How good is your indoor air quality? We talk with AirAnswers and Wonder Makers Environmental

[: 00:00:00

[00:00:08] Eric Goranson: around the house.

[: 00:00:09

[00:00:29] Eric Goranson: Uh, and, and originally of course, the filters on. Of heating and cooling system were designed just to protect the fan motor. They just didn't want big sure. You know, bugs and stuff, jumping in there and, and messing up, put the cat out of that. Yep. Yep. but, uh, from a, from a contamination standpoint and from a health standpoint, that's.

[: 00:00:51

[00:01:02] Eric Goranson: This is around the house. Welcome to around the house with Eric G in Caroline B, where we talk everything about your home every single weekend.

[: 00:01:12

[00:01:16] Caroline Blazovsky: Hello everybody. Welcome. Welcome, welcome.

[: 00:01:19

[00:01:32] Eric Goranson: Thank you. We're well,

[: 00:01:33

[00:01:35] Eric Goranson: Absolutely.

[: 00:01:36

[00:01:38] Eric Goranson: yeah, this is gonna be fun. So let's talk Rachel, a little bit about what is air answers?

[: 00:01:43

[00:01:54] Rachel Reboulet: Um, there is a cartridge in the device. You send the cartridge into the laboratory and our laboratory does an [00:02:00] analysis for different types of biological particles, like, uh, allergens, uh, microtoxins different types of mold, actively growing mold. Um, well we even do, uh, some things that. Uh, particularly cannabis plants, um, for example, like powdery mildew.

[: 00:02:18

[00:02:22] Caroline Blazovsky: And this is just so people know our audience can't see it, but it's a device. I, I call it sort of like an Alexa, right? It's got the shape of an Alexa that would sit on your desk or sit in your room or office or kitchen or family room.

[: 00:02:34

[00:02:42] Rachel Reboulet: Yeah. Because you don't always know, um, what's in your environment. If you can't see it, or if you can't smell it, you're not really sure.

[: 00:02:48

[00:03:04] Eric Goranson: That's cool. That's cool. So then, you know, what's going on and then Michael, let's talk a little bit about what you do.

[: 00:03:11

[00:03:35] Michael Pinto: Um, maintenance and that sort of stuff to asbestos inspections, lead based paint. Uh, we do a lot of work with mold. Uh, actually, um, I wrote the first textbook on mold remediation all 360 pages. And if you do that, people somewhere expect that you know something about the subject. So , let's just go with that.[00:04:00]

[: 00:04:01

[00:04:10] Rachel Reboulet: Well, it's good that you brought that up. Um, we have been doing some air monitoring specifically at, at different conferences around the country.

[: 00:04:20

[00:04:46] Rachel Reboulet: And, uh, we went to one of the conferences. It was, it was an excellent conference. Um, we monitored during the whole time of that conference. And what we found is we found really high amounts of actively growing [00:05:00] mold, like off the charts. Right. And we did find COVID in, uh, some of the areas that were specifically the registration area, um, a pretty decent level there.

[: 00:05:12

[00:05:31] Rachel Reboulet: And squats were living in the room. and

[: 00:05:36

[00:05:51] Caroline Blazovsky: And he did get COVID when he came back from speaking. Yep. He also knows that Orlando, which is a place where, you know, a lot of conferences happen in Florida. It's [00:06:00] mold decentral down there. So everything. Tell him about your hotel experience.

[: 00:06:04

[00:06:12] Eric Goranson: The hard rock or the Hyatt Regency hotel, which are both nice hotels in Florida. When I walk in, I go, I can't breathe. it's just sense. I it's it's musty. Um, obviously the hotel industry in Florida has no idea what a dehumidifier does. um, but to,

[: 00:06:34

[00:06:57] Eric Goranson: And our carbon dioxide [00:07:00] levels were so high that it was trying to ventilate our displays so they just kept opening on us. And we actually had to disable that so we could keep 'em closed because it was trying to put in fresh air into the house, even though it was mounted. Show space in Vegas.

[: 00:07:20

[00:07:21] Rachel Reboulet: Uh, yeah, you just don't always know what's what's in your environment. You go in and you don't really smell or see anything. You have no idea, really what you're exposed to until you start looking around and monitoring it and, and seeing what's there. Um, but after the squatters, what we did find out is once they moved all the squatters.

[: 00:07:40

[00:08:06] Rachel Reboulet: Or

[: 00:08:08

[00:08:09] Michael Pinto: squatters, as we all know the solution to pollution is dilution. And so we just spread it all over the carpet instead of take care of it in a small location. Right. That's

[: 00:08:18

[00:08:21] Caroline Blazovsky: Eric lives in Portland. So he's very familiar with squatters and homeless and all the stuff that's going.

[: 00:08:27

[00:08:30] Eric Goranson: Yeah. It's, it's rough. And especially in a building like that, I'm surprised that with all the typical biohazards that you see with living in a space like that, that, that wasn't even a worse problem than what

[: 00:08:42

[00:08:43] Eric Goranson: Yeah,

[: 00:08:45

[00:08:49] Eric Goranson: we'll just let that go. I'm happy. You didn't do carpet samples, right? yeah. Cool.

[: 00:08:55

[00:08:57] Eric Goranson: Yep. No, two second rule on [00:09:00] that. Dropping the food. So, no so, Rachel, what are you seeing with homeowners out there as far as, you know, getting into people's homes? Uh, as far as I'm sure you're getting the whole gamut of everything from mold to asbestos, to everything else out there.

[: 00:09:15

[00:09:37] Rachel Reboulet: It was a. Um, you know, really nice condominium. Um, you wouldn't expect to find any problems in a home like this. And the homeowner was getting sick every day. Uh, she would wake up in her room every night and she was sick. And when she was in her room for an extended period of time, she was getting ill. So of course she thought it was mold because, you know, I, I get.

[: 00:09:58

[00:10:25] Rachel Reboulet: And she had her window open every night. And what we think is maybe mouse allergen was coming in because they did, they looked through the house. Couldn't find a lot of, uh, a mice, but she could see mice out in the fields when she was walking. So there was a correlation between having the windows open and the mouse, allergen that was coming into a room.

[: 00:10:48

[00:10:52] Caroline Blazovsky: And I've had that happen with my clients. Like we've had. Cat dog, horse proteins, cow. What else have I [00:11:00] seen? Um, chickens. so these things, like if you live in close proximity and your house is next to a farm, or even down the road, you're gonna pick these things up and they become airborne and then they travel and you open your windows and boom, you get a concentration.

[: 00:11:13

[00:11:24] Rachel Reboulet: Exactly. And the mouse allergen is found just like with pet allergens, it's found in the saliva it's found in, um, on dander.

[: 00:11:33

[00:11:40] Eric Goranson: Oh, kidding. That's brutal. And, and from a homeowner point of view, they were opening the window up, getting that fresh mountain air. Right. You know, Hey, I'm gonna blow this fresh mountain air in not knowing that they were contaminating their space with it.

[: 00:11:53

[00:12:16] Eric Goranson: I'm on a bunch of the different social media groups as an admin, we have our own. And I can't tell you how many times that I see people diving into a project that has got a greater than 50% chance of asbestos containing material in it. And they're asking for better help on how to do it. And they're already knee deep into the project.

[: 00:12:36

[00:12:40] Rachel Reboulet: Well, actually we're not measuring for ASBE. That would be, oh, really good of a, yeah. That's definitely something that we're looking into in the future because we're constantly expanding our menu and seeing what people want, um, to test for.

[: 00:12:53

[00:12:55] Caroline Blazovsky: Mike, Mike can let us know all that oh yeah,

[: 00:12:58

[00:13:14] Michael Pinto: And then it's being subjected to laboratory it's being pulled off of the cartridge or wiped off of the cartridge and then subjected to a laboratory analysis. So they could certainly, I would think in the future, add that to it. And then that just gives it, oh yeah. Another dimension to it. As far as the.

[: 00:13:32

[00:14:13] Michael Pinto: We don't even test them. I mean, that's, that's weird for us as a inspector because, you know, we can make a few bucks, uh, taking the asbestos sample, but we just tell our clients at that point, it's, I'm not trying to cheat you here. The one are just going to be asbestos and let's treat 'em as such. In this case, like I said, there was carpet on top.

[: 00:14:31

[00:14:51] Michael Pinto: And both the restoration contractor and the subcontractor that was doing the flooring ended up pulling up some of these tiles. Um, [00:15:00] the homeowner was concerned about it. Homeowner actually knew more about it, probably from listening to programs like this than the contractors and questioned them on it.

[: 00:15:10

[00:15:31] Michael Pinto: So it basically meant that there was asbestos that got spread around the whole house. So right now that house is being cleaned. The one insurance company is trying to subrogate, which means that an insurance company is now suing the subcontractor's insurance company so that they can. Figure out who needs to pay for all this.

[: 00:15:51

[00:16:01] Eric Goranson: Yeah, brutal. That's almost like having a fire in the home and them having to go through and clean every little piece in the house and, and get that put back together from just a

[: 00:16:10

[00:16:11] Michael Pinto: Oh yeah. You know, in situations like that, the smoke gets out, it pressurizes into some of those wall cavities and stuff. Uh, we had a case in North Carolina just a little while ago where the kitchen fire ended up. Um, pushing up through the attic and, uh, it didn't get clean properly. The first time the homeowner came back in and said, no, I can still smell it.

[: 00:16:34

[00:16:56] Michael Pinto: And then it just depended on the season. If it got cold, then the cold [00:17:00] air from the attic would push down through the space and push it into the house. Whereas in the summertime, warm air would tend to rise up into the attic. And so it wasn't so bad, but, uh, we got to help with that investigation. And that was a little bit tricky, but those were always kind of fun.

[: 00:17:17

[00:17:27] Rachel Reboulet: Yeah, we, we are definitely seeing that. Um, we're seeing that in terms of like, if you're talking about dust might allergen, we're seeing that, um, if you're talking about molds in high human environments, which would make sense, um, we're seeing that more of course, in the summertime.

[: 00:17:43

[00:18:12] Rachel Reboulet: Um, but we do see that quite a bit as well.

[: 00:18:15

[00:18:28] Caroline Blazovsky: And these HVAC systems work sort of as a, a traveling vehicle, if you will, for all this particulate. So, I mean, how do you feel about HVAC and ventilation filtration and things? I mean, do you have maybe your own perspective on how we can kind of work with these contaminants? Cuz we know that these forced time air systems are not gonna be going away anytime soon.

[: 00:18:50

[00:19:10] Michael Pinto: But you know what, it's a major component of your house. And if you're just like you're gutters or something like that, you know, one, you need to make sure if they get full or if there's some problem with them that you take care of it rather than just ignore it. And then number two, I I'm thinking. Uh, our experience has been about every four or five years, just because of the amount of dust and debris that gets in these systems that they should be cleaned and they need to be cleaned by real professionals.

[: 00:19:38

[00:19:56] Michael Pinto: Uh, the allergens and the molds and everything, [00:20:00] uh, are worse in the fall. And it's, we come in, we do the inspection and we find out that it's in the, uh, H V a C system it's in the drain pan it's then in the duct work and it's gotten all around and the people wanna know why is that? How come I didn't feel this bad during the summer?

[: 00:20:16

[00:20:39] Michael Pinto: Uh, you know, the, the first part of the duct next to the furnace or the air conditioning system that gets wet and has the actual liquid in there from the condensation. And so the mold is quite happy. It doesn't have to spread spores into the air at that point. It can just keep growing. And then when things change in the fall a little bit and a little bit less humid, uh, they [00:21:00] switch between cooling and heat on different days and evenings and stuff.

[: 00:21:04

[00:21:27] Michael Pinto: And they, they get hammered, let's have a house party, right. That's what they're

[: 00:21:32

[00:21:40] Michael Pinto: we're gonna have mold everywhere. The other part of that of course, is where's the filter for the H V a C system is on the return air side.

[: 00:21:47

[00:22:09] Michael Pinto: They just didn't want big sure. You know, bugs and stuff, jumping in there and, and messing up, keep the cat out of there. Yep. Yep. but, uh, from a, from a contamination standpoint and from a health standpoint, that's probably not the best way to run our H V C systems.

[: 00:22:28

[00:22:37] Eric Goranson: But at the same point, you kind of want to, I see what you're saying. If you've got mold and, and mildew and other things grown around that, uh, those evaporator coils and stuff, then you've gotta have something there to otherwise you're just catch. Before it comes into it again, and you're not really stopping

[: 00:22:54

[00:22:54] Michael Pinto: So can I, uh, add just a personal bug AOO here and maybe a warning for [00:23:00] your, uh, listeners and everything. And I'm dive in. I am not trying to, uh, you know, make enemies with anybody in the industry or anything like this, but, you know, there's this whole idea of putting UV lights on the, uh, H V a C systems.

[: 00:23:16

[00:23:39] Michael Pinto: That is absolutely, uh, you know, a reasonable approach in many cases, but these ideas where they take a UV light and. Go down the line and stick it in the duct work and, uh, suggest that, you know, as the air blows by and as the mold spores blow by at, you know, 300 feet per minute or something like [00:24:00] that, that the UV light's gonna kill the mold spores or even the bacteria.

[: 00:24:03

[00:24:20] Caroline Blazovsky: Yeah, they have to be, well, I think, I think we wanna be clear though. There are UV light systems, UVC technology that actually does work, but it has to be properly sized to your CFM and it's gotta be properly sized to your flow rate and things like that.

[: 00:24:34

[00:24:54] Caroline Blazovsky: So, but if you're thinking about getting, let's just say a traditional. Um, HVAC [00:25:00] system may be made by, you know, I don't wanna say brands, but your typical brands that we hear about, if they're installing like this little bulb that looks like it's the size of, you know, a ruler and they're sticking it in there and they're telling you you're gonna have airflow.

[: 00:25:11

[00:25:15] Michael Pinto: it's only gonna work on the coil we work with, um, Commercial systems all the time, hospitals use, uh, UVC and to great effect. Exactly. But, uh, like you said, Carolyn, they design the system. So there's enough light energy, and enough time in terms of like a long, straight duct run.

[: 00:25:33

[00:25:41] Eric Goranson: yeah. Gimmicky bolt on bandages. Yep.

[: 00:25:44

[00:25:55] Michael Pinto: They said, well, you know, We we put the system in, or the guy [00:26:00] sold us. He told us that we weren't gonna have this problem. Um, if I can do one more, I had, I did this inspection just a few years ago. Uh, very nice older couple. And the wife just started having, uh, a whole sequence of health issues and they, um, did some research online.

[: 00:26:17

[00:26:44] Michael Pinto: And, uh, uh, the husband was, you know, pretty excited about it when I was gonna look at the mechanical issues. Oh, this is it's gonna be fine because, you know, we paid, we've got this special filter, it's an anti mold filter. That's in there, you know, mold [00:27:00] won't grow on it or anything like that. So we're pretty, you know, I'm almost positive that it's not gonna be the mechanical.

[: 00:27:07

[00:27:33] Michael Pinto: Debris on the face of the filter. And, uh, when I pulled it out and was just, uh, kind of aghast and showing it to him, he's like, well, that can't be, they guaranteed that there's gonna be no mold. That's growing on the filter. And I explained to him, I said, I don't, you know, when I dig down, I don't think there's gonna be molds growing on the filter.

[: 00:27:51

[00:27:56] Eric Goranson: a woven Mexican blanket sitting right there, you know, like[00:28:00]

[: 00:28:03

[00:28:32] Michael Pinto: And that's why this show is so important quite honestly, is because you guys cover so many different things and you help people make their way through the, um, you know, list of things that could be, you know, helpful to 'em or things that can. You know, hurtful in some respects.

[: 00:28:47

[00:28:47] Caroline Blazovsky: we all know like even learning from Eric, right?

[: 00:28:49

[00:29:11] Caroline Blazovsky: Pal palace that never has an issue. And it's just not

[: 00:29:14

[00:29:34] Michael Pinto: You know, a lot of times it's that bedroom. Uh, a lot of times it's supplemental air filtration right. In the bedroom because of what we were talking about with some of the things coming through the H V a C system. Um, you know, but there's just different areas that we can help people with. And I also.

[: 00:29:50

[00:30:16] Michael Pinto: Uh, But the

[: 00:30:18

[00:30:22] Eric Goranson: let me ask you guys. Let me ask you guys, is there a construction method out there? That's healthier. Like you'll see. Great example. You'll see a crawl space or a full basement or a slab on grade. Is there one that you're noticing more troublesome than

[: 00:30:37

[00:30:39] Michael Pinto: From my perspective, it's any, uh, construction technique that isn't maintained. So it doesn't matter whether it's a basement, a crawl base, a slab, um, or the other aspect of that. Um, if it's just not built properly, uh, we did a case in California a few years ago where. [00:31:00] Uh, they were having a slab on grade, uh, very expensive housing development, uh, should have been, you know, no mold.

[: 00:31:10

[00:31:32] Michael Pinto: Uh, why was the water coming up through the concrete in a relatively dry area of California? And the fact of the matter is they were building the. Um, portion of the subdivision just across the road. And I went over just to see how they were building it. And, uh, as I was talking to the builder, they were using their same subcontractors and stuff.

[: 00:31:56

[00:32:19] Michael Pinto: It's coming out real slow and gets down into the, um, floor with the rebar and everything. And the people have to drag it all around and they're working really hard. And so. Couple of the workers, jump up on the truck and start using a hose to spray all the concrete down and essentially add a whole bunch of additional water to the concrete, which means that you've changed the whole mix portion of it.

[: 00:32:44

[00:33:03] Michael Pinto: So ultimately it didn't seem to make a problem to be a problem to the people who were doing the building, but a year and a half later, that concrete wasn't as sealed and as dense as it was supposed to be. So moisture was coming up and getting onto the back of the carpet and there's the mold. Wow.

[: 00:33:23

[00:33:24] Eric Goranson: You know, and up here at least, you know, in my area in Portland, Oregon. So we have a lot of water issues like that. Nowadays, when you see 'em doing slab on grade, we have to have foam. We've gotta have vapor barriers. We have to have all that down underneath. That concrete here to me building code. And it sounds like in California that they don't have to follow

[: 00:33:43

[00:33:44] Michael Pinto: Well, uh, maybe they do, but were they in this one? They weren't. So that's I don't wanna speak. Might've been a good idea. Yeah. I don't wanna speak to the law. I'm just telling you what I saw. Exactly, exactly.

[: 00:33:57

[00:34:06] Eric Goranson: Testing that might be surprising to some of our listeners.

[: 00:34:09

[00:34:29] Rachel Reboulet: And, uh, so we are seeing. Mycotoxins in their homes, which we necessarily wouldn't expect, which is, which is interesting. Um, we're also seeing a lot of, we test for different types of molds that indicate a lot of, um, water damage. We are, we are finding those and we're particularly finding actively growing mold in areas behind walls.

[: 00:34:55

[00:35:19] Rachel Reboulet: So we are seeing things like that, that you wouldn't, people wouldn't expect to find. Um, we are also seeing. A lot of homes where people buy hypoallergenic animals and they think, okay, well I have this HyperC dog. It doesn't produce allergen. Um, my kid's allergic, but he's still getting sick. How can that be?

[: 00:35:40

[00:35:57] Rachel Reboulet: Let's put

[: 00:35:58

[00:36:18] Michael Pinto: And mm-hmm . Not trying to just throw a plug toward air answers here, but I'm going to anyway because, uh, in the past, uh, as a home inspector I've been able to do, um, surface samples for these mold poisons to help figure out, well, maybe it's not just the allergen nature of the mold. Maybe it's actually the poisons.

[: 00:36:40

[00:37:02] Michael Pinto: Homeowner who's sick can get a medical test to determine if they've got microtoxins okay. Then we can do surface testing to determine if there's microtoxins. And a lot of times we'll test the dust, like from the return error filter to get a, a longer look at what's going on in the house. But this air answers now where they can run a sample for a few hours or a day or two, and then actually detect microtoxins in the air that's brand new technology.

[: 00:37:33

[00:37:44] Eric Goranson: And

[: 00:37:45

[00:38:00] Caroline Blazovsky: And these things can come from food too. A lot of people think mm-hmm . They'll show up, you know, um, at a consultant and they'll say, I definitely have mycotoxin in my home and you can evaluate it. And they don't because they're getting it from food sources. So that's why something like air answers would be great.

[: 00:38:14

[00:38:31] Caroline Blazovsky: So Rachel provides that. Great. Yeah. Immediate data.

[: 00:38:35

[00:38:54] Eric Goranson: And you would see. Commercial buildings in downtown cores that were condo projects that were, you [00:39:00] know, 12 stories high with scaffolding around 'em for a year, as they tore the exterior off and put it back down. Those were still used in homes. And many times that never got taken care of like those big class action lawsuits at the time did yeah.

[: 00:39:13

[00:39:31] Eric Goranson: And at that point you've got a massive mess. That's why inside

[: 00:39:36

[00:39:47] Caroline Blazovsky: EFI. Well, EFI was the synthetic stucco that they saw problems in with developments.

[: 00:39:52

[00:40:07] Caroline Blazovsky: They had EITs um, and they also had high volatile, organic compounds, and they also had microtoxin exposure and the client had cancer and she passed away in the home. Oh. And so the client hired me to come in to investigate the entire scenario, cuz he was completely convinced that she died in the home and she would get cancer.

[: 00:40:26

[00:40:42] Caroline Blazovsky: And so they did go to lawsuit for years to try to go against these builders with, you know, all kinds of, um, liability. But it's very hard with these health situations to actually prove that it came from the sin, you know, the scenario, but she did have multiple factors that could contribute to her [00:41:00] having cancer.

[: 00:41:00

[00:41:25] Michael Pinto: They're hairline cracks. It's around the windows. It's just a failure of that system. And enough water gets in. And in this particular case, it was pretty typical. The sheathing that they used is, uh, Orient strandboard and OSB. Oh, yeah. Is just, um, mold food as compared to plywood or something else.

[: 00:41:46

[00:41:48] Caroline Blazovsky: It's just my favorite product. And people, people are always trying to tell me, Mike, how great it is. And for 25 years I've been saying it's junk. Like get rid of it. Exactly.

[: 00:41:57

[00:41:59] Michael Pinto: So [00:42:00] but this whole house is, uh, just like you said, Caroline. It's it's, uh, she in, uh, scaffolding right now.

[: 00:42:08

[00:42:28] Michael Pinto: And it would just, if we, if they didn't have containments on the inside, it would've pushed even more mold into the house and what they had originally, but similar sort of situation. Um, uh, the wife was sick. Uh, didn't quite understand why she was sick and, uh, multiple years. Progressively worse symptoms, just horrible stuff.

[: 00:42:48

[00:43:13] Michael Pinto: I mean, they kept looking, they had multiple inspectors, but they were looking on the inside and couldn't find it. And that's where, again, the air answers I think is, uh, helpful because it picks up, you can run a longer sample. We've been using sport traps for a long time, but they're 10 minute samples. And sometimes that's just not long enough to get a good look at what's going on in the house.

[: 00:43:39

[00:44:07] Michael Pinto: It's it's so helpful.

[: 00:44:11

[00:44:31] Caroline Blazovsky: And so for some reason, the moisture had been. And so those are things like, take your pictures down, make sure you're cleaning. So it'll give you a clue as to, oh, I might have a mold problem somewhere hidden, you

[: 00:44:41

[00:44:49] Eric Goranson: Halloween till Memorial day, we can have multiple days of rain each week. And you know, we could have two inches of [00:45:00] rain during the week. The problem we're gonna have here, and I'm seeing it all the time. Cuz I share these pictures with Caroline is that we have a lot of condo mixed use buildings that go up in our.

[: 00:45:12

[00:45:41] Eric Goranson: They could be using out there, like some of the zip systems and some of the stuff out there where you've got a waterproof or water resistant surface going on up there at least that you're not gonna have that growth on the outside of it. But each one of these new buildings, which are now meeting all of our new energy standards, which means [00:46:00] they're not breathing, they've trapped all this mold and mildew inside.

[: 00:46:03

[00:46:17] Michael Pinto: and that's one of the reasons that you're seeing, uh, situations where even builders are being, um, brought to task on this.

[: 00:46:25

[00:46:53] Michael Pinto: Get it clean.

[: 00:46:55

[00:46:58] Michael Pinto: the next time. And

[: 00:46:59

[00:47:14] Eric Goranson: that, you know, you might as well have that plywood literally sitting in the bottom of a pond for a month before

[: 00:47:20

[00:47:34] Michael Pinto: Then

[: 00:47:35

[00:47:57] Eric Goranson: I walk into this, this is a million dollar home [00:48:00] beautiful entry. Second story, big sweeping staircase framed up. This was, they were just sheathing the top roof on this and they didn't even have tar paper up. I walk in. They're doing some touch up framing on the inside because of the seal plate in the construction, there is an inch, a half of water on the floor.

[: 00:48:24

[00:48:47] Eric Goranson: Then they'll have power for a minute or two, and I'm walking there and it's just water coming off. They, that house just got built. Like everything else in there the next week, the electricians were in the plumbers [00:49:00] were in roofing, went on and there's people been living in that house for probably a decade now.

[: 00:49:06

[00:49:15] Rachel Reboulet: could you move in and you think, oh wow, this looks beautiful. You have this beautiful home aesthetically. It's all wonderful. And you don't really know. What you're in for in the future.

[: 00:49:25

[00:49:36] Caroline Blazovsky: air answer right now. Just flicking it in right. Soon as you move in, plug

[: 00:49:41

[00:49:41] Eric Goranson: in,

[: 00:49:42

[00:49:48] Michael Pinto: How long the home warranty is, but you don't wanna wait until after that's over, before you get one,

[: 00:49:53

[00:49:54] Caroline Blazovsky: that brings up a really good point. So. I try to advise my clients and I don't know what you tell them too, but a lot of people [00:50:00] think if they have a water damage situation, they're gonna be covered under homeowners.

[: 00:50:04

[00:50:21] Caroline Blazovsky: But what have you seen with insurance companies?

[: 00:50:23

[00:50:43] Michael Pinto: But it's typically limited, um, in most areas. And I'm speaking generally because it is, you know, it's different around the country and everything, but in most cases, um, mold coverage specifically is, uh, restricted to either five [00:51:00] or $10,000 on a standard homeowner policy. So again, it's one of those things, which is

[: 00:51:05

[00:51:05] Caroline Blazovsky: I mean, you could blow that. Second. And, and what we can guarantee is these homeowners are gonna have a moisture problem. At some point, whether it's a dishwasher, washing machine, kitchen, bathroom, you're gonna have a leak.

[: 00:51:15

[00:51:25] Michael Pinto: What is the water loss versus what's the extra cost from the microbial contamination, by the way, that's the way they're writing it up now. Uh, so that they're not stuck just with mold in case there's a bacteria issue or some other thing say they're actually writing the policies as microbial contamination and either eliminating that, or as I said, putting a cap on it, so that.

[: 00:51:51

[00:52:27] Michael Pinto: And as you suggested, Caroline, You know, depending on who's doing it or, you know, if we need to get involved and have to document some things potentially for our legal matter, it's not unusual for the, uh, mold cap to be used up by the inspection and then right. Exactly. Nothing left for the remediation.

[: 00:52:51

[00:53:21] Michael Pinto: So makes sense.

[: 00:53:24

[00:53:25] Caroline Blazovsky: Eric, that, you know, might not be covered for something that's major.

[: 00:53:29

[00:53:41] Eric Goranson: Especially if you're saying it's gonna be something that's healthy or green or anything like that. Why are you not doing air testing? Before you hand the house off because that homeowner could bring in furniture or anything else or, or belongings that are very contaminated. And then they're gonna say that your house is [00:54:00] contaminated.

[: 00:54:00

[00:54:09] Michael Pinto: Well, I, I would respond to that from my end because you, you do see a little bit more of that in the commercial. , you know, cuz they're, uh, responsible for these lead buildings and they have to have certain energy performance and everything like that.

[: 00:54:25

[00:54:56] Michael Pinto: And part of that stuff is people and you [00:55:00] can't necessarily control the people. So, uh, you know, that's, the builders have to protect themselves and they do that through this, um, pre turnover testing. Yeah. Makes sense. Well,

[: 00:55:13

[00:55:22] Rachel Reboulet: Yep,

[: 00:55:22

[00:55:37] Rachel Reboulet: Great. Well, uh, you could either contact our company it's, uh, www.airanswers.com.

[: 00:55:43

[00:55:59] Eric Goranson: [00:56:00] Cool. Michael, how about you over there? Well,

[: 00:56:02

[00:56:04] Michael Pinto: Yep. Well, sure. They can call us and that's, uh, just like, uh, Rachel, the website is always a good place to go.

[: 00:56:10

[00:56:25] Eric Goranson: So guys,

[: 00:56:27

[00:56:30] Rachel Reboulet: And if you call our company, we will let you know which inal indoor air quality professionals we work with.

[: 00:56:35

[00:56:38] Eric Goranson: nice. Is there anything we didn't cover guys that we should be touching on here today?

[: 00:56:43

[00:57:01] Michael Pinto: And they actually allow the homeowners to get alerts. So if you're way on vacation and the humidity starts to rise up, meaning that there might be a water leak or there's something else that's going on, almost like a fire alarm, uh, they can. Announcements to that. And they can even have people respond to that.

[: 00:57:21

[00:57:44] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Those things are almost like a smoke alarm. They're gonna tell you, you have a problem. You might not tell you where it's coming for, what the problem so much is, but it'll at least tell you that, Hey, from what I've seen, at least out there in the technology side, that, Hey, you've got an indoor air quality issue.

[: 00:57:57

[00:57:59] Michael Pinto: [00:58:00] Exactly. that's cool stuff.

[: 00:58:03

[00:58:07] Rachel Reboulet: thank you.

[: 00:58:07

[00:58:15] Michael Pinto: You guys are doing an amazing job. Thanks so

[: 00:58:17