An IEP’s Perspective: Tips for Buying & Renting a Healthier Home

Foreign and welcome back. My name is Kendra Seymour and today we're going to be discussing a very important topic that has to do with buying or running a home. Now this is something that all of us face at some point. For some people, buying or running a home is an exciting time. For others, I know, myself included, it can be stressful, especially if you're trying to be aware of environmental factors and pollutants like mold and water damage, VOCs etc. So that's why I'm super excited today to have our guest here, Michael Strands, to talk to us about buying and running a home from an IEP perspective. So thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for having me, Kendra. I'm looking forward to today's conversation.

Why don't you give us a little bit of background about how you got into this field and your experience.

Sure. I'll try to give you like the nugget points and we can dive deeper if needed. But I started in indoor air quality, understanding H Vac systems and mechanical ventilation systems and airflow and all that when I was 16 years old. Now granted, when I was 16 I wasn't as enthusiastic as I was back, you know, I am today. But I was introduced to that with a family owned quite large company and really just had a lot of opportunities to learn more about the home, how it breathes. That kind of escalated through high school and into the early years of college of doing investigations. Real simple mold investigations, condensate leaks and evolved into much more elaborate things like ghosting effects, why do I have soot building up on my walls and other chemical complaints. And what I found was that this is kind of fun where there's a sense of value and contribution, I'm able to help solve problems. I went to college thinking I was going to be working for intel or Honeywell in a supply chain department. But as I was doing all that, I started taking courses and getting basic level certifications and just really fell in love with it. And fast forward. In 2007, after about a year of work and upfront planning, I opened the doors for environmental analytics and started doing environmental assessments. What I had found was that my assessments were not the norm. I was doing more advanced type sampling, I was asking more questions and I didn't. I had no clue. For all I knew I was below the curve. But why I'm saying that is because a lot of the type of testing and approaches I was doing ended up blending real well in the world of chronic illness. These sorts of low dose environmental exposure concerns and you Know, how can we detect those things when sometimes traditional assessments might miss them? These are classic arguments that I know you're familiar with. And so I was introduced sometime in 2013, 14, it's maybe 15. It's been a minute, but at least my life feels that way with kids now. I got introduced to like the surviving mold, shoemaker camp and a bunch of other clinicians that I know there's all these different type of tribes and stuff, and really found that I was a good fit. So today, what I'm focusing on now, I mean, I've worked with over, you know, I think over 55,5600 clients in my career is really just helping people virtually a lot. I still am doing site assessments, not as much as I used to, but really just kind of helping people because as we're about to find out with our questions, it's complicated out there. And it's like people want to not just feel like they're making a good decision. But I'll tell you, the new vibe that has been not been out since yesterday. It's been out for a while, but it really is emanating is this feeling of overwhelm, this feeling of, oh my gosh, I gotta burn my whole house down. Oh my gosh, my doctor said X. Or even US IEPs. I've been guilty of saying things that context matters. So that's the very short 30,000 foot. I have a CV and background information on my website, environmentalanalytics.net if anybody has any questions. But yeah, that's me in a nutshell. And working every day to help folks like you listening to help figure out different topics today, obviously about renting, moving, that sort of thing.

No, that's great. We can maybe talk on this later, but I do want to put another name to it is what you brought up. I like to call that analysis paralysis. What people experience there feels like there's so many options or you're so overwhelmed that you don't want to make the wrong choice, that you end up making no choice. And that in and of itself is a choice. And so hopefully we can kind of help you think through these steps. So you're kind of not just stuck, stuck, left, panicking.

Absolutely. That'll be my theme anyway.

Yeah. And on a personal note, I, I for those listening, I actually discovered you many years ago now. You were one of the first people I found in your space and your podcast that was talking about indoor air quality and all these things. And I remember our doctor at the time, integrative doctor had mentioned you to me. So I started listening, you know, as this overwhelmed young mom trying to figure out what's going on all of your podcasts and I, this is great. No, I, I, I, I was taking notes and absorbing and it, it was like this is the information that I needed. So I thank you for doing what you're doing all these years and to keep putting good information out there and, and helping people because there are so many questions and it can definitely feel lonely and overwhelming. So let's jump in then. Let's help people who might be thinking about buying or running a home. I know when you're starting, you know, maybe you have an open house, maybe you're taking a tour of an apartment complex or building and you're doing your initial walk through. There is so much a person can gleam themselves first. So what are some things if someone's walking through a home that they should be looking for? What areas are they checking? Kind of take us through just a home in general. What can they be doing on their own?

Sure, I think we could always state that what we wish we could do versus what we're able to do might be slightly different things. But it doesn't mean that you can't have a high degree of confidence after the fact, even if some DIY things. I'll say when it comes to basics, obviously the theme here for most people, when we're thinking about mold and bacteria, sorts of microbial exposures, the common thread is moisture, water damage. So a lot of times people are looking for evidence of water damage, intrusion or even moisture related issues. Like I live in Miami, Florida and they haven't controlled the humidity in the home and we have condensation through every, you're looking at these things, but classic cases underneath kitchen sinks, anywhere near plumbing, not just underneath the sinks, but if you have a vanity, for example, that's beside a toilet or a shower bath, or back to the kitchen next to a refrigerator, looking at these areas for evidence of staining, swelling, separation, degradation of the materials, certainly microbial growth. These are clues that would could suggest that there might be something there. Maybe it's more than that. And as a renter or a buyer, I know there's different kind of levels of how can you handle or deal with this? But let's talk about the buyer. You know, you might need to take that into consideration in the negotiations and have a remediation company come out or inspector if it has to be more formal. But getting away from that real quick, you know, around windows, baseboards, you know, Is there again staining, swelling, what seems off, you know, a window seal with a window with trim around it shouldn't have that trim falling off the side, you know, or if one of the sides is separated away from the wall and it's correlates with nearby staining on the window sill, maybe there's something there and not, by the way, just, just maybe a sound check for everybody. Not everything has to be a big mold monster. We're not quantifying the problem right now. We're just trying to help qualify it. Like we think there could be something there. We don't think there could be, you know, that kind of thing. Dishwashers, refrigerators, if possible, don't hurt yourself, don't break anything, don't be liable. But can you remove those things? Is there an opportunity to pull it out and take a look or ask the owner, is it okay? Because a lot of times things are hidden and the owner doesn't even know. Let's not, not everyone's trying to hide things, although I agree that's a concern. But you can pull that out and you might find that you have a bunch of mold along the cabinetry or along the back wall. And again, that's something that is a flag. We can talk Kendra later about maybe how do you interpret it all and what does it all mean at the end? But speaking of common things to look for flooring, buckled flooring, if it's a wood flooring, is there, is there, is there buckling, is there swelling? Is it near exterior entry ways like doors, sliding glass doors underneath the refrigerator or near it, the dishwasher in the, in the, in the bathrooms, if they have that in there, you know, again, that would suggest that moisture got underneath there. And the million dollar question is to what degree? And is there a problem? H Vac systems a little bit trickier. We're not going to have you walk into a home and just start opening up the air conditioning system on your own. But you could look at things like the registers. Now, if you find microbial growth on the registers, which typically you're going to find more of an issue in hot, humid climates. But is it just near the exit doors where maybe hot, warm, moisture laden air hit that register on a cooled surface in the summertime and condensed and has molded, maybe could you unscrew that register or peek in with a flashlight and see if there's evidence of that same discoloration or mold growth on the ductwork? Because those are two different levels of concern. The former is more of a Topical thing, it might not present a huge deal, but if you got mold growing in your ductwork, that's a whole other conversation. And then we talked, we've covered H Vac. I'm looking at my cheat sheet here. I, I, there's things around, you know, of course, around toilets, that sort of thing. Any sort of plumbing source is going to be a classic. The H Vac system itself, not just the ductwork. But if it's in the garage or in a closet, is there evidence of staining from the condensation line or from the evaporator coil? Otherwise, this is the part that cools the air on the platform or on the ground or against the wall. Same thing with the water heater. Is there any evidence that there's been a leak there? Because these little sort of tall tale signs, as I get to land my airplane on common indoor things to look for, start to get into the discussion of, well, how do I interpret it? Do I automatically walk away? Because I love this home and everything checks out, but it's got a water stain underneath the kitchen sink. So I'll let you direct me on more questions on that. But there's also outdoor stuff to consider.

Yeah, no, that's great because sometimes I think people, you know, especially if you're how you might look at 10 houses in a day and you want to make an informed decision, you don't want to immediately write off one place because maybe there's one stain that you found.

Right.

So, so you need to be thinking about, okay, what beyond maybe the pretty countertops or, you know, oh, that deck will be great to throw parties on. I know when I walk into a home, I'm looking at the ceiling, I start looking at baseboards for those things that you mentioned, those signs of water damage, because if there's moisture, there's that possibility for mold growth. And I think people also, and, and you can give me your thoughts on this too. Sometimes think like, if there's mold, I'm gonna see it. Right. It would be like a big wall of mold. And I have found and, and you tell me that that is actually more the exception rather than the rule. It's not gonna be right in your face all the time. And so I think that's why those signs of water intrusion are important to look for.

Yeah, you know, we, when we inspect a home, again, we don't want to damage anything. But when we look underneath carpeting near a wall by that's got plumbing, we're looking because we don't see obvious problems. Typically but it's because we know that there's a tacking strip underneath there, and we know that water could come through that wall. And when you pulled up, maybe you see mold growth right there. And, or if it's a sliding glass door or a window that you're opening and closing it to see if it's got operation, because you might not see mold there. But if the, if, if there's been enough of a leak there, it could get swelled and, and, and make it hard to open up these doors. And that could be a sign. Now, it could just be because the sliding in the rail is dirty. But I mean, is there some. So we're a lot to your point. While we are open minded to see obvious growth, of course, usually it's the signs that are in the interstitial spaces, the cavity spaces, hidden underneath the carpeting, hidden underneath a kitchen sink cabinet, underneath the bottom shelf, or in a wall or a ceiling. That's normally what we're dealing with. Gosh, it'd be great if my job was limited to, oh, I got 20 square feet of mold growth on the wall behind me. That's easy. I can just point at it and say, there's your issue. But most of the exposures that we're dealing with for the most part from a volumetric standpoint are either hidden or not considered. Like stuff in the crawl space, stuff in the attic, it's stuff in the H VAC system.

So this is great. So we're going to unpack this, I think, in just a little bit, in some later questions. This is, you know, you're walking through. Here's what you're looking for. Whether it's. It's a series of open houses or apartments, you're looking for those signs of water damage. And we'll kind of then talk next steps, like, well, what does that mean? Let's say you found this place and you think you want to go for it, and we can unpack that. But let's, let's kind of back a little more broadly up and let's talk about, because I see this all the time in the Facebook groups, everyone wants to know what kind of foundation is best. And there's not a simple answer there because there is no perfect foundation. And we should have started this off with, there is no perfect home, right? That there is no home that's 100 perfect and 100 safe and 100 free from, you know, any chance of mold or water damage. But if we're talking foundations, what are some considerations people want to think about when it comes to crawl spaces versus basements versus slabs.

Sure, great question. And let me just say something because you touched on something right now that touched me. Safe home. We all know what you mean, but there's something about that expectation of what is a safe home look like versus a suspect home. We don't live on Mars in a bubble and we live in a world called Earth that we are surrounded by microbial growth, mold, bacteria. Let's keep it simple. Right now, that's normal. Without it we wouldn't be here. You've even seen studies about astronauts that spend extended amount of times in space. Even though they're doing exercises, they come back, they're not acclimated, back to work and their immune system drops, they tank, they get sick. And there's something to be said whether you have a chronic illness or not. And I have cirs, so I do have some experience. And to say that we're not looking for zero mold, we're not looking for no fungal ecology. We're looking for normal fungal ecology. And I'll stitch that in what that means. Yeah, normal fungal ecology is what we would expect to see in your home if you had no elevated source traditionally in the home, like hidden under a wall, underneath a cabinet, underneath the crawl space or in the crawl space, communicating up in the attic, those sorts of traditional things. But only really reflects outdoor influence. So you're outdoors, you're, you have microbial growth and you're, you're breathing in right now mold, mycotoxins, fungal structures and you're fine. You're not going to throw your T shirt away, you're not going to have a reaction. It's normal background. Our goal as professionals, as, even as individuals who are working with IEPs virtually or hybrid thing, your, your goal is to figure out whether or not this house reflects normal fungal ecology. And it's not just limited. I might add to numbers like a petri dish, like a sport trap, which we're not big fans of. Like, like MSQ PCR analysis, which we are big fans of. It's, it's also the visual, which is what we're talking about. We don't. You could get a bad petri dish or a bad Ermie, which I'm again I, I don't want to mislead people. I'm not a fan of the Ermes score. I'm a fan of the data that you get within the URMI samples, by the way. But my point is this. We don't just look at that result and then put Our blinders on and go. I don't care about anything else. That's all I need to see. We have to put that into perspective. What about the living conditions? Is there carpeting throughout the house? Cause maybe you just have a buildup of, of reservoir molds from the outside, but you don't have a mold problem. But you thought you did because you interpreted that way. You thought that was normal fungally. Well, no, it's normal because you have carpeting in your home. So I guess the point, the takeaway for the listener is this. Our goal is not mold free. It's normal fungal ecology. And normal fungal ecology is certainly considering our outdoor influence, but also our. The indoor conditions of the home that might, you know, fluctuate that number a little bit more like a hard flooring home versus a carpeting home. Most people, I'm sure most of you already know this, would prefer hard flooring. Not because it's comfortable to walk on, because it's easier to clean the home and drop your mold levels, particle levels down lower. To the question of the type of foundation which you originally asked, I'm a big fan of slabs. Whenever you have a raised floor crawl space or structures with subterranean rooms or something like built into a wall, like a walkout basement or something like that, you introduce potentially additional moisture intrusions, Moisture coming in through a basement wall. Especially older homes that don't have appropriate barriers, they. I mean, they're back in the days they used to not do anything and then they would actually put tar. But that tar breaks down, you know, so there's. There were pathways for that moisture to get through. And so it's not uncommon to see moisture problems in basements. Crawl spaces. It gets into there now it's this perfect little petri dish to grow. It's dark, it's typically wet or damp, not a lot of air movement. I mean, wow, mold and bacteria are getting excited right now. And if there's pathways, openings, gaps, cracks, plumbing lines, electrical lines, H vac ductwork running in the crawl space, penetrating through, and there's driving forces, air movement, temperature differentials, stack effect, which I know we're going to get into, then you have everything that you need to get that stuff to come in. How do we avoid that? Don't. If you can, don't get a home with a crawl space or a basement. That is easy for me to say because I live in Arizona. So it doesn't mean it's a deal breaker. If you live in, say, the big Bay area, California, where crawl spaces are numerous it doesn't mean that that's a horrible option. It all boils down to a conversation that you and I have touched on. We'll probably explore it further, which is how do I interpret it? How do I know if this is enough, if it's worth fixing versus walking away and going to the other nine houses that you looked at?

Yeah, that's an important point because I think whatever foundation type you have, it's about the maintenance, prevention, understanding where it is in that moment and what needs to be done. So it's, I love that none of these are deal breakers. It's about understanding it in bigger picture in terms of your situation, what's going on, you know, what would need to be done.

Yeah.

Because it does vary so much by, you know, I grew up in an area and there were tornadoes and you had a basement.

Right. And I called out a point you said earlier about safe home. And I'll call out a point on me that I just did, which is what if someone asked me this question? If they said, mike, you see so many clients, what are you seeing? Where are the low hanging fruit issues? Basements, crawl spaces, H vac systems. But you notice I didn't say anything about what? Well, what about that? Okay, so it is. So did everyone just burn the house down and walk? No. Many people. Vast majority of people. 90 something percent or more. Fixed it, Addressed it. But so now you know that maybe there's a sense of relief for those of you who are listening. Oh my God, I got a basement. Or no, you're fine. But you might want to look at those things and consider that in your budget when you're, when you're considering renting or buying. It's like I looked at 10 places if you're lucky, and three of them didn't have a basement or a crawl space. And that home with the slab checked off a lot of other boxes and I felt good when I was in the home. Wow. Maybe you got to go from that home right now. Because the key is if you keep on dipping your toes, the more uncertainty you have. This is not about zero uncertainty, it's about risk management. And it's subjective because some of it's unique to your concerns, your budget, your energy, the available options. And what we're trying to do, if it's not clear, is minimize your exposure risk, maximize your confidence that this home is going to work so that when you recover and you will, that you don't blame your home on Wednesday night when you go to bed and you. And you're feeling a little bit off. You're sleeping with one eye closed because you're freaking out because Mike and Kendra said something about a crawl space and you have one on your home. We don't need to take it to that level. We're just trying to minimize the risk. But each, each area will have its challenges. Just like when we talk about looking for a home with a pitched roof versus a flat roof. We don't like homes with flat roof. Guess who lives in a house with a flat roof. Yeah, Made it work. It's not. People need to hear that. And that's why I'm pushing it right now is because I think in our own ignorant, in our own innocence, but perhaps ignorance, we're forgetting that people are hearing that and thinking, okay, so no home with a flat roof. Okay, I rule that out. Okay. No, no home with a cross. Okay, that rules that. Okay, so I'm down to a tent in the desert. No, it's not that.

Yeah. And so you'll notice like anyone listening, we're using the term like considerations because it's all about that. It's, it's considering, you know, the pros and cons of the situation and being aware so that you can make choices. So this is a good segue into then our next question because there's another one that comes up all the time. So you've picked out your house. We obviously depending on what climate, you probably rely on heating or air conditioning of four combo sorts. So what are considerations if you're looking at a home with maybe an H vac versus swamp coolers in certain parts of the country? Mini splits, window units. What are some things you're seeing as an IEP with each of those and what do we need to think about?

Glad you brought the swamp coolers. Yeah, great question Again. Swamp coolers, which I grew up with one when I was a kid and again I live in Arizona, are stuff that we commonly see in usually the southwest, drier, warmer climates. They work on evaporation, they pump a bunch of moisture laden air. Ultimately as a result of how they work, typically a unit outside has water draining down pads. Hot air has gone through that, it cools down, brings with it moisture and you have the feeling of evaporation on your body and you get cheap cooling. That's great. In the more milder seasons and certainly when it is dry, whether or not it is dry or not. The issue that you run into oftentimes are two main issues with swamps, that is that you pump too much moisture into your home. And the next thing you have is something similar to a hot, humid home in Miami, Florida, which is condensation occurring on certain surfaces and microbial growth resulting. And I've seen this dozens of times, given where I live, where someone thought they had a roof leak or there was an alien mold species around. And really it boiled down to this. You walking in a home and it's 70, 80% relative humidity in the house, you're going to condense on a lot of surfaces and you have that. So that's a consideration. And that doesn't mean you can't use swamp coolers. You just have to be smart about their operation. The other issue is the swamp cooler itself. The swamp cooler, again is a, let's just keep this simple, a cube shape and it's got a big blower wheel in the center and there's paths that surround the sides and water trickles down those pads and air gets sucked through the pads and then it goes down into your duct work where it's distributed through your home. Okay, so far so good. Well, that environment, wet pads, some of you starting to get that feeling. The pan that holds the moisture, that catches the moisture that comes off the pads can oftentimes build biofilms microbial growth on the pads. And in many cases, swamp coolers don't have the level of filtration to shield from maybe initial exposures to those sorts of contaminants that then enter to get introduced into your home. So obviously it can be a production site of microbial growth. How can you minimize and prevent that if you're going to use one? Well, it's maintenance. It's keeping an eye on the relative humidity of your home and not getting it too high. Opening up more windows if you have to, to promote better circulation and exit of this moisture laden air that's getting too high. And try to keep levels down below 50% if you can. A little bit of a trick with swamp coolers, but can be done. The other thing is operation and maintenance of the unit itself. Can you go up there once a month and verify? They make bleach alternative tablets. And I don't want to get into chemical debates right now, but just to say there's things that you can do. Make sure the pads are new. I do them every year. Sometimes they're rated for multiple years, but if you think about it, they're constantly inundated with moisture and particulate mold spores. I don't want to play with that science experiment next year I'd rather just get new pads and Making sure that you're not seeing stagnation of water and something that looks like a biofilm or mold growing on that device. When it comes to other types of systems, like now we're getting into the H Vac systems, we'll talk about mini splits real quick. I think they're great for add ons. There's a lot of older homes where the idea of being able to even run ductwork through your house is a nightmare. It's not feasible financially. And you can add local cooling. I think they're great. I think things that you want to consider are they're going to have to penetrate your house on the exterior somewhere to introduce the Freon lines. Of course they'd have to do that with a traditional system. You'd want to make sure that there's a really good flashing and they sealed it in really well because that will be an entry point for moisture if you don't. And the other thing is to consider that these systems don't oftentimes come with the ability to have really nice filters on them. You might have something that's equivalent to what we call hog hair, which looks like a loose mat of woven plastic fibers that's good at stopping things like bird feathers, but not really, really, really small particulate things. And so you might, you typically in what I talk about is you want to get into additional filtration, maybe purification type devices, think a HEPA filter for filtration to filter that air to help with that. The forced systems that have duct work, which I'm a fan of, if done correctly. That's the issue is if oftentimes the issues are because it's not done correctly is great because not only can you better distribute the conditioned air, whether it's heat or cold, you can distribute it to the rooms better. So circulate the air better, which is all good for indoor air quality stuff. And bonus, you have the ability to add typically a nicer filter into that system. Despite certain comments made by H Vac companies that scare the heck out of you and say, oh, don't use anything over a MERV8. That might be true, but there's ways to get around that. Using thicker filters, upgrading the motor to an ECM motor. So all kinds of hacks we can do. I want to give. It's like my mentor told me when I was a kid, don't give me 10 reasons why you can't do something. Give me one reason how you can.

Yeah.

So there are solutions, but it does help you filter that air way better. Than a mini split system with all of these systems, whether it's that, whether it's a window mount system. Similar kind of concerns with mini splits is that they don't have the best filtration. And some of them bring in outdoor air completely, some of them recirculate. There's different designs, is the maintenance on them. These systems are in cooling mode, cooling the air. And a way that they do that through this use of Freon is cooling these evaporator coils, these fins, really cold, which helps cool the air, but it removes moisture. Moisture condenses on those cold fins and then it drops off, typically in your drain pan, exits to the condensate line, and everybody's happy and they don't know the difference. But those areas are rich for potential microbial growth. Does that mean that we shouldn't have an air conditioning system? No, what it means is that you would want to look at that if you have access. If you're looking at a home, can you get a H Vac company or the home inspector to open up the panel that gives access to the evaporator coil so that you can look with your eyeballs, not just rely on the opinion of the H Vac company? I wouldn't do that. You can ask for their opinion, but I wouldn't conclude with that. Take photos. Look, are. Are you seeing evidence of microbial growth in the pan, on the coil, on the housing that surrounds the coil? If you can peek up and look into the ductwork or down in the ductwork, depending on the system that you have. Do you see evidence of microbial growth there? Those are classic areas that might have microbial growth that if you saw that may weigh in on the decision making that we're going to eventually kind of summarize and everything together and say, well, I'm willing to still buy this home. I'm just going to make sure I clean this first or replace that. So that's what I think are the main takeaways with the different types of heating and cooling systems.

Yeah, it's so hard because I know people, they want like a checklist, like, tell me what I. What I don't want in a home. Tell me what I do want. And you know, it's not that simple. But the positive there is, that you've alluded to, like, all of this is figureoutable. I know that's not a word, but sounds good.

I like it.

Yeah. Yeah. I think there's a book that uses that. I just stole it from, but it's considerations about Each of these. And then once you move into these places, it's about that maintenance and making sure you're taking care of it regularly. But that's not the point of this talk. So I won't go down that rabbit hole. But one of the things that I feel like is so often forgot about is the exterior of the home. Because people think, well, it's outside, what does it matter? But the exterior of your home, your drainage, your grading, your siding, can impact the interior of your. So what are some things that people should think about from your perspective when looking at a home, either to buy or rent?

Absolutely. And thanks for circling us back to that. You said a few great ones, right? I mean, even irrigation. Is there evidence of the sprinkler spraying up against a wall? We've had a lot of cases. I don't know if it's just ebbs and flows where there's been a water sprinkler hitting a stucco wall or wood paneling wall or vinyl cladding, and water ends up getting up, end in behind, or breaks through the water drainage plane, if you will. The part that's designed to stop the water and have it drain down instead of going in and resulted in problems. So you're looking for stuff like that. Does this home have a bunch of vegetation right up to the home? Is there irrigation like you said, drainage, sloping. But other than the common, like, do I have bad drainage or things going away, my gutters do they go down and extend 20ft away approximately, so that the water doesn't want to go back towards the home or into the crawl space. A lot of things can be issues, but probably the most popular, and I had a good friend of mine help me kind of debate this and figure it out. But doors and windows, any fenestration that's not properly installed. So there's flashing issues, there's poorly put together trim, There's. These are all pathways naturally for water to come in. To be able to look at that from the outside and go, okay, this looks solid. I don't see any. I don't see wood trim falling apart. I don't see breaking down of materials at the corner of the thresholds like where you walk into the home. But on the outside, that would give you clues to think, well, maybe water did get in. How did it get there? Any sort of. And that ties into any sort of deferred maintenance. Because even I have to remind myself in my own home that being able to walk through your house on the outside once a year to check for. For how's my caulking lines look. How does my paint look like? I just hung up Christmas lights recently and I found that one of my areas on the exterior roof had rot on it, but it was covered up in the paint, but it was actually rotting away. And so obviously I needed to address that. Around chimneys, that's a huge one. The home, if you think about it, is going to be moved differently at times from the chimney because it typically goes down. And plus it's, it's got its own arm of leverage. And so that movement, let's say this arm is the chimney and this arm's the roof. At that intersection where you see my two hands come together, a lot of times there's flashing issues. And if it's poorly flashed, you can bet moisture is going to get in through there. So making sure that it is properly flashed, that again, when water hits the chimney, it's going to hit the flashing and drain away from the chimney versus down and in. Another thing that, that my buddy of mine brought up to me, which I didn't think about, but is absolutely true, is the unintended consequences that come from remodeling efforts using new materials and old materials without addressing that relationship on the exterior. So a lot of times there's mismatching of materials or a lack of, like, they'll. They'll cut in a new window. But we've seen contractors cut into the drainage of the. Let's say the vapor moisture barrier comes down and they won't flash it correctly. And then on the next rain, because they didn't integrate that flashing appropriately into the way it's supposed to shed away from the home, water will come into, through that. That intersection that was improperly connected and make its way into the wall. And thus you have a mold problem. Those are, those are big ones. You can't always, on the latter point, you can't always look at something and go, that was an add on. Because, you know, some people paint over it and it all looks the same. But you can ask the questions. You can say, has there been any additions to this home? You know where. Tell me about that. And then at that point, look for evidence of damage. Don't just look on the exterior of the wall. If you, if something doesn't look right on that exterior wall, go walk on the inside, see how it looks. We do that a lot. I can't tell you how frustrating, how many times. In, out, in, out and out. Because you're seeing things, you're like, what does it look on the inside? Look that swelling, look for that damage. Oh, is there, is there a. Is there a chimney in the family room, a fireplace? And I not so sure that you'll find carpet nearby, but let's just say you did. Can you, without damaging it, with permission, pull that carpeting back and see if there's any evidence of water that may have come down that wall and you never knew it. Those are the top ones for me.

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's. You have to think about it like you always want to be moving water away from your property. So now, like when we're driving by and they're building, like I'm watching, like, what's the drainage look like? Are they, are they taking that into account? And it's a funny story that you bring up in addition, because our last house, kind of the one that started it all for us, there was an addition and my husband and I had moved in. We're in the house maybe a week and it was the first time it rained and we're hearing like water dripping. We're like, what is that? And we walk into the room where the addition is attached to the original part of the house and it is just pouring rain. And we were like, you have got to be kidding me. We joked it was our indoor water feature we didn't know we had when we bought the house. So flashing. I mean, it ended up being a bit of production. We ended up later removing that section of the wall because, you know, I mentioned it when we had our IP there and we were doing remediation, I was like, I just want to be certain. But I was like, yeah, it's not supposed to rain inside your house, were they?

No, that's not. That wasn't on the blueprints.

Yeah, that was a nice, unwelcome surprise, for sure. Now, one of the things that I want us to touch on a little bit is how does mold in one part of the home, maybe a basement, maybe a bathroom, maybe the attic, impart or, I'm sorry, impact the rest of the home? Because people tend to think, well, I'll just close the door or I won't go into the basement and I don't have to worry about it. Can you talk to us a little bit about that and maybe touch on. You mentioned it. There's stack effect. If you could explain that to us.

Sure, sure. A lot of good stuff there. I'll do my best. I agree. If you have a mold problem in the basement and you have no other choice and you're kind of in the triage mode, maybe, maybe closing the door and stuff can minimize exposures, but it's all about, again, quantifying a concern to your question. When we talk about how can. I don't like talking about mold in terms of spores because I think it's very misleading. There's a lot more stuff that are part of the mold, like mold fragments. But let's use the mold spore for the sake of the conversation. You have a mold spore in the basement. How does it move? Well, we have all sorts of driving forces, transport mechanisms, your dog, you, that sort of thing. And available pathways like the basement door that's open or even when you close it, you got the cutout beneath. Temperature differentials, diffusion, these sorts of nerdy conversations where things migrate from higher temperatures to lower temperatures, or from more moist to less moist, or even things like pressure differentials. So you have a exhaust fan on the kitchen, exhausting out while you're cooking the steam from the boiling water you have. But when you do that, you're evacuating anywhere from, let's just say 75 to 200. Unless you got all fancy and commercial and you got a thousand dollar, a thousand CFM range, that's a thousand cubic feet of air per minute. You're sucking that air out. That air has got to come up from somewhere. It's got to be made up somehow. And some of that might be pulled from, in the case of the mold spore in the basement, from that direction. So things can easily get pulled in. There is a little bit of a misnomer about particle transport, how it goes from location A to B. A lot of times people think that particle behaviors move at the same speed as other particles, and that's not true. There's a lot of slip factoring things that are happening. For example, in order to move a particle like a mold spore in a direction that you want it to go, to control it, you need what's called laminar flow. And this is not going to be like some three hour course. This will be 30 seconds. And for laminar flow to get, it's just fast enough air movement to create it. Depending on what you read, what book you read, you'll get anywhere between 60 to 70ft per minute or more. That's the speed, if you will, which translates to about a foot per second. Well, think about that. I went too slow. I went too slow. So it doesn't take a lot for particles to move. But even air movement transport, what's called eddy diffusion, you walking around creating Turbulence, you're going to kick stuff up and it's going to make it from location A to location B. What you will probably also find is that and things can get sucked into the return of the H vac systems and some of that can be transported. I think that given keep in mind my background's in H Vac. I think that a lot of times people demonize and monsterize H vac systems and cross contamination more than they should. But it absolutely is a concern that it can transport contaminants from location A to location B. And if nothing else, you get into the topic of well now I got to clean my ductwork or do I? And all of these other things at the end of the day. If you were to test those environments, if you were to test the basement and the main floor and the issue, the ground zero, if you will, was in the basement. It's not uncommon to see a higher presentation of those types of molds that would have grown in there in higher concentrations than at the main floor level. But that's how they can and they can come through other things. Like I know one of the other things you're wondering about is well, what about stuff that's behind a wall?

Yeah, let's talk about that. Can mold behind a wall affect you?

I won't play doctor. You know, there's my disclaimer. But I, I will tell you that if your house was hermetically sealed, every time you shut the door, your ears would pop kind of a thing. You have gaps and cracks that it feels small to us. Where the baseboard meets the floor, it's not most, most of the time it's not hermetically sealed. It's not sealed up, there's a gap. The drywall is not right up against the floor. You have light outlets, electrical outlets, you have can lights or other penetrations. These are all pathways. And let me just give some nerd information real quick. On average mold spore and they vary about 5 microns in size. That's very, very small. A human hair, depending on what study you read, see to 60 to 100 microns. So they're very small. On average 250 of those 5 micron sized mold spores can fit on the top of a needle pinhead, the top of it without falling over the side. So you're kind of putting this into perspective. And for every one of those 250 mold spores, again depending on what study you read, you'll get any range from about 300 to 1,000 plus fragments from the same Mold spores that are even yet smaller than the mold spores, sometimes down into the, you know, nanoparticle size range. Those size particles and spores can easily get through the gaps and cracks that I'm talking about. Even take a human hair and go, okay, I'm gonna open up this electrical outlet without hurting yourself. And I can find a gap and I can just stick it. Right. Okay. There's a pathway. And the communication that we're finding, a lot of the inspectors that you're familiar with, that you work with, will even agree that it's. You might. There might be a lot more mold in that wall, and you may not feeling. Be feeling the full effect of what's available behind that wall, but you are getting some communication. And I'll tell you this just for a mildly humorous observation, if you are somebody or your spouses that doesn't believe that that's possible. No, I've been building homes for 95 years and blah, blah, blah. What you could do is, is you can experiment with theatrical smoke. It's amazing what theatrical smoke, for example, in a crawl space. That's the classic example where you stick a theatrical fog or, you know, and let it do its thing and watch. And it won't take many minutes before you start seeing it creep in. You're like, well, wait a second. How's that? So that's just a. And it's coming through. And it's not always visible, too. A lot of times you're only going to see the real visible fog. But there's other things you can see with a particle counter. The numbers start to get really high in your home from that fogging machine before you necessarily notice a bunch of fog visually come in. So, yes, absolutely. It can be introduced into the home.

Yeah. No. And so I think the takeaway there is, you know, the air in your home. Like, it's a complicated science, essentially, how it moves through your home from your basement to your upper floors or your attic and vice versa. What's behind the wall can impact what's. What's inside. And I mean, and it's simplest. It's why, like, I'll get up, you know, on the weekend and I'll be making something. Like maybe I'll make bacon or something. And all of a sudden, my son will come down. He's like, oh, I could smell it upstairs. I was like, oh, you're sleeping a little longer.

Yeah. And even if your heating system wasn't right, and even if your heating system or what air conditioning was not running, the diffusion of the oils and the VOCs that were created by you cooking that bait. Just like cooking popcorn. Right? Same concept, travels quick. So this is not something that's like, well, there's mold in the wall, but I got about five months before I have to work. No, it can happen pretty quick.

I don't. I ask you so many questions about that H VAC unit and air movement, but I know we're running out of time and we want to keep moving, so maybe we'll have to have another convers about that. But one of the things I was hoping you can kind of clear up, there's always the debate about dead mold or dormant mold. Can you explain to us what that is, what that means to us? Like people like it's dead. Don't worry about it. What's going on.

Right, yeah. Again, I'll say this within the, the limits of me not playing doctor, but certainly I work with a lot of them, so I can, I can try to help honor what we know and don't know. Back when our parents and grandparents were around or still are hopefully around, for some of us, the issue with mold was more of a nuisance and killing it was the solution. We think about bleach and all that sort of thing. We also know that around that same time frame, mold was looked at from more of a standpoint. I got a book back there, should have had it ready. About it was more of the pathology of it, the disease, pathogenic concerns like aspergillosis growing in your lungs or as a result creating Asperger, you know, that sort of thing, that's a viable mold. The mold had to be alive, if you want to use some layman's terms, versus dead to grow and create this disease. What we have learned is that through a lot of the research from through, certainly through a lot of the camps that we're familiar with, whether it's the shoemaker camp, whether if you kind of are leaning more towards like the Neil Nathan and I know there's a whole bunch of others, there's a consensus when you talk about things like pathogen associated molecular patterns, pamps or damps, pathogen associated or damaged, associated molecular things that your body responds to from an inflammatory response. Now I'm going somewhere with this. So if people are having an inflammatory response to mold, then it doesn't, according to all the literature that we can find, matter whether the mold is alive or dead, because whether it's alive or dead. And some of this, what I'm about to tell you is well known. It's still allergenic it still can potentially be toxigenic and it can create that inflammatory response. For those of you that have cirs, that's the I in cirs inflammatory response. And what it does is it can affect your system. So without going any deep, deeper, and at the re. The, at the risk of getting into a four hour debate, which I have no intentions of doing, we don't care whether the mold is alive or dead. For the sake of are we cons. If it's a, if it's in the wall. But your home inspector said, well, the moisture meter, it's dry, it's not a concern, it's dead. That does not solve your problem if you're having an inflammatory response, and if you don't know about inflammatory response, I won't give you a thing. I'll just lead you to a reference. Look up a thing called coronavirus. Look up Covid and see what it's all about. The terms like cytokine storms will come up. This is an inflammatory response. This is your innate immune system inflaming and reacting because they think there's a threat, because there is a threat. And that's, that's the environmental exposure. So yes, I would argue, and certainly a lot of what we talk about is based off of this model, that the research shows that whether the mold is alive or dead, you're still going to have an inflammatory response to that. Some individuals more susceptible than others. This is why we have. That's why it's so hard to numerically standardize mold exposures and that you want to get rid of it. I don't care if that mold's in the wall and it's 20 years old. It grew 20 years, it stopped growing. The moisture dried up. The mold still there. If it's fragmenting and decaying, which would make sense because mold's organic and it breaks down just like we do, you'd still have generally the same level of concern to address it and remove it than if it was there from a week ago.

I love that it's not enough just to stop the water. You want to remove that growth.

Absolutely.

So don't let someone I know, I've been told that it's behind the wall. They fix the water source, you're fine, or it's old.

This mold's here, but it's been here. It's five years old. You correct the problem. It's like, thank you for telling me we can kill kindness. Thank you for telling me that we sweet. There's no more moisture problems. I'M having an inflammatory response to mold. Do you know what that is? And I think we all know what the answer is going to be, is like, I need this to be physically removed until one of the major medical bodies comes out and proves otherwise. The evidence that you see, and there's Dr. Keith Bernstein is a doctor in the industry and he did this huge research project I'm so grateful for that, has all of these articles and studies, rather, showing how mold and other things really can affect a person. And there was many themes, but one of them was, is it doesn't matter whether they're live or dead, you still have these pamp and damp type responses, which is your body saying, I'm being reactive to this. So, in short, whether it's alive or dead, to your point, you still are going to look at it, especially if you have chronic illness, whether it's Lyme, CRS and the list goes on, you're still going to want to holistically remove that.

Yeah, that's great. Now, if someone, let's focus on someone who's buying a home, let's say they've narrowed it down, they want to put in an offer, they're going to do their home inspection. Is. Is hiring just your typical home specter enough or are there additional things? Someone who is, you know, being particularly aware of environmental conditions, you know, do they want to bring in other people, too?

Yeah. Time allowed, right? Absolutely. I'd love to be able to tell the home seller, hey, we need about six months with your house so that we can do a study and test it under different seasons, because maybe in the wintertime there's more in the wall, but it doesn't communicate because of the temperature or pressure differentials and vice versa in the summertime. But I would argue, and I talk about this on episode 25 on IEP radio, my podcast is it's about being strategic. A lot of times we'll tell somebody when they're buying a home that not just to go with a standard home inspection, you know, take a look at the house. Are you seeing anything? A lot of these takeaways that we've talked about today already, you're weighing it out, but maybe it's still worth it because you really love the home. It's in the school district you wanted and you feel okay. Now you're going to have a home inspection done on the, hopefully the first or second day of the home inspection period, and you found out that there is in fact a roof and all the electric works and it passes all the Major things. And you've already worked and contacted with an IEP and a mold inspector to come out there on hopefully the third or fourth day or maybe even the same day if you have the budget. Because sometimes that plays into all of this. And you have them do this more thorough inspection. I absolutely would do that. And there's other things, but about the home scoping, the plumbing lines, you never know when you got a tree root running through it. Those, those are issues that pop up, it seem like more often than we want, but to have that house inspected, this is an investment. We're squabbling. And I'm not referring to you, the listener right now, but somebody out there is squabbling about the money. And I'm sitting here going, okay, I'm not making light of that. I've been in that situation. I sometimes I find myself in that situation. But how much money do you spend on your health?

Right.

Most people say more. I can now say I've spent more in my health and addressing it than the actual stuff I've done to my home to improve it, to investigate it, spend the money to have a mold inspection done. At that critical point, maybe you've, it's got a roof, it passes the basic fundamentals of the home inspection. Try to sneak that home inspector or that mold inspector in there at that time to rule out any other issues. Because you know what, maybe you did identify some things with your visual, but it doesn't hurt to have a trained pair of eyes give a second look. You might have overlooked something.

Yeah, it's so hard. And I, I get it. This is an expensive process to think, okay, spend a little bit more money up front because the cost of remediation or fixing a problem down the road or, or trying to bring your health back to a point is going to be exponentially more expensive and difficult. So if it's one of those things you can swing, it's always smart. Oh my gosh, we're almost out of time, so I don't think we're get to all of our questions, but I do want to give you a chance to kind of wrap up and leave us with any final thoughts. So whether you're running or buying a home, kind of putting it all together, we didn't quite get to those like next steps. But what, what other last thought can you leave us with? I guess.

Yeah, you know, as you can tell, there's a lot that goes into considering when renting or buying a home, if it's at all possible. What I would highly recommend you do. Especially if a boots on the ground inspection just can't be had. You don't have the time. Maybe it's a budget issue. Is reach out to an iep. There's, there's numerous ones that offer virtual consultations. Let us help Edu. There's free resources all around. There's IEP radio, there's your guys organization. All of these things that provide you with these tips and you can, you can educate yourself. But ultimately getting yourself in alignment with an IEP with this type of background knowledge to help guide you. Well, let's learn about the home. Let's look at the Zillow video or do some photos and let's see if we can look at the home. I think is a great thing. The other thing I would have you consider is what we talked about and hinted on in the beginning. Don't walk away because you found one leak. If that's your criteria. I think you'll find it difficult to find a home that meets it. Even a brand new home you might be. How's that possible? Well watch when it was built. You're going to find a house comes in with lumberyard mold or something like that and you're going to wonder about that. It's about risk management. And the best thing I have found that helps the most amount of people is they take these observations. They work virtually with a person who they can do a zoom call with and they can look at that and be pragmatic with you honoring your health the whole time. No arguments but say, well let's talk about, you know, if this is an issue, what does it look like worst case? What does it look like best case? Do you guys have the finances for that? We seldom tell people to walk. Usually the issue is their budget. I have $30,000 to work with. If it's $35,000, I don't. I'd love to fix it but I can't do it. Fine, then that's your cutoff point. But can we make the solution work for 10,000 or 20,000? So don't give up because you see a water stain underneath the kitchen sink. Explore it, get curious about it. Let's help understand is it local? Is it a big deal? But have know that we're not looking for a mold free bubble on Mars. We're looking for a house that reflects normal fungal ecology. And believe it or not, there are homes out there that have water stains on them that reflect normal fungal ecology. And people are getting better and healthy all the time. But. But don't don't use that as an excuse to just say, well, I don't care about all this mold throughout the home. Be smart. Work with an iep, whatever you can. As many times as we try to find DIY options for people and we educate them, what we find is either paralysis, analysis, analysis, paralysis. We find brain fog, and we find they just don't want to do the research. They like the idea of it, that we want them to be their own ambassadors, but at the end, they want somebody who does this for a living to look. Then do that. Work with somebody, whether it's boots on the ground or virtually to help you. That will minimize the risk and maximize the confidence that you're not buying a home, but you're a lemon, but that you're buying a home that's going to be healthy enough for you to recover and feel safe.

Yeah. Oh, thank you so much. Now you mentioned it, but if people wanted to get in touch with you or learn more, how can they find you?

Sure. Thank you. On the educational side, got a lot of great resources, all free, including references and studies on IEP radio. That's the letters IEP and then radio.com. if you're looking to learn more about me and my services, that sort of thing, you can go to Environmental Analytics, A. It's A.net and you can kind of explore around there and I'd be happy to help you out, however I can.

Thank you so much. And, and for everyone listening, happy house hunting or house renting. You know, don't give up, make informed choices and you have a healthier home out there waiting for you. I know you do.

Absolutely.

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