Episode 1443
Ross Trethewey from This Old House
This episode will be in our top 10 must listen to episodes of 2022. We sit down with Ross Trethewey, PE, M.Eng and dive into home technology and energy use inside your home. Ross is also the Principal at TE2 Engeneering where they are a full service consulting engineering and design firm. They provide multiple engineering services including building and energy analysis MEP/FP design, solar and geothermal design for the residential and commercial markets. We also talk about what it was like growing up in one of the most amazing master classes in Home Improvement on the This Old House set and with his father Richard Trethewey.
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Transcript
[00:00:22] Ross Trethewey: Mm-hmm. . Um, and so, you know, to be able to, you know, see it firsthand, the filming process, but also learn the tricks of the trade, um, and those tips, uh, I was probably, I don't know, Even know, like six years old when I learned how to sold her pipe. Um, you knows That's right. So just being a fifth generation plumber.
[:[00:00:53] Ross Trethewey: this is around
[:[00:01:06] Ross Trethewey: Ross Trai, founder,
[:[00:01:20] Eric Goranson: Thanks for coming on today, brother.
[:[00:01:24] This
[:[00:01:42] Eric Goranson: So, uh, it's, it's refreshing to have a conversation like that with somebody that, uh, really knows their stuff.
[:[00:01:58] Ross Trethewey: You know, just really trying to promote [00:02:00] indoor air quality, making sure that the, the air quality inside of our buildings is healthy to breathe. Um, and it's, you know, promote, you know, us having longevity, uh, and all the other good things that come, you know, from good. You know, people focus on what they eat, people focus about what they drink, but they don't really think about what they breathe.
[:[00:02:43] Ross Trethewey: We breathe in terms of pounds,
[:[00:02:50] Ross Trethewey: So it's about 30. So a typical human at, you know, at normal conditions, steady state will breathe about 30 pounds of air a day. And, uh, [00:03:00] you know, that's, you know, just comparing that to what we eat in terms of four and what we, you know, drink in terms of eight, that's, uh, that's quite a bit, you know, in terms of difference.
[:[00:03:08] Eric Goranson: think about what's in your air filter when you change it. My, that's all. What's entering your body, right? It's
[:[00:03:24] Ross Trethewey: So like, we think of our houses being healthy, you know, clean environments, you know, but a lot of times it's the Petri dish, it's the exact opposite that they, we've locked in all these, you know, contaminants and it gets, some of it gets trapped in the filter, of course, and some of the higher quality filters obviously do a really good job of capturing the small stuff.
[:[00:04:00] Ross Trethewey: But, um, it can't be good. It can't be good.
[:[00:04:22] Eric Goranson: Oh
[:[00:04:33] Eric Goranson: I, I, it blows me away. And this again, so box. How can I walk into a home center and buy a recirculating
[:[00:04:40] Ross Trethewey: I know that shouldn't be on the market. Shouldn't be allowed. Shouldn't be allowed. Yep. Yep. Or hey, I just cracked the window. I have no hood at all. , or I have, I put the microwave above it, you know? And, uh, even though a lot of those microwaves can be vented to the outside, they just choose not to. Yeah. You know, it's just, it's crazy.
[:[00:04:59] Eric Goranson: it's [00:05:00] wild. And then, you know, I like using new technology. I've got, uh, I'll use the name out there cause it's worked well, but it's also kind of starting to scare me now. I've got one of those Aris, um, , you know, they're one of the air scrubbers in my house, but mm-hmm.
[:[00:05:27] Eric Goranson: So she has to go take it outside. And I'm like, wait a minute. Okay. That's making me a little nervous. I know it's really doing a great job of scrubbing the air, but it's killing the yeast, so I don't know if I want that in me either.
[:[00:05:53] Ross Trethewey: And to be honest with, with you and with everyone that asks me, I say, you know, just put in a HEPA filter. [00:06:00] Um, and, uh, or a really, really good, you know, air filter in your house as, as good as you can get. Um, but just that, that doesn't have any additional kind of chemical reactions taking place because we don't know what those, the chain of reactions that gets created.
[:[00:06:36] Eric Goranson: that's kind of where I'm at cuz I mean this thing uses that uh, you know, uses that kind of hydrogen peroxide type technology where it kicks it out in the air. You're familiar with that? And, and, and I, mine's unplugged right now cuz it kind of making me nervous the more I look.
[:[00:06:57] Ross Trethewey: Or Colorado Cube. So it's a [00:07:00] diy, you know, air cleaner. Mm-hmm. , uh, has four filters on it that are all merf their teen or higher with a box fan, less than a hundred bucks materials. You build 'em yourself. I build 'em for all my ki my kids classrooms at schools. Um, and um, and it was, you know, have 'em in my house, et cetera.
[:[00:07:39] Ross Trethewey: Um, and whether it's one, a hepa, one that's for a thousand dollars off the market, or whether it's a DIY a hundred dollars one, of course there's gonna be different ranges in that, but at the end of the day, you're making the air quality better and your house not worse. And there's, there's no debate on that one.
[:[00:07:54] Eric Goranson: in, in full disclosure, I put a brand new system in about a year and a half ago. I put one of the, uh, just carrier Infinity [00:08:00] systems in Yeah, the multi-zone old seventies house with their good filter in it. Yeah. So I've got that in the uv in that. Nothing else. Crazy, you know, big six inch type filter.
[:[00:08:14] Ross Trethewey: better. Right, right. Oh my goodness. Yeah. I can actually breathe .
[:[00:08:22] Ross Trethewey: oh, wow. Yeah. You know, it's a, that's a great system. You know, I always say Merf, uh, MERF 13 is the minimum that I would recommend for everybody, and four inch all the way up to six inch thick.
[:[00:08:52] Ross Trethewey: So if I have a six inch versus a one inch, you can, the six inch is gonna be covering much, much more area. So that means lower pressure drop, [00:09:00] that means more filter life, uh, time, life expectancy, um, uh, less resistance on the air motor, you know, the lower motor inside your air handler. Um, a lot of good things that come out of it.
[:[00:09:16] Eric Goranson: And those cheapy one inch ones, the little fiberglass ones, those are there to keep animals out of the, outta the, outta the blower motor. And that's all they do .
[:[00:09:29] Ross Trethewey: Yep,
[:[00:09:49] Ross Trethewey: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm glad you brought that up. There are a lot of situations where homeowners say, oh yeah, I just ripped out my one inch, you know, MER four and I threw in the Merf 13 and all of a sudden now I'm not getting heating [00:10:00] or cooling or whatever something happened, I'm gonna call my HVAC guy, da da da da da.
[:[00:10:21] Ross Trethewey: The the duct work is, um, the, the highway system for the air movement in your house. And so you are moving air along this highway. That's the duct system. If the duct system or the highway in this example is small, that means you're trying to jam a lot of cars and it is traffic jam, right? And it's gonna slowly back up and it's gonna create more strain on that motor.
[:[00:10:56] Eric Goranson: thick shake through a little tiny coffee straw. It just doesn't work.
[:[00:11:02] Eric Goranson: gonna be interesting, man, and talking about technology and, and I want to get into some of this and you do some really cool, you know, more high end residential stuff, but mm-hmm. , the more I'm looking into January of 2023, we've got some huge changes coming in the world of H V A C and heat pumps and technology.
[:[00:11:25] Ross Trethewey: Yeah, yeah. I mean the future, um, who, who knows the future, but I will say that heat pumps will definitely be a part of our future , no question. Whether it's geothermal heat pumps, whether it's air source heat pumps, but the real push right now is air source heat pumps, right?
[:[00:11:57] Ross Trethewey: And in terms of the H V A C systems, that is, uh, that's [00:12:00] coming, you know, and, um, well, that's here, I should say. Yeah. Yeah.
[:[00:12:18] Ross Trethewey: Yeah, I, I mean, we talk about it with homeowners all the time and different clients. It's like, would you rather have a, uh, you know, in the car analogy, would you rather have a car that's either on or off at a hundred miles an hour or zero, right? Or would you rather have a car that could go 50 or a hundred or zero?
[:[00:12:51] Ross Trethewey: Um, it's, you know, it's becoming more ubiquitous and, um, and yeah. And there's all these other benefits, right? Part load efficiencies go up. [00:13:00] Mm-hmm. , um, the, um, the deification capabilities go up the um, um, the. You know, the, the, the comfort level inside the house goes up. Oh. Because now it's not huge. Slammed on.
[:[00:13:16] Eric Goranson: you don't hear it. I mean, I never hear unless it's, you know, we get extremes here and, you know, I'm in Portland, Oregon, so, you know, our, in the last two years I've had it be, you know, 10 degrees outside, which is cold for us usually. And I've had it 117 degrees outside, which is way hot for us.
[:[00:13:47] Ross Trethewey: I know you don't hear it. You don't have drafts blowing, you know, where they don't need to be blowing.
[:[00:14:10] Ross Trethewey: Yeah. Right. You, you know, people say, oh, my heat pump's been running all day. It's like, that's okay, cool. That's okay. That's a good thing. That means it's load matching your entire building all the time. It's always putting in the right amount of heat or the right amount of cooling into your building. And you, I go, do you feel comfortable?
[:[00:14:33] Eric Goranson: doing. And even the outdoor units now talk about a difference in quiet. Oh yeah.
[:[00:14:47] Ross Trethewey: Yeah, yeah. The, the fan motors are being redesigned. Um, the, the, the physical fins are being redesigned in the outside units. Um, some of the, you know, uh, Asian manufacturers are going [00:15:00] to the kind of the vertical suitcase style units that have like one or two fans, um, blowing horizontal discharge versus vertical discharge.
[:[00:15:25] Ross Trethewey: Um, and so it's, uh, you don't even, it's on half the time. I have to actually put my hand on the, uh, on the outlet, be like, is that on?
[:[00:15:40] Ross Trethewey: Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing. That's, yeah.
[:[00:15:43] Eric Goranson: no more fighting in the city where, where you're putting your, your compressor and the neighbor's like, that's next to my bedroom, Jo, that thing away from me. Right. And now it doesn't matter.
[:[00:16:06] Ross Trethewey: And so that's, that's really a non-issue. The only thing that, you know, generators, fossil fuel generators obviously are still kind of an item that we, that comes up on these projects, but from an HC standpoint, it's, these things are so darn quiet. It's, it's a non-issue. It's a really a non-issue.
[:[00:16:20] Eric Goranson: It's great, you know, and it's just one of those things that, and you know, we've got a lot of people in, in the northern climates here that listen to the show as well. You know, we're on the radio a lot, even up in Maine. But long story short, heat pumps are working and so much colder climates. I mean, when I was.
[:[00:16:50] Eric Goranson: Yep. And, and now that just is a rare occurrence with some of the new
[:[00:17:21] Ross Trethewey: Some of 'em go to minus 25 Fahrenheit now. Yeah, I mean, we're talking about ridiculously cold temperatures and they can still pull heat out of the air, and that, that to me is still. Magic, you know, I talk about, you know, you know, absolute zero. Yeah. In negative 400 and you know, I think it's 67, you know, Fahrenheit,
[:[00:17:47] Ross Trethewey: might as well feel like that
[:[00:17:59] Eric Goranson: I, I love [00:18:00] that that new technology is now in the heat pump water heaters as well on those hybrids. Cuz again, that's another place that we're seeing energy efficiencies that are amazing.
[:[00:18:20] Ross Trethewey: The ability to do an all electric home now is, is possible because of the heat pumps, right?
[:[00:18:39] Ross Trethewey: You know, you might have two, four and a half kilowatt electric elements that are just chugging and you know, the c o P on those units is one, right? Yeah. Point nine five, you know? Mm-hmm . And if you look at a heat pump on a lot of those units, depending on obviously the air temperatures in the, you know, in the location and vicinity of that heat pump, it's typically at least double, you know, so CS and [00:19:00] those units go usually around 1.75 to like 2.25, somewhere around.
[:[00:19:12] Eric Goranson: I mean, I love it cuz when I have to go to backup power, we lose power. My water heater on heat pumps only using 500 watts to heat 80 gallons
[:[00:19:21] Ross Trethewey: And it's incredible, the 4.5 kilowatt element, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's absurd. It's, it's amazing. Yeah. One thing to keep in mind that they do have a compressor in them, right. So that makes a little bit of noise, a little vibration there. And you can't jam these in a small, small closet No. That they need air to actually, cuz they're, they're actually stealing heat from the, from the basement or from the closet, wherever they're located.
[:[00:19:46] Eric Goranson: um, I've got one here in my, uh, my garage studio here where it's at. It's. 12 feet that way, and it's quiet enough. I mean, you hear it a little bit, but it's, it's like a, a refrigerator running,
[:[00:20:01] Ross Trethewey: It's a refrigerator that's just taking heat and putting it into the tank versus refrigerator is taking heat out the box and rejecting it to the, to their surrounding air that way, so, yeah. Yeah. It's it's a glorified refrigerator. Exactly. Right. Yeah. It works
[:[00:20:22] Eric Goranson: So the air quality, and I mean, we're talking HRVs RVs, you know, we're gonna get into the weeds a little bit here, but mm-hmm. , , these whole systems now are starting to become whole systems versus six things working at my house, and I know this is something that you specialize in with your, with your company.
[:[00:20:49] Ross Trethewey: Yeah. It's actually starting to work for us, you know, as opposed to just a little widget that does some maybe cool things. Now it's all integrated, you know, in the house.
[:[00:21:14] Ross Trethewey: And so we're getting fresh air into the house and getting that sta layer outta the house. So the always the question is, how do you run it? Mm-hmm. . So we can size it to Ashray standards, we can size it to building code standards, um, and we can size it to ventilate those houses. But you know, what we're finding is that those rates in some cases are too high.
[:[00:21:47] Ross Trethewey: So like, you have completely different use cases in these types of homes. And so what we like to do is say, well, let's measure some of the stuff that's going inside the house and let's boost [00:22:00] these, you know, variable suite fans when we need to. So we call it demand control ventilation. It's no different than what they do in commercial buildings, it's just kind of applying it more to a residential setting.
[:[00:22:25] Ross Trethewey: So you don't have a stuffy house. Yeah. Especially in an airtight, you know, super well insulated home. But now if you go to cook or you bring in people, so you bring in particulate matter or create particulate matter from the combustion process of cooking, let's say on a gas cooktop. Or you bring in 30 people for a party and everyone's breathing out co2, um, or you have, you know, VOC levels that are spiking for the new carpet that you just installed or whatever it might be.
[:[00:23:18] Eric Goranson: Yeah. So, um, that's, my house is a perfect case study for that cause it's a 1500 square foot, 1977 kind of contemporary house. So it's, it's not sealed up that well. I mean, it's got 30 pound felt on studs with T one 11 siding. That's, you know, everything's sealed up well, but it's not that great. I've got a nice H V A C system in it, but I also have a 1200 CFM range hood.
[:[00:24:00] Ross Trethewey: right, right.
[:[00:24:14] Eric Goranson: a, uh, 18 by 24 dog door right now that's doing a really good job for my makeup air.
[:[00:24:20] Ross Trethewey: Perfect.
[:[00:24:42] Ross Trethewey: Right, right, exactly. Yeah. To get 900 CFM or more, uh, you know, in a house, especially if it's airtight. That's another question I was gonna ask you about your blower door. If you ran a blower door test, and you know what that number is, but basically, um, if it's a, if it's an airtight building, uh, you're not gonna get 900 CFM or more into the house, you [00:25:00] know, and so you're gonna be pressurized that house.
[:[00:25:25] Ross Trethewey: Mm-hmm. , it could be tied into your bathrooms as an exhaust point, so you don't have to run the 1 25 CFM baths if no one's there and you're, you know, uh, and you just want general ventilation. You can put an exhaust point in the kitchen to get some, you know, exhaust point from there. Um, get that outside and then you can run those on, um, on a variable.
[:[00:26:08] Ross Trethewey: Tie them together. There isn't like a standard control. I can do all of this. You're
[:[00:26:26] Eric Goranson: You know? Exactly. So we're starting to see those solutions come out on the retail level at least. That's right. Yeah. So,
[:[00:26:47] Ross Trethewey: And then VOC sensors and other types of air quality sensors, um, in the house. And so those can tie in to an erv. And so we've used that on a couple cases where we have a, I'll just, I can throw out some brands I guess if you want, [00:27:00] but go ahead. Like, you know, you know, in one case we're using an air things.
[:[00:27:33] Ross Trethewey: It, um, uh, countdown timer and the countdown timer is tied into an ERV or a Bath fan or multiple bath fans. And so you could say, Hey, if there's an IQ event, hey kick my fan on and bring it up to high speed or something like that. Nice.
[:[00:27:53] Eric Goranson: Everybody's blaming the Turkey and it ain't the Turkey folks. Somebody crack a window or something. Exactly. Yeah. [00:28:00]
[:[00:28:09] Eric Goranson: Don't blame that. And it's funny, I, I remember, geez, it had to have been four, maybe four plus years ago.
[:[00:28:41] Ross Trethewey: Can someone turn these rooftop units on? Cause someone turned ventilation on. Yeah. I mean, call me. That's funny. I've walked around with IQ monitors like on my backpack or my pocket at those conferences, you know, IBS and Yep. HR and CES and all, you know, all the, all the acronyms. But um, [00:29:00] you know, and depending on the trade shows and where it's located, some of them are better ventilated than others.
[:[00:29:25] Ross Trethewey: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, yeah,
[:[00:29:28] Eric Goranson: and I guess that's one of the, you know, in those commercial buildings, that is gonna be one of the, the, the bonus effects of Covid is that all of a sudden these places are starting to be forced to look it indoor air quality, where before it was a temperature thing and that was it.
[:[00:29:47] Ross Trethewey: One of the, you know, I hate to say this, but one of the really good things that came outta Covid is a high focal point on iq, you know, and it's, I hate to have a pandemic, create that sense of urgency, but, um, but it's [00:30:00] true. You're absolutely right.
[:[00:30:23] Ross Trethewey: And so, uh, so that part is a really good thing. It's gotta
[:[00:30:42] Eric Goranson: And that changes the, just the world and how you're gonna deal with that stuff because of humidity or CO2 or some of the other stuff.
[:[00:31:01] Ross Trethewey: Um, and then there's a, you know, a spa with steam showers, et cetera. Mm-hmm. , you know, and then an indoor. Off of that. So
[:[00:31:13] Ross Trethewey: course. I mean, it's fantasy land. Some of these projects that we do get involved with it is, it's, it, they're crazy.
[:[00:31:35] Ross Trethewey: They are very, very complicated to actually get right because you have, you know, a constant exhaust requirement cuz you have odors and chemicals in the pool, whether it's chlorine or salt. Yeah. Then you, you know, so it's caustic environment to begin with. Mm-hmm. , you gotta get your building shell, you know, your building enclosure around that space.
[:[00:32:07] Ross Trethewey: Yeah. You have to provide, you know, cooling and deification, you know, otherwise it's gonna be raining in there. Yeah. Or you get, or you
[:[00:32:17] Ross Trethewey: Not good. Not good, not good. Not good at all. Yeah. So those are the, all these things that, you know, these challenges that come up with the, you know, whether it's a hot yoga room, whether this indoor pool, what, you know, whatever it might be.
[:[00:32:37] Eric Goranson: And we're starting to see that with, with. Bathroom trends right now because for instance, you know, I did this at my house. I put in a really nice thermo saw steam shower system in my house, which I love.
[:[00:33:15] Eric Goranson: Yes. And so I see that being something that's really cool on the healthy front, but also on the unhealthy front because now you have to deal with that within the, the building envelope. Cuz now you're throwing a whole bunch of extra either humidity or contam. Yeah,
[:[00:33:42] Ross Trethewey: I like to put in, uh, inline fans to deal with the ventilation, with dedicated pull points. Yep. But I usually with, when, as soon as I hear steam shower, that immediately tells me that we need two bath fans. And the reason I say that is because I want to. A general ventilation that's done to handle the water closet, you know, the toilet, the [00:34:00] odors, and if there's a bathtub or any other kind of, um, you know, outside the steam shower that needs to be ventilated.
[:[00:34:32] Ross Trethewey: Yep. Um, and we try to shoot for a, you know, two to three just to make sure we can get all of that out in a certain amount of. Um, um, and then from there then you, you make sure that you have, uh, the humidity under control and the, you know, the, the aromatherapy and all the other things is not migrating to other parts of the house.
[:[00:35:12] Ross Trethewey: I solved
[:[00:35:39] Eric Goranson: I don't have to squeegee yet. Yeah, yeah. But when I walk out of the shower, I can hit that and it goes into a 40 minute drying session. So it'll get that shower bone dry. Nice. And then I have it so the fans on for 40 minutes as well. So now any of that humidity that I'm pushing in through that, and then it comes right out through that fan that's right out there and it pushes it right out that transom [00:36:00] and right outta the
[:[00:36:01] Ross Trethewey: Yeah, no. So the transom window is key and that timer is key. Right? Making sure that you run the timer so the fan will continue to run cuz you don't wanna turn it off. Once you leave, you have to make sure it keeps going to exhaust all that moisture. And the transom window gives it a path to get the air and moisture out of there and into the, you know, into your exhaust.
[:[00:36:19] Eric Goranson: literally, that fan is, that fan is eight inches away from the transom. I just went, okay, it's gonna go right here. I don't need it. The rest of it I've, I've never steamed that mirror that's, Four feet away from that. I've never steamed it up.
[:[00:36:32] Ross Trethewey: That's great. No, that's perfectly well done. You know, and that's the whole point of perfect design and execution, right? That it works and it works great. You know, that's, you know, I always talk Jacque, talk about with my team in engineering, we are only noticed if we don't do our job right, , right. So it's like a thankless job.
[:[00:37:06] Ross Trethewey: It's an interesting job. It's an interesting job. The only problem I
[:[00:37:25] Eric Goranson: Wow. So I'm gonna actually go in and put up another little spot where I can vent out, grab the hallway air and bring in there so I can balance that out a little bit so I don't create this cold spot on the heated tile floor. Yeah, yeah.
[:[00:37:42] Ross Trethewey: Yeah. Do they, so sometimes what we do in projects is we. Uh, transfer grill, transfer duct. There's all different versions of it, but basically it can be done in the door, it can be done in a wall, it can be done from a ceiling, like a jump duct. Mm-hmm. , they do that a lot in Florida where it is basically from one room to another with, uh, you know, um, a duct system that basically allows [00:38:00] air to pass without the door being open or closed.
[:[00:38:06] Eric Goranson: See, now, now now you got my head going. I might just grab out of the, out of a different spot now, cuz that would be kind of cooler. Yeah. .
[:[00:38:13] Eric Goranson: options. You got different options for sure. Absolutely. Well, it's fun now, you know, it's, it's interesting, you know, out here on the West coast, I see this a lot now and it's funny because I get mail probably once a week from my local utility saying, Hey, we wanna send you.
[:[00:38:56] Eric Goranson: But uh, I know there's some concerns out there with energy usage, [00:39:00] especially out here on the west coast. Yeah. Where they've been having blackouts and all of a sudden you come home and why is it 80 degrees? Oh, my utility changed my thermostat.
[:[00:39:12] Ross Trethewey: Of course it's making its way east, but um, but yeah, the ability for utility companies to control your heating and cooling, you know, as far as adjusting the, the set point of the thermostat when they want to, you know, that, you know, it's, it's an interesting, you know, time, you know, where people can opt into these programs, they get some financial benefit by doing so, and it does reduce, you know, the chances of a blackout and putting in more gas peaker plants and other things like that.
[:[00:39:51] Eric Goranson: I cringe at that just personally and, you know, teach your own, but I, I, I wanna have full control of that.
[:[00:40:05] Ross Trethewey: right, right. Exactly. I mean, you don't want a blackout of course. Right, right. So it's like, but at the same time it's a tricky situation cuz then, you know, why is my, you know, temperature not what I thought it was.
[:[00:40:38] Ross Trethewey: So if you have an electric tank type water heater, an air water heater, instead of maintaining the temperature at a hundred twenty, a hundred twenty five or 130 degrees, they're gonna make an adjustment and they're gonna adjust it down so that they're gonna cut out your electric, you know, elements, for example, in your electric tank type water heater to prevent that from, from that, uh, that peak occurring.
[:[00:41:09] Ross Trethewey: Yeah. Uh, but now that's changing, you know, time of use rates is, is becoming more and more of a thing. And so, and I think it's gonna
[:[00:41:32] Eric Goranson: Yes.
[:[00:41:50] Ross Trethewey: Sure. So how does that get navigated? Um, that's gonna be a challenging part for us moving forward. You know, solar and batteries is definitely hit or stay, the battery costs are coming [00:42:00] down. Solar has come down dramatically, so that is gonna be kind of a big part of it. But, you know, beyond that, um, the sun isn't always shining right.
[:[00:42:34] Ross Trethewey: Where you have a hundred kilowatt hour battery in your, you know, electric vehicle, like a Tesla or whatever. Yeah. It's just sitting there in your garage or sitting there in your driveway. If the grid goes down, the power goes down's. You know, why wouldn't we or shouldn't we be able to pull the energy, pull electricity from the battery, go the reverse direction and power up your house.
[:[00:43:11] Ross Trethewey: Yeah.
[:[00:43:33] Eric Goranson: It would take me two years through my city to get a permit to take a tree down if they'd let me . So it's, you know, solar is not gonna be an option anytime soon, if at all. But you're right, storage is gonna be the big thing I think coming forward and, and that is getting cheaper and I think that we're gonna start seeing some new battery technologies that maybe aren't even using as many of those, you know, rare earth, you know, minerals and things like that, that are gonna be a little bit.
[:[00:43:58] Ross Trethewey: I, yeah, I think [00:44:00] that's a, that's a big part is the battery technology. Yeah. So we're limited right now. Lithium ion can only be so good. And, uh, lithium ion has a bunch of, a lot of it has, you know, hazardous chemicals, you know, that are in there. Um, you know, the cobalts, um, you know, manganese, uh, yeah.
[:[00:44:35] Ross Trethewey: Um, it's, I think it's just a matter of time. Lithium eye, like I said, can only get us so far. Um, but, uh, it's, it is really interesting point in our future. Um, and also, you know, I'll mention that we are doing a, um, upcoming segment on Assets House at a company in Cambridge, mass, uh, that was spun out of mit.
[:[00:45:10] Ross Trethewey: Similar to what you have when you do induction charging of your cell phone. Right. And when you put your cell phone on a pad and you charge it, that's same technology. Exactly. Yep. That same technology is now being deployed for cars and, um, and they've already unlocked some of the, a couple deals with Hyundai and some other manufacturers.
[:[00:45:36] Eric Goranson: charges itself on So logically then could you put that in a highway down the road?
[:[00:45:46] Eric Goranson: got, got the pavement as you're driving.
[:[00:45:52] Ross Trethewey: about like, if every, you know, couple miles there was a charging station that was embedded in the highway slap Yep. For a mile or two [00:46:00] to quick charge. Yeah. So you a quick charge in this area and then you can continue going for the next couple miles or whatever it is.
[:[00:46:17] Eric Goranson: Seattle for the bus system up there in downtown.
[:[00:46:29] Ross Trethewey: opposite version. Exactly. Exactly. So it's gonna be really, really cool. You know, I feel like I'm, you know, to me this is, I, I love this stuff.
[:[00:46:53] Eric Goranson: has some great technology stuff. I've got another group that I work up there, the Sense Labs, people that do the home [00:47:00] energy monitoring have been up and hung out with them in their studio up there in Cambridge.
[:[00:47:06] Ross Trethewey: neighborhood. Yeah, we film with them. Yeah. I met, uh, Mike Phillips, you know. Oh yeah, you guys over there. Oh yeah. Great people. Yeah, great people. And, um, I've got one in my house, and so it's, you know, it's so cool to just see the insights that you get out of, you know, measuring what you're using and how you, yeah.
[:[00:47:35] Eric Goranson: then I get that new, new device detected and I'm like, what was that? Yeah, ,
[:[00:47:45] Ross Trethewey: Yeah,
[:[00:48:14] Eric Goranson: What that
[:[00:48:17] Eric Goranson: yeah. And I'm just like, okay, man, you, you know that that electrical motor and that gives off. And you knew that was a GE product. That's freaky
[:[00:48:41] Ross Trethewey: And so we can now see how many cycles did it start to actually ignite the furnace? Or, um, how many, you know, uh, how does the electrical signatures look in the washing machine? That's probably close to the end of its life, you know? Yeah. Or maybe you need to check the bearings or maybe, you know. Yeah. So the whole [00:49:00] predictive.
[:[00:49:15] Eric Goranson: caught a bad capacitor on a, on a heat pump there, on the startup motor on that while we were there.
[:[00:49:51] Eric Goranson: Right,
[:[00:50:13] Ross Trethewey: Yeah. And, uh, and that will, like you said, you know, it'll provide us with the ability to service things before they, before they fail or let us know, Hey, something's wrong, you gotta gotta take a look at it. You know? Yeah. There
[:[00:50:35] Eric Goranson: I mean, there are so many things and you know, the leak detection's a little bit interesting. You know, as far as that, uh, I, I thought first thought, okay, I want to have it close to my house, but, uh, I was talking to my buddy Roger Wakefield, the expert plumber, and he's like, no, you want it out by your meter, by the street Yeah.
[:[00:50:51] Ross Trethewey: money. You, yeah. You're talking about the water meter, right? The water meter ones?
[:[00:50:57] Ross Trethewey: close to the utility as po or the, [00:51:00] you know, the water supply as possible. You know, cause you wanna absorb and see. How the entire plumbing system is, is working. Yeah. So usually I'll tell people is right after the meter, right after your water meter, put this thing in.
[:[00:51:31] Ross Trethewey: Mm-hmm. , um, is really, I mean, it, it's saved a couple of our clients. Big.
[:[00:51:54] Eric Goranson: Oh, okay. So they're gonna have to line bo that. But, uh, They were getting thousand dollars water bills for two [00:52:00] months before they went. What's going on? That's
[:[00:52:12] Ross Trethewey: And the number one insurance claim in America is water damage. Yep. It's like if a pipe leaks, if you have a leak, if some somebody's hanging a picture on the wall and they put a screw or nail right through a water pipe you've done on that wall, you'd be amazed how much if you ever had that happen to you.
[:[00:52:34] Eric Goranson: Absurd. Yeah. About six years ago, uh, we were moving into a rental house, uh, for about a year as we're kids. Were getting outta high school, that stuff before we moved and wanted to stay in the district, but it got a good deal on the other place before.
[:[00:53:08] Eric Goranson: And, uh, luckily I knew where the water was. So that was a, that was a little more of a, a plumbing slash drywall repair. Yes. Water goes fast when that happens. Yes.
[:[00:53:29] Ross Trethewey: If you don't know where those three are, go find them in your house. Cuz you never know when they're gonna come in in handy . Um, a plumber, a friend of mine was doing a radiant heating job, so they installed radiant tubing and they, um, and they set it up. Everything was ready to go. The flooring guys came to put the flooring on top.
[:[00:54:03] Ross Trethewey: The whole shoe rock ceiling in the basement had started to swell and bursts and water just went everywhere. Um, and it, you know, it flooded a good portion of the basement and the entire first floor, you know, the cabinets had all capillary had wicked all the water up. It, um, it was just an absolute nightmare.
[:[00:54:23] Eric Goranson: that's, I had the worst case. I had one like that where they, um, the, they had a three story house, so it was kind of a daylight basement. Uh, it was on a hill, so first floor is where the steps went up to, but there was a daylight basement. And then the second floor is where the, the master suite was and stuff with the laundry up there.
[:[00:55:02] Eric Goranson: It was a down to the stud project. I have
[:[00:55:19] Eric Goranson: I gotta ask, since you brought, since you brought your dad up, what's it like growing up with that legacy as a father and the television show?
[:[00:55:47] Eric Goranson: So, uh, when they had just that q and a session, I was there in Boston for that. But, uh, yep, yep.
[:[00:56:06] Ross Trethewey: You know, my dad's been the show since, uh, I think he was like 22 or 23. My grandfather was on the first season. Mm-hmm. . Um, and so, you know, to be able. You know, see it firsthand, the filming process, but also learn the tick tricks of the trade. Um, and those tips. Uh, I was probably, I don't even know, like six years old when I learned how to solder a pipe.
[:[00:56:57] Ross Trethewey: You have to know the why. And so, uh, he [00:57:00] definitely instilled all of, you know, that hard work ethic and a bunch of things. Um, and, um, yeah, just learned a ton from him. So, yeah, it's been an absolute blessing, you know,
[:[00:57:12] Ross Trethewey: It's true, it's true. High expectations, big shoes to fill, you know, a lot of other things that come with it.
[:[00:57:19] Eric Goranson: easy, my friend. I'm not saying that was easy at all, you know, cause you know, when that bar is high, it's like, Ooh, I, I'm supposed to exceed that bar cuz that's the pressure of a kid. Right. And that's right. That's right. That's a, that's a high, high bar.
[:[00:57:33] Ross Trethewey: smarty proud of, but you're absolutely right. It's a masterclass. You know, my entire childhood was, you know, learning all about the systems of buildings, you know. Yeah. Um, and so, uh, tremendous opportunity for sure.
[:[00:57:58] Eric Goranson: No matter how long they've gone, they [00:58:00] have their kind of ebbs and flows of not, sometimes it's great, sometimes it's a little bit less great and, uh, man, that that whole franchise has just somehow been able to keep that top shelf through the entire time. And it's probably one of the hardest as somebody that works in TV now, the hardest to film because you have to follow all the, the PBS rules and public broadcasting rules.
[:[00:58:28] Ross Trethewey: Yeah. I mean, credits to Russ Morash, right? The creator of the show. Yeah. He was the one that had the, the kind of the, the insight and the, the, you know, the ability to see, hey, people wanna know what's going on inside their house and how a home approving project should go.
[:[00:58:57] Ross Trethewey: Mm-hmm. . So you can't really talk about a particular [00:59:00] brand. And so, um, that makes it more authentic, no question. You know what I mean? It's not focused on, Hey, here's, it's a, here's a marketing advertisement for this brand, and so on, so and so forth. It's small, but the process and the why of how to do so. Um, and the fact that, um, it's, it's gone through PBS with those PBS guidelines, I think has a lot to do with the success.
[:[00:59:44] Ross Trethewey: Um, and that these are professionals that are doing, doing their stuff. And that's the brilliant what we do every day.
[:[01:00:03] Eric Goranson: And, you know, he would, he didn't know. And that was the great part cuz he could actually go ask the questions that the typical homeowner would ask versus just having it being a full trade only show.
[:[01:00:22] Ross Trethewey: He. He, he doesn't, I mean, I dunno if he comes off on camera this way, but he is one of the smartest guys in the room. You know, he comes off as asking maybe dumb questions or what questions, you know, homeowners might want to know. But he's really a brilliant guy. He's really, really smart. Um, and so he has the ability to, and I almost think he has like a photographic memory where he can, uh, we can have a quick conversation about what the segment that we're gonna be filming is.
[:[01:01:06] Ross Trethewey: You know? So he is, he's
[:[01:01:08] Ross Trethewey: know, , he's a finance background. I know, you know, um, he was working for different banks, you know, previous to that. Fixing up a, you know, a rental, you know, building that he had in the Boston area with his wife, uh, asked the house came knocking and um, you know, my understanding is that Russ Morris was like, yeah, what about that?
[:[01:01:35] Eric Goranson: it's awesome. Well, hey brother, we're running outta time. What did we not cover here? I mean, you and I have so many rabbit holes that we can jump down here that I'm happy we didn't get into too deep in the woods on some of these cuz you and I could have made this very interesting conversation for at least you and I.
[:[01:01:53] Ross Trethewey: a lot of rabbit holes to go down for sure. I try to keep it high level so that we're not letting people's eyes glaze over or, you know, ears, you know, [01:02:00] turn off. But, uh, um, yeah, I mean, we talked about a lot. Um, yeah, I don't, I mean, nothing stands out to me as like, you know, we,
[:[01:02:17] Eric Goranson: Right? I mean, you know, it's not just, oh, you know, if you see that the sun coming in and that dust in the air, you could probably do something about a lot of.
[:[01:02:39] Ross Trethewey: And it's not that, my goal is not to have it as a scare tactic, right? Mm-hmm. , you know, that's not at all. It's just more to let people know, you know, what the implications are of bad indoor air quality inside your house, right? Yeah. And you know, when you look at like, things like, you know, asthma rates of children over time, you look at certain things like that, you know, [01:03:00] there isn't a direct, you know, we can't say that poor indoor quality in house cause this, but it's course not.
[:[01:03:24] Ross Trethewey: Um, You know, crack a window, run the makeup, air, run the erv, you know, that's Change the filters. Change the filters. Yeah, exactly. All good
[:[01:03:38] Ross Trethewey: Yeah. Thank Eric. We'll see you soon. All right.
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