My top 10 things you can do to improve indoor air quality in your home

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[00:00:22] Eric Goranson: And she warned me of this in my garage and in my house. And she has done so many different air quality tests for people. That's her job. She's done thousands. And when you run an air quality test, it's amazing the stuff that you find. So the first thing I want you to do is not keep any of those chemicals, especially the stuff in your garage, your thinners.

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[00:01:07] Eric Goranson: To find out more, head to PyramidHeating. com, Oregon CCB 59382, and Baldwin Hardware. For over 75 years, Baldwin Hardware has been supplying luxury door and cabinetry hardware for that person that is looking for bold, handcrafted quality for their distinguished home. To find out more information, visit baldwin hardware.com.

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[00:01:48] Eric Goranson: I've been fighting that thing and hopefully we'll be on the mend here today. I wanted to talk a little bit about 10 things you can do to clean up your indoor air quality for a healthier home. But first, if you want to find [00:02:00] out more about us, give us a call here at the studio at 833 239 4144. That number again, 833.

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[00:02:29] Eric Goranson: We talked last week in a best of show, because I took some time off. It was just great to go back and revisit an old show that talked about healthier homes and healthier building materials for your homes. And I wanted to talk today about things you can do to just help that indoor air quality. And these are big ones that are really simple to manage.

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[00:03:08] Eric Goranson: All those products have chemicals that we're using on our bodies, as well as mold, mildew, all that stuff that happens inside the bathroom. So having a great working fan, That exits all the way outside is key. And so my rules for this is I really want to see something that is a higher end fan in there, not something that's the builder basic.

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[00:03:48] Eric Goranson: They rate that at the back of the fan. So if you turn that fan on and it's, uh, let's say it's 100 CFM fan, that's 100 cubic feet per minute. Problem is that could go 20 feet down. You have an [00:04:00] elbow, which takes a lot of energy out of that air movement and then goes out another 10 feet. And all of a sudden that could only be maybe 80 or 75.

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[00:04:23] Eric Goranson: So you just get some flux duct, run it out, and then either run it out the roof or out a gable end. I'm not a fan of doing into soffits. I think there's A lot of problems that can happen there, unless that's the only option you have and building code allows it. I would stay away from that, but this is how you can really keep that air quality up in that bathroom.

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[00:04:59] Eric Goranson: If you [00:05:00] don't now, building code used to allow in many areas if you had a window, but nobody would open the window up in the summer because it was too hot. It was too cold in the wintertime, depending on where you're located and it could actually put in as much humidity. So you really want to have this bath fan working well.

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[00:05:42] Eric Goranson: And so the pro new tone one in my experience has gotten noisier and noisier as time goes on and I've cleaned it and it's just becoming a lot noisier. And the thing is I've noticed too, as it runs, it gets a little bit noisier as well. So I'm going to probably put that Panasonic back in and swap that back out because I did my [00:06:00] test.

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[00:06:24] Eric Goranson: And depending on the hood, you need to get a much bigger hood probably than you actually realized to go outside with this. And here's one of the bigger issues with this. So if you've got a gas cooktop, for instance, and you fire that thing up, you should be turning that vent fan on every time you turn that on.

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[00:06:59] Eric Goranson: That's why it's [00:07:00] always so greasy up inside of the hood is it's one of those things you want to deal with to make sure you got it under control. So that is the, one of the biggest things as far as to contribute to bad air quality in your home is not using that vent fan. And if you've got a recycling one where you have that little charcoal filter that kicks it back into the room, this is a great DIY project for you to get that vented outside hard ducted.

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[00:07:50] Eric Goranson: That means it's not grabbing enough of that and pulling it outside. The other issue that causes, though, is if you are taking 500, 600, [00:08:00] 700 CFM, maybe 1, 000 CFM and kicking that outside, and you've got a newer house, you need to do what they call make up air. Now that is replacing that 500 or 600 cubic feet per minute.

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[00:08:38] Eric Goranson: You can actually vent that back into the space backwards because that's the path of least resistance into the home. So you need to have a makeup air situation there. Now, if you've got an older house that is pretty, pretty passive, as far as letting air in and out, that's not well insulated, that's a whole different story.

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[00:09:09] Eric Goranson: It's going to run through your system. So it's going to be clean air coming in versus dirty air. That's coming out of who knows where around the windows, cracks in the foundation, whatever you've got out of a, you know, a vent in the basement. You just want to make sure you get that dialed in because that's going to be key right there.

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[00:09:43] Eric Goranson: All right, guys, we're going to go out to break right now and we come back. I'm going to give you the rest of my top 10 things we can do to clean up your indoor air quality for a healthier home. Just as soon as around the house returns.[00:10:00]

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[00:10:24] Eric Goranson: Now the next one here is really important because this can lead to very expensive repairs and abatement inside your home. And that is monitoring your humidity because here's what happens if you have a area in your home. Um, maybe it's or a basement or a corner of a basement or maybe it's just a bathroom out there.

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[00:11:05] Eric Goranson: And so here's my trick for this. This is what works really well. Jump online and buy one of those cheap outdoor weather stations for checking your weather outside that does temperature, humidity, all that kind of stuff. And then you can take it around, take, don't use it outside, put that sensor in different places in your home, throw it in your crawl space for a couple of days, throw it in the corner of the basement.

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[00:11:46] Eric Goranson: And so those are things that you can take a look at if you want to go a little bit deeper, but just for humidity, that's a cheap, easy way. Okay. To measure that. And then you can go, wow. Okay. Basement's got a humidity problem. We're going to get mold down there. What are [00:12:00] we doing? And that's how you can really track this down.

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[00:12:20] Eric Goranson: But that cooling effect of that moisture coming across you did help you cool. It made you feel cooler just because. It was a cooling air that came across that humidity help. But the problem is that could lead to a moldy mess. And so that's where that issue is. And so a couple of things that can happen to help reduce humidity is going to be airflow, getting the airflow balanced in the house.

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[00:13:04] Eric Goranson: Second of all, if someone made a mistake in your AC unit, when they installed this and messed up and put too big of a unit in, if that unit is short cycling, It is not doing its right job when it's in cooling mode to remove, or even if it's a high efficiency one with heating to remove that humidity out of your home, it turns on for a minute, it turns off, turns on, turns off.

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[00:13:47] Eric Goranson: Plastic down on there, make sure that's styled in. If it's a basement, You can make sure that you don't have any water leaks down there or water coming in through that into a water intrusion type of situation, or even more so you can go [00:14:00] down there and paint one of the different blocking primers and paints on the walls to slow that down to see if you can keep some of that humidity from coming through because that humidity will come through that concrete.

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[00:14:27] Eric Goranson: And you're in an area that gets a significant amount of rain. We're not talking death Valley here. We're not talking rain forest either on the other side of that coin. But if you get significant rainfall, that water that's coming down and dropping all of the square footage of the water, that's hitting that roof, dropping it right next to the foundation that will contribute to your indoor humidity.

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[00:15:02] Eric Goranson: That will help reduce that humidity inside. And that's an easy DIY project. You can use ABS, you can use PVC, put it underground, put it into a dry well. You can put it where it pops up onto the surface of the ground later, depending on what you're doing, but you don't want to have any perforations in that pipe.

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[00:15:38] Eric Goranson: A lot of them are throwaway units who get a couple of years out, you have to throw them away and it's just a big waste. If you spend the money and get a good one that's sized for your location and for your square footage, that's going to work so much better. And that could be its own standalone unit down in a basement.

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[00:16:08] Eric Goranson: All right, here's the next one that's really good for keeping that indoor air quality clean. And that is having a good air filter and or air scrubber. Now you want to have something, and I'm not just talking that little one inch filter, That is in your HVAC unit. Now, here's the thing. If you've gotten like a mini split heat pump, many times you're limited to whatever they put in there.

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[00:16:53] Eric Goranson: You could put in some of the scrubbers that will actually go through and go a HEPA filter, heated HEPA filter. There's a lot of [00:17:00] different ways to do it, depending on what you're trying to do. In my house, I put in with the carrier unit, which is a, their air filter. So it has a carbon strip on the filter.

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[00:17:32] Eric Goranson: If you've got pets and it's coming through a floor register, Where maybe it's grabbing all the stuff on the hardwood floor, sucking that in. That's one thing. If it's in the ceiling, sometimes you'll get less dirt, but you're not going to get that same airflow down below. And so that won't pick up that dirt.

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[00:18:08] Eric Goranson: If you put in too big of a filter, you can actually cut down the airflow. So you want to make sure that the filter has the right airflow for your system. So. Don't always get the best one. The best one could cause some problems with your system and cause it to work harder than it should. All right, around the house.

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[00:19:10] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to the round the house show, the next generation of home improvement. Thanks for joining me today. If you're just visiting us for the first time on the radio, thanks for tuning in. We appreciate all of you radio listeners out there and make sure that you're, if you're here, a commercial in our show, make sure that on the radio, that you're touching base with those people say, thanks for sponsoring around the house in your area.

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[00:19:58] Eric Goranson: So thanks for joining me today. [00:20:00] Here's the thing. If you want to find out more about me, head over to around the house. Online. com. And of course you can give us a call in the studio here. We've got a number that you can sit there and leave a message if we're not in the studio. And that is 8 3 3 2 3 9 41 44.

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[00:20:34] Eric Goranson: And she warned me of this in my garage and in my house. And she has done so many different air quality tests for people. That's her job. She's done thousands of them out there. And when you run an air quality test, it's amazing. The stuff that you find. So the first thing I want you to do is not keep Any of those chemicals, especially the stuff in your garage, your thinners, your bug killers, [00:21:00] the weed killers, all that stuff.

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[00:21:18] Eric Goranson: She's done it multiple times. She can go through an air quality test and see what chemicals are underneath your sink. She can go and go, Hey, do you have what? Two or three of those flip top canisters where they have the sanitizing wipes in them? How many do you have? Oh, three. Yeah, it showed up on the air quality test.

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[00:21:53] Eric Goranson: But if you have all these different specialty cleaners that are harsh ones, Make sure that you're storing those in a building that's not attached to [00:22:00] the house because that will show up even your garage, even though it's sealed up, it's still going to end up in that airspace because most of the time people put that air handler out in the garage and it is going to always be sucking just a little bit of air in and when that does, it's grabbing that air and putting it back into the home.

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[00:22:31] Eric Goranson: It's really easy and get those things moved out and it will make a difference in your air quality. Anytime we can get rid of those chemicals, the better off you're going to be. So here's another one here that I'm sorry, guys, I got to call you out on this and I've had one of these myself, but sometimes this is tough.

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[00:23:10] Eric Goranson: Whatever. Sorry, guys, unless you're going through and going to really seal that off and make sure it has its own heating and cooling system that you've got an air barrier in between that's completely sealed off through that house. Really, you're just putting those chemicals back up. The sawdust is ending up in the house.

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[00:23:44] Eric Goranson: Because again, it's just like what we were talking about before that stuff really causes havoc on your HVAC system. And of course that indoor air quality upstairs. So getting rid of that wood shop, sometimes those chemicals that you're using on the wood stuff can [00:24:00] be pretty tough. I mean, I even get with some woods.

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[00:24:24] Eric Goranson: Now you'll see when I'm doing my TV show, I'm doing a lot more of that just because of the reactions I get to this. Yeah. And you don't want that inside your house. So spend some time, see if you can move that to another location, get it outside the envelope of the building and you'll be better off. So see what you can do with that.

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[00:24:59] Eric Goranson: Over carpet [00:25:00] and we talked about it last week. You missed it in that best of don't worry about it But carpet is one of the nastiest surfaces we can have in our home one. It traps all the dirt Dander if you have pets, it's just getting nasty It is just a capture thing and unless you've got just a ridiculously good vacuum system It's gonna be a mess guys.

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[00:25:41] Eric Goranson: So they're putting stuff in to keep them. So the guard on the top fits, so they don't stain. My favorite though, is if you're going to go carpets and you have to go carpets. That to use one of the stain proof ones, there's that, I think it's had to pond Serona stain master. There's a lot of different brands out there now that make it.

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[00:26:24] Eric Goranson: And I tell you what, if you've ever remodeled in a house that had was well cared for, and they had a great vacuum, a good HEPA vac. Things were getting cleaned all the time. You still pull up that carpet and pad and man, you still see big dust, dirt, skin cells, everything from the pets. It's trapped in that.

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[00:27:01] Eric Goranson: Cleaning machines that help clean the house. And so, I installed here a few months ago, made by Roborock. It is one of the robot vacuum cleaners. Now, this is what's cool. This is the Roborock S8 Max V Ultra. So I've got hardwood floors on the entire first floor. Those hardwood floors sit there and get dirty for my dogs playing outside.

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[00:27:47] Eric Goranson: And I don't have to empty it cause it empties itself into its own system. So once a week I put in new water, drain out the bad, clean out the bag goes into its own bag that has changed the air quality in my home. [00:28:00] It has made it so much easier to keep clean. And my filters last so much longer because I don't have all that dust and dirt floating around.

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[00:28:23] Eric Goranson: Cause of course it's the first floor. So the stuff that gets tracked in from the dogs, the pet hair, all that stuff. It takes care of it and it's awesome. So having something in a system to keep things clean is also gonna help you with that indoor air quality. That's a big one. Just cleanliness round the house.

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[00:29:05] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to the round the house show. The next generation of home improvement. Thanks for joining me today. If you want to find out more about us, head over to around the house online. com and make sure you, if you're a podcast listener out there, make sure you subscribe on your favorite podcast player.

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[00:29:37] Eric Goranson: Let's review this real quick of where we are so far. One have great working vents in the bathroom. Making sure those things vent all the way outside. Number two, a good range hood that vents outside, getting all that chemicals, all that carbon, everything that you're burning outside. Monitor humidity. Make sure that you've got that basement crawl space anywhere in your home.

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[00:30:19] Eric Goranson: What I have done is I have gone down and got basically a box fan. So I'll get a box fan and I will build a box around the intake side of that. And seal up and tape up and put air filters on that. And then I will run that in a room and let that filter the air. And if you put good air filters on there and seal it up really tight on the intake side, it will filter that air.

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[00:31:01] Eric Goranson: It'll work fine. And that'll really help you clean up indoor air. And if you're a renter, that's a good little tip right there for you. And it's something you can tackle yourself really easy to do. Get some duct tape, put it together that way. You'll be good to go. All right. So that's another one there.

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[00:31:29] Eric Goranson: If you could take that outside to another building away from the home, you're going to have cleaner indoor air and then go hardwood floors or hard surfaces over carpet. Cause carpet just traps and off gases and gives you tons of problems there. The next one here is what I wanted to talk about, and this is something that's really important.

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[00:32:10] Eric Goranson: I threw them away years ago. Oh, I'd like to have it smelling fresh in here. No clean your house, do other things to keep it go natural. But do not use any of those plug in air fresheners. And I'm not a big fan of the spray ones either. Take a look, use something natural. Do not use some of those chemicals out there.

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[00:32:49] Eric Goranson: Now, the next one here, I think is important. It's something you should be doing every year or two. And I think this is really important. Get an air test. Now there's a couple of ways to do it. One, you can buy your own indoor [00:33:00] air quality tester. They make these things, you can get them online, there's good ones out there, you can move them around your house, it will tell you what the particulates are, what chemicals you've got for VOCs that are out there, it'll tell you if you've got too high a humidity, it'll give you some certain things.

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[00:33:34] Eric Goranson: That'll go on in your house. She will walk you through how to test this. And then you know exactly what's in your air. Exactly. She can tell you exactly what goes through that because it's capturing it. And that lab test will tell you what's going on. And I think it's super important to do for a number of reasons.

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[00:34:12] Eric Goranson: Now that's super important. Then you can start troubleshooting it, and I think it's important, I think that every builder should do this for every house that they built. When that house is completely done, They should run an air test because then you're going to see if there's mold in the air. If there's anything else, what's off casting, you'll have a good idea and you have a baseline.

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[00:34:57] Eric Goranson: And so many times you can find [00:35:00] problems before they raise their nasty, ugly head around your house. So that will really show up. So these are things you want to make sure. To do. I think it's really important to every few years, get that air test. It's really going to help you out and help just have a healthier home.

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[00:35:46] Eric Goranson: That could be an issue because if all that dust is getting, you know, stirred up every once in a while as you go clean it because it's not getting taken care of. Because it's collecting dirt that can really be, you [00:36:00] know, nasty in there. So that is one of those that I would take the time, make sure you clean it up.

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[00:36:23] Eric Goranson: You'd be surprised the dust bunnies that collect up down there. And if you can get down there and get that cleaned up, you're going to be better off. Now one of my honorable mentions is getting the right. We talked about this a little earlier, but I think this is an honorable mention to bring back up because I think it's really important.

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[00:37:06] Eric Goranson: So we're trying to really keep these hard surfaces or even soft surfaces like carpet Or any one of those other ones really clean if you can get that dirt Dander skin cells all that junk that's down there if you can get that up and out Having a high quality vacuum is a good step for it because you can get that out Now another tip here that's not on our top 10 list.

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[00:37:45] Eric Goranson: So the more you can do of kicking off those shoes, but the door before you come in, the cleaner the house is going to be, and the less you have to worry about it. And so there's a lot of stuff out there that really can be pretty nasty. So keeping those shoes. From walk around the house could be a really great thing.

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[00:38:18] Eric Goranson: Slippers or sandals as you go around the house and keep the outside shoes outside in the inside shoes inside. And that can keep for a healthier home as well. And then the last one here is just use that common sense guys. Use the common sense around your home and making sure that you're washing your hands, making sure that you're cleaning things up and of course, disinfecting when you can.

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[00:38:59] Eric Goranson: I just want to [00:39:00] make sure that you're doing radon testing. So you make sure there is no healthy level of radon. So you just want to make sure that you've got that under control and completely out of the house. And that's going to make for a safer place for you as well. So something to consider. All right, guys, if you want to find out more about us, I've got a ton of videos and you can find those for any project you're going to tackle.

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