45: Q&A - Can you live in a home with a crawl space? / Wood wall paneling / Mold plates

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, everyone. What's going on? It is an afternoon, actually. I know I normally record in the morning.

Sometimes I'm yawning, and then I tell you about how tired I am. But my old morning routine was get up, record before the family woke up, try to get that handled. So. So I could be getting stuff out for you guys to listen to. But if any of you have been following me on my Instagram stories this week, you'll see that I've kicked back in my morning workout routines, and that has eaten into my morning podcast recording routine. So short of me starting to wake up at, like, 4 in the morning instead of 5 in the morning.

Made a little difficult this week. So I've started working on a new schedule to make sure I could keep up with you guys. So we recorded the last episode with Corey. We did middle of the day, and that obviously worked out okay because minus the technical difficulties, if you listen to those.

It wasn't too bad. If you haven't listened, you can listen to it. The technical difficulties weren't that bad. There's just a couple little glitches. But the beauty of podcast editing, I just kind of cut it off, put in the new one and bamboo, like, it's like you barely knew it. So that's what we did earlier this week, and now it is the afternoon. I don't know if you can tell. I'm much more energized, much more awake, which is cool. And I wanted to do a Q and A. So first off, the feedback from the. The episode we did with Corey was really good. After the episode, we did pop onto Instagram. We did do an Instagram live. A shared live with the two of us. So it was me on the Mold masterclass account. And then Corey was actually on the We Inspect account, which is, yes, we Inspect. And we did it that way, and it was cool. We answered a few questions and we got some good feedback. So I think we're gonna have Corey turn into somewhat of a regular segment whenever we're not, like, doing inspections all the time. And we could fit it in between both of our schedules. We'll do it so hopefully at least once a week if we can make that happen. In the meantime, you're just stuck with me still, so hopefully that's okay. So, anyways, I wanna do Q and A today. I had some questions come in. I initially put out a call for questions before Corey's episode. And then we just started going on, you know, on the story about the apartment building and kind of the whole thought process. And next thing you know, we didn't really answer many questions on the show, which is why we did a separate Instagram Live to get a couple of those in. So here is the first question that we're going to do. So this one comes from Annie E. Thorpe, and the question is, can people with the dreaded HLA mold gene live with a crawl space?

You're probably asking this question because I just destroy crawl spaces all the time on this show.

And you know what? I could see how that might be a little demoralizing if you live in a place that has a crawl space. Right. And you're there for whatever reason. It's definitely not my intent. It's really just more to call out the, you know, the potential issues that can come from that. But can someone live with a crawl space? Yeah, I mean, it can be done. I don't want you to feel like, you know, your life's over. You have a house with a crawl space, you have the HLA genetic issue, and bam, you're screwed forever. Right? So that's. That's not the goal. It can happen. You just have to make sure that things are being handled down there properly and that you're on top of it and you're just really cognizant of it. Right? So every home is going to have its issue. If you move into another house, it might not be a crawl space. It might be something else that's going on you have to keep an eye on. Right. So you. Every home's going to have its thing. A few things to keep in mind with crawl spaces.

Okay? So two things. So one, it's below your house or below ground, it's subgrade, which means that any water that is penetrating down into the soil can move through into the crawl space if it's not waterproofed properly. So waterproofing is huge for managing a crawl space. Okay. And this might require having a waterproofing expert come out, actually evaluate the outside of your house, the grading, the drainage, all of that stuff. Are there gutters on your roof or is the ground sloped the right way? Do you have a French drain if you don't have a French drain, where do the gutters release water to? And is it in a way that it's not going to move toward the house? Do you have planters against your house where sprinklers are spraying? There's all these things that could contribute to moisture building up in the dirt and the soil next to the house, and that could be a problem because gravity is going to take that down, and then it's going to get towards the crawl space, and then it can diffuse through the crawl space foundation walls that are down there. So that's one big thing. Additionally, the other thing with the crawl space. So a lot of times we think of water coming in from the side, right? So we think of kind of what I just described. But you're also sitting on a big bed of dirt, right? So there's a couple things that could happen there. One, you may be sitting on what's called a high water table. And so what that means is that there's basically moisture in the soil pretty high up in the ground of the soil. So it's not super deep in the ground. And if it's higher up more towards the surface of the ground, then it can more easily work its way and penetrate up into your crawl space from the bottom. Okay? So that's not like a drainage issue from the outside. When you think drainage, you think water around the house and that sort of thing. So it's not that kind of issue. It's. It's. And it's not really a drainage issue. It is a waterproofing issue. Right. So you got to figure that out. If you have water coming up from the bottom, the measures have to be put in place to. To counteract that. Otherwise, it's literally this constant thing that will never end. And then, you know, there really is little hope for that situation, for a crawl space to stay in a good. In a good place. So, you know, people, they put down, you know, moisture barriers down there. There's different things that you can do for encapsulating a crawl space, trying to seal it up. A couple things to keep in mind. The ideal best way, if you have a crawl space, to help limit what's coming up in terms of the dust and the dirt particle, because if you think of it, you got a big old, you know, slab of dirt down there, right? And as we talked before, the normal pressure in a house goes from bottom to the top, which means that those little dirt particles that are floating around are going to get pulled upward into the house. And if There is mold and bacteria and other things down there. Then those particles are going to come up, too. So part of it is you don't want to have a whole lot of floating particle down there. That's why a lot of times, people will talk about putting a vapor barrier down over the dirt, which is okay.

The best way to handle a crawl space is actually to get rid of the dirt component completely. And you basically lay down a small layer of concrete that covers the bottom of the entire crawl space. So you would have your dirt, then your moisture barrier, and then they would lay concrete on it. It's not super thick. It's not like this massive, huge slab, but they lay it down there. Now you have more protection from moisture coming up, right? Because now you've got a moisture barrier, and then you also have cement that's down there. So there's another layer, and it gets rid of all the floating dirt and dust particle, too, because now there's not a whole lot of dirt down there. So if you're looking at kind of the best. Best way to do that, to try to avoid things like that, that's one thing that, you know, we. We talk to people about doing. That's the most ideal solution. It's a little more expensive because you're laying concrete. And so they may have to. Actually, depending on how big your crawl space is, they may have to access the crawl space from the inside of the house, which means they might actually have to take up some flooring and open some holes to get to get down to the crawl space. And obviously, that's like a big thing, right? So some people don't want to do that, but it is the more ideal solution to kind of handle the dirt and moisture issue kind of from the ground area down there when it comes to the rest of the crawl space. We talked about the.

The waterproofing on the exterior of the house. Right. And stopping that water from coming in. So the other thing down there is, you know, do you put insulation down there? Where do you put it? And I actually. I want to have someone else on the show who, like, really works with a lot of these, because I was talking to him about it the other day, and he just explains it all very well. Here's the thing that you definitely don't want to happen. You don't want to have insulation placed directly against the walls of your crawl space, the foundation walls. And this goes for basement, too. Basement crawl spaces. You don't want that. So, again, think if water's coming from the outside of the House, let's say it rains, right? And it comes down the side of the house and it starts kind of penetrating in the side walls of your crawl space. If you put insulation directly against that wall, you're trapping the moisture right there and you're going to end up with a mole problem behind that insulation almost every single time. So that is one big, big mistake that we don't want to make. And I see it happen a lot, right? So for some reason it's kind of a normal practice for crawl space encapsulation companies to do that. And they think what they're doing is that they're insulating the crawl space to keep the crawl space temperature wise. That's what they're doing. They're doing insulation, right? So they're trying to manage temperature and they're like, well, if we, if we ins against all of the exterior walls, is going to be easier to manage the temperature in the crawl space than it is if we maybe insulate under the floor of the crawl space. You just have to think about where the water's coming from, right? So I would rather, if you're going to insulate your crawl space, you know, you don't have to, right? But if you're going to.

I would rather the insulation be under the, under the subfloor. So like kind of the ceiling of the crawl space looking up, I would rather it be there than it be directly against the wall on the side of the walls. Because like I said, if you put that insulation directly on the side of the walls and moisture comes in from the outside, trapped moisture directly from the source of where the water is coming in, you're gonna have a mold problem there. Okay, but let's say you don't do that. So you don't put it against the foundation walls. Let's say you put it on the subfloor, which is, you know, kind of underneath the floor of the house where you walk, so you're further away from the actual water source, which means you're not going to end up with trapped moisture immediately where it's coming from, which is good. So then what you could do is as long as you have really good.

Dehumidification going on down there and working with your, you know, to make sure that the ventilation is right with the contractors you have putting stuff in. But as long as you're dehumidified down there, then by the time that that air and that moisture that diffuses through the side walls of the crawl space gets to the subfloor, which is where your Insulation is. It shouldn't be. There shouldn't be moisture anymore because the dehumidifier is pulling that moisture out. And if that's happening properly, then you should not end up with a mold problem between your insulation and the subfloor. Because by the time the moisture would have gotten there, the dehumidifier pulled it all out and got rid of it. But there's no way the dehumidifier could do that. If you have a foam board insulation directly against a foundation wall, it's giving it no time. Right? So if water's coming in from the side, it's immediately getting trapped behind.

Insulation board against your, your sidewall of your crawl space. The, the dehumidifier could be the best thing you have in the world. But it's literally trapped right there and there's no way you can get it out of there. And that's why you're going to get mold back there. So if you kind of think of these things with your crawl space and you're managing your drainage right, you're understanding your geological layout and is there a water table issue or not? If there is, you may need a sump pump to help pull some of the groundwater out. Right. And you're getting dehumidification in place. You're not putting insulation directly against exterior walls and you're kind of doing all of these things and keeping on top of it then. And if you do lay concrete down over the dirt, then that's even better than then. You're doing a lot to manage the crawl space. And at that point, I'd be okay living in a place that had the proper things in place. The reason that I'm so anti crawl space is because none of them are done properly. And so whenever I go to a house and we go in the crawl space and it's a disaster. It's like that because people don't think about it. It's kind of that out of sight, out of mind thing. And so because of that, it's not a priority. Nobody's looking at maintenance, nobody's checking their drainage, nobody's looking all this stuff. And because of where it's located under the house, it becomes kind of ground zero for all of the problems to kind of drain and, and end up at. And it becomes a very big source of a problem that then starts moving its way upward through the house. So that's why I'm so anti crawl space. It's. It's because they aren't really attended to the right way And a lot of the practices that are in place are not implemented to their fullest potential, let's say. And even some of the things that are trying to be done in an effort to maybe help temperature or airflow or whatever, they're not thinking of the implications that that can have from a mold point of view. And so that causes actual mole problems. So if you're thinking of all those things and you're getting all that in line and you're on top of it, then even if you have the HLA genetic predisposition, I think you could be okay in a place like that because you'd be managing the crawl space so well that it's not turning into a source of a problem. And the whole goal is to remove sources. So if you remove that source, then you're not worrying about it. So hope that's helpful for you.

All right, so our next question is from Mrs. Liss McDuffie. And it says. So wallpaper is obviously out for bathrooms. Cool. You've been listening. But what about Shiplap or wood paneling on the walls? That's actually a good question. It's funny that you say that, because I've been watching a whole lot of that show Fixer Upper, and Joanna Gaines, she's all about putting Shiplap on stuff. And if she sees it anywhere, she wants to leave it. And if it's. And if it's somewhere else, she wants to pull it off and put it on another wall. And that's kind of her whole thing.

Not her whole thing, but it's a piece of it. Anyways. She's got that whole farmhouse thing going on. And anyways.

I don't love it. If you would be okay not doing it, I would probably not do it. Here's the thing, I. I don't want anything covering my walls. I don't want to create any sort of barrier where I don't have to. You know, there are places where you have to do certain things like that, but like, walls, you don't have to cover up that way, you know? And I know from a design it's cool, right? Like in Joanna Gain, she makes it look really awesome in a lot of places. I didn't think very farmhouse, and I actually don't think I'm super farmhouse when it really comes to it. But then I like, watch the things she puts together. I'm like, oh, wow, these things look really cool.

But.

Even though Shiplap put on the wall, it's going to be a little more breathable than wallpaper is right. Cuz wallpaper is like a single vinyl. It's going straight over it. It's going to be hardcore vapor barrier. You're going to have a little more breathability in ship lap or wood paneling or something like that. The thing that I don't like most about it is that it doesn't let me see the wall anymore. And so, you know, a big part of understanding if you have issues that are creeping up is being able to look around your house and look for signs of water damage. Is there any staining? Is the, is paint peeling a little bit in this place? Is there a little cracking over here? That's kind of weird. Is the baseboard pulling off the wall? And if you cover up the wall, you now take away all that visibility and you don't know. So here's what I would say. If you're going to do it.

Do it on an interior wall, don't do it on an exterior wall. And if you could avoid it, try not to do it on a wall that's like below a bathroom or laundry room or something. That way if there are any leaks that happen from water sources that are internal, at least you'll still keep visibility those areas. And as far as keeping them off of external walls, if there's a roof issue or so or a window leak or something like that that you're building around, then you wouldn't be able to see those. Right. Because the, the ship lap, the wood paneling would cover that up. You know, I feel the same way about wainscoting too. Wainscoting is really, really cool looking, but the same thing, it covers up what you can see and sometimes the water damage pushes through the wainscoting and you can see it, but at that point it's pretty bad. And there may be times where you just can't see behind it. And there are times in houses when I see stuff like that and I'm like, hey, I think you need to pull all this off for investigation because I'm seeing something looks a little weird and I can't see these walls. And the only way I'm going to know for sure and I'm not going to miss something is if all this comes off. Right? Does that make sense? So one other quick note about wood paneling. So I've seen this in multiple homes to be really, really careful about the wood you're using, right? So the wood looks really cool. Everybody's all about like reclaimed wood. Oh yeah. We went to this lumber yard and got this wood or we got these. What are those? Those things. God. They have a name. The pallets. Yeah, yeah, like pallets. And. And you could take pallets and tear the wood apart and put those on walls. You know, like pallets that forklifts pick up and stuff. That's like, a thing. A lot of that wood has mold on it, right. So I can't tell you how many homes I've been into that put wood paneling or shiplap or whatever up on walls, and then I walk and I'm looking at the wall. So when I'm looking at a wall with paneling like that, I spent a lot more time because I'm really trying to look for water damage and staining. You're not going to see a lot of buckling and cracking and stuff because it's wood, but you may see staining or discoloration. So I'm really, like, spending time looking around and. And the other thing is that there's all these different patterns in the wood, too, right. So it just makes it a little more difficult to look at it. And then as I'm looking through it, I get up close, and I can't tell you how many times I actually see mold just on the wood. Right. It's not super obvious if you're far away, but if you get close and you're looking for it, you can see that stuff. And so people actually bring wood into the home, they put it up as paneling, and the wood actually has mold on it. And you know that sucks, right? So if you're gonna do paneling, shiplap, something like that, maybe try to keep those things in mind and see if it's doable. No exterior wall, no walls that are below plumbing, and really examine and make sure that there's not mold on the wood that you're putting up there. And if you do those things, then I know it can look pretty. So if you really want to, you could do it. But just keep in mind that you really have to keep eye on these types of water issues. And you really need to look at that. That ship lap and that wood paneling often and really do the best you can to make sure that there's no hidden water issues that are coming up behind it.

Oh, and one more thing. Since this question was actually about a bathroom at the beginning, and I just went off on this giant tangent about using it anywhere in a bathroom, personally, I wouldn't do it, because moisture can penetrate through wood, it can get behind the wood. You could get mold problems. And wood is Food source, Right. So you got a lot of moisture in a bathroom. You're showering, there's, you know, humidity. There's all this stuff going on. If it's on walls next to a shower, the shower could leak. It could get behind the wood. You'd have no idea that it's there in a bathroom. I definitely wouldn't do it personally, and I wouldn't really recommend that you do it either. So for that part of the question, I would say no. And then you can go ahead and everything else I talked about for every other room in your house, which was not actually your question. Sorry about that. You could maybe take some of that advice, too.

All right, so the last question we got is short and sweet, and it's when to use mold test plates. And my answer is going to be short and sweet also. And the answer is never.

So. So here's why. All right, so there's a couple things with mold test plates. One, they only test for what's called a viable spore. What that means is mold that is actually spores are actually alive and ready to grow. Right. Not all mold is currently alive. You could have dead mold, you could have mold that's been there a while and there hasn't been water and it's not sporulating properly. And the idea, though, is that it's not just living mold that causes a problem. Right. We've talked about this a lot. But when mold dries out, it becomes really brittle. It can move around all over the place much more easily. But if spores from that colony that has dried out and died hit, you know, hit on a. On a mold plate and on the food sources on there, it may not grow. Right. It might not be viable at that time anymore. But just because it's not growing doesn't mean that it's not a problem and that you're not being exposed to it. You're not breathing it as it's moving around. So you're getting. You're getting such a smaller piece of the overall view if you try to use a mold plate. Right? So, and the reason I say that, and, and there are studies that are out there that show that you could have. The fragments that break off of a mole colony can be upwards of 500 times in magnitude the number of spores that would be released from that colony. So mold test plates, one, are only looking for spores. So at minimum, you're probably 200 to 500 times less what the overall load is anyway. And then two, it's only actually counting for spores that are viable and ready to grow at that time. And I don't have numbers to give you for that, but that cuts down the percentage of actual findings that you would have even more significantly. Right? You're going to get lots of under reporting on, on mold test plates for that reason. Now the other thing.

It'S funny because you'll get a. All right, so let me explain the other part. So the other part is the food source that's in a mold plate, right? So it's called agar. It's kind of like this, this gelatin looking stuff that's in the plate. Different molds, like different agar, which are food sources. So not every mold plate is created equal and not every mold type will grow on every mold plate. So you might actually use a mold plate somewhere and there might be viable spores floating around and it might go onto the mold plate. But because it's not the right food source, it might not grow. And then it's not telling you what's really happening. You know.

Here'S the other thing with mold plates. So here's the flip side of this. Okay? So mold plates.

There, there's a couple ways people use them, but if you're just setting a mold plate out on the, on, you know, a countertop or something, there may be a viable mold spore that's floating around your house that sits on it. Remember, there's always some level of mold in the house. It's never completely mold, full free, right? So you make it a spore, a cladosporium or something of Aspergillus that floats around. That's not necessarily abnormal. It could be fine, it could be normal for the house and it settles on the mold plate. Here's the problem is that there's no baseline really for comparison on that. So all you do is you get a plate and it's like up, something's growing. Okay, I must have mold. And maybe it was just like one of the random normal spores that are floating around your house is settled there, right? You have no idea. You know, you're just setting it in the middle of a room somewhere.

The other, the other way that mold plates get used is doing what's called a tap test. And basically they'll take the plate and then they'll tap it on a couch or they'll tap it on a mattress or something. Right? They're trying to like pick up spores that are settled on there and then they'll put it, they'll set the plate down and like wait for it to grow. So again, it's only looking for viable spores. Right? So if you do that and nothing grows, it doesn't mean that there isn't mycotoxins, it doesn't mean that there's mold fragments that might have been in that same spot that didn't grow, because those aren't things that grow. Also, it could be normal settlement again of just kind of the normal amount of mold that might be, you know, in the area that you live that's working into the house. Right. There's really not a good interpretation of the results that come through. And because of the limitations on the food source that's there, and then also the limit on the mold spore actually having to be viable versus a non viable spore or even a fragment, it just makes the data very unactionable. Like, if I got some of that stuff, I'd have no idea what to tell you. You know what I mean? And that's, that's the problem. That's when I look at stuff like when do you use this? And it's. So the question on mine is, okay, if I did this, then what would my, what would my interpretation of this be? Be, you know, and a lot of inspectors don't think that they just like, oh, we take air samples, we bring them back and oh, here it is, here's your air samples, you know, but like the, you have to think about what the question is going to be. So, okay, I'm giving you a lab result and then your question to me is going to be like, okay, what does this mean? And I'm going to be like, eh, well, it doesn't really tell us a whole lot, but let's just say, I say, hey, well there's, it means there's some mold here, right? Let's just say, because that, you know, there may be some mold that landed on it. So that's what it means. And then your next question is, okay, where's it coming from? What do I do about it? And it's the million dollar question. And a mold plate is not going to tell you that. Right? So you have to do the inspections, you have to try to find source. Mold plates are typically not used to find source. They're used to try to understand kind of what's floating around. They're super cheap, they're super accessible. They're marketed as things that tell you if there's mold here, it's going to grow on your plate. And, and yes, if there's viable mold floating around, it'll grow on there. But if there's another 500 times load of fragmentation, or if there's chemical toxins or anything else floating around, it's not gonna tell you any of that, right? They're really not reliable and actionable for what we need it to be, and that's why we don't use them. And whenever someone tells us we did mold plates and then they want to show us the plates, I'm like, honestly, like, don't worry about showing me the plates. It's literally not telling me anything. And then we explain the process. You have to identify source, you have to figure out where, you know, these potential water damage issues are. We have to understand what's moving through the house. But not only from spores and even less so not only from viable spores. Right? You have to understand both viable and non viable because we could breathe in dead spores the same way we could breathe in living ones. And you also have to understand the fragments that have broken off of the colonies, which could be much smaller and much higher quantities. And those are the things that actually penetrate into our lungs more easily, break the blood barrier, like kind of cause a lot of the problems. They could be carrying the toxins too. So it's really, really important for us to be looking at all of that stuff and building a sampling plan that gets us all that information we need. And when we think about the different pieces of information that we need, a mold plate doesn't answer any one of the single pieces of information we need. So because of that, we don't use it. Right. And so what I would tell you is I know they seem cheap, I know they're marketed. I know that you see pictures when they're selling them to you of all the little mold things growing all over the place and the colonies and the filaments and like the hyphae and all this stuff, you're like, oh man, this is. I see this stuff growing. This is a good thing to do to see what's going on. It's not, I'm sorry, it's. It's just not. You know, there's. If you're going to try to do something on your own in your house, you should be doing, at the very least be doing an Ermie. And you can listen back to the last episode. So 44 with Corey, we talked through Ermi completely and even like how to read it, how to interpret. We talk through all that stuff. So I would be doing that. I know it's a little more expensive, but the information is actually telling you something. Whereas the information from mole plates aren't really telling you anything, so hopefully that all makes sense.

And thanks for submitting that question. And I think we're kind of wrapped up for today, it looks like, so hopefully you guys find all this helpful. Thank you for submitting these questions. I think I have a few more in the queue that I'm looking at, but I'll probably put out another call for questions probably next week, too.

And until then, I hope you guys have a great holiday weekend and enjoy time with your families and try to, you know, release a little of the tension from the world that's going on right now and just kind of be thankful for the stuff that you got, you know what I mean? Especially with a long weekend, get some time to hang out and decompress a little bit. So I know that's what we're gonna do, and I hope that all of you guys do that, too. And we will talk to you next week.

So that's it for today's show, everyone. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed the show, please 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.