60: This mistake can make you more sick... / Dry Ice Blasting for Remediation

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.

All right, guys, big, big news. We have our first sponsor. The molefinders Radio podcast has its first sponsor. This is very exciting stuff. You ready? Drum roll. Today's episode is brought to you by the mold Phone. You're like, wait, what's the mold phone? The mold phone is literally my phone. That's the mold phone. It's the phone that I bought just so I could talk to you guys. All right, so I got this phone. Maybe I'll tell the whole story another time. Maybe I'll tell the whole story right now. Okay, so here's. I talked a little bit about in the last episode, but I didn't really get into it, like, I thought that I did. So here is what happened. I was trying to think of ways that I could connect with you guys better, and my Instagram DMs are out of freaking control. And so I was like, okay, I'm getting all these DMs, I'm getting all these questions. I can't answer all these. I just physically don't have the time to do it. How do I. How do I do this, right? Like. Like, how am I able to. To. To help more? And so I was like, okay, I want to get. I want people to, like, texting is, like, the way to do this, right? But I. I can't give, like, my personal phone out. My wife would. Would have a heart attack probably if I did that. So we were out. I bought a phone, and I bought it specifically for you guys. So I literally have a second phone. It's in my house, and it's called the mold phone, and it's to talk to you. And here's the deal that I made with my wife, right? Because she was concerned that if I have a phone and I open up my phone number to texting with people, she knows how much that I keep. I respond. I'm on all the time, basically. She's like, listen, it's fine. You can do this. She's like, but I don't want you to be glued to this thing all the time. And so we made a deal. The deal was that I could have 15 to 30 minutes a day where I have the mold phone and try to interact, share what's going on on my end. We're working on so many awesome things, by the way, and I'm giving, like, little hints and tidbits and, like, sneak peeks at things as we go. But also, if you guys have questions, it's now a way to get to me to ask questions. My thought was, like, listen, if you take the time to, like, actually text me, you know, DMing on Instagram is super easy, right? But if you take the time and kind of go out of your way to text me and, like, put me in your contacts and your phone and that whole thing, then I would love to prioritize you as best as I can when it comes to answering questions on the show or anything else, or if you want more clarification on stuff or whatever it is. Right. So that was kind of the thought process. We went out, I bought a phone. It's the mold phone. It sits in a. Sits in my room, in a drawer in my nightstand until I'm ready to pull it out, and then I am glued to it for 15 to 30 minutes easily, sometimes more, depending on what my wife's up to. If I could sneak in sometimes, sometimes less. But the point of it is that I am trying to make myself as accessible, as accessible as I can possibly be for you guys. And I really only talked about this on the last show, and a bunch of people have texted me already, which is really cool. So when you guys text me.

Text me and tell me that you're, you know, that you're listening to the podcast, right? So, like, for example, I got this text. I'm just gonna read you one of these texts. I'm not gonna tell you who it is. The person's name starts with a T. We'll call him Mr. T. Sounds fun. Says, hey. Hey there. Found you on Instagram. Our new house, we. We haven't moved in yet. Has mold in the attic and the basement that we're getting all remediated. We got air tested, and it's airborne. So this means they did an air test and there's a problem in the air test. Which, by the way, guys, if there's a problem on the air test, that's a big problem, right? Because most of the times it doesn't show a problem. Right. So anyways, any recommendations on how to know if our mold remediation company is legit? We wish you were in our area to help. Thank you. Exclamation point.

My response was check out episode 32 of my podcast, Mold Finders Radio. That should help you. And then their response. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. With, like, a little thank you hands or whatever. Right? This is a text conversation I literally just had with somebody. All right, here. I'm going to look at another one. Let's look at. I'm just going to, like, scroll through here and just kind of like, pick one of these things up. Okay, so this is somebody. Hello, Brian. Thank you for the service and information you provide to people like us who find ourselves in a tough situation due to mold issues. Can leather shoes and purses be cleaned? If so, how do you prevent cross contamination of a new place? Right? And here I am. Hi, winky face. That's me giving a little winks, Right? If there's visible mole growth on them, then no, in my opinion, I don't think you can clean them. If not, you can try to HEPA vacuum them and damp wipe them. And. And I talk about this process more in a few different podcast episodes and even more in depth in Mole Masterclass, if you happen to be a part of that. And there's my response. Right? I mean, this is it. This is. This is a straight conversation I'm having with somebody. And then they followed up like, hey, when is this new training that you're doing coming out? And I told them we're looking at the end of the month, but I'll let you know if it happens beforehand. That's my target point. Right? So there we go. This is it. You want to have a talk with me, like Mr. T here, or this other person's name was Z or. Or any of the other bunch of people. I'm scrolling through here. This could be you. It's so exciting. This episode brought to you by the Moldphone. Thank you very much. The phone number, if you're interested, is 949-52-88704. All right, again, it's 949-5288704. And that's me. And these are the conversations I have with people. So today's episode, brought to you by our new sponsor, the Moldphone.

All right, so there's a story that I wanted to tell you guys this weekend. I was talking to my cousin. If she's listening, Colby, this is about you. And I told her I was gonna steal the story, so it's not a surprise. Anyway, so we were talking, and she was telling me that she was, like, out doing some shopping or something, and there was. It's like, classic story. Here there's like a little old lady that couldn't find her car, right? And so Colby, being the super nice, amazing person that she is, was trying to help this little elderly woman find her car, right? And she was asking her question, she's like, hey, you know, what was your car look like? Or do you know where. Did you have to walk towards the front? Or did you have to, you know, however you would think to find a car? What color is it? What type of car is it? Whatever. And she was just having a really hard time, like, remembering where she parked her car. And so she's telling me they're like, walking around the parking lot and kind of looking down the rows and like, trying to see, like, does this. Does it look like this? Does it look like this? Could you imagine, by the way, a young, you know, nice 30 year old girl walking around and helping, like, a little old woman, like, find her car in a parking lot? Is it just not like the most heartwarming, sweetest thing ever? She told me a story. I was like, you are like the best person I know. Anyways, the funny thing of the story is they get back to kind of where they started, and. And they're just kind of. She's like, I don't know. And then literally, like, kind of where they were standing, her car was like, right there, like, the whole time. And she. She's like, oh, this is my car. And. And Colby's like, she's like, this is. She's telling me. She's like, this is where we started. We literally, like, walked around the whole parking lot, and this is where we started. And so the reason I want to tell you guys that story, because she told me a story, and at first I just thought, you know, it was funny and it was, like, sweet and nice. But then it just. These. These scenarios get me thinking all the time. I'm just trying to think of different ways to, like, frame stuff for you guys so you could kind of understand just how this whole mold thing works and how interpreting it and understanding it and overlooking stuff or whatever. And I was just thinking, I was like, you know, how many times do we walk by something in our house where there's, like a clear sign that there's a problem, and. And we just kind of. It's not that we. It's not that we don't know it's there. Like, we're not talking about hidden stuff. There's, like, things that we know is a problem, but then we just kind of, like, block it out, you know, and now, you could walk into a room and not even notice it anymore. And so, for example, like, I did an inspection the other day, and there was, like, water staining in the ceiling of the garage of this house, which was under a bathroom. And I walk in there. It's like the first thing I see when I walk in there. Super obvious, you know? But before I go in there, I sit down, and I have kind of the initial conversation that I have with clients, which I've described multiple times. But basically, the. The key points are one, kind of, what are you dealing with in terms of, you know, why. Why'd you reach out to us? What are you hoping to figure out, achieve what's kind of your health challenges, like, all that stuff. So I know how deep we need to dive. And then two is. Let's talk about history of the house. Are there any leaks? Is there anything that you. That have happened that you know of? Right? And so I was talking to this person, and they didn't mention this garage thing at all, right? And I walk in the garage, and it's not like a little stain. I mean, it's like, how do you miss this? You know? And I. So I tell them about that, and they're like, oh, yeah, that. That happened a while ago, you know, and it just made me think, like, the story that Colby told me about the little. You know, the little lady that lost her car just kind of reminded me of these types of scenarios where, like, yes, like, the lady knew what her car looked like. She just kind of forgot where it was or that it was, you know, that it was there. And then it was like. And then she's like, oh, I need a car. Then they go on this big hunt, and they go on this big, like, odyssey to try to figure out where her car is and just tie it back to us, right? Like, oh, yeah, we know that there's been a leak in the garage. Okay, well, now I just kind of forgot about that. But now I need to find where the mold is in the house because we're sick. And now we go on this big journey to try to figure it out when we actually know that there's been a big problem, but we've completely forgot about it for some reason. We just wiped it out of our mind, and it's become almost, like, normal, like, as part of the character of the house at that point or something. All right, so the point of it is the reason that she. The reason that the nice little lady lost her car is obviously because she's an older lady, and she was having memory issues. So, you know, hopefully not a lot of us are in that same position, but the con, the idea, the thought that we know what something looks like, we know that it's there, and then we just completely go blind to it, right? Like, basically, she was standing next to the car. She's standing next to her car and didn't know it was her car. It was as if it was, like, covered in. In that. That cloak from Harry Potter that makes you invisible. Like, that's what was happening to the car apparently, you know, And. And that's what it was like. And so that's how we are in our house. Like, we walk through areas, and we. It's just, like, now invisible now. Like, oh, yeah, we know it's part of the house. We have to try to be cognizant of this stuff, right? And I know it's kind of like reframing the way we think, right? Because you don't handle something right away. You just. It kind of becomes just part of. Of how things are now, and you're like, oh, it's just like that, you know, like, think about, like, our bodies, you know, like, when we were. When, you know, when we're young, we're running around, we're jumping. We're jumping off roofs. We're doing things that, like, freaking crazy people are doing, and we're totally fine. Could you imagine trying to jump off a roof right now? Like, I feel like my whole body would break. You know, it's just our. Our bodies age, things happen, and it's just we. We don't really work the way that we used to when it comes to that stuff. And it's the same kind of thing in the house. Like. Like, if we're on top of it, you know, if the house isn't working the way that it's supposed to, we can't get used to that. Right? Like, the. The nice thing about getting older in this analogy is that you could start training and becoming and gaining some of that back. You could gain back some of that athleticism or that flexibility or whatever it is, you know, and the house could do that, too. But if you don't pay attention to it and you don't make an effort for it to happen, and then you're just upset that, like, you know, your body doesn't work anymore or that your house is making you sick, you know, you got to try, right? Part of trying is being aware. And so the whole point of this whole thing is coming full circle is about being aware of what's going on in your house. Let's not try to kind of forget things. Let's not go, you know, how like an area smells and then over time you just become nose blind to that area because it's just happened so much and now you don't notice it anymore. You need to be aware of that stuff. Right? Let's not let that happen. Let's not let ourselves forget or the invisible cloak cover it up or go nose blind to something, be on top of it, because those are the things that are keep us on top of these issues in our homes and actually be able to attack some of this stuff before it gets too bad. All right, so hopefully you enjoyed the little old lady story and whatever else I was just throwing into those analogies, guys. This is all literally off the cuff. So most of the time I feel like I connect things. This time I feel like that one could have been better. But we'll. We'll try better on the next one.

All right, so this is another question I got. This is from Matthew via the mold phone. The way it came in here. Here it goes. Hi, Brian, do you have any podcasts to talk about dry ice blasting as a method of abrading the visible mold on roof sheathing and wood joists? We would still be following the other steps in your mold masterclass, but looking at basically swapping out the sanding and wire brushing with ice blasting. So for those of you that don't know what ice blasting is, it's used a lot in.

When there's like fire damage, like, and they're trying to do fire restoration. Let's say like the wood in your. In like your attic in this case is almost like charred and burnt. They'll come in with this machine that's literally like shooting ice shards at stuff. And it's a way of kind of getting rid of the surface layer of that, you know, of the burnt off wood. So that's one way that it's used. There are. There are remediators that I've seen that have used ice blasting. I worked on a project that that has had been ice blasted as well.

Here's the thing, like, it can be. It can be effective, right? It's not that it can't be effective, but what I don't like about it is the amount of disruption that's being caused by shooting ice bullets all over a space. Like, this isn't like this. Imagine like Mr. Miyagi, actually, he wasn't doing it. Daniel was doing. Daniel's son was Doing it. But he was sitting there, he was like sanding the, you know, sanding the fence, right? So imagine he's sitting there sanding the fence. Okay. Is there a big disruption happening from that? Not really, but he is still sanding it and getting out whatever was on the surface of that fence. Now imagine Danielson's like, Nah, nah, Mr. Miyagi, I'm gonna take a few steps back and take this giant ice bazooka and just blow the hell out of this fence. Like there's going to be a big disruption that happens for that. When I say disruption, I just mean like, you know, think what's happening. You're getting like all these shards flying all over the place and, and it's, it's creating particles popping everywhere and it's, it's just like a big.

I can think of a better word than disruption. It's a big disruption in the place, right? And you're like, ah, Brian, that's okay. I mean, everything's contained, so that's fine, right? Well, yeah, I mean everything should be contained, right? You should be in containment. That said, I mean, if I could avoid massive explosions in a room when I'm doing remediation, I'd prefer that. You know, like, hopefully the containment is, is in place and set and everything is good. You know, but with something like that, I really feel like that containment really has to be on point for that. Like I, you know, there, there are so many times I walk into a remediation after it's, you know, when we're doing a post inspection, I see there's like the containment's like there's a little gap in it or there's a little something here or there. They're not like perfect. And if you were in that room and basically blowing the whole thing up with an ice grenade.

Versus being on the wood and actually hand sanding it or wire brushing it. You can see how that'd be much bigger difference in terms of the amount of just kind of particle and debris and disruption that happens. So while I. Ice blasting can happen. It can be okay. Like it can work. I'm not a huge fan. I mean ultimately ice blasting is kind of like shortcutting it, in my opinion. I mean, there's times where it might make sense. I mean, if, if the whole house, you know, is kind of getting pulled to the studs and you want to ice blast the whole thing, you're not super concerned about cross contamination at that point, then like maybe you could do something like that. But like, if I'M in an attic. You also think about an attic. I mean, you know, I don't know exactly how they're implementing this. I hope that they're pulling the insulation out when they're doing this. Right? But if not, I mean, you have all this insulation sitting on the ground. You're ice blasting and you're just creating this massive like explosions that are happening up there. It's all settling in the insulation. All that insulation should be out anyways. I hope that that's what's happening. But then think about like, do you have ceiling can lights? Right. If you look up in your house and you have like ceiling lights that are, that are kind of up in the ceiling, well, there's gaps around all those lights, right? So if you're creating this massive disruption up there and there's pathways now for air to get out of there, well, if you're not blasting the hell out of it, it's not going to be forced as easily, you know, out of those spaces. And if you're not sealing every single one of those spaces in the attic, then there are pathways for stuff to get out. So generally, if I could have, you know, I don't like it is kind of the point of the story. So I'm not a big fan. I've seen it. It can work. I think it's a shortcut. I think it's easier for someone to come in there with. I keep expanding what this ice machine looks like. I think it's easier for someone with an ice tank to roll into a place and just start shooting the place up with ice and, or with these, you know, with ice blasting and do whatever. Like it's easier to do that than it is to actually get to all of the areas and, and clean them properly. I mean, think of it this way. Think, think of getting your car washed, right? Like you could go through a drive through car wash, which is the shortcut version of it, and have all these big things flopp over your car and like washing everything or whatever. But if you actually had your car hand washed and detailed, think about how much more clean that car is, right? And, and for me that's kind of the difference. Like I feel like when somebody is doing a process like that, they're not getting up close, they're not getting into the cracks and the crevices and making sure that there's not, you know, smaller areas of, of growth or contamination that might not be visible when you're standing five feet away shooting a wall that, you know, that you would see when you were up there actually doing the work in person and doing it by hand. So I would just prefer that personally. So if any of you guys were interested in my thoughts on ice blasting, there you go.

And remember, this episode is brought to you by the moldphone. Gosh, I'm gonna have a lot of fun with this moldphone sponsorship thing. Anyways, guys, text me. I mean it. Text me to tell me that you like the show. Text me to wish me a happy early Thanksgiving. Text. Text me if you have a question. Text me if you like my hat and you want to tell me about it. Text me if you want to wish my daughter a happy early birthday on November 22nd. Literally, just text me. I think it'd be fun. 949-528-8704. That's my number, guys. 949-528-9704. Hope you enjoyed the show. 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 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.