that's, you know, surrounding appliances or on walls, ceilings, floors, we're looking for water damage, right? We're not looking for mold, we're looking for water damage. And so, you know, we're looking for bubbling or buckling or cracking or peeling, you know, rust stain, water staining, things like that. And even in really, really subtle levels. And it could just be like one tiny little spot somewhere that, you know, you don't even see. And, you know, you walk into that room every, every day, multiple times a day, and you don't see something like that. And then we come in with kind of our fine tooth comb and we, we can identify really subtle signs like that. Maybe the baseboards pulling away from the wall a little bit. What's going on here? You have a towel wall that looks like zebra stripes on the wall. The water's just running down your walls all the time, soaking in between the baseboard. You know, what's. What's it doing back there? Right. Um.

Really, that's. That's kind of the biggest thing that we do to kind of sum everything up is just look for those subtle signs of water damage. So like bubble bubbling, buckling, cracking. And then looking at those water appliances to see if, you know, there's anything going on with those. Cause those are our, you know, principal offenders.

Yeah, I, I would. Well, I know this. Cause I looked at it recently. Bathrooms and kitchens are the two areas where we find the most problems in homes. So if you combine those two together, that's where the. I don't wanna say the bulk of your issues. Cause there's other things in the house. But like, if you look at them like, you know, like on a pie chart, like bathrooms and kitchens take up the biggest real estate on the pie chart. Um, and it's because there's so much. There's so many water sources in all of those areas. And, you know, that's one big thing. Let me. So there's another question here. I'll rephrase it a little bit to kind of piggyback off of this.

Your. The house smells musty. Again, someone's not seeing mold anywhere. I'm not going to ask what. What the question is here is like, where do you look? But more so I think to rephrase the question, what are some of the areas in a house that don't get looked at that would contribute to an odor in house?

So some places that would contribute to that that people don't often look or really travel to. I guess we can start with the crawl space. Um, there's a lot of things that are going on down there that could potentially contribute to an odor in the home. And one thing worth noting is just that I think I could anticipate a question being, well, that's my crawl space. You know, that's not in my living space. That's not the air that I'm breathing. How could the air that's down there be affecting there, where I'm sitting right now listening to this? And there's a whole long answer there. But the short answer is that the air in those interstitial spaces moves throughout your living space as well, through a process that we call the stack effect. There's a lot more information about that that Brian has spoken about multiple times. But basically, the air in those spaces, air kind of starts low, moves up through your living space, up into your attic, out through there, it can kind of go up and down. But this is why we think that, you know, mold in those interstitial spaces behind walls, all that stuff is important in your crawl space. It kind of depends on what it looks like down there. But, you know, a lot of times, because it is subgrade groundwater, things like that could be moving in down there. You could potentially have like a bacteria problem, depending on the grade of the home, depending on your water intrusion controls down there. Do you have a sump pump? What's the humidity like down there? Do you have a vapor barrier? You know, is there. Is it just soil? Is it just. Is it damp? Is it dry? You know, all of those things in your crawl space could potentially contribute to an odor throughout your home. And I can make similar notes about the attic. Um, though, you know, bacteria stuff in regards to the soil wouldn't necessarily be something we talk about in the attic, but it is still an interstitial space that we think about that could potentially be contributing to the rest of your living space. And, you know, we see issues in these interstitial spaces, attics and crawl spaces, all the time. And we see issues in these places. They can be the smoking gun for a mold problem in, in some houses. And it's something that, you know, we're always looking at very, very closely because they can't have an effect. Now, this kind of segues into another thing that could contribute to odor in a house, and that is your ventilation system. And a lot of the time, we actually see our H Vac system, the air handler units present in the crawl spacer attic. And so even if it's not, though, I mean, these things are moving air throughout your entire house, Right. You have your vents, you have your ductwork running from your air handler unit. You know, it's the lungs of your home. We talk about it all the time. Through your return vent, all that stuff, dust, debris, everything in your home is getting sucked into your system, provided your air filter is doing its job. You know, hopefully the air's pure when it's coming back out. But it's not always the case. Right. So whatever's going on in your H Vac system, you know, sometimes we consider it like a secondary source. If it's contaminated with, you know, dirt, dust, debris, things like that, or it could be a primary source where there's mold actually growing in it. Well, that thing is pushing air at you all the time. And so if there is a problem with your H vac system, then that could also be contributing to an odor. Whenever you hear air handler, click on Right. And then further, if it is located in those spaces, like the attic or crawl, if you're at it, if your air handler unit isn't sealed perfectly, then it's going to suck in air from those spaces as well, and it's just going to contribute. And even if your air handler is not there, if your ductwork is run through those spaces and your ductwork is compromised, then it's the same thing. The, the air from those interstitial spaces could then be, you know, finding the secret passage into your ductwork and going straight out of your vents into your breathing zone. So really, like any of those spaces, whether it's attic, crawl, H vac could be contributing. Whether your handler is there or your duct work runs through there, These are all things that they could be contributing to a must yoder in a home.

Yeah. And these These areas, we. We call them shadow sources, these areas, because people don't usually go there. They don't look at them. So, like, they. Shadows, they don't. You know, they. They do what they do in the shadows. You need Batman to come get it.

But they. They can be such big contributors to what's happening in space. I know the question was really phrased around a musty odor. You don't have to have a musty odor for those areas that we just talked about to have issues as well. So I just, you know, want to clarify that. Like, we're. We're basing it around a question. Musty odor means there's something actively growing, right? That's what it means. So the mold is breaking down its food source. It's letting off this enzyme. It's creating this microbial voc, which is the odor that you smell. Right. But if mold is not growing, it's not gonna put that odor off. But that doesn't mean there isn't mold there. Right? So it's really important to kind of.

You know, kind of put that on the back end of this question. And that's why we go in every crawl space. And not just that there's an odor. You go in every crawl space, you go in every attic. You open up every single H vac unit. Like, that's what you do as part of this process. Um, and.

One thing on the odor, you just. You said something. If there is an odor in your crawl space is an issue, and you happen to notice the odor in, like, areas that are small, that don't ventilate, like a closet or, like, a cabinet or something like that, and you open it up, and there's this big odor there, yet there's no leak in there, and there's no, like, water damage in that space. That would really. Like, just before I even went in the crawl space, like, if I was in a house where that happened, I'd be like, oh, this crawl space has a problem. Like, I would just immediately think that. Because when you have, you know, a closet where you should. I keep looking at my closet. My room. When you have a closet and, you know, or. Or a cabinet that's like, say, on the first level of your house, like your kitchen or, for example, and then you open that up, you get this big, like, whiff of that. But there's not a water damage or mold source within that area. What's happening is the static effect, like, you talk about, is bringing that air up, but then it gets trapped into a box, basically. If your claw's door is shut, if your sink cabinet is shut and it stays there. And then as soon as you open it up, so then the concentration of the odor builds and builds and builds in there, right? Cause it's not ventilating. Then when you open it up, it like comes and hits you in the face. And that, that could be a really big clue that crawl space is an issue as well. So I think I had one more question here and then we'll wrap it up. So what do you do if your ERMI is high, but your inspector says that everything looks fine?

That's a good question. So. Well, first and foremost, what I'll say is a lot of times that we walk into a home, we are not always the first inspector. Sometimes we're like the second inspection team or third or fourth or whatever it may be. And the reason I'm bringing that up is because if your army's high, you know, we have our Gricebot army in the way it's scored, but a high army, there's something going on, right? Like, we know that. And so if you have high army and the inspector's not finding anything, then they're just not finding it. You know, they, they're just, they, they have not identified the issue, but obviously there's one there or else your army wouldn't be high. So I think it's just a matter of getting the right inspector in the door who's going to be able to conduct a highly thorough inspection to be able to identify where those issues are. You know, I don't know. You know, I mean, kind of the industry standard as Brian was talking about, as, you know, somebody from Yelp comes in and runs an air pump for 10 minutes in a few rooms and walks out.

You know, that's just not going to get you the information that you need. And really looking at things from like a source level perspective of like, you know, I don't want to know whether or not you have a mold problem. You kind of already answered that question for me. I'm going to tell you where the mold is. Like, that's what you need from an inspector, is to tell you where it is so that we can address the problem, where it's at. Instead of trying to think about the air, right? Like, mold doesn't grow in the air, it grows on building material. Your house is made of food, so we, we look for where mold is hanging out within your, within your building material. So I think that's really like, it's kind of a short Answer. But it's. It's a pretty direct answer, I would say, you know, if they haven't found it, then they just.

They just haven't found it. Yeah, no, you're a hundred percent right. I mean, you could. You could think of so many analogies, like, with this, it's like, oh, I've. I've got all these. I don't know. I've got. I've got it. I've got all these ants crawling around my kitchen. All of a sudden, my. My kitchen's infested with ants, and you have five, you know, bug guys come in like, you don't have an ant problem. What are all these ants crawling all over my kitchen? So they just didn't find where the problem was coming from. Right. Like, they don't have the answer.

Yeah.

And it's. It's funny if you think of it in that sense. You're like, God, that makes so much sense. But because mold is this thing that you can't visibly see, like a bunch of ants just taking over your kitchen. I had to happen in a apartment once, and it was like, empty everything out of the kitchen. They have to come in and like. Like, do this whole thing, you know, that you see. You see it. And then at that point, if someone says, I don't see where the ant problem is, you're like, well, you're a freaking idiot. Here's the ants. Here they are. Right? But if you come in and it's now something that's invisible, yet you have hard data with. With really, you know, the gold standard level of. Of DNA analysis from old. Like, it's not picking up stuff that's not there. Right. It's the same thing. Yet you have multiple inspectors come in and tell you that you. There's no mole problem in your house. Right? So just think about the ants. Right? And. And if you do that, then it all makes so much more sense. It's like, this doesn't exist without this. And so we need to put those two things together. So, anyway, well, this. This creeped up on an hour real quick.

Well, Brett, thank you so much for coming on talking with me. It's our first time that you've been on. Maybe you'll come on more. Did you like it? Did you have a good time?

Yeah, it was a pleasure. I had a great day. I have so much. So much mold knowledge and information that I just need to spew out to the masses.

That's how I felt one day. It's like, I've got a yellow from a mountaintop. That was. That was the deal. Maybe we'll start your own podcast, Brett. Maybe Tails Tales from the Something. We'll come up with a cool name for it. I don't know. You can start your own podcast.

Okay, sounds good.

All right, well, thank you. Thanks everyone, for listening. Hope you guys found this helpful and like I said, just wanted to kind of pull the curtain back a little bit, get you guys a peek under the hood, see how everything works. So if you guys enjoyed it, comment, like, let me know. That would be very cool. Subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already, and we'll talk to you next time.

So that's it for today's show, everyone. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed the show, please take. Take a moment and subscribe and give a rating wherever you get your podcasts. It'll help spread the word to those who really need it the most.