Matt Kelly (the “Mold Man”) explains how HVAC systems can disperse mold spores and, worse, host active mold growth on components like the air-handler coil when dust and moisture are present. He recommends testing the system using DIY sterile flocked swabs (available from immunolytics.com): swab the air handler (blower, interior sides, coil if reachable) and multiple register vents/ducts to check for different molds. Results from air-handler and duct swabs together indicate whether the HVAC is contaminated and whether remediation is needed.
Chapters
Foreign. Guys, let's talk about H Vac. I see a million questions about H Vac and mold. I'm glad you're asking these questions because H Vac can be one of the biggest culprits to creating or spreading a real mold problem in your house, making it that much worse, which makes your health that much worse. So understanding H Vac, testing H Vac is important. Great questions. Let's talk about it. Two points I want to make. Well, I want to make more than two. I'm going to cover two things. First, your H Vac is involved when you have a mold problem anywhere in your home, whether it's in a crawl space, the attic, the back of a closet or a bedroom, say, or your ensuite say you've got ketomium growing behind a leaky shower, showers either water lines leaking or the tiles cracked. Whatever the reason, you've got long term water laying there or making wood wet. Ketomium is growing. Those spores work their way out slowly. And mycotoxins, but we're more concerned with spores right now, make it to the cold air return. It gets sucked into that cold air return, goes through your air handler and then gets the blower, blows it out evenly amongst all your other rooms. So a problem that was coming from just one area can now potentially end up in every room. Now Aspergillus and penicillium spores are a little lighter, they're going to travel more. But hey, let's just use ketomium because it happens. It's not as common, but it can happen. So ketomium makes its way, gets blown into every room. Now everyone's breathing those spores and mycotoxins. The secondary problem is when those same spores, say ketomium spores, go through, you know, getting your cold air return go through your ducts, are going through the coil in the air handler. And if you already have a collection of dust and debris there just from it not being serviced or cleaned or whatever reason, these spores land in that dust. And then you have the humidity, the moisture from the drip pan or anything, right? It can, it can be like a little incubator for mold. So now on the bottom side of your coil you can have ketobium actually growing and having a colonization of mold in your H Vac and is far worse than just spores passing through. Spores passing through, it's not increasing it any, it's just dispersing it. When you get mold growing in your H Vac on the bottom of that coil, now you just have this ever growing colony. And now what's coming out into each room is massive. And you've got that close source of mycotoxins coming off, too. So this is when things can really go wrong. Right. So what do you do? You got to test it. What's the best way of testing it? We're not going to do an urmi. Normally, with the H vac you can. It's expensive, but it's a lot cheaper to do a swab. So if you go to immunolytics.com you can get a DIY swab. See, that just looks like a giant Q tip. But the official name is this is a dry transport system for a sterile flocked collection device. It's a giant Q tip, all right, but it's a clean one. So this one. Oh, shoot. I'm over my three minutes, guys. What I would do is get at least two of these. Okay? One, one. You're going to shut off your air handler. You're going to open it up, you're going to swab inside the sides of your unit, swab by the blower, and if you can reach the coil, go up and catch. Collect a little bit off there. Label it air handler. Okay? Secondly, you're going to want to test the ductwork because you're testing for a problem growing within the air handler of your H vac system. We want to know, do you have other molds growing in the ductwork between there and. And each register vent in your room? Because you can potentially have it at the joints where the metal is nested inside of each other. Sometimes you get mold growth there. Okay? So you take, say, four or five register vents off, whether it's the floor, the ceiling, whatever, Take them off. Take this and go inside the register vents. Don't collect any grit if there one's on the floor, okay? Because that will tell us if there's different molds coming out. So that's telling us if there's any different mold growth in the ductwork itself, because maybe you have ketonium in the air handler, but maybe somehow Fusarium is growing in the ductwork itself in a couple lines. Okay? So then when you get your data back, you'll have the data on the air handler, you'll have the data on the ductwork, and it'll give you a good idea if your H vac is contaminated or not. If it is, then. Well, that's another video. I'm already over four minutes here, guys, so hope that helps explain a little bit the problems with H Vac. Just recirculating problems that are there. Or number two, it becomes a main problem, which is feeding into every room. And then number three, you got to test it, get some swabs. It's easy. You can do it. If it's too tough, get in an H vac guy or an inspector. They can do it, too. If you have inspector in. All right, guys. Hope that helps.
Do you have questions about mold in your home or body? Book a consultation with Matt, AKA the Mold man, to guide your home and body to the next level of healing.
