78: Q&A: HVAC - Remediation and Cross Contamination

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 is going on? It is Brian. We're back for another episode. I know it's been a hot minute since the last episode. I think it's been about a week or so, which I know is a little less than normal. However, we've been putting something together that has been very kind of time sensitive, and that's trying to help deal with a lot of the flood issues that have occurred from the big winter storm in the Midwest and Texas, some of the surrounding areas. And we just kind of felt the need that we had to try to do something for that. And in doing so, my time got a little diverted from normal recording. So I hope that you guys could give me a little forgiveness on that piece. But I want to talk to you about what we're doing because I think it's super important, and it can be very, very helpful for a lot of people. And, you know, the thing is, when there's. When there's a natural disaster, like, I don't know if you feel like this. Like, I felt like this a lot. When things happen, you feel like there's nothing that you can do, right? You know, you can donate, and that's great, right? And you should do that if you can. But we feel like that that's the extent of what we can do. And, you know, sometimes you just feel like you wish you could have done some more. You know what I mean? And so when I saw what was going on with the storms and then the resulting issues from that. So basically, you know, we've all heard these massive winter storms. What was happening is that the power was going out in a lot of places. And then as a result of that, there were pipe leaks and so many homes. I mean, like, millions of people were impacted by this, right? And when there are pipe leaks, there's massive water events. When there's massive water events, all of a sudden you're dealing with mold and bacteria issues. And, man, that's my wheelhouse, guys. And so I was thinking, I was like, you know what? This is actually something that we can do. This is. This is a place that we could have a real impact. And Try to help some people outside of, you know, what we might normally feel like that we can do, which is a donation, which again is amazing if you can do that, you know, and we're looking to do some of that too. But with all that in mind, we were thinking like, okay, how can we, how can we help people? Because what's going to happen is you're going to have all of these houses that were impacted by water events, right? And you know, the thing is, is that a disaster like this, like when you have big water events, it doesn't have to be a big natural disaster. It could literally be a pipe leak in a house. Like if you go back and listen to episode one of podcast, I explained my kind of how I got into this and my whole story and you know, it was from a pipe leak in a ceiling that came down on me. Like it's exactly what happened. It's no different than what's happening on all these other houses across the country. It's just for a different reason maybe. Right. And so, you know, when you're dealing with a big water event like that, you have to handle things the right way. And if we don't, what is going to happen is that we're going to end up with millions of homes across the country that become sick. And these homes are now going to support and facilitate and create chronic health conditions literally for the next 50 plus years. All right? Because you're going to have homes that are super water damaged. They're going to create mold and bacteria issues and all these things that go on. And then as a result of that, people are going to be living in those homes and the remediation that comes in is going to be so fast and so half assed because there's so many places that have been impacted. They're going to come in, they're just going to try to rip out wet drywall or rut cabinets, put everything back together and leave. And that's what they're going to try to do. And they're not going to understand the full impact of where the water is impacted. The remediation isn't going to happen properly and we're not going to understand how that's impacted the rest of your home as a living system. And people are going to get sick. And this is going to happen. It happens after hurricanes and it happens after big natural water disasters. And we've seen it happen time and time again. And I don't want that to happen this time. You know, I'm realistic, I know that My voice is only so big. But what we're trying to do is create an education event that is completely geared around what you do when there's a big scale water issue that happens in your house. Again, it does not have to be a natural disaster. Okay? It can be pipe leaks, it can be dishwasher floods, it can be your shower had a problem, your toilet flooded. Like, these are water events that occurred that can move to different areas. It's all the same thing. It's just the extent of like how big it was. Right. But you handle all of them in a very similar way. And so I've had a lot of conversations with clients about, okay, so the first thing you do is this, and then after that you do this. And I've done all of these in like one on one conversations with people. But because this event is so widespread, there's such a consistency across the country about what's going on. We felt that this was a really cool opportunity for us to create a mass scale training program completely free for anyone who wants to attend. Right. It doesn't matter if you live in Texas and you're directly impacted or you live in California like I was, and you heard about the winter storms, but unless you were actually looking at videos and watching stuff online, you didn't really grasp the full concept of it because it's still 65 degrees and sunny. Right? And so it doesn't matter. You could be the person in California, but who, guess what, guys? You're gonna have a water event at some point in your life. It's gonna happen. Your dishwasher's gonna leak, there's gonna be a leak from a toilet, a pipe is gonna burst. This stuff happens in every single house. It doesn't matter where you live. So we wanted to create an event that was focused all around that specific topic. Right. There's so many things we could talk about about mold. We talk about so much of it on this podcast all the time. But we wanted this event to be that specific. So we did is we called the event after the Storm and a Mold Finder's Guide to Insurance and Restoration. The whole point of the event is to help us understand what we do. And there's a large scale water event when it impacts our house. What you do first, what you do second. How you navigate your insurance company to maximize your insurance claims. Here's the thing, guys, is that you know how many millions of insurance claims there are? They're going to be submitted off of this. Like they don't want to pay You. They don't. That's their job. They don't want to pay you. So you really have to have your, your, you know, your shit together. If you're going to. Excuse me. If you're going to. If you're going to have a chance of getting your maximum exposure. So that's what we built this whole thing around. There's three sessions currently. Right now we're hoping to get a fourth session that's a little more health focused. I'm working with some people behind the scenes to see if I could get someone to handle that one. But if not, then we've got three that are currently scheduled. First one is going to be hosted by myself. It's about how you do a flood inspection and what you do and how you basically understand the full footprint, the full impact of a water event. It's not just where you saw the water falling out of a ceiling. It hit the ground, it's spread, it moved to adjacent areas. There's a way that you go about figuring that out. And so I want to kind of walk through that process. So you guys know exactly what you need to be doing if you ever have a water event again. People in Texas and Oklahoma and those areas that were impacted, it's directly applicable to you right now. Other folks bookmark this episode because you're going to have a water event and this is going to talk to you about. Or, excuse me, not bookmark the episode. Sorry, I'm not going into all of it right now, but attend the event because that's what it's going to. It's going to tell you all that stuff. You're going to have access to it. Once you have access to it, you can have it forever. I'm not going to take it away. And it's going to be a resource for you guys. Okay, so the first session is what I just described. The second session is being put on by Corey Levy, my partner, some of you guys know, and Mike Rubino, who is the owner of All American Restoration. He is the remediation company. We refer to all of our clients across the country. So if you guys ever want to know, like, hey, is there someone in my area that does this? I always refer people to him. So you guys know that. But anyways, they're putting on a session. It is completely about remediation focused stuff. Right? So. And one big thing that happens with that is something called storm chasers. I'm not gonna go super high into it, but basically you have restoration companies that follow natural disasters. They get in their trucks, they follow wherever the disaster is. And then they go into people's houses and they try to do really, really quick water restoration. You can't see me, but those of you who are going to be watching the video, I'm doing quotes right now where they're basically just trying to come in, kind of take advantage of your insurance coverage that you have, max up the bill on that insurance coverage and do a very minimal amount of work and then go on to the next place. And they're literally doing this like all the way across the country. And if you fall victim to that, it's a massive problem. They're going to talk all about how to make sure that doesn't happen to you and what remediation should actually look like. And then the third, third session is all about insurance. It's the framework on how you navigate the insurance process from start to finish. I got myself attorney. Attorney. Well, it's true. Attorney Anthony. Dennis get attorney. And Anthony, they look the same but he is a, he's an attorney that specializes in like loss coverage, that sort of thing. And then PJ Harlow, some of you who may may know has been on molefinders radio a few episodes back. Did you guys know she had like a 20 plus year background in insurance as an insurance claims adjuster? Who knew, right? I knew actually, but maybe you didn't know. So we got her on too. So it's me, PJ and Anthony talking through the entire process of insurance, when you call them, how you present things to them, the whole thing from start to finish. So if you ever want to know about how to handle an insurance claim, this is literally the blueprint on how to handle an insurance claim. And it's going to give it to you guys for free in this. Okay. So anyways, I wanted to walk through all of this stuff before we get into today's episode. Today's episode is going to be some Q and A all around H VAC systems, heating, air conditioning systems. I've been getting a lot of those on the text phone and the DMs or the mold phone, the DMS. But I wanted to kind of preface with this. So I talked a lot about it and didn't tell you where to go. So if you go to moldfinderscare.com moldfinderscare.com that's where you can register for the event. Completely free event by the way. We're doing it for free as an education resource for people. We are holding it as a fundraiser as well. So if you are looking to donate and support, you know, those who are having a tough time right now. We did set up a GoFundMe that is basically running through our company. Once the funds come in, we are going to be donating those funds directly to the chapters of the Red Cross in Texas who are dealing with this event specifically. So a lot of times people are like, oh, the Red Cross, they do whatever they want. We've got it figured out with them. Where the dollars that we're getting are going directly to the specific areas in Texas where the problems were happening. And every dollar that we raise is being put toward that. So we know that, right? We know how to submit it to them. So that happens. So if you're interested in doing that, you can go to moldfinderscare.com There is a button in the top right corner of the page that says donate. You can click that button, it opens up our GoFundMe page and you can donate there. Or if you just want to register for the event, you should do that. Listen guys, register for the event, okay? Because it's a one time thing. I'm not doing this over and over again. People who get it will have access to it. People who don't will never have access to it again. And honestly, I'm telling you right now, I'm going to sell this down the road. This is going to be a product that I sell. So if you want to get it on it for free right now, this is your time to get in on it for free. Those of you who listen to the podcast, I'm also going to tell those on the mold phone, this is the deal going to be available for one time. It's a one time event. Like I said, if you get in right now, you'll get it. Okay? But I'm not going to send it to you if you don't register because I don't know your email to send it to you, okay? So you have to register even if you can't attend. I'm going to give you access to it. The replays are going to be there, it's going to be there for you, but it's not going to be something you can register for later and get it later, okay? Because this is a very valuable event. We are going to be turning this into a product down the line that we send sell. It's a very flood specific product for information. But if you guys want it and you want it now, this is your time to get it. And it's just kind of the benefit of being a listener of the show and.

Also being a part of the text community and those different things. So I appreciate you guys supporting me. I want to be able to support you guys, too. Okay, so that is what we got going on. And coming up next, we're getting some of the Q and A stuff.

All right, guys, so the first question that we're going to jump to, again, we're going to do some H vac specific questions here. This is one that came through the mold phone. The question was about if there are mole problems here. I'm actually just going to read this instead of trying to. To summarize it for you. So it says, my question, if there's a problem with the collars and supply plenum connections, this means, like, with your ductwork, there are, like, metal connectors that kind of connect it to the vents that come out of your ceiling. Different kind of pathways throughout the run. So when they say collars and supply plenum connections, they're kind of talking about, like, the end of the line where the duct kind of connects to the vent that you see that's kind of the piece they're talking about. Okay, Can a regular H vac contractor cut out mold and fix this? Most remediators don't touch H vac issues. So here's the thing, guys. That's not an H vac issue. That is a mold issue, okay? And I know a lot of remediators are, like, afraid to touch H vac, and a lot of H vac contractors don't really want to do remediation. And so, like, the thought of this question is basically like, can I just have those guys cut out this wall and take it out? We have to think, though, if there's a mold problem there, that is a mold remediation issue, right? If we're not containing the space properly, if we don't know how far those areas have impacted, and then even so, even if you remove drywall around a vent, I know I'm in my video right now, you can't really see a vent. There's one kind of directly above on the ceiling up here. But just imagine if you can see it up above me. So if you. If you have mold that's growing in that area and you're just going to have an H Vac contractor cut it out, they're not containing the space, which means you're now going to cross contaminate the rest of your home. You may not think it's a big deal. You know, the reality is, is that none of us know that. Right. You can look at something. It can look really minimal, but there could be a very high load in terms of spore count there. Remember, mold is microscopic. If we can see it, then it's probably a bigger deal than it actually than you think that it really is. Okay. And this is all about the secret of how you actually do a mold inspection in person. We don't look for mold. I mean, if we see it, then that's cool, great. But that's not what we're looking for. If you go through a house, you're only looking for mold, then you're going to miss so many hidden mold problems, because most mold is hidden and most mold is so small that you can't see it. So what we look for signs of water damage, though, what is described here, issues with the collars and the supply, venoms and things like that, or plenums. Excuse me, the things like that. It kind of sounds like there were some gaps in the system, and then maybe there was condensation that occurred around the vents. So think about it. Your air conditioning vents, they're metal, right? And so if it's not sealed and insulated properly, then it has pretty significant changes in temperature. So temperature swings. When the air conditioning turns on, it turns cold. When it comes off, obviously, the cold goes away. But if the area is not sealed off and insulated properly, then those temperature differentials are going to get much larger. And so it's the same as if you, like, took a cold glass of water outside on a warm day and you see, like, the beads kind of, you know, forming down the glass. That's called condensation. I talked about it in a previous episode about, you know, another inspector who is talking about condensation being normal. Water, guys. Water is water. It doesn't care. It doesn't. Your drywall doesn't say, oh, this is condensation water. So this isn't mold water. Like, that's not how it works. If condensation is forming for a period of time, a mold grows and it's a mold problem. That's what it is. And so we have to address it as if it is a mold problem. You know what I mean? And so if you cut stuff out and you're not containing things, you're not moving things out of the room and sealing the area properly, you're just to going. Going to start moving stuff all over the place. And that's not really what we want to be doing. Right. So, you know, my answer to this is no. Like, this is not something that your H VAC contractor should want to be doing. I said at the very beginning, this is not an H vac issue. It's a mold issue. The reason that it occurred may have been an H vac issue, but right now, it is a mold issue. Okay? So when you're talking order of events and how you handle stuff, first thing you do, you take out the air conditioning system. If it's a problem, right? I would imagine if this is going on, you're probably removing your ductwork. You're doing some work with your air conditioning conditioning system. You do that, you get all that stuff out, but you're not cutting open drywall and stuff. You're just taking out the ductwork. You can maybe remove the vents, that sort of thing. Ideally, I would be containing the space before that happens, since we're seeing mold. So I would be doing that first. But then you have to think about it. You have two different companies, they have two different specialties, okay? So you don't. Don't think that one is doing both. This is why they tell you that is why H vac contractors don't want to do mold, and mold remediators don't want to do H vac systems because it's not their area of expertise. So instead of trying to fit them into a hole and make somebody do both, you bring in both parties and have them do their specialty. Like, that's the way that you handle this, okay? So you need to bring in a remediation company, and they need to be the ones that handle the actual remediation. And listen, guys, it's not just as simple as cutting out drywall. There might be framing that's impacted if that air conditioning duct runs. If they're running through attics, then you might have a larger issue moving through your attic. That means that you really should be thinking about a mold inspection and an assessment and testing first, and then decide what the plan of attack is going to be. Okay? So I know that we think that, like, we're seeing something like the end of the line, the end result. We're like, okay, this is the problem. I'm going to fix this. But your house is a holistic living system. And if we don't think of it that way, then you can just cut out a little piece of a wall, take it out, put it back. You may still have a mole problem back there. It may have fallen down more of the wall. It may have come down, like, down the wall this way. If there was drip lines and drip stains around an H Vac. Then imagine there's an H vac vent where I'm drawing one with my finger on the video right here, and then it's dripping down the wall, right. So what if there's more problems at the bottom of that wall? Like, you don't know that. Right? So you don't know how big it is, and you need to treat it as if you don't know how big it is. And if you know it's a mole problem, you should be treating it like that now if you don't want to. Right. If the point of this question was to say, hey, I don't really want to do this, like, are you asking me for. To approve that it's okay to not do it this way? I can't. Right. Because I don't want you to put yourself in a situation that can cause a bigger problem in terms of exposure, cross contaminating of things. Listen, it may not be a big deal, and if it's not, sorry. Right. There's no way for me to know. But if it is a bigger deal, you need to treat it the right way because you could be creating a larger problem than what you actually have going on. So I hope that that helps answer that question. But I think the big answer to this is it's not about one company that does both. These are two things that are going on. And so we need to think of it as two different things that are going on. If you think of it that way, then it's not. It's not about, well, remediators won't do this, and H Vac contractors won't do this. Like, that's not what it's about. It's remediator specialty is here. H vac contractor specialty is here. So I'm going to use them to do what they're good at. And we're going to put a team around you of qualified people to spend. Specialize in what they do. Right. Think of it like a doctor having surgery. Right. So you have your general, you know, your main doctor, Right. Who, who may have diagnosed that. Oh, man. There's a, there's a problem here. Let's. Let's say. There's a, let's say we're playing Grey's Anatomy in your house right now. All right. I say this because I've watched all of the Grey's Anatomies, not because I did it originally, but because my wife and I binge stuff a lot and then she went on a Grey's Anatomy binge. And so every time I Came downstairs. There was. There's, like, episodes of Grey's Anatomy on. So I feel like I know a lot about it now. So I'm going to throw some names out there. Some things. Some of you guys might not know it, some of you might, but you have, like, your. Your general doctor, right? And they're. They're kind of a general. I think Meredith Gray was a general. She was just, like, amazing at it. Right? But she wasn't the specialist. Like, the Shepherds were the brain surgeons, right? And you have, like, the guys. What's his name? It was the Jackson. He was, like, a specialist for, I think, orthopedics and stuff and stuff like that. And then he had, like, the pediatric specialist, which was Karev, when he kind of went down that road. Right. So you have all these people. They're all specialists, right? What did they do when it came time to, like, have brain surgery? Right? So Meredith Gray realizes, oh, my God, there's a brain issue going on. Does she say, okay, I'm going to cut open the dude's head and I'm going to do brain surgery? No, she goes to Shepherd. She's like, yo, first her husband shepherd, then husband, sister shepherd. Down the road, those of you have watched greater gratitude. You know, it's been a long time. I don't feel like there's a spoiler alert. Shepherd died, her husband died. And then her husband's sister shows up, and she's just as genius of a brain surgeon. Who knew? It runs in the family. Okay, so does Gray do the brain surgery herself? No, she goes to Shepard and she's like, yo, this is what's going on. I need you to cut open this head and fix it. Right? She says it much more eloquently than that, but that's the deal, right? So think of it that way, right? You figured out that there is an issue. Your H Vac person figured out that there's an issue because the ducts and the collars and the vents were not sealed properly. Is it now your H Vac person's job to cut that open? No, bring in the mold surgeon. Bring in the remediator to handle it. All right, so that's my. That's my off the top of the head analogy example. I hope that it was. Okay. Those of you that like Grey's Anatomy, I hope you enjoyed that and also are not offended that I don't know everything off the top of my head super, super quick. Okay, so that was question one on H vac systems. So I'm Going to do another one. This one is. This one and the next one are kind of related. The next one is actually about an appointment I'm doing tomorrow. This one kind of ties into that. So it says. This one reads, hi, I listened to the new house build episode, talking about having your H Vacs off while work is being done. Right? We talked about in that episode, just quick summary. When you're having a new house built, they want to put in your air conditioning system. They want to turn it on and test it. The problem with doing that is that they're doing it when they're doing a bunch of other construction everywhere. And it pulls all that crap in your H Vac system. And. And now, before you move in, your H Vac system is filled with drywall, which, by the way, is a terrible inhalation thing, a terrible thing to be breathing. And if there were mold issues in the house, it's now filled with mold because they're stirring that stuff all up all over the place. So one of the things with that is that you don't want them turning that system on. You want that to be the last thing that happens once all the cleaning is done. So that's what they're asking. That's what they're talking about here. So it says, I listen, the episode where you said, have the H vac awful work is being done. Do I have it left off in an existing home while work is being done? Done. Okay, So I don't know if you mean specific, like mold work or if you're meaning, like, renovation work, but either way, the answer is yes. You don't want your systems pulling all that crap into the system. Right? So, yeah, ideally you're sealing off those areas. You're turning it off. Now, if you're doing more just like a regular Renault project, you could probably seal off one. One area of it and be okay, maybe. Although I don't want to say that totally, because whenever you seal off a vent or a return, you're messing with the amount of air that is supposed to move through an air conditioning system. So think of it this way. Like, every air conditioning system, let's say, is supposed to have 10 units of air moving through it at all time. 10 units get pulled in from the returns. 10 units get pushed out through the supplies. If you mess with that balance at all, you can actually mess up your air conditioning system. So let's say. And this happens a lot when, like, filters get clogged, right? So let's say your return filter is getting really clogged and you haven't changed it in like a year. And so the air coming into the unit, instead of a full 10 units of air coming into the return, let's say because the filter is really clogged, there's only like 8 units of air that are actually coming in. Because it's just so clogged, the air can't come in. It starts coming in. Well, your unit is looking for the other two units or for the other two. Sorry, I'm using unit a lot. The H vac system is looking for the other two units of air that it's missing because only eight units have come in from the return. So a couple things happen. One, it starts pulling harder, right? So it starts pulling harder. That starts overworking the system. Or two, it starts pulling in air from gaps and seals in the system that are getting broken, and it can now start forcefully pulling in from other areas. So you don't really want to mess with the balance of the H vac system. So ideally, in a perfect world, you're not running it right. But I'm not an H vac expert in terms of the balance and how that works. I don't know if maybe you could slow down the output on one side. If maybe then you can seal off a return on one side. I don't know. I would talk to your H vac contractor about that and have them consult you on that. But there's a reason that you need to change your filters, and it's because if you're not changing them, you're restricting the airflow coming into the system. That can turn into mold and water issues in your system. One way that that happens is when it's looking for those extra units of air. So in that example, I said there was two more units of air that it has to find somewhere. You know, one place that it can find it is in your. In your air conditioner unit. There's your coil. Your coil heats and cools all the air. And there's a drip line that comes from that because condensation occurs from that process. So you're putting in hot air or warm air that's coming over this coil. Just like that glass that I talked about that you take outside. It's going to hit a cold surface. Now you have warmer air hitting a cold surface. There is going to be moisture and condensation that's to going created. It's part of the process. So H vac systems have a drip pan for that to go into. And then there's a line that's usually like a PVC pipe or some sort of pipe of some kind where all the water runs out of that pipe. It should be slightly slanted down so the water runs properly out. And it goes all the way outside of the house somewhere, and it drips down outside of the house. And that's what happens. Well, that is an open airflow point that goes all the way to the outside. So now if you have a system that's looking for air and it's trying to find air wherever it can find it, and they can't find it from the normal return because it's blocked, guess what that little PVC pipe hole is? It's. Imagine looking in the hole and seeing all the way out on the other end. You see daylight at the end. It's an air pathway. And so I've seen units that have actually pulled water back through that pathway because the force of air got so strong. And it created a mold problem and a bacteria problem in the system because it wasn't letting water flow. Okay, so the. The answer is, yeah, I mean, if you're having any sort of work done, you shouldn't be running your air conditioning systems. You shouldn't be running them. You should at least be sealing off certain areas, you know, for that as well. So, you know, the thing is, if you can. If you can seal off the area where the supplies are coming out and then. And then you. It's not impacting the return and the airflow coming in, that might be an option. But again, I would defer to an H VAC contractor. Why? Because I'm not Shepherd that does brain surgery on H vac systems. I'm just somebody who's like a general that understands the flow of air. Right. So you get the specialists out to kind of guide you on that. But anytime that I'm having anything like that done, I don't want to be running stuff if I can avoid it. I want to be protecting those areas if I can. If that means creating containment zones that will allow me to do that, then I would do that. Right. So you don't want to have that running. Whether it's just regular renovation or if it's. If it's mold remediation, then you absolutely are supposed to be sealing those areas off. You shouldn't be running that stuff. That's part of standard protocols for that. So I hope that helps answer that question. And then this kind of ties into my appointment I'm having tomorrow because it's similar. So it's another H vac thing. Okay, so now this one, this client has a. They had an old furnace. They moved in this house. They've been in the house for like, I don't know, six, seven, eight months at this point. They had an old furnace. They're replacing the furnace, but they were not touching the ductwork. So today the H Vac contractors are in the house and they're taking out the old unit. We are going to be there tomorrow. And so I said to her, I was like, hey, listen, you know, the concern here is that if you had. If you had a mold issue in the house, which we don't know yet, we haven't done the inspection. So I don't know, right. If the unit had become compromised at some point. It was an old unit. The house was built in 1995. I don't know how well that old system looked. Normally, when we go do inspections, we open the systems, we look inside, we see what's happening in there. This is going to be brand new system. So that old system is completely gone. I don't have it right. So I was saying to her, I was like, listen, if I know that they're going to want to attach it all together and start testing it right away. And when I say test, what they want to do is they want to make sure that mechanically it's working right. They want to put it all together, attach the ducts to the new air handler unit, turn it on, make sure the air flows, maybe make sure everything's happening. Here's the problem, though, is that if the ducts had become contaminated, if there's a mold or bacteria problem or a toxin problem in the house that have worked way into the system and have been distributed out throughout all the ductwork and everything, then those duct lines are going to be contaminated. What happens when you turn on an air conditioning system that's attached to duct lines? The air moves through the duct lines, through the system, and then out the other duct lines, right? So if those ducts were contaminated, then you could actually be contaminating your brand new furnace system, H vac system that you're putting in, which guys. I mean, these things are not cheap. It's 10, 20 grand for these things. Right? And so I was saying, I was like, you're at a really unique position right now that not a lot of people are in. Tell those guys not to connect the current duct lines to that unit. I would love for them not to be connected when we get there tomorrow because I want to test the duct lines. Okay? The cool thing is, we don't need to test the unit. Unit's brand new. Right. So we don't have to worry about that as long as it's never been run and it's never, you know, been pulling air from this house into the unit. We don't really have to worry about the house having cross contaminated this machine yet. Right. So. So what I asked her to do, and we'll see, hopefully she's going to be able to do that, is to have them kind of like put the air unit where it needs to be. So they could kind of get that done, but then seal off that unit itself and leave the ducts exposed. So we could get in and actually test the interior of the duct lines and see if there's a mold issue or a mycotoxin issue or bacterial issues in the dust accumulation within those duck lines. And if there is, then we're going to recommend that she actually replace all those duct lines and get new ducts before they connect them to the system and start running it. Right. So this is the thing that we want to do to make sure that she's not basically contaminating a brand new air handler unit that she just purchased. Right. So this is a piece of what we talked about in our onboarding call today before we go out there tomorrow. So, you know, it seemed related because we were talking about, do you need to have your system on? Do you need to have it off? You know, when you're doing work? And the thing is, like, right now, I don't want her to turn it on yet because the history of everything that's been done in her house up until that point can still get pushed through into the unit. Right. So that's what we talked about for there. So hopefully this answered a couple questions for you guys on H Vac systems. Specifically, I've been seeing a lot of these types of questions come in. So again, we talked about remediating areas around vents where there may be mold and understanding that this is not a H Vac person job. This is a mold remediator's job. And yes, they don't want to touch each other's work. And that's fine. They don't have to. They're experts at their own thing. So bring them in and have them do their own piece. We talked about having your system turned off when you're doing big renovation work or mold remediation. That way you're not cross contaminating the system with all the crap that's moving around the house. And then for those of you who Are in the very unique position some point down the road of my client tomorrow. If you're getting a new air handler unit and you haven't tested your old unit or your old ducts, you have to remember this unit is a connected system. Okay? You can't bring in a new unit and think that everything is clean now. Okay. Because you still have all of the other duct lines that have run through. Think about your unit as the heart of your H vac system. Well, you know, when people have, like, clogged arteries and stuff, that's not their heart. Those are the duct lines coming out of your H vac system. Right. If you imagine that your H vac system is the middle of your heart. Heart and all the arteries coming out of the duct lines, think of it that way. So sometimes you need to go in and clear out that the duct lines because they become so, so contaminated, you have to bypass them. Sorry? Your arteries, you have to bypass them because they're too contaminated to work anymore. Right. But if you got a new heart, put a new heart in somebody who had an artery problem, that's great. The new heart is working. The arteries are still clogged. The arteries are still a problem. It's gonna be a problem. Right? Same thing with your H vac system. If the mechanical unit is the heart, all the duct runs are the arteries. If there has been a systemic problem throughout your H vac system, everything going through that unit impacts all the ductwork. So you don't want to spend the money to get a brand new air conditioning system, put it in, and then use the old ducts that are there. Right. You need to test them. If you don't test them, you're kind of just asking for cross contaminating your brand new 10 or $20,000 unit. All right? So if that's something that you don't want to do, then I would recommend, when you're in the process of this, either test your whole system together before you replace it, or if you're already kind of in the process of getting a new system, test the duck lines before you attach them because you don't want to kind of have that problem happen again. All right, so that handles H vac, Q and a day for what I got so far. There's so many things coming in, guys. I just want to say the mold phone is so full every day now, I was able to go text by text and answer people directly at the beginning. But we have hundreds and hundreds of people in this text community now, and I'm getting Texts every single day. So many of them. And so what I'm really trying to do with myself and my team is to try to categorize everything that's coming through and then be able to sort of try to answer things in batches, whether it be through Instagram posts or podcasts or when we do clubhouse rooms and things like that, by the way. Oh, so before that. So just so you guys know, I'm trying to get to as fast as I can. We're going to do more of these sort of Q and A specific episodes and try to bunch like questions together and try to get that figured out for you. So I appreciate you guys being patient with me, but it's only me. And if you heard the story about the mole phone at the beginning, I have an X amount of time a day per an agreement I made with my wife to look at it, which was fine when there was like 30 people in there, but now that there's hundreds of them, it's just not enough time to get through it. So we're working to try to navigate that a little better. And then I'm going to be using it more as a platform to share with you guys a little bit more than versus direct one on one question responses at this point. So start keeping an eye out for that too. I'm going to start trying to kind of schedule some things that would be specific for you guys that might not be going out to other places. So that's one thing for the text community. So if you want to be in the text community, it's the mold phone. You could go to Instagram. The phone number is on my Instagram. You can text the phone number and you can get it from there. And just know that I am starting to send things just straight to the molephone community that's not going out anywhere. So if you want to be able to see some of that stuff, then you need to be going there for that. Okay, one other thing real quick, I want to talk about. So I've been doing these clubhouse rooms. For those of you that don't know what clubhouse is, it's a new kind of social networking app. It's an invite only app right now, so you may not have access when you try to get in. I did a clubhouse room spur of the moment yesterday. I was in my sauna and I was like, hey, I got a half hour in the sauna. I'm doing a clubhouse room and do a Q and A in here. And I texted it out to the mold community. I didn't tell anyone else. So if you're not on the text community, then you had no idea that I was doing a free Q and A. So that's a reason why you should get in the text community. So again, go to my Instagram, it's oldfinders. Get to the phone number, Just text the phone number, text me anything and I'll put you in the community. And that way when I do these impromptu live Q&As, you could just get in, right? So I had a number of people that just jumped in immediately from that that would have not known otherwise. Anyways, it is the, the app is new, right? So I had a lot of people respond to me and say that like they couldn't get to me in there because they needed an invite to get in and asked if I could invite them in. So just so you know, like, you only get so many number of invites and I've already used them. You only have four invites that you could use to invite people, so they're rolling it out kind of slowly. I've already used my invites, so I can't invite anyone else in. So if you know someone that's on Clubhouse, they can invite you in if you're already there. I saw some of you started following me yesterday on Clubhouse, so I definitely saw some of you heard and came in, but that's kind of how you do it. And the cool thing is that it's kind of like, it's almost like how I talk on a podcast, except I can literally be interacting with you guys directly. So the Q and A's are cool. So instead of me reading a question here and just kind, kind of assuming some of the in betweens, I could read this question, like the second one that I read where they are asking, do we need to seal off the air conditioning vents while work is being done? And then I said, well, I don't really know what kind of work you're talking about, so I'm just going to assume X, Y or Z. Well, in Clubhouse I could just ask you. I'm like, okay, okay, Mary, so what, what kind of work are you talking about? Like, what's happening? What are you doing? And then they can respond back. It's literally like an audio. It's like a phone call. Basically. It's like a group phone call. Think about it. Like I was about. I know how old everybody is. I'll tell you, I'm 39. When I was in high school, we all had three way phone calls and it was incredible. And then we would have somebody else three way the other person. Three way the other person. Next thing you know, we had like 10 people on the phone and we were all talking. That's what this app does without you having to get everybody, a three way everybody. And I'm setting up the rooms to where when I set them up, anybody could come in. So, you know, if you want to be able to jump on that. I felt kind of bad. I got so many people that texted me and they were kind of like upset that I couldn't get them into the rooms. And I'm sorry, I can only do what I could do. But that platform is just such an easier way for me to be able to have that kind of conversation. It's just like a free flow phone call with everybody where everyone could chime in too. It's not just me talking. We have the ability to all raise our hand and talk and communicate together and collaborate. It's really cool. So if you don't have Clubhouse, try to get on there. I'm going to be doing those every now and then. And eventually I'm going to try to create my own club in there that's like the Mole Finders Club that we could all be a part of and set up events around that stuff too. So if you know anyone on Clubhouse, try to get them an invite and then go and follow me. My handle on Clubhouse is briancarr, it's ryancarr and you can find me that way and then just follow me. And then there's a spot there where you can like click a button and it asks for, like, when you want to be notified when I'm speaking. So just tell it always, right? Otherwise it might not always tell you, like when I open up a room at the, you know, at a random time. But for example, Eve, who is Flavorful Fit on Instagram, if you guys have followed her or know her, it's Flavorful underscore Fit. She has me set up as she clearly follows me and whenever I do something, it just pings her right away. So as soon as I open the room, she was in there. Literally within two seconds. I was like, oh, Eve, what's going on? Like, I didn't even know you were gonna be here. She's like, oh, yeah, I got a ping that you're in here. So I jumped right in. And so that's kind of how it works. It's pretty cool. So if you guys aren't on Clubhouse, I would check it out.

And see if you can get an invite in from someone I'm not sure how the invite system is going to work moving forward, but if you know anyone who's on it and see if they'll invite you. All right. And I think that's kind of all the updates I have. I'm going to close with one more thing today. Remember, we started the top of the show. We're talking about the fundraising education event that we're doing. It is on this Thursday. Actually didn't tell you when it was before, so I hope you listen through the whole episode. It is on Thursday.

We're currently setting it around 12:30 Pacific Time. I may fluctuate that time just a little bit, depending honestly on my baby's nap schedule. Or not baby, she's not even a baby anymore. She's like two and a few months old on my daughter's nap schedule to make sure that I'm available to handle her when she wakes up. But it's going to be going on there. It'll probably be somewhere around three hours or so once I put it together. But again, it's on March 4th right now. It's about 12:30 Pacific. So go register as moldfinderscare.com once I have everything figured out and exactly how we're going to do distribute it and how people are going to be able to see it, I'm going to email everybody who registered. So if you didn't register, you're not getting the notifications. If you didn't register, you're not going to get the understanding of how to actually get access to this stuff down the road. And then when I come out and I'm selling it and you're like, oh, man, Brian, I saw that you did this. Can you give it to me? I'm going to say no, because I gave you the opportunity to do it right now, Right? So I am going to sell this thing later on down the road because it's just so much good information and I think it's valuable and I think that it's worth it. Right. So there's a lot of stuff I give away for free.

There are some things that are put together in more program form that, you know, has a value to it. So I'm going to be doing that. This is the warning that that's going to be happening down the road. So if you guys want access to it moldfinderscare.com, go register now. Anyone who is in on the event, I'm just gonna give access to it once I get it kind of all posted in the replays and everything put together. So that is what I got for you guys today. Thank you so much for hanging out, listening and I will 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. Sat.