Breathe Better, Live Better: DIY Tips for Fresh Indoor Air

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Foreign.

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Welcome to around the House with Eric G.

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Your go to source for everything home improvement.

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Whether you're a DIY enthusiast or just looking to make your space shine, Eric G.

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Is here to guide you through the latest tips, tricks and trends coming up.

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In this week's second hour of the show, Eric G.

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Talks about some great DIY projects for inside your home to improve your indoor air quality.

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Sometimes those small projects can have big.

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Results, but most of the time you can hire a company to come out and do it for less money than you can go down to your home center and buy the insulation because they have a huge markup on it and you can usually get the work done for almost the price.

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I've had it done less than that.

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And then take a look and see if you've got any energy rebates that might help you pay for that as well.

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So grab your toolbox, put on your thinking cap and let's get to work right here on around the House with.

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Eric G.

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Welcome to the Round the House show, the next generation of home improvement.

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Eric G.

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Thanks for joining me today.

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This hour is brought to you by my friends at Monument Grills.

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If you're looking for that amazing barbecue, you want something that's not going to last the two years as those throwaway ones at the home centers.

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You want something that's got a solid warranty that's going to stand up of years of you cooking on it.

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Check them out@monument grills.com today I thought I'd talk about some DIY projects to make your home a little bit healthier.

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Now you can hire out these projects and many times that might be the smart call.

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But there's so many people out there and this is a requested topic.

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If you want to send in your request for a topic, head over to aroundthe house online.com we've talked many times about stuff you can do around your house, but we really haven't dove into the DIY project side of it.

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What you can do now if you have a home that has a crawl space, this first segment we're going to talk about this.

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If you have a crawl space and so that is that space.

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You don't know what a crawl space is.

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Many parts of the country you either have basements or it's just a concrete slab poured on the ground like California desert Southwest.

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So many slab on grade foundations.

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Any place that's really dry, you see a fair amount of that.

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So this isn't going to work for you.

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But there's so many homes out there that have that elevated wood floor space, and there's that space underneath that you can crawl around to get access to.

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And it's usually filled with spiders, snakes, bugs, rodents, all that stuff down there.

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Now here's the thing.

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When you're looking at a crawl space like that, most of that air, over 60% ends up in your house.

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So you really want to get that dialed in.

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Now the first thing you want to do is you want to figure out what kind of issues you have down there.

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If it's wet or it's humid, you've got some things to consider.

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So the first thing I want you to do is go pick up one of those Tyvek suits, get a really nice N99 mask.

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If you've got mold or mildew, get a respirator with the right cartridges for it and some big lights and head down to that crawl space.

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If you have gloves, you're worried about spiders, you can tape around the gloves and keep it tied in so you don't have to worry about that stuff.

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If you want to keep it clean, get underneath there and take a look and see what you got going on.

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Now, many times you'll see garbage.

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You'll see trash from a H vac contractor, a plumber, or somebody else just working down there.

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Depending when they're building the house, they could have been a little messy.

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So bring some garbage bags, get all that junk out of there.

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The next thing you want to do is take a look at the plastic down there.

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You want to have a nice thick plastic.

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If the plastic is bunched up, it's a hot mess down there.

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This is a great time to deal with this.

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Now the question you have though is, do I have ventilation down there?

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Do I have foundation vents?

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If this is a pretty sealed up space down there, you might want to go a different route because we don't want to trap humidity in the crawl space.

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Because if we get above 60% down there, now you got mold growth.

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And then you're going to have a massive, expensive cleanup project.

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We don't want to see that.

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So first off, let's talk about vapor barrier.

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If you've got some foundation vents, probably your best bet is to put down some vapor barrier.

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On many places, the minimum is a 6 mil black plastic, usually vapor barrier that is overlapped and it's good to go.

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So that is the bare minimum.

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Now, that is not what I like to use down there.

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I would much rather go with some of the.

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Basically, they're a reinforced one where they've Got strings, they've, they're a puncture proof.

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And so I like to get up a little bit heavier duty.

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So I like to get out up into the 10, even the 20 miles vapor barrier.

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So if you look at like the 20 mil with the.

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Basically it's almost a white plastic sheathing at that point.

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It is any one of those vapor barriers that get up into the 20 mil, it's pretty durable.

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You're not going to have to worry so much about a little rock poking a hole in it.

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And then what you want to do is really go through and keep that, keep that sealed up.

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So what I like to do is you can go through there, overlap it a couple feet.

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When you're down there, at least a foot on each side, you can tape it and you can go in and keep that pretty well sealed up.

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And so that's going to block moisture from seeping into the crawl space out of the soil down below.

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Now if you're in sand or the desert southwest, that's one of those things.

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Maybe it's not going to be as big deal, but like in my area here where we get a lot of rain, we get period rain where it'll like this last weekend, I think we got an inch and a half of rain, almost 2 inches of rain, depending on where you lived in my area.

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Yeah.

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You want that humidity to not get up into that crawl space.

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So that's really gonna prevent some of that long term damage.

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So you want to use a good solid vapor barrier.

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So I like to do that.

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I think it's one of those things that you can really go through.

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Yeah.

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Do they make 40 mil vapor barriers?

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Yeah, they make that as well.

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But sheesh.

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That stuff is almost like a.

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Just a sheet of plastic.

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So that stuff is crazy.

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So I like the 20 mil.

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Personally, I think it's really good.

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You can crawl across it, not worry about it, and then you're going to be good that way.

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So that's really the place to be.

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So then what you're going to want to know is how is your airflow down there?

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Because if you've got that sealed up all the time, what can happen is now you're basically going to be sitting down there and trapping that humidity.

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So if you're gonna go down and do what they call an encapsulation, where you completely seal off that space down there where you take plastic, run it up to the foundation walls, you go through and tape it off so it's a perfectly sealed up place, no vents.

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Everything else that is a whole other deal.

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Now when you get into that, you're going to go through and you're going to want to actually encapsulate up to the posts.

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I don't like to encapsulate up the post because if you have posts that are holding up beams down below, you want to have that on the dry side, not the wet side, because you can promote rot.

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So I really want to see that go around the base of the post, nicely taped, all that stuff, and get you nice and dry in there.

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So that works out pretty good.

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If you've had standing water down there though, this is where you need to pause and figure that out.

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So you don't have plastic floating.

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What many of the crawl space companies will do, and it's usually the right thing.

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They will go around the perimeter of the crawl space, dig out some soil, they'll put in a French drain system and at the lowest point they'll put in a sump pump, they'll put in power and they'll take that out and put it where they can legally dispose of that water.

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Now, many municipalities out there don't want that water going into the storm drain system out there where it's going to go into the sewer, something like that.

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It's depending.

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You got to follow your local laws to do this.

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This can be a little bit ugly.

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The biggest problem you can have as a DIY is you don't get it at least 10ft away from the house and downhill.

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Otherwise you got a fountain going, it's going to come right back into the crawl space and you're just wasting electricity and blowing up pump motors.

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Now what you want to do is if you've got a dry well system for your gutters where that's coming down into that, that might be a good spot for it.

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As long as that's far enough away from the house.

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It could be going out into a garden.

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You could take it out farther away.

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You just want to make sure and get it well away so it doesn't have a chance of going back in under the humor.

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And then what I like to do is put in kind of one of those.

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I learned this from my friends over at John's Waterproofing here in the Pacific Northwest.

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They actually run a triple pump system down there.

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So you have the regular pump, they have a secondary pump above it.

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So if they got a ton of water, it's gonna crank on.

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And then they have a 12 volt backup system with an alarm.

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So that'll tell you if something's going on.

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And that alarm can also tell you if there's a broken pipe or something where you've got water that is coming down on the surface.

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It's made it up into that.

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We'll talk about that just as soon as around the House returns.

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Don't go anywhere.

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Don't change that dial.

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Eric G.

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Will be back with more DIY projects to help your indoor air quality after these important messages.

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The kids these days, you'll never understand what it's like to play an instrument.

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What's up?

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This is Sticks it in Ya and Satchel from Steel Panther.

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And you are listening to around the House with Eric G.

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Yeah, we love Eric G.

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And you should, too.

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Welcome back to the around the House show, the next generation of home improvement.

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I'm Eric G.

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Thanks for joining me today.

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If you have questions or if you have a topic you want to hear me talk about, just head over to aroundthehouse online.com you can send me a message there.

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And I will get back to you at as quick as I can.

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I get a lot of those in during the week, so I try to get to them as soon as I can.

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And sometimes you guys end up in the spam.

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Bam.

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So if you didn't hear from me for some reason, technology can be funny sometimes.

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Maybe you got blocked by the spam bots.

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So you didn't hear from me.

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Send me a message back.

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But that's pretty rare that happens now.

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This hour is brought to you by my friends at Monty McGrills.

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Check them out at montymcgrills.com for your latest barbecue, just in time for the Fourth of July.

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Now, we've been talking about these DIY projects that'll help you get to your air cleaner.

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And we were talking about a crawl space here.

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The last thing I want to talk about with this, with the crawl space is if you're going to encapsulate it, what I see people do and like I was talking earlier about my friends at John's Waterproofing here in Portland, they will actually go down.

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They'll put down an insulated foam down first and then they'll put the thick plastic over the top of it that is caulked and seamed and taped and all dialed in beautifully.

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And then they go up the foundation wall.

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They will wrap around the base of the posts to keep those from rotting out.

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And then they'll even go a step further and they will actually insulate with spray foam the foundation walls.

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So you have something that is much more conditioned and it's going to also be enclosed cell.

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It's going to keep that from happening and keep that from coming in and having an issue as far as moisture coming through.

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Then what they do is they put in a dehumidifier, one or two of them depending on how big the crawl space is.

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And then that will need to be serviced every year.

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And this is not one of those little plug in portable ones.

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This is actually a built in dehumidifier and something like April Air or any one of the different brands out there that you see.

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Santa Fe makes a great one.

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My friend Nikki over there, she does a great job with that.

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I'll have her on the show again one of these times.

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But you have to have that conditioned space, otherwise you're going to trap the humidity in there.

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Now the other thing you can do, which I'm not a big fan of, is you can actually run, have your H Vac, H Vac professional come in, induct air down into that.

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So that's now part of your condition space.

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Now that can work, but I would much rather have a dehumidifier in there just to take care of that and you're good to go.

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And so that way your crawl space is really dialed in and you're going to be looking awesome.

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So at that point you've got that pretty well dialed in.

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Now again, like we were talking earlier, this can be good.

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That's if you've got radon issues.

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You want to test for radon before you go into this, make sure that you understand what needs to happen.

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If you've got low radon levels, go ahead and encapsulate it, get it taken care of.

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And maybe that's where you want to bring in a pro to make sure that they put in the right radon mitigation system and deal with that crawl space correctly.

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Now if you're getting water in that crawl space, couple things that you want to take a look at before you have to go through and dig everything out is make sure that those gutter downspouts are draining down at least 10ft away from the foundation.

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You should have that.

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You should not have a downspout draining next to your home period.

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You want to get that away from that.

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That will damage the concrete, that will cause issues.

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You want to make sure and get that.

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Especially if you've got those older foundations.

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We've got some issues here in the Portland area, which a lot of cities have this, where they didn't really realize the issues they were getting in their concrete.

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Mix.

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We had a probably seven to 10 years here where they're using unwashed sand and it really broke down the concrete.

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So I've got homes around here that I could literally take a keychain.

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I could take a key, a door key, and dig all the way through the foundation without hurting the door key.

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It's that soft.

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So you want to make sure and get this stuff taken care of, but really get those gutters downspouts taken care of.

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Get it at least 10ft away from the house downhill, put it in a storm drain system and you'll be good to go.

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Now, the other thing to take a look at too, is when you're down in that crawl space, if you've got insulation up there and it's hanging down and looking goofy, now's the time to have that done.

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I'll be honest, when it comes to insulation in attics and crawl spaces, those are not projects I typically do as a DIY project.

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Not because I hate them.

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I don't like dealing with insulation.

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But most of the time you can hire a company to come out and do it for less money than you can go down to your home center and buy the insulation because they have a huge markup on it.

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And you can usually get the work done for almost the price.

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I've had it done less than that.

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And then take a look and see if you've got any energy rebates that might help you pay for that as well.

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Those are all things to take a look at when you've got that.

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Those energy rebates can be good.

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Now, they're depending on what state you are or how those rebates are coming in.

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There could be way too many hoops to jump through.

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We've got that here with hoops that make it really tough to manage.

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And sometimes you're like, I'm not going to hire a union company to come do now is making it more expensive.

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And I'm just going to do it out of pocket.

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I get it.

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So these are all things that you have to be careful with where you live and to understand those rules before you start the project.

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And that'll really help you get that air quality under control.

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Now, if you've got a basement, this is something I want you to take a look at.

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I want you to take a humidity sensor down there, just jump on Amazon, buy a cheap weather station, put a couple, move that around the basement, because you'll have an inside and an outside sensor.

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That way you've got two sensors and just take a Look, if you're getting over 60%, you might need a dehumidifier down there.

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That humid air is going to come up in your home and we want to make sure you don't get mold down there.

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So again, take a look at those gutter downspouts.

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Make sure that things are graded outside correctly.

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But if you've got a moist crawl space down there where it's damp, high humidity, you can go through.

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If the walls are exposed and put some dry lock on there, that'll okay work.

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That is not.

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It is a great product, but it is not a miracle worker.

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That pressure is way more when you're talking about hydrostatic pressure, way more than a lot of paint's gonna do.

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But that does work pretty good for just slowing down some of that stuff.

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And then if you have to, you can put a dehumidifier in there or you can make sure and have an H vac professional come out.

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Take a look.

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And again, those little portable ones tend to catch on fire.

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There's been some big recalls on those.

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Put in a built in style unit where you can pump the water out and get it out of there.

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And then that'll also filter the air.

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So it'll make sure to really get that dialed in so you don't have to worry about any of that moisture coming up in the house.

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So that's another great project for you to do and it doesn't take much to do it.

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That's something you're going to be hanging it up down there.

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You're going to be plumbing up the drain line and putting that into the proper space.

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And of course plug it into a local outlet, maybe a dedicated circuit, depending on which one they have, and you'll be good to go.

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So those are the big ones.

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So just make sure that if you're going to have your vent covers on there, you want to want some airflow to get that humidity out of there.

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Or if you're going to encapsulate it, that's a whole other issue.

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So take a look at that and plan that project out while you're down there.

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Take a look at structural repairs, look at pests and rodents.

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If you need to bring in a professional, do it Then if you've got a sagging floor or a post that's rotten because it's gotten wet, now's the time to look at that stuff and take care of it.

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If you've got a spongy floor above, it's pretty easy to go in there with a beam and some posts and some concrete and give it some additional support and fix it while you're down there.

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It's a great way to fix all of those things.

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So take the time, get it dialed in and you should be good to go.

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Now when we come back, we're going to be talking vent hoods.

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How do you deal with not having a bath fan or not having a little bit later on a kitchen fan that vents to the outside?

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We'll talk about that just as soon as around the House returns.

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Don't change that dial.

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We're just getting started.

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Not for a minute, buddy.

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Hey, this is Ron Keel, the metal cowboy from Keel, the Ron Keel Band and Steeler.

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We are rocking around the House with Eric G.

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Raise your bill.

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Welcome back to THE around the House show, the next generation of home improvement.

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I'm Eric G.

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Thanks for joining me today.

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This hour is brought to you by my friends at Monument Grills.

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Check them out@monumentgrills.com if you want to find out more about us, head over to aroundthehouse online.com today's episodes in our show today were all requests by people out there that wanted to hear a little bit more on how to do this stuff.

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So you can send me a message over there for a request of a project you're working on.

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How do I fix this?

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How do I deal with it?

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I can help you right there.

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We were just talking crawl spaces in the last two segments and now we're going to be talking about ventilation.

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How do you install that bath fan?

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Maybe you've got that really cheesy builder grade that was maybe 30 or 40 CFM cubic feet per minute that's got just a little vent, you know, the builder basic one.

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And you want to do something a little bit better.

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So what I do at that point, or maybe you don't have one at all.

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So the first thing you're going to need to do is figure out how you're going to run that vent outside.

Speaker A: 00:23:54

And so what I would do is first pick out the fan you're going to buy.

Speaker A: 00:23:58

I like the Panasonics.

Speaker A: 00:23:59

They are the best as far as I'm concerned.

Speaker A: 00:24:02

And take a look online at Panasonic's specifications so you know what size you're going to do and how you're going to get that hose or pipe outside.

Speaker A: 00:24:13

Now many times if it's in a single story house, it's easy.

Speaker A: 00:24:17

You can come up through the attic space and then it has to go up through the roof or through a sidewall and Out.

Speaker A: 00:24:23

Never ever vent these directly into an attic space or up into an attic space.

Speaker A: 00:24:29

And up next to the ceiling vent up there.

Speaker A: 00:24:33

That's for the cavity of the attic space.

Speaker A: 00:24:36

Don't.

Speaker A: 00:24:36

It needs to be positively connected all the way outside of the structure.

Speaker A: 00:24:41

Now, in most places in the country, building code requires that vent fan to be so many CFM cubic feet per minute for it to go all the way outside.

Speaker A: 00:24:52

And many times they required to be on a timer.

Speaker A: 00:24:55

So you need to figure out how to get that vent hose outside.

Speaker A: 00:24:58

Now, it could be 3, it could be 4 inch depending on the CFM of it.

Speaker A: 00:25:03

I like to oversize my fans.

Speaker A: 00:25:05

I like to get the hundred 110 CFM panasonics.

Speaker A: 00:25:10

They're whisper quiet ones, are super quiet.

Speaker A: 00:25:13

And then you can run, depending on your situation, you can run a timer.

Speaker A: 00:25:18

You can run them where they've got a humidity sensor where they'll turn on automatically.

Speaker A: 00:25:22

It's depending on what you want to do to control that space.

Speaker A: 00:25:26

So plan that out.

Speaker A: 00:25:27

Go.

Speaker A: 00:25:27

Okay, cool.

Speaker A: 00:25:27

I can go up to the ceiling and out, or I can fish this down between the floors and I can get in there with a flashlight.

Speaker A: 00:25:35

Okay, I can take a look.

Speaker A: 00:25:36

I can head out this way and get it out the side of the house.

Speaker A: 00:25:39

Now, one thing with vent fans is when they give you that CFM rating that's at the fan.

Speaker A: 00:25:45

So if you're running that into a duct work and there's two or three or four bends, you're now significantly reducing that fan cfm.

Speaker A: 00:25:55

So you want to make sure you go bigger with that.

Speaker A: 00:25:59

Now here's the other issue.

Speaker A: 00:26:00

You need to follow your local building code when it comes to bath fans in my area, unless they've changed it here recently, you have to run it.

Speaker A: 00:26:10

The best way to do it is to run it in an insulated flux duck all the way out.

Speaker A: 00:26:14

Now, some people like to run hard pipe.

Speaker A: 00:26:17

A lot of people run it in flux duct.

Speaker A: 00:26:20

Now to get it outside.

Speaker A: 00:26:21

So follow your local building code.

Speaker A: 00:26:23

It will be very specific if it's there, but the insulation keeps it from having.

Speaker A: 00:26:28

If you're cold outside and you've got warm moist air coming from the shower, that keeps it from raining back in the bathroom, which can happen when you turn that fan on.

Speaker A: 00:26:37

Cold air that's humid is going outside, hits the 40 or 30 degree air temperature in your attic space, condenses, and the water runs downhill back into your bathroom, lands on the floor.

Speaker A: 00:26:50

Not an optimal thing.

Speaker A: 00:26:52

So that insulated duct is an important one because you want that to keep that humidity and keep that air going.

Speaker A: 00:26:59

So that way you've got that warm, moist air all the way outside.

Speaker A: 00:27:02

So it's doing its job.

Speaker A: 00:27:04

So make sure you do that.

Speaker A: 00:27:05

Now you're going to need 110 for that.

Speaker A: 00:27:07

So whether it's a brand new circuit or you can tie it into another electrical thing there in the bathroom, many times we're already taxed in those bathrooms, so you might need to run a new circuit.

Speaker A: 00:27:19

Or in some places you can get it on there where you can attach it into the power to the light.

Speaker A: 00:27:25

When in doubt, have your electrician rough that in.

Speaker A: 00:27:27

You're going to want to switch independent switch over there.

Speaker A: 00:27:30

If you don't have the wiring to go up there, read the directions specifically.

Speaker A: 00:27:37

This is super important because many times there's control wires, many times there's the fan, there's the light, there's a humidity sensor.

Speaker A: 00:27:45

You could have a lot of different controls depending on the brand you're working with.

Speaker A: 00:27:49

Now there is one that works really well as far as how the switch works is you just have to run power up there.

Speaker A: 00:27:57

And then there is a Bluetooth switch and this is a Brune Newtone one for remodels where the switch that you would put in the wall doesn't have wires going to it.

Speaker A: 00:28:06

It's powered by batteries and it uses Bluetooth to talk to that.

Speaker A: 00:28:09

Not a bad way to go.

Speaker A: 00:28:10

I'm at probably two years on those batteries.

Speaker A: 00:28:13

They're doing well.

Speaker A: 00:28:15

So it's a good program.

Speaker A: 00:28:17

That's a good one.

Speaker A: 00:28:18

But the problem that I didn't like with that fan is that fan fan is noisier.

Speaker A: 00:28:22

And as it goes, when it runs a long time, it tends to get a little almost like out of balance and it rattles.

Speaker A: 00:28:28

So it's a lot noisier in the Panasonics.

Speaker A: 00:28:31

But you want to make sure you have all the wires up there can be confusing.

Speaker A: 00:28:34

So understand it, read through it, understand how many control wires you need to do that because you're going to want that fan to run at least 20 minutes after you're done with that shower bath to get that out of there.

Speaker A: 00:28:46

And then of course, when it goes outside, if it's going out through a sidewall, do you want to have a.

Speaker A: 00:28:51

A damper on that to make sure that you have cold air coming in?

Speaker A: 00:28:55

Are you going to use the damper that's at the fan itself?

Speaker A: 00:28:58

What are you doing to keep that?

Speaker A: 00:29:00

Are you going to have a mesh screen on the end of it to keep the birds or rodents from getting in there.

Speaker A: 00:29:05

There's a lot of things to consider and to follow your local building code with that.

Speaker A: 00:29:09

But just keep in mind, bigger is better with this.

Speaker A: 00:29:13

Now you can get it where you have too big of a pipe going and you can get some air condensating, even an insulating pipe.

Speaker A: 00:29:23

So make sure you follow the directions.

Speaker A: 00:29:24

Bigger on the diameter might not be the best option for you because you could cause that water to fall out of the humidity there and condense, and you could have some water issues that way.

Speaker A: 00:29:36

So take your time, dial it in, think about where you want it.

Speaker A: 00:29:40

When I did my fan in my bathroom, I put it next to the closer to the bathtub there where my steam shower went into, because I knew that's where the door was going to be.

Speaker A: 00:29:50

So when you open up the door, it's feeding that humidity right up into that fan as best I can.

Speaker A: 00:29:57

It's giving it the best possible way out.

Speaker A: 00:30:00

And then make sure about every six months to a year, you go through and clean it up, clean the fan up, turn the power off to it, take the COVID off, clean it up, maintain it, get it looking solid.

Speaker A: 00:30:10

That way it's in good shape.

Speaker A: 00:30:11

There are plenty of house fires out there that happen from old, unmaintained bath fans that heat up.

Speaker A: 00:30:20

Catch the lint and the dust bunnies on fire, and you got a massive problem.

Speaker A: 00:30:25

So you want to make sure and maintain that and get it looking really dialed in.

Speaker A: 00:30:30

Now, if you've got a problem where you can't get that VIN fan up through an attic space, I would recommend going through and figuring out a way to build a soffit or do something to get that up there.

Speaker A: 00:30:44

Every working bathroom should have a bath fan.

Speaker A: 00:30:48

Now, in my state, it's required by law.

Speaker A: 00:30:50

If I remodel it, I got to figure out a way.

Speaker A: 00:30:52

Even if it's in a condo that doesn't have a place for it to go, I got to figure it out.

Speaker A: 00:30:56

There are no exemptions on that, so make sure that you have that done right.

Speaker A: 00:31:00

But if you've got that shower in there and it's a bathroom you're using, that is one of the biggest things you can do to improve that indoor air quality to make that right, spend a little bit more money, get the right fan.

Speaker A: 00:31:14

And even if you can get something that's smart, those bath fans can be useful when you're trying to ventilate your home and all that other stuff.

Speaker A: 00:31:22

So these are things that can really make a difference when you're working around the house if you want to ventilate like it's hot, it's cool outside.

Speaker A: 00:31:31

That's one of my tricks.

Speaker A: 00:31:32

In the summer, if it's gotten below 65 degrees outside, I, I can open up my windows.

Speaker A: 00:31:38

If the outdoor air quality is good, turn on those bath fans.

Speaker A: 00:31:41

And all of a sudden now I'm pulling in a couple hundred cfm of air cubic feet per minute.

Speaker A: 00:31:48

And I can use that to cool my house in the evening or in the morning if it was a hot night and I didn't want to run my air conditioning.

Speaker A: 00:31:56

So just keep in mind to take a peek at that outdoor air quality so you're not bringing in bad air that you're having to filter.

Speaker A: 00:32:03

And those window screens, keep those clean as well because that's going to end up being your filter medium.

Speaker A: 00:32:08

And when we come back, we're going to be talking some kitchen ventilation projects so you can keep all that smoke out of the house.

Speaker A: 00:32:15

So if you've got some in your house that maybe that smoke detector is the timer for when dinner's done, this one's for you.

Speaker A: 00:32:21

We'll talk about that just as soon as around the House returns.

Speaker A: 00:32:24

Don't go anywhere.

Speaker A: 00:33:34

All right.

Speaker A: 00:33:38

Welcome back to the around the House show, the next generation of home improvement.

Speaker A: 00:33:41

I'm Eric G.

Speaker A: 00:33:42

Thanks for joining me today.

Speaker A: 00:33:44

This hour is brought to you by our friends at Monument Grills.

Speaker A: 00:33:46

Check them out@monumentgrills.com we've been talking about those DIY projects to help you tackle some better indoor air quality.

Speaker A: 00:33:55

And we've been dealing with wildfire smoke and stuff out here in the west already.

Speaker A: 00:34:00

We've lost a ton of homes.

Speaker A: 00:34:01

It's been battle.

Speaker A: 00:34:02

And being that it's still June, that means we've got a heck of a long summer ahead.

Speaker A: 00:34:08

What I wanted to talk about in this last segment of the show today was really talking about vent hoods in the kitchen.

Speaker A: 00:34:16

These are things that in most areas in the US These are required by law.

Speaker A: 00:34:22

They're supposed to be hiding out there in your kitchen, vented completely to the outside.

Speaker A: 00:34:29

So let's talk about a little ventilation 101 for your kitchen.

Speaker A: 00:34:34

So it's estimated that the average family of four produces up to one gallon of grease every year during the process of cooking.

Speaker A: 00:34:45

So that is stuff that's cooking contaminants.

Speaker A: 00:34:49

All this stuff is going everywhere in your kitchen.

Speaker A: 00:34:52

Think about all that stuff that's going into the air.

Speaker A: 00:34:54

It's sticking onto the cabinets.

Speaker A: 00:34:56

It's absorbing into the walls and draperies.

Speaker A: 00:34:59

It's in Your clothes, it's getting built up in any carpets.

Speaker A: 00:35:03

On many homes, that indoor air quality is worse than the outdoor.

Speaker A: 00:35:08

So this is where we really want to figure out what's going on.

Speaker A: 00:35:11

And every time we're cooking, we're seeing carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, airborne volatile organic compounds, which they call VOCs.

Speaker A: 00:35:21

All of these things are beefing up inside the house.

Speaker A: 00:35:25

So it's very interesting, with EPA standards and everything like that, we're not going to get that far into the weeds because quite frankly, that's fairly boring stuff.

Speaker A: 00:35:34

But in homes that use gas cooking appliances, many of them, if they're not using event hood, are exceeding EPA standards for outdoor air quality.

Speaker A: 00:35:44

So you got to be careful with that.

Speaker A: 00:35:47

So there's a lot of things that happen when you start cooking.

Speaker A: 00:35:50

You get moisture, formaldehyde, all these ultra fine particles.

Speaker A: 00:35:56

If you're smoking, you got tobacco smoke, radon, VOCs, ozone comes from electric motors, electric static air cleaners, mold, dust mites, pet dander, viruses.

Speaker A: 00:36:10

All that stuff is inside your home.

Speaker A: 00:36:12

Kitchen ventilation takes that and basically removes it from the room.

Speaker A: 00:36:17

And so here's some things that I want you to think about when you're thinking about kitchen ventilation.

Speaker A: 00:36:23

We talked about this cfm, cubic feet per minute.

Speaker A: 00:36:26

That's how much air is being removed from that space in a single minute.

Speaker A: 00:36:32

So it's kind of, I don't know, the horsepower to your car.

Speaker A: 00:36:34

I learned this from my friends at Zephyr.

Speaker A: 00:36:36

I took a bunch of their classes over the years on kitchen ventilation.

Speaker A: 00:36:42

And the other one to consider is the BTUs of the cooking appliance.

Speaker A: 00:36:46

And that is the British thermal unit, which is basically the amount of energy, or heat energy that's needed to raise the temperature of one pound of liquid water by one degree.

Speaker A: 00:37:00

So like from 60 to 61 degrees Fahrenheit.

Speaker A: 00:37:03

So that's pretty, pretty common way of measuring this.

Speaker A: 00:37:08

So it is also the performance measurement of all gas ranges.

Speaker A: 00:37:12

So a typical range is about 60,000 BTU that you see out there.

Speaker A: 00:37:17

So this is one of those things now you want to measure, or you want to pair up really, the CFM of the fan and the cooking surface you're working with.

Speaker A: 00:37:30

So not all appliances are equal.

Speaker A: 00:37:32

We have to worry about these things because we want this to work right.

Speaker A: 00:37:36

So this is the formula you want to use to determine the right size of hood, CFM wise.

Speaker A: 00:37:45

So take your gas cooking appliance, divide the total of BTUs by 100.

Speaker A: 00:37:51

So if you've got a 60,000 BTU range divided by 100, that's 600 CFM.

Speaker A: 00:37:59

Now, if you've got an electric cooking appliance, you multiple the linear feed of the cooking surface by 150.

Speaker A: 00:38:09

So if you've got a 36 inch range times 154, 50 CFM.

Speaker A: 00:38:16

You see where I'm going now, where it adds up is when you get into the larger ranges and this is where you can get yourself into trouble of not having enough cfm.

Speaker A: 00:38:29

So if I go in my, my kitchen, I put in a Z line range hood and a range, it is awesome.

Speaker A: 00:38:37

I love them, they are great.

Speaker A: 00:38:39

Now, if I look at my professional range and I've got a 40 inch dual fuel range, which I absolutely love, but if you go in here and look at a dual fuel range, that is like a 48 inch for instance, and I tell you what, having a 48 inch range is nice because you can deal with the two ovens, you've got all those things that are going on there and you've got different options for cooking, but it does require a little bit different as far as the BTUs.

Speaker A: 00:39:12

So if you go at a 48 inch, let me take a look here how many BTUs these are, because I tell you what, they are a lot of cooking and I absolutely love it.

Speaker A: 00:39:25

But the total BTUs is 94,000, which means I need a 940 CFM hood to ventilate that cooking appliance correctly.

Speaker A: 00:39:38

So you see where you start getting into needing something very big.

Speaker A: 00:39:43

So the other problem you have to think about too is how far that range hood has to vent.

Speaker A: 00:39:48

So that's going to tell you basically how far it has to go.

Speaker A: 00:39:52

And maybe you need a little bigger because you're going to lose some ductwork there if you have a far distance to go.

Speaker A: 00:39:58

But here's the other thing you need to think about when you're pairing your kitchen size.

Speaker A: 00:40:04

That is a big one.

Speaker A: 00:40:05

A range should be able to exchange the air in the kitchen at least 15 times per hour or every four minutes.

Speaker A: 00:40:14

So if your kitchen is like 15 wide, 15 long, nine foot ceiling, that's going to have about a little over 2,000 cubic feet of space.

Speaker A: 00:40:23

So that means you need about doing the Math divided by 4, your 500 plus CFM.

Speaker A: 00:40:30

So that tells you what that is.

Speaker A: 00:40:32

So if you've got a gray room, you might need a little bit more.

Speaker A: 00:40:36

So this is where those numbers come in.

Speaker A: 00:40:40

And you also want to take a look at a capture area of a hood.

Speaker A: 00:40:42

That's one of the problems with the over the range microwaves, why I never use them, there's no capture area.

Speaker A: 00:40:48

So if you open up a pot or a lid off a pot, you notice it comes up, hits the bottom of the microwave and blasts you right in the face because there's no capture area.

Speaker A: 00:40:57

So you want to have a deep enough capture area for that to go up into.

Speaker A: 00:41:02

So really think about it.

Speaker A: 00:41:04

And if you want to do that hood correctly, I always recommend making the hood slightly wider than the surface because as it goes up, it gets wider.

Speaker A: 00:41:14

So if you've got a outside burner, like I would say, if you've got a 30 inch cooktop, a 36 is best.

Speaker A: 00:41:23

Because that way, that side burner, when it goes up, it doesn't miss and gets under the cabinet and you get your cabinets nasty.

Speaker A: 00:41:29

So think about that.

Speaker A: 00:41:31

So you need to.

Speaker A: 00:41:33

Another rule is if you're going to raise it up a little bit, for every three inches beyond the recommended mounting height, you need to increase the width of the range by three.

Speaker A: 00:41:42

So for every three you go up, you need to go over three.

Speaker A: 00:41:45

So if you can't get a wider hood, you need to increase the CFM levels to make sure you're there.

Speaker A: 00:41:52

And the hoods always need to cover the rear burners and at least half of the front burners.

Speaker A: 00:41:59

Now, I will never ever tell you to use a recirculating hood or a recirculating kit.

Speaker A: 00:42:07

They are pointless.

Speaker A: 00:42:09

So you need to just basically figure out how to get it outside.

Speaker A: 00:42:13

In my area here, it's one of those things that you really got to get it outside the recirculate or I call them forehead blasters or forehead dusters.

Speaker A: 00:42:22

When you turn it on, it blows right back in your face.

Speaker A: 00:42:24

Those are, you can't use those in my area here.

Speaker A: 00:42:28

They're against building code, even though I can buy one off the shelf at Home Depot.

Speaker A: 00:42:33

Thanks, Newtone.

Speaker A: 00:42:34

But really this is where you need to have that vented outside, all the way out.

Speaker A: 00:42:41

Now you need to have power.

Speaker A: 00:42:44

You're going to want to make sure you run the right size duct.

Speaker A: 00:42:47

And that can be a headache.

Speaker A: 00:42:49

Like my house when we ran that duct outside, it was a nightmare.

Speaker A: 00:42:54

I had plumbing lines in the way.

Speaker A: 00:42:56

I had all these issues from lights to the shower drain up, up top, it was a nightmare.

Speaker A: 00:43:06

Made it work, had to have some custom ducting made.

Speaker A: 00:43:09

We got it through there.

Speaker A: 00:43:10

But luckily my vent length is only about 8ft, so it's not far and so it works out really well.

Speaker A: 00:43:18

But these are the things I want you to think about when you're getting into hoods.

Speaker A: 00:43:21

This is the rule.

Speaker A: 00:43:23

These are the rules that you should be following when you're putting in a brand new hood.

Speaker A: 00:43:27

So don't just go, I got a 30 inch range, 30 inch hood.

Speaker A: 00:43:30

Go do that.

Speaker A: 00:43:31

Now.

Speaker A: 00:43:31

The other thing before we go out to break here and wrap this show up is makeup air.

Speaker A: 00:43:35

When you get over 400 CFM, you need to make up the air that's coming into the house and bring conditioned air in so you don't create a vacuum.

Speaker A: 00:43:43

So if you're going with over 400, talk to your H VAC professional to make sure you've got a proper makeup air system coming in.

Speaker A: 00:43:51

All right, everybody, thanks for tuning in to this hour of around the House.

Speaker A: 00:43:55

If you're listening on the radio, thanks for tuning in and make sure you catch us on the podcast as well on your favorite podcast player.

Speaker A: 00:44:01

I'm Eric G.

Speaker A: 00:44:02

Thanks for tuning in to around the House.

Speaker B: 00:44:05

Thank you for tuning into the around the House show.

Speaker B: 00:44:08

If you are on the radio, make sure you check out the podcast for additional content during the week on your favorite podcast player or@aroundthehouseonline.com.

Speaker B: 00:44:19

we will see you next time.

Speaker A: 00:44:22

With you.