Matt Kelly recommends immediate steps if you can't afford full mold remediation right now. Open windows on opposite sides to swap out indoor air, upgrade HVAC filters to MERV 11, run a HEPA air cleaner on each floor, and keep humidity below 50% with a dehumidifier.
Questions this video answers
Every three months.
MERV 11 (upgrade from MERV 8); consider MERV 13 but with caution.
Under 50%.
One HEPA unit for each floor (e.g., three for a three-floor house).
An 'air swap' — opening windows on opposite sides of the house to create cross-ventilation.
Chapters
Right. I think this is nat. If there's Nate it have an E N A T Nat. I apologize if it's not nat. NAT asks if remediation is too costly, what's an alternative one can do instead? And can you recommend a good air filter for a home? I need to buy three. One for each floor of the house. I'm glad you're thinking of that because no one will not do it. You do need one on each floor. So you are right on the money there. If I prefer to buy one within Canada. Awesome fellow Canuck. And I prefer it to be affordable. We would all prefer these things to be affordable. Yes, absolutely. Well, Nat, the, the very first thing you need to know is if you can't remediate right now and you can't get out, maybe it's a rental or maybe it's just too expensive to fix right now. What the cheapest and most powerful thing you can do is an air swap. Okay? And this is what I tell everybody that can't do anything right now is literally open a window on this side of the house. Open a window on this side of the house. And people even do it in the winter, just wherever the air is moving and. But preferably not two windows on the same side. We want to get airflow. And airflow literally pushes out the bacteria, the mycotoxins, the spores, the fragments are going out that window every second that it's open. While fresh air is coming in, you're pressurizing your house with the fresh air and forcing out the stale dirty air, toxic air. Okay? So number one, you do an air swap and you do it as often as you need to. And if your house is really toxic, hopefully you didn't ermie so you know what you're dealing with. I can put a link with this video for the Ermie but if you didn't urban see it's really bad. You need to do it more. You need to change your air filters on your H Vac every three months, put in MERV 11 instead of the MERV 8. You go any higher, go to MERV 13. You could, you're putting an extra draw on that blower motor and you could burn your blower motor out. I have inline HEPA and extra MERV11 on mine, but that unit comes with a powered fan in it. So it would, it would just kill my blower motor but it has a fan in it to compensate for that. Okay, so you're going to open windows, do air swaps, you're going to change your air filters. The next you can do things like the atomizing diffuser I've spoke of to help put essential oils in the air. That will help take down the mold count. The other thing you asked about, units. I mean, if you're looking to save to get the cheapest possible, then you're just going to get a HEPA unit. Go to Home Depot or Lowe's, look for a decent brand. That's, that's a HEPA unit. HEPA filters are great. They can catch a lot, they can do a lot. They. You can start going up the scale. Absolutely. But make sure whatever you get on the low end, it's HEPA at minimum. I mean, you can go up with Intellipur, Air, Oasis, Austin Air, all the way up to high tech units that put out hydroxyls, PCO technology. But that's not what you're looking for. You're looking for a good HEPA unit for each floor. And the last thing is make sure you keep it dry. Make sure you got a dehumidifier in the house, keeping it under 50%. And that's a lot of good things you can do. To start right now. Hope that helps.
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