184: Back After 6 Months! Mold Dogs, Window Mold & Big Podcast Updates

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 Foreign.

Hey, everybody, what's going on? We're back. It's been. God, it's been like six months. I just went back and looked at the last episode, and it was six months ago. It's freaking crazy to me how much time passes and how quickly it passes, and it's the longest I've ever gone without recording. And I'm back. Podcast is going to pick up just like it used to be. I just wanted to give you kind of a rundown on what's been going on, what's happening, and we'll go from there. The biggest thing here is that we've been growing, and in growth, you have to make sure that your quality grows in the same path or that your quality sustains as you grow. Right? Super, super important to me. I know what we. Helps people. I know the way that we do it helps people. And I know that if we get off of that and we grow in a way where quality doesn't match what we're able to do, then we're actually not doing what we're supposed to be doing. Right. And so I really was dedicating a lot of time in the last several months to making sure that everything is always staying up, up to quality throughout the inspection process and beyond. And I'm really, really happy with where. With my team across the board, from our inspectors to our consultants and everyone in between along that process. And I are. We're just doing great, in my opinion, in terms of the quality work that we're doing, the help that we're providing to people. And, you know, I. Long, long time ago, I was talking with some. This is a long time ago. I was talking with somebody before we inspect even existed. They were like, well.

How do you. How do you have other people do this? Right? Because you. You can't have a business if you're the only one that does it. And my response was, I think I'm the only one that can do it. Well, so, like, naive at the time and, like, there's nobody else out there that does it like the way that we do it. And I don't know how. And the. And the guy looked at me, he's like, if you really want to have the impact that you say that you want to have on the world and on people's health, then you need to figure out how to get whatever's in your head out and be able to get other people to do what you do the exact same way. And unless you can do that, you will never do the things that you're talking to me about, you're wanting to do. I was talking to him about wanting to, you know, have this impact on the world, seeing how it impacted me, seeing how it impacts others, trying to change the way that all the old heads in our industry talk and jabber all over the place and give people a path that will actually help them, right? And that's always stuck with me. The guy literally looked at me, he's like, well, if you can't figure out how you are the only one in the world that can do this, then you'll never be able to do that, right? And it was interesting, and it's 100% true, because how do you help more people? You need a team of really good people, and you need a process in place, and you need standards and all those things. And so that's what a lot of the last several months have been around. And I've been working directly with many different segments of my team throughout the business and chunks of time and really structuring how things are done and reviewing things. I've been working on projects myself over the last several months to really ensure that what I'm coaching on is happening and all of the things. And so anyways, that's what's been going on a lot of behind the scenes, just in terms of the business and why I've pulled myself back from being as public and as available as I used to be. Now that that is all settled and I feel really good about that, it's time now to come back and do this right? And, you know, this podcast, when did I start it? 2020. Like, this is five years in now. And. And this has always been something I've really enjoyed doing. And the thing that I've actually really liked about this and some of the other ways that I've been making myself more, you know, that I always kind of try to make myself available was that I always did think, like, it shouldn't matter where you live, it shouldn't matter how much, should be able to get the information that's actually helpful to you. And there's so much information, as a lot of you probably know, that isn't super helpful or isn't super accurate, and that makes it very difficult. So this has always been a passion of mine to be able to, even if you're not my client, to talk about this stuff and help people kind of navigate their own journeys. And people have reached out over the years and said, I solved my entire mole problem just by listening to your podcast. That is incredible. That is incredible to me. And it's something that I really, really loved and kind of fell off a little bit, obviously, with what we're doing here, right? Or what I've been working on. Anyways, now we are back. I've been talking about the business, but let's talk about this podcast, too, right? Because I will tell you, like, honestly, I've been feeling a little discouraged about the podcast in that I didn't know what else to talk about. I don't know what else to talk about. And I would even talk with clients. I was like, guys, what do you think? Because a lot of our clients, they're you. They listen, right? They listen, they listen, they learn. They're like, wow, I want to work with Brian and his team. Like, they clearly are the ones, right? And then, you know, a lot of that. So a lot of times I'll be talking to clients and I'll ask them. I'm like, I feel like I've kind of done all of it. Like, what else can I do, right? And we've been spending with my team internally talking to other clients as well, like, truly trying to figure out, like, what is the next growth cycle of this podcast specifically, right? Like, what is this going to look like in the future to where it's still valuable for you guys? It's not, like, too repetitive. There's some variety in it, but it's all, like, driving towards the same theme, right? And so when we come back, which is today, I wanted to make sure, along with my team. And let me say this, my team is really, like, driving this as well with me, right? It's not just me wanting to make sure. It's like, we talk together, right? It's like, how do we figure out how to do this and create the next version of this? Because there's so much to talk about, and.

There'S just different ways that we could probably do it, right? So I was feeling kind of burnt out and that. I just felt really repetitive. And then I was thinking, other people must feel this too. How valuable is this show right now? And that was, you know, I've been kind of feeling that For a while. Right. So I'm really excited about, like, what's going to happen with this show. We're going to be doing a couple things that are changing. A lot of it's going to be similar. Um, one thing that I'm really excited to do is to bring in some of our most seasoned inspectors and team members to be parts of the episodes. I think that there's a lot, you know, you can hear my voice and my voice is great, I suppose, or whatever, but it's nice to hear other perspectives. It's. I want other people from my team to be highlighted as well and to be able to share their expertise and to be able to provide maybe different views of context around things too. Beyond the way that I do it all the time, everyone kind of thinks of things differently. You communicate things a little differently. Any of you who've listened to me for a while know that I'm really big on analogies and I just come up with them off the top of my head all the time. And maybe 80% of the time they land and 20% they don't.

But having other points of view in here I think will be really helpful. And you know, these are the people, they're in the field every week, they're finding mold in all the places. They're talking with our clients every day they're getting more real time feedback in that way as well that I think would add a lot of value to conversations. So that's one really big thing that's going to happen. Going to be start bringing on people who are on my consulting team, my inspection team, even other areas of the business. The knowledge that we share and move throughout our business is created like this group of individuals who I just feel are very talented, very knowledgeable. And so I want to start bringing them on to share some of that with you guys. And you know, they're going to have some crazy stories to share, I'm sure, and they'll have different ways of talking through stuff and I think it'll be super helpful, even question answering. Right. Another thing that we're going to start doing, we're going to be bringing on guests. I kind of pulled that back a little bit last year. And we're going to start bringing on guests. We're going to start structuring it a little bit differently. It's not always going to be the same type of guest that was coming. Like I feel like last year it was always. This is very similar. Every doctor that we had that came on, we're kind of talking about the same stuff. And while I know that it's helpful, I want to try to broaden that a little bit. I would really love to be able to share some insight in different ways. Right. And so that's one piece from the medical side, also other experts and then also people who have gone through their own mold journeys themselves. I think that piece is really important. If you are a client side note that has worked with us and you want to talk about it, I'd be more than happy to have you on here to talk about it because I think that's really helpful. It's one thing to hear stuff from me, it's even one thing to hear stuff, you know, from our team. But when you hear somebody who's actually gone through.

Can bring a whole different point of view to stuff. Right. And so, you know, my hope here is that you get some fresh perspectives, you'll get expert advice in different areas, maybe even some serious like, aha moments from somebody who's going through the same thing. Right. So that's some of the stuff that we're driving for in the pod that's going to be a little new. So I'm excited about that. You'll start hearing some new voices. You'll start maybe seeing some different formats of shows a little bit and we'll start kind of playing with it and would love your guys's feedback on all of this stuff too. So as, as we're going through this comments would be amazing, like, let me know what you think about certain things and episodes. The commenting in the pod is great. And then obviously, you know, if you, if you like it, you could rate it. That would be cool too. So what I'm going to do today for outside of this update is I'm just going to do a couple questions here, just kind of get ourselves back into it.

And we'll go from there. Right. So these came in through our email community and here's the first one. I'm just going to kind of read it here. It says I'm very sick with mold illness as well as Lyme disease. We've had four inspections that came up close to negative. Then we had a dog who was trained to smell mold and she picked it up in several places. What do you think? We're unsure how to proceed and we're living in the guest house which was recently built. The house was built in the 1920s of old, old wood, no visible mold. Thanks for your thoughts. There's a couple things to unpack in this. So this is like a really cool one here. Here's the first thing.

Let's talk about the. I've had multiple inspections and, like, that whole thing of it, right. I feel like I've gone through this, but, hey, I haven't talked to you in six months. Let me beat the drum again.

The normal path that I've seen that most people go through when they go through the mold journey is they realize that mold's impacting our health in some way. Sometimes it's going to a doctor. Sometimes, you know, you're doing your own, you know, research, like, whatever it is, and then you're like, okay, I need to go figure out I need to have a mold inspection, right? And then you go on to Yelp, and you go into here and there, and you look for five star mold inspectors. And like, oh, they have five stars. They must be good. And then they come in and they tell you that everything is fine. And what they do is they do an air sample in a couple rooms here or there, and like, oh, your air quality is great. Everything's fine. And then you think because they're certified and they have ratings and all these things, that that must be true, right? And so this person, they said they had four inspections that came up close to negative, right? And this is, like, a pretty common thing that happens now. I'll give you my top line on it. I won't go crazy into this. The reason that mold inspections fail and. And the reason that all of these inspectors that come in aren't able to find stuff is because they don't know what they're looking for. Right? And I think that is the big thing. Most inspectors believe that if there's no water, there can't be mold. I understand why they think that, because technically, you need water for mold to grow, right? But here's the thing, is that you don't need water for mold to stay. And that is, like, if there's one thing to take away from all anything that I've ever said, it is that it is. Mold does not need water to stay. And so think about it. You have a plant. You water the plant, the plant grows, you stop watering the plant. What does the plant do? The plant doesn't, like, pick itself up out of its pot and grab its little suitcase and start looking for more water somewhere and leave. The plant doesn't do that. Right. What does the plant do? It dries out. It starts to fold over, it starts to get dry, it starts to break apart. All of a sudden, you come and look on your counter, and there's like petals of the flower or leaves that have fallen off the plant because it's dried out, it can't sustain itself anymore. It is still there. Right? So now imagine that petal fell off the flower. The leaf came off, and then you come and just blow. Just blow the counter. All of that stuff now blows off the counter. That is exactly what happens with mold in our houses. A lot of times people will go in and you'll have a previous leak somewhere or something like that, or a drip, or maybe your garbage disposal dripped, or maybe your kids are splashing out of the shower and the baseboards are warped or whatever. But it's not wet right now. Right. And so what does that mean? It means you have a higher likelihood for the visual. I just described where the petals and the leaves have fallen off. And then when you get a change in air pressure in a house, which happens all the time, if you've ever opened up a door and you, like, heard a door shut somewhere else on the other side of the house, that is air forcefully moving back and forth through your house. Right? And so all of the petals and leaves that I just kind of described falling on the counter when you stop watering your plant, right? And then I say come over and imagine you just blowing really hard on the counter. What happens to all that stuff? It all blows all over the place. Right? And that's the equivalent of what happens when your airflow in your house moves. So your airflow goes through a place where mold grew, but now it's dry. Air hits it, and it blows it all over the place, and it gets into our space. Right. But nothing's wet, and the air samples are fine. So that means everything is good. And that is the big, big problem. Right. And so that part of it doesn't surprise me. We have multiple inspections. They all said there was no problem. Now, this part of it is interesting, and I do want to talk about this because I've been seeing more people do the mold dog thing. And so I just want to, like, talk about it real quick. They had a dog come in train to see mold they found in several places. Okay.

I've had people ask me if they feel like this is something that works, that doesn't work, or whatever.

I feel like it can work, but it's not fully. It doesn't fully work. 1 and 2. I have a really hard time supporting putting a living thing like a dog around your house, sniffing all the dust and everything and all the walls where we know all the mold is going to harbor. And Collect and basically exposing the dog to all of this stuff in an effort to try to help you figure out where problems are. There's a way to do this where we don't have to hurt dogs. And you can say you're not hurting them or not hurting them all you want the people to have them. But here's the reality. Dogs are living things. We know that mold impacts living things. We know that if you breathe in mycotoxins, that they are cellular disruptors. We know that heavy loads of mold at their core minimum.

Are immune disruptors. Just at the very minimum, they're all allergies at the very, at the very minimum of mold. Every mold is an allergen. So you're going to be triggering some sort of immune response. And I just don't love, like constantly putting an animal through all of that because everything settles down on the surfaces, it settles down on the ground. They're getting closest to where the collection of it is while they're sniffing all over the place. I just, I don't love it. I don't love it from that perspective. But let's put that side of it over here on the side and just talk about, like, how it works. So what I have seen, because I've seen a lot of people use mold dogs, I have seen them identify things well, and I've also seen them miss things. And so if you think of what dogs are doing, they're using smell, okay? Now, when mold is growing, it creates an mvoc, which is, it's called a microbial volatile organic compound, and that creates an odor. So when you walk into a house, you smell that musty smell, that's actually an off gassing from the mold colony, and that's an odor. Right. So dogs noses are trained to smell things. Okay. Now they're going to smell much stronger than we are. So they might be able to pick up on some of those things where a normal nose might not. Right. And as far as mycotoxins go, I don't know if they're a chemical. I don't know if they have a particular odor that we can or can't pick up on, frankly. Right. But the thing is, when we're doing our inspections and our investigating, it's not around. Is there a mycotoxin here? A mycotoxin is a byproduct of mold growing. Right. So the concern isn't, is there a mycotoxin in this wall, in this ceiling, in this cabinet, whatever the concern is, is there mold in this ceiling and this Wall in this cabinet, whatever, right? And so the thing that I have seen with them is when they flag something, almost all the time, there's a problem there. So like I. There's something there. But I've also seen when we come in and do inspections after the mold dog has come, see, a lot of times what happens is just like this. It's like, hey, we had a mold dog come, they flagged a bunch of stuff. Here's the problem with the moldog. They don't test anything, right? So you don't actually know what's behind a certain place. Now, some of you might say, well, if you just told me that they're usually right on that stuff, then what's it matter? It matters because what are you going to remediate and how are you going to remediate it? Right? Let's say the dog goes through and flags 20 walls, which I've seen. Walls, window areas, H vac vents, all these things. Your plan of attack is one of two things. I'm just going to remediate everything the dog flagged. That is a huge remediation bill. Or hey, let's test the areas. And this is typically what people want to have done when we start talking about it. I want to test all the areas the dog flagged because I want to see which ones are like really severe as compared to other ones. And I want to prioritize what I'm going to run out, which is what I would always want to do too, right? Like think 80, 20 rule. What's the worst? Let's run at that first, right? And think of it that way. So I have seen that the majority of the time when dogs flag something, there is something there. It's just a matter of like, how bad is it or not. But here's the other thing. When we go in and do the inspections on the backside of the dogs, we also find a bunch of stuff the dogs don't find because there's stuff that are dry, that have no odor, effectively is my assumption here, because the dog's not flagging it for it to trigger. And so we're still identifying because we're using visual clues of water damage. Right. Which we all know, as we've listened to this over the year, you know, over the years, water is the precursor to mold growth. Most mole problems we find are in places that are not currently wet right now. So we have to look for things like bubbling, paint, cracking, warping, separating, these things that indicate potential moisture intrusion. And we know that if water was there at One point, and then mold grew and then the water went away, that the mold is still there. Just like I talked about the top, right. And so a lot of times what happens is that we end up like adding to what the mold dog found. But even through that, a lot of the things that the mold dog found still has the clues, right? So like, when I look at it, I would probably bypass the dog and just go straight to the inspection. Because if you, if you think about what you're doing, you're paying for the dog to come out, right? So there's an extra cost that's happening with the dog. And then you actually need testing to verify, like, what the dog found and understand which of them are more severe than others. So you know what to do afterwards and get remediation protocols and all that stuff. And all of that stuff happens through the inspection anyway, if you're having a good inspection. So the dog cost ends up being an extra cost that at the end of the day probably wasn't really necessary because when they are flagging stuff, they're generally flagging the same things that we would be seeing because there's also clues of water damage there, right? So all of that said, the ultimate question is here, we're unsure of how to proceed, right? So what I would do, well, what I would think to do, right? There's a lot of variables in this. There's cost, there's where do you live? Do you love where you live? Do you not love where you live? You know, what's the budget look like? Like, where are you at? Right. There's a lot of things, but let's just kind of say, hey, we're trying to move forward with this place. We need to know where the problems are, one, and we need to know how significant they are in those areas. And we need to prioritize a plan of attack. That's really what the next step is, Right? And so it would be, I would be saying you'd want to inspect the whole thing, right? You'd want to tell, you know, tell us where the dog is flagging. So we, I want to test every area that a dog flagged. Every single time. I want to test every area that a dog flagged because like I said, they're generally pretty good at it. And it's about how, what's the level, the concentration level, how severe is it? Right? So I'd want to do that. And then obviously we do our, our own whole assessment anyways. And we're probably going to find other things that are going to going on. And then let's see, like, the full scope of what's happening in this place. From that, we can then help prioritize. Okay. Off of the 10, 15 things that we're seeing, whatever it is, these three or four, these seem to be the worst. So, like, as we start talking about how to proceed, really, the question is, like, do we remediate? Do we not? A lot of times that's what that question really means. And the only way to know if you're going to remediate or not is to understand what the scope of the remediation might be and how much it might cost. Because at the end of the day, the cost is the thing that ends up being the driver a lot of times on whether you're going to remediate or not. Right? So you start, like, backing into the real thing that you need to know. The real thing you need to know is where you need to remediate and what it's going to cost to do it. And then you start backtracking from there. In order to know where I need to remediate, I need to test all these things so I can understand how they relate to each other. In order to test the things properly, I need to have a really deep, thorough inspection in the way that we do it, so I can identify the red flags that need to be tested. So then I can figure out the areas that are the most, most severe, and then I can get our plans and our priorities in place. Right? So that would be my suggestion if you had the dog pick up several things. There's a lot of stuff going on. I will say this a 1920s house, just inherently there's going to be things that are going on. So that's not a huge surprise. That's 100-year-old house. Okay? So, you know, think about how grandma handled a dishwasher leak. You know, she probably just wiped it up with a towel and left it alone. You know, grandma's 80 now, right? So when she was 30 in this house 50 years ago, and she had a dishwasher leak, nobody knew any of this stuff, right? So all that stuff comes. It all comes along, right? And so, you know, the older the house, the more potential for those things that happen. And that's why we go through a really deep kind of onboarding process and understanding the house and you and how long you've been there and things that you know about it in addition. So that would be kind of my suggestion of the steps, knowing what you know now, but with, you know, Mold illness, and Lyme. It's super, super important that we're understanding the full scope of everything and knowing how to attack it in a very smart, strategic way to reduce the exposure as much as possible, while also helping to manage the cost and do it in the most cost efficient way. And this is the path that we, you know, have to do that. So hopefully that's helpful and, and if any of you else are listening and you're kind of in that scenario, hopefully that that helps you for you too. The other question is more specific to windows. So we see a lot of window issues. And so I thought this is a good one to talk about. So let me, I'll just read this. Hello, Brian, Is there any information out there about if aluminum windows are worse than wood or fiberglass for mold? We live in a cold winter area and the window frames sweat. Even though we don't keep the house super hot. It doesn't seem like the one fiberglass and one wood window sweat as much. We do have evidence of water and mold around the aluminum windows. So metal types of materials, they're going to condense easier than like fiberglass windows will, or vinyl windows will. Window issues are so big. When we, when we go into places, we look around all windows, every room, it's a big piece if you think of it. Every room in your house has effectively a window in it for the most part. And in order to put a window in, you have to cut a hole in your house in order to put a window in. So a house that was once solid, you now cut a hole in the house and you put a window in it. Right. So now you have to seal up around all the window to make sure water doesn't come in. Right. Now, windows, there's two ways that they could get impacted. One is there's a leak from the window, which is what I just described. The other is what this person wrote in about, which was about condensation. Condensation is such an overlooked water source, especially around windows. And there's so many times that we test the windows and they're massive, high mole counts, like hundreds of thousands of spore counts on window areas. Right. And the reason is that the condensation now becomes your water source. So a lot of times we, we kind of devalue that because we're like, oh, we know, we know where the water's coming from. It's not a leak, it's just sweating. It's just condensation, whatever it might be. Water is water. Your, your house doesn't Know the difference between where the water came from, right? Condensation is no different than a leak coming in is no different from rain. It is water, it's moisture.

And so when we're thinking about that, it's really important that we're understanding the things that contribute to that and trying to make the best decisions, like preventatively, right? So generally, here's what I would tell you. I do not want wood windows at all, right? Now, here's the reason why is because if there is condensation on the glass, well, let me back up condensation. All right? So anyone who's taken a cold glass of water, whatever, taking it outside, there's ice in your glass, you take it outside, all of a sudden water starts beating up on the outside of your glass, right? That's condensation. So here's like the top end layman's explanation of condensation. The air holds moisture, right? Air has water in it. We just can't see it all the time, right? That's what humidity is, right? So there's water in the air. Now, for those of you especially that live in colder areas that get cold, but it happens everywhere in the country in the winter, there's way less moisture in the air, right? This is why our lips start to crack and our noses start to bleed for no reason. And all this stuff is because the humidity goes down, there's less moisture in the air. Why? The colder it is, the less capacity the air has to hold water, meaning it can hold less water. So think of it this way. If you have a cup and it's in the summer, you have a 32 ounce cup in the summer, but in the winter, that 32 ounce cup turns into an 8 ounce cup. And so imagine now that the winter changes. You had filled the water up to 32 ounces in the summer, and then you just like put it into an 8 ounce cup, all that water is going to come out, right? And that's kind of the idea of how condensation works. It's all built around kind of the relationship between moisture in the air and temperature and that those are the two values that move on that, right? So if you live in a place that generally has higher humidity, you live in the south, you live, you know, near water or whatever, there should be more moisture generally in the air, which means when the temperature goes down, you're going to have a higher likelihood that condensation is going to start occurring, right? I live in California. I don't really have condensation issues in My house, because we don't have high humidity generally, right? And so that means when it gets colder, I don't see condensation on my windows because there's not as much moisture in the air that doesn't have a place to go. But if you're somewhere where there's more moisture in the air and the temperature goes down, then all of a sudden, the water has nowhere to go, and so it almost forms, right? It goes out of the air, and then it sits on the surface where the temperature changed happened. So now the air doesn't have it anymore, and it kind of took it out of the air and it laid it down on the surface. That is the temperature difference. And a lot of times that's glass or your. Or metal or something like that, right? And so when I'm talking about, like, types of windows, wood I really, really don't like. And the reason I don't like wood windows is because if condensation occurs on the glass, water gets into the wood. There's no clean in the wood at that point. Right. If mold starts growing in the wood, it's done. You got to replace the windows. A lot of older windows were wood windows. You go to older houses, it's all wood windows, right? You go to newer houses, there really isn't wood windows and newer houses as frequently. This is a big thing, right? So, like, we're going through a house and we see there's water damage or there's mold, like, in the wood around the windows. Surface cleaning doesn't work there, right? It gets in the wood, it gets under. It moves. You know, it's more porous. And because of that, the water gets through it, and at that point, it's, you know, replacing them, typically. So I'm not a big fan of wood. Now. Fiberglass vinyl windows, I think those are probably my favorite windows. They're not like, metal to the point, like, they won't condense as fast as metal does. But when you look to clean, you could potentially clean these types of windows, assuming that the damage and the mold is kind of within the window itself, and it hasn't gotten out to the windowsill or kind of the sides, which is called the jamb. If you think of, like, your window, they cut out a hole for your window, go into, and then there's a little bit of wall that kind of comes out from the window. The same way that there's windowsill on the bottom, there's kind of a wall on the sides that come out. So, like, if moisture starts getting out around there. Now you're beyond the window, now you're in the building materials, which is, you know, a different story. But if it's kind of retained in the window and the lab results aren't crazy on the testing, and it's not just all over the place, then there's potentially an option to clean those types of windows. Right. So for that reason, I really like more like the vinyl fiberglass stuff as opposed to wood. And then I don't really love metal as much. You know, metal isn't really used as much anymore either. So typically when you have metal windows and even wood windows, you're going to have higher condensation that occurs with those. And this is the other piece that you could think of. When you're looking at windows, there's something that's called a condensation factor. It's called CF when it comes to windows. And it's kind of a rating of effectively how insulated is the window essentially, and how much temperature difference can the window handle and kind of dissipate before it will create a condensation issue. Right. So a higher CF rating means that the window is better insulated, means that if it's like cold outside and warm inside, you're not going to get that, that, that big temperature difference on the surface as much. And then because of that, you're not going to have condensation that forms on it as much. So newer windows, you want higher CF ratings and generally those are going to be like fiberglass or vinyl windows. So that would be my, my kind of thoughts on the windows. When I'm thinking about, okay, what do we do now? If I have metal windows, if I had, you know, whatever. It's really important to understand, is it just the window or is it impacting the window sill? Is it impacting the side jams? One thing to think about too is if you have that, and especially if it's impacting the windowsill, if you see staining or cracking or bubbling paint or anything on the sill, like beyond the frame of the window, underneath that sill is a couple two by fours. And then you have an open cavity that goes down below your window. So you start getting mold that gets down into there, it gets into the wood and then it starts creating mold under there. Right. So these windows can actually cause bigger problems for the walls that are underneath in different areas like that. So.

Those are hopefully that's helpful. The question wasn't really.

What do I do about it, it was just more like information. So I hope I gave you some information, some background, maybe somewhat to do about it with me. Testing windows is really important. It's so important. It's one of the biggest areas in a house where we find problems. And so it's really important for us to understand that. So I'm going to wrap it up for today.

I've been busy, but I'm back and I'm excited and the show is going to be better than ever. If you have questions, you could get into my email community. You can send them in link for that is in the show notes for you to get there. If you're excited about the changes, let me know. Comment in here if you can and let me know. And if you haven't subscribed yet, please do that already. I know it's been a minute, but I promise you you're going to want to see stuff if you're interested in hearing hearing about it. So that's what I got for you guys. Thank you so much. See you next time. We're back.

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