Moisture Management: Top Five Strategies for Your Home

One of my unofficial strategies today would be to keep your house as dust free as possible.

Welcome, everyone. My name is Kendra Seymour and I want to welcome my guest today, Cheryl Seko. Thank you, Cheryl, so much for being here.

Sure. It's my pleasure.

Now, I have followed you for a long time and I really appreciate how through your classes and your other resources, you really focus on empowering the consumer, people like me to understand where and how mold and water damage can affect our home and ultimately what that means for our health. And that's the reason why I'm so excited today for your talk. And we're going to talk about the top five, you know, moisture management strategies for your home. And at the end of the day, I really just love anything that lets the homeowner or renter take control of their home and their house. So should we just jump right in?

Sure, sure. So, all right, so I'm going to bring up my presentation. Can you see my presentation?

Absolutely. Looks great.

Okay, well, let's get started here then. And. Yeah, well, I'm always glad to interact with people who are following what I do and know what you need and know what's working. So let's get started. We're going to talk about moisture management, moisture management strategies, my top five strategies for managing moisture. And that is, of course, because we don't want to have mold. So a quick disclaimer. I don't do healthcare. I am a licensed architect. I don't do healthcare. So and then I this isn't for anything individual. This is all education and a little bit about me. So in my story. So I am Cheryl Sico. My. I am a licensed architect and have been for over 30 years. So I have an undergraduate and a graduate degree in architecture. Had no idea that I would end up in this space talking about water damage and mold. But along the way, I did end up with working for five years for the wood industry as a senior technical director. And that would be an organization called Woodworks, where I was a technical support for and did education for architects, my peers, structural engineers and code officials using wood in commercial buildings. So that's where I started doing education and I became focused on moisture for them because it had been in my own life and been a problem in my own life. I'm also a committee. I'm on the architect representative to the American Lumber Standards Committee. That's a committee from the US Government. I am a mom of four and my kids have been affected. One of my children was very affected, which is how I came to start Researching water damage in molden buildings along the way. That's been 18 years of all my continuing education being focused on building science to keep my. My family safe. And along the way we've also had. My husband and I have had autoimmune diseases, different ones, and Lyme disease. In fact, my husband had a really bad case of Lyme disease. And that's what prompted me to start. I was researching Lyme disease and seeing all these people talking about mold in their buildings and. And I knew the answers to things they were talking about. So I started helping people for free, basically in chats while I was trying to find the solutions to help my husband. And yeah, and people started asking me questions and tagging me. And then I created a Facebook group. And it just kept growing till there were so many people who needed help that I realized that I've been blessed, my family's been blessed that we have been able to come to a point where we are thriving. We have occasional ups and downs like everyone in terms of our. It's not a permanent state. We have to be careful, but we are doing well and we are blessed. I am blessed. And so I decided that I should be giving back because I do know things based on my background that, that other. That could help other people. And so here we are. I created this website called avoidingmold.com and yeah, and it just keeps growing and changing and we keep trying to figure out ways to provide education for people at the most affordable way to your point, to have informed clients, informed consumers, that those of us that are living in homes, which is all of us, live somewhere that we can be smart. And just like we need to take control of our health in a lot of ways. So it's similar to that. So if we're going to talk about managing moisture, the reason we're doing that is because we don't want mold growth in our buildings. And so you probably already know mold fungus is everywhere. Oxygen is required for mold to grow, and that's everywhere. The temperature required is everywhere that we are. So we have two things we usually try to control. One is a nutrient source and the other one is moisture. But actually the only one of those that we can control is moisture because the food supply is actually dirt and dust, which can grow on any material. So one of my unofficial strategies today would be to keep your house as dust free as possible. And that's certainly how we started. When one of my children was sick, we just focused on it like it was a dust allergy. But moisture is the Problem that we can control and we must control in an ongoing way. And so I have some strategies for ways to do that. And so in managing moisture, before we get to the five strategies, we have to know where it's coming from. And it's a lot more complicated than just it's raining outside and. And we have a leak or my pipe broke. We actually get moisture from our bodies. So building occupants are a source of moisture. Plus, everything we do, cooking, show, doing laundry, those all add moisture to the air. And then, of course, we can have leaks on the inside of our buildings. We can also have condensation, which is related to some of those other activities that we do. And condensation ends up leading to lots of water on the exterior of our buildings. We all know about rain and precipitation, irrigation systems. We can be forcing rain on our buildings in an artificial way through sprinklers and. And not even know what's happening under cover of darkness at night when we're running our sprinkler systems. Groundwater, we don't see that, but there is moisture in the ground everywhere, including in the desert. And water vapor, which we also can't see so much like dust, which we can't see in the air. We can't see water vapor, but we do see it when it condenses on a cold surface. And that can be in the exterior walls of our building as. So the one other place that there's construction moisture that I'm seeing overlooked time and time again is in new construction. In new construction, there is a lot of construction moisture. And there's water contained in concrete. So there's a picture down there pouring concrete. It's got. It's a ton of water. Masonry, grout, wood, paint, all those things add humidity, add moisture to our buildings that then needs to be able to dry. So the main reason, the main way to manage moisture is to either allow it to dry, make sure it's going to dry, or to drain it away, or to not have it at all, prevent having it at all. Those would be those three ways. But we can inspect our homes for the ways that you can manage your own moisture. And so I'm big at looking for the root cause. And so that's what this is about is, yeah, we know we may have mold, we may not have mold, but if we can find the root cause, then we can find something that might actually be a problem and be concealed. So let's look at the ways we would inspect our own home monitor. These are going to be my five strategies. We're going to monitor and manage humidity, review drainage, consider the foundation type because there's a little bit different things for each kind. Review the roof, review the walls. And we're going to use our senses, we're going to use our eyes. So I know there's a lot of mama bears and papa bears out there that are trying to protect their families and their children. And we want to use our eyes to see anything that's an anomaly, anything that might be like, I don't know why is something this color and something else is a different color or a different texture. We also want to use our nose. Do we smell something that's off? Don't ignore that. And listen to our bodies. Listen to our bodies time and time again. I see when people have an issue that's related to their health, there is usually something related to the air quality in their building that could be better at least. So in terms of, number one, monitoring managing humidity, that's going to be the water in the air. That's what makes humidity and water in materials that will dry and end up in the air, raising our humidity. So mold can grow on high humidity alone. High is a relative number. I do have some that talk a lot about that in my Moisture Basics course. But some tools that I would suggest people have that are very low cost and I can actually share with you a PDF if you'd like to, to give the people that are watching this or they can download it. There is one on my website. You can find it there. But hygrometers, so humidity monitors. So these are two that I have. I have both of these. They show a little bit of history. We want to know what the temperature is and the humidity because those go together 10 to $15. I would have some in several rooms. So don't rely on your furnace thermostat. We want to know room by room, what the humidity is in each room that's important. If there's anomalies and things don't match, that's when we have to start asking more questions. The summer goal is below 55%. That's when we're using cooling. Depends on the outdoor humidity. If you're in a desert climate, this should be less than that. The winter goal is less than 40. And as the temperatures continue to drop, you're going to want that humidity, the optimal humidity, to drop too. So if there's a cold snap and you're not, it's very unusual and it's getting very cold and you're staying condensation, then lower Your humidity and figure out where is this humidity coming from. And hopefully for some climates it'll go by fast and you can go back up to something more comfortable. But yes, we want to monitor that humidity. Another tool that I like, I have one of. I have something like this, I don't mind is older, so I don't have this exact ones. But you can have humidity monitors with different sensors. So it's remote sensors. So you could have. This one has them labeled indoor outside, baby room and north side. So you could put one in the crawl space, you could put one in the basement, you could put one in the attic, you could put one in a bathroom, wherever, and then you could move them around too. But it's an. The idea is to get an understanding of the building's health and, and how is the building responding to weather. And that will be part of one of our clues to be the detective of our own building. Some other tools that I recommend people get are moisture meters. These are the first ones. A surf. I have both of these. The first one's a surface moisture meter. Very affordable. And sometimes they have those at big box stores or online. You can find those easily. The pin type meter. So the surface meter, I have webinars and. Or in videos where I talk about how to use that. There's some free videos on my YouTube channel and my Instagram and my website talking about how to use that. And then the pin type would be. If you've had a water event or if you're building, this would be important to have partly because the contractors don't have these, even though they should. So we have to take things in our own hands sometimes. And, and so understanding what these numbers are, know that dry is a measurement. It's not just. It feels dry on any material. And different materials have scales as well. So there's another tool that I like. It's a water alarm. There's a lot of different kinds. This one is just battery operated and so there's no EMFs, but you can get some that are Bluetooth enabled and all that kind of stuff. This has kind of a remote thing. So you put these under your. Your sinks, under dishwashers, next to some pumps, those kinds of things. So this, that was humidity. The second one is drainage. So in drainage, we're going to look at both the site drainage and we're going to be checking gutters and downspouts. So one strategy would be to just notice your. Notice your drainage and on site drainage. This is actually one that is so commonly overlooked. We need to have slopes away from our building on all sides, every side. And even if there's this one diagram is showing a hill in the back. So if there's a hill behind you, a hill on the side, your neighbor's higher than you. That water that comes down off the hill has to be managed, usually through something called a swale. To go around your building. This should be something noticeable that you can see new construction. Look for this if it's not there. This is required by code. And there are numbers associated with that which we're going to get to, but we don't want to. I see some houses where the house is on a hill, but it's flat at the top of the hill. No, we want the slope to start at the foundation. And then looking at other paths of water that are going to end up next to our home, we want to follow those paths. And one of them might be off the roof. We'll talk more about roofs in another section. But gutters look up. Are they full of stuff? They're not going to work properly. And they're going to probably overflow against our foundation. So that's not good. Trees should not be growing in our. In our gutters. Our downspout may need to be maintained, and they can end up with leaks and be falling apart. And so we want to actually look at our buildings when it's raining. That would be a strategy as much as possible. Notice your gutters and downspouts. So very common that I see downspouts that are just draining next to a building and that doesn't end well. We want to extend the downspouts four to six feet away from the home. But then it has to be downhill also. But even if you have your downspouts extended, don't let your house have low spots next to the home. That's still not going to end well because we end up with stuff like this and that brings moisture back into our building. So managing moisture is getting the water away from our buildings. No matter how the buildings, the water is getting there. Sometimes this. We're not seeing this because it's raining and we need to go outside or be looking out our windows and saying what is happening. Because that puddle could be gone by the time we get outside after the rain stops. But it's not good if it's there even temporarily. So follow the path of water. And then for site drainage. I see this a lot where houses that don't have gutters and they want to put a. And it's very flat and they Want to put a drain tile next to the home, right next to the foundation. Do not do this. This is not a good solution. It's going to end up. You're still going to end up with water getting into your foundation. The ground has to slope away. The code requirement is down 6 inches in 10ft away. So this is kind of a visual of that. You could have a 2 by a 10 foot long 2 by 4, put a level on it and then you want to be 6 inches down when you get away from your foundation. And you also want some clearance at the foundation itself. And this is for any kind of foundation, including crawl spaces. Slabs would be the same problem. We just can't see below them. And this is an image showing, oh, this looks really good. So we have water coming on either side of these two houses into a swale that looks very well defined. However, if you look closely here, this downspout is dumping on us on a walkway, a cement concrete walkway that's dumping back towards the building. So this is why we have cracks in our foundation and this is why we have a lot of high humidity problems. Likewise, these bushes are concealing what's going on, the drainage behind those bushes. So look out for things like that and drainage. Let's talk about foundation type. So know your foundation type when you're, when you're deciding to manage moisture. And know that every type of foundation has different management considerations, but they all have one that's the same. Managing humidity in this, the area. Managing drainage away. So we have the drainage has to go away. In a basement. You might have drain tile down here, but if it's an old house, maybe you don't. So we just want all the water to go away and we want to have a vapor barrier under our slabs. That may or may not have happened during construction, but at least we can go down in a basement. So I am a fan of basement basement. And I know there are others in the mold world who are not. I prefer to see what possible problems there are. I'd like to know if this wall is leaking. I like to know if my plumbing above the basement level is leaking. And in a basement it's really easy to go down there and look. You also get the advantage of storage. Don't store any cardboard in a basement and definitely monitor the humidity there. If your basement is finished, you might want to reconsider those finished walls on the exterior walls for sure. Or they might need to be addressed. So I like that I can see those crawl spaces. Same thing. The water still has to go away. But in crawl spaces, we do need a vapor barrier. There's often dirt exposed there, and that dirt is very toxic, full of water, raising humidity in that space. Venting of these spaces is not a good idea. That's not ending well, although it was okay. But the other problem with crawl spaces is they tend to be. I don't see anything because I don't go there. It's not a nice space to go to. So you don't see problems that are happening unless you're. You like, you know, you like crawling around in caves or you're a mole. So it makes it a place that you can't see a problem so that you can't be vigilant. So vigilance is a big part of my theme here. And, and, and then some of these spaces for crawl spaces are so small that no human can actually go in them, but they can be huge problems. So, so those are the things to consider if you have a crawl space. You want to manage the humidity and know a lot of humidity is coming from crawl spaces or can be. And no exposed dirt. And that doesn't mean you put a piece of plastic on the dirt and it's loose. No, the dirt actually has to be sealed at the seam, sealed to columns and sealed to the walls. Don't go up the walls, though. I have a whole course on that or a mini course on that in one of my. In my subscription community. So then the slab is the other one. And I get a lot of clients who say, oh, I heard that slabs are best and I should get a slab home. That's not my opinion at all. There are some parts of the country and the world where slabs are the only thing you can do. Florida would be an ideal situation for that because it's a giant swamp. So you are going to have a slab, or you're going to be up on piers or maybe have a crawl space. But there's a lot of places where slab is our only choice. So use what is the best for your situation. But know that slabs are the ultimate in that. I don't see anything, so it must be good. So with a slab, we're as susceptible to ground moisture. And I see a lot of slabs that have poor drainage. That's very common. But also know that water from rain is going to be hitting the side of that slab and also from the ground and that there's an upward vapor drive from the ground up against that slab. And a lot of our slab homes are not protected well with vapor barriers and Then we put materials on the slabs that don't breathe. And so this water will soak into the concrete. It could be just up here where it's exposed and from rain, wind driven rain. And whatever materials we put on that floor can trap moisture and end up moldy in a slab home. And don't forget that there's plumbing in slab homes. So just like your toilet can leak in a crawl space and it can leak in a basement, your toilet seal can leak under the slab and then be trapped on top of your perfect vapor barrier. And you have a huge problem that's very expensive to fix. So we can't see the plumbing in slab homes. And, and that's my challenge. I, you know, unless I had to have one because of the location. That's a challenge and can be very expensive to fix and diagnose when you have leaks under slabs or site grading leaks that are raising humidity in a home. Here's an example of one. So this is a church and no gutters. Water comes off the roof and ends up in this area here where they had a trench drain, kind of like what I said don't do. And then they're collecting that water in this, in this catch basin here. However, it's not working. So you can see what's called rising damp rising up in this masonry wall. And this building has, is a slab. It's in the Chicago area. So know that this slab is actually a stem wall that goes down 36 to 42 inches in Chicago. In colder climates, it can go 48 inches and more, which means it's basically a crawl space filled in with dirt. So the fact that you don't know that it's leaking and you can't see that it's leaking doesn't mean it's not wreaking havoc in your building. And so in this particular case, I did have reactions here, which has prompted me to look. The carpeting with the pad that's glued to the slab is surely full of sure of mulch, full of mold. And then water is wicking up. This is showing wood frame, but water is wicking up into this masonry wall. And that's not good either. So the other thing missing on here is the height above the foundation, above the ground, which is another tip to look for. And so when you're, when you're strategizing your home and you're doing landscaping, don't cover up that clearance from the, from the top of the foundation to the dirt. Keep eight inches. So, so that's another strategy. Otherwise we get the dirt up here, and we get water going over the top plate of the foundation, either in below our slab or below into our crawl space or basement. So here's a picture just kind of summarizing all that. Extend your downspouts. Don't let the water go next to the foundation, and don't make the dirt next to your foundation gravel or stone or crushed rock. It can have a thin layer of crushed roc the top, but it needs to be something impermeable that'll get the water to flow away. So next one was roof. And the roof. This is a picture of some different roofs with very old buildings, centuries old. Chinese temples and Norwegian state churches. They have one thing in common. Big overhangs. So we can do a lot of protection around our buildings. If you're building, or if you have the opportunity to design a home sometime, or if you're looking to buy one, look for big overhangs. So. And look for a steeper slope. So our slopes of buildings are based on the rise to the. To the span, which is run. So say 3 and 12. This would be 3. That would be 12. Know that flat roofs have a slope. They have to have a minimum by code of 2%. They may not, but they should. And then that water has to go somewhere, and it causes a lot of problems. You can look on my Instagram, I've done a few videos on scuppers, so look for those. But big overhangs is something I would look for. It was some in an existing house, and it's definitely something I would build in a new house because it's kind of like having an umbrella over your building. And that can go a long way to protecting our walls. And this is just a side view of what that could look like. So complexity leads to water damage. So this is showing a carport diagram, and this is a house. And whoa, what do we have going on here? And you might think, oh, who would ever do that? Put two roofs together like that? Well, here we have it. You will see this all over the place. When you have all these different roof lines, you can have places where water is getting trapped and know that complicated roofs are more likely to have problems with moisture damage. If you own a home that has some of this stuff going on, then we just need to recognize there's a low there. And before it becomes something I can see on the inside or that I'm getting sick from, maybe we should address it proactively. So this one is a problem here. So that's there. And then another Problem on the other side here, where water is going to collect against this wall. So we. We need. As. As consumers, we need to train our eyes. And so this is another one. I was on a walk, and I took this picture. There are things that we call them. I call them design flaws. I don't think an architect did this because it's very poor. But you have water that. How is it ever going to get out of there? So these would be the places to consider protecting further if you have it, or looking for mold if you're trying to find mold in a concealed space. So then we're going to review the walls, both the inside and the outside. Looking at your bathroom, if you have stains that are not going away or they go away and then come back, consider that the tip of an iceberg. Usually there's much more mold behind these situations than we can see. Grout is not waterproof. It never was, never will be. It's the. It's the backing behind the tile that needs to be waterproof. I have no problem with tile, but you should be able to take a shower in your bathroom before the tile goes up and have no water leaking. So just know that the backer is what needs to be waterproofed. Commercial buildings have problems. This is rising damp here. This is evidence of water in the cavities of this block. So masonry is not immune. Look for discolorations. Look for places where roofs meet walls so you can see discoloration there and there. And then, sure enough, where this flat roof is kind of meeting this wall, there's some oddities that I would suspect need to be addressed. Look for things growing in masonry. Not good. Now, this is open. This is just an oni with a porch underneath. But I've seen this on buildings that people live in. There's got to be water in there. And stucco. Stucco. My advice is if it's raining, if you live in a stucco home, go outside right after it rains and take pictures of your home, obviously during the day. And then, because it's going to dry fast, but right after it rains, you will see where the moisture loads are in your stucco home. And then you have places that you can consider here. There's these two areas look fine. This one does not. So this is the gutter system from this lanai up here. This side seems to be working. This side is not. You can see the staining. And then this one has something going on in the corner of this window. So training our eyes to see the things that are there is. Is a lot of What I do in my online courses that I sell. So it's a very affordable way for you to see lots more of these kinds of things. And I do a lot with pictures. So walls meeting roofs. Decayed wood is not a good thing. That's from water. That should never be happening. That's incorrect detailing and improperly done. And know that no material is immune from water damage. This is concrete in California, very dry place where usually it never rains and you can see that's pretty nasty. So we've talked about these five strategies. Monitoring, managing humidity, reviewing drainage, considering the idiosyncrasies and the best practices for your foundation type noticing your roof and what you might need to maintain and keep an eye on there including the gutters and reviewing your walls to see if anything's going on. But this is constant. So it's important to understand the causes to find and prevent the defects that lead to damage. And know that buildings are a system pretty complicated. You may need to bring in someone like me to take a look at something individually or continue doing your education. Continually do inspections on your own home. Be vigilant and train your eye for what to see. I have a lot of free tools to do that. I'm on YouTube, I'm on Rumble Instagram, Facebook, I have a public Facebook page. I'm posting videos all the time of things I see just randomly. Some of the courses that I have I have a mold expert bundle. So this is five hours of videos like what I've done here today if you if that's been helpful where I have tons of pictures sometimes I bringing on other experts to talk about topics related to mold and cleaning and the products that I use. I have a moisture basics course. This one is the one I recommend people start with. This is my I go over defects way more than we've done today and for 90 minutes and I have a over 25 defects but with the pictures to show you what to look for to train your eye. I also have a three part webinar series before you buy or rent again more defects, more signs of mold going through them both the inside and the outside of our homes so that you can start to become a really savvy consumer. And then finally if you're building I do offer a build Safe home masterclass also major renovations would benefit from this. And so this is my my premier educational product is still very very affordable. I come on with live Q A there and it's about six to eight weeks to get through the modules. I get great reviews on it. So I'm really proud of it. I also have an online subscription community, the Dwell Institute. You get a month free with Moisture Basics and three months free with the the Build Safe Home course. And you can join just that if you want. And there's over 50 videos in there. I do come out with the live Q and A Q A there or get my free Mold education kit@ avoidingmold.com I'm about providing education and value. I think we have to change the industry from the ground up. I've been affected, and so I know what people are going through, and so I'm doing my best. If there's something that you don't see that I need to be providing, I'm happy to hear about it. So we keep trying to do our best to make a difference and move the dialogue as much as we can. And yeah, thanks for watching that.

Okay, thank you so much. That had so many great tips in it and things that I think people don't think about. Like to go outside during, you know, a brainstorm, if it's safe or right after and start looking for those things in your house. And I kind of was chuckling when you showed the hygrometer and moisture meter because I gave those as Christmas gifts this year. So you can imagine what fun it is to get a gift from me. But it's one of those things I do think everyone would have. One of the things that I want to highlight, because I've heard you say this before. You said moisture is a measurement. Can you just speak to that just a little bit more? Because it's super important for people to understand.

Yes, yes. So when people. I have a lot of clients, so I do some individual consulting as well. And I have clients who tell me something's going on in their building. They don't know what. And I ask for the history and they. I find out that they had remediation done, like five years ago or something. Really? Well, they loved the people that did it. They did a great job. And then I asked, well, how. How long before they closed it all up? Oh, they were done within a week. It was great. And then. And I'm wondering, like, okay, so it was wet and. And so did they dry everything out? Oh, yes, they did. They did. And so, well, how dry did they get it? And nobody ever knows. It's usually not tested. So Mo in particular in wood, usually it's a substrate. It's taken on moisture. And this is what's happening in our new construction as well, is when it rains on A on a structure under construction, that wood soaks in a lot of moisture, and it takes a while to. For that to dry out. And just touching it is not. That's not how we figure out if it's dry or not. We actually need to measure it with pin meters on a wood scale that matches the kind of wood it is. So soft wood is typically what our framing is and our structure and our sheathing panels. If you want to measure cabinets or hardwood flooring, you would use a hardwood setting. But there's actually numbers associated with this, and there's a lot of misnome misunderstanding about what that number is. And the number is the equilibrium. The number you're shooting for is the equilibrium dry number for your climate and your home on that day in that season. So we get our wood from the lumber yard at kiln dried to 19%, and maybe it's coming out even less than that. But mold grows at 20. So you can see why. Why do we have lumber mold? Well, heck, you know, the moisture meters themselves could be off by three percentage points. And if you're only going to be one point away, but know that the equ. That would be very rare. I think Alaska has a couple months where. Where the equilibrium's at 18. But most other places, Arizona and desert climates, their equilibrium wood moisture content is in the single digits below 10. So if somebody in those kind of climates has a water event and then the remediator comes back, and even if they do measure and they say, oh, yeah, it's good because it's 18 or it's 15 even, because that's drier than 19, no, no, no, no, no. It's. And it's drier than 20, surely it is. But if the other wood in that area that's the same species is measuring six. Whoa. That means that piece of wood was six before it got wet. And. And the goal is to get it back to what it was before it got wet. And so if you cover that up with drywall, well, it's not done drying, so it's going to keep drying. So that's why five years down the road, seven, eight years down the road after remediation, we often have rebounding of mold because water that was from the water event wasn't completely dried, and it's coming back because it got into the backside of the drywall. Even if you do paperless drywall, you're still going to end up with a problem because it's still drying and you trap water. So back to my point, managing moisture is Allowing it to dry and respecting that different materials need to dry. And that dry is not what I feel. So in terms of those little moisture humidity meters, quick story on that. In that I had water damage in a bathroom. We had a plumbing leak. And the only way I found it was that the door was sticking in the winter, which means the wood door was taking on humidity and swelling. So I immediately went and got a humidity monitor, put it in there, you know, it's 70. The rest of my house was 30. So I yell at the kids that they're not using the exhaust fan and all that. Stop using the bathroom. And it stayed 70. So then we knew something else was going on. It's not normal. So if you find an anomaly of some sort like this, and it's not just 1 or 2%, you know, it would because you'll find that difference between monitors. But if it's off by something more significant and consistently off, then you want to say, like, wow, why would that be? And it took me. There was nothing to see perfectly, you know, nice bathroom. It took me about, really. This was the beginning of my journey before I was doing this work and I hired people and I just. I quickly came to the conclusion I paid money to do mold testing. I mean, oh, that came back negative. And I did Hermes and I did. I had somebody leak detector come over. Nobody could find anything. And I paid all these people. And I'm thinking, what am I doing? I know more than all these people because I built my house and. And then just started really thinking about it and looking with a flashlight. So that could be another strategy is when you're looking around at your ceiling, like below a space or along the walls at the roof, you use a flashlight. Don't just rely and not your phone. Go old school flashlight. So that you can really see the anomalies that you might. And that's how I saw in my laundry room below the bathroom. I was looking with a flashlight, and I was like, gosh, it kind of looks like there might be a little bit of a line there, you know, and sure enough, and we did have molded, and it was pretty toxic. And none of them, none of the mold tests found it.

See that? I love that. So, I mean, those are three tools. A hygrometer, a moisture meter, and a flashlight. You probably have a flashlight already. So for less than 75 bucks, you can pick up the other two and you're going to be clued in. Probably better than, you know, the person who comes in and looks around your home for an hour or two because the homeowner, you know, all these little things, that door is sticking. That didn't always happen. Maybe something's going on. So these are such great tips and tricks. Thank you so much for for taking time today and sharing with us your expertise and some of your hard lessons learned through your own experience. But I know there are going to be people out there who hopefully can turn around today and and start thinking about their home a little differently. So thank you.

Oh, I hope so. Check out my website and my free stuff and don't forget to like and subscribe because that's how I know people like it and I should keep doing it.

Well, thank you again and for those listening, thank you so much for joining us today. If you found this helpful, do me a favor, head on over to changethe air foundation.org and sign up for our newsletter because it really is the best way to get information just like this directly to your inbox. Thanks so much. We'll see you next time.

Sam.