Natural Ways to Reduce and Detect Mold in Your Home with Jeff Bookout Bio-Balance | Podcast #258
Mold is a common bacteria found in our homes where we spend most of the time resting. If left untreated, mold can cause different illnesses for you and your family.
In this episode, Dr. Justin is with Jeff Bookout, owner of Bio Balance. Listen to this podcast as they explain what is natural mold remediation, pros and cons, how to do it safely, how to prevent mold and a lot more. A lot of patients are dealing with mold issues, so this podcast will be very helpful.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
1:37 Conventional Mold Remediation
7:50 Dehumidifiers
14:39 Air Filtrations
33:14 Mistakes People Make
50:47 Bio Balance Products
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And we are live. It’s Dr. J here in the house with Jeff Bookout, Jeff runs the company Bio Balance, and he does natural mold remediation. We’re going to dive into the ins and outs of mold remediation, how to do it safely, what to look for how to create a good environment to prevent mold from happening to begin with. today’s gonna be such an informative show. I have lots of patients that deal with mold issues, and bringing the experts on that are actually in the trenches. Doing this themselves is super helpful. Jeff, welcome to the show.
Jeff Bookout: Thanks, Dr. J. Happy to be here.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Thank you. Excellent. So let’s talk a little bit more about how you got into this industry. Kind of this industry, it seems like there’s it’s like conventional medicine and functional medicine. There’s ways to remediate mold and using conventional methods. And there’s more ways to remediate it using natural methods that don’t create more kind of dangerous secondary metabolites and kind of fix the issue at the root. Can you kind of compare and contrast and how did you get into this industry?
Jeff Bookout: Long story short, so I was looking for new careers well, looking to be a pharmaceutical rep and I had some ear, nose and throat doctor friends of mine. They knew of a company that had done wonders for their ear, nose and throat patients when it came to mold wanted me to bring a company like that up to Oklahoma. My initial thought was, nope, that didn’t sound fun, right. But at the same time, my youngest daughter was actually going through some extreme medical conditions that we had no clue what was going on. So sure enough, it is due to mold exposure, long story short, end up doing this for a living and I love every minute of it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s amazing. So let’s just talk about let’s just compare kind of natural or, you know, conventional mold remediation. So there are conventional tests that are out there looking at the air and then there’s kind of more functional tests, whether it’s the Urmi or whether it’s some of the plate testing, how are you looking for it and how are you assessing for mold outside of visually seeing it because sometimes, the visual visually seeing mold is kind of like having Symptoms when you have symptoms? Well, it’s probably been going on for a while, kind of the same way with mold. Right.
Jeff Bookout: Great, great question. So a lot of different ways to air tests, and I’ve done every single one of them at the end of the day, and I was trained the same way everybody else was. But your typical mold inspector is actually looking for that big, black hairy spot all over the wall. If it was that simple. You don’t need a guy like me, but I always called there’s those obvious things and those hidden things give you an example, the number one reason why people get sick from mold exposure is the dirt for crawl space. Imagine this, the water gets into that soil contaminates the soil. Then imagine the size of that crawl space the entire size of your home, put that up on the wall, that’s your big elephant that’s in the house. Most people miss things like that. So it’s not just air testing. It’s a combination. I like different ways of air testing. That’s a tool. I have about $40,000 other other gear that helped me find that infrared cameras for sure. meters, the OC meters, ultra fine particle counters, look at co2 levels look at emfs so those are what other things that are involved to go into detail to find what truly is your problem.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Got it if that makes sense and there’s the mole give off more co2 is that while you’re testing for co2 as well?
Jeff Bookout: it has been found to see that i i love it from an I’ll call it the dilution JW dilution is the solution JW the other loves to say yeah, if you look at co2 levels and if they’re above 1000 and sign of a home that home is not getting good air exchange. So imagine your home is this toxic building envelope. Anything that happens here stays here. Mold right on my soul hairspray, it all builds up. I want good air exchange in that house.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, so this is good. So you talked about I think a big five things to look for you taught you mentioned air exchange, which is basically good circulation, good ventilation with the air is active Is that correct? Having a good kind of Input and Output regarding a lot of your ventilation, is that what you mean by that or anything else?
Jeff Bookout: Somewhat because imagine your vehicle is a mold patch, yes, outside in the yard, I can get relatively close to your vehicle outside the yard, I’ll never have an issue. But I take that same vehicle full of mold, bring it inside the house, it’s a huge issue, because all those moles will be producing toxins, not all of them but more producing toxins and those toxins build up inside that envelope. So the more you can get air exchange, the more it dilutes those.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And so what does that look like? What should someone be looking for for good air exchange? Just making sure the vents are good air filters are good or is it something deeper than that? I know with Evan for instance, he you know you help remediate his house last year but he had very poor exchange with his attic and the attic seemed to be a place and the deals a lot of moisture getting in there and there wasn’t good air exchange in those high humidity. Can you is an example of that? How would you look at that personal here?
Jeff Bookout: similar I look at attic as its own separate entity though young living spaces. its own separate entity. The crawl space is its own separate entity. I don’t want those three years to talk to each other. So as it gets ventilated properly crawl space gets finished properly, but most people miss are breathable air, I want good fresh air exchange air coming in air going out. They have what’s called HRV systems or era systems, heat recovery, ventilation or energy recovery ventilation, basically breaks area and throws air out kind of depends on where you live drier, hotter or colder environment which one of those two that you need?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, so are we just looking for ventilation on each floor of the houses that it is that simple or something deeper?
Jeff Bookout: Generally your HRV or your ERV systems, they will do all your floors. So if you have a basement main level, upper level that will hook systems to be able to take air from each level, throw it outside the house, bring in fresh air,
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: so how’s HRV or ERV different than your typical ventilation that’s already there. Like you have your you have your AC and you have your Already in there, this is attached to the heaters is attached to the HD?
Jeff Bookout: You can have it done either way so if I was building a new house today I would have an ERV system attached to my HVAC system. So my units automatically doing it for me. But if you don’t already have one of those installed your regular heating air is just circulating that same air, stale non moving mold, radon Lysol hairspray throughout your environment, I want a way to take that air, flush it out, get some good interchange.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, and then so the ERV or the HRV is doing what it’s getting out of the house,
Jeff Bookout: getting it out, bringing fresh air in throwing the old air out. Okay, God it goes through basically a cylinder that captures about 80% of that energy. So just not taking that warm, nice, cozy air in the winter and throwing it all outside. You’re recovering about 80% of that energy.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, got it and this is a standard installed at some HVAC person could do?
Jeff Bookout: Correct.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: or it’s an expensive How much would that cost and what brands you like?
Jeff Bookout: A great question on the brand I don’t like to go brand names unless I personally have used it. So I’m going to, but I would stick with your name brands such as Braun GE names like that, that you know and that you’ve heard of.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: ERV and an HRV. Is that what it is?
Jeff Bookout: Yes. And the only differences is what climate you’re in hot or cold climate.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, so if you’re in a hot climate, it’s going to be what? ERV and then hot climates. What like Texas, Florida, those kind of areas.
Jeff Bookout: Exactly right. I start getting up into Colorado now. I wanted HRV so it covers more that he dumped on so
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Midwest, is it more Midwest and up? HRV?
Jeff Bookout: Yeah, I would say is probably not accurate, but it’s pretty close. the middle of the road, everything South yarby everything up. HRV.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Got it, that’s very good. Okay, so we have that. What about humidification? What about dehumidifiers? So my home I put a whole house dehumidifier in the basement area, my offices Because just because I felt like there was a heat sink between the cement Foundation, and it just created a lot more humidity about 20% different than the other floors. My first and second floor I noticed humidity was always fine because the AC was knocking it down. But the basement was so cool. The AC wouldn’t trick on that much in the summer so it didn’t have the ability to recapture that humidity. So we got the dehumidifier for the first floor. What’s your take on that and how important is having a good whole house dehumidifier?
Jeff Bookout: Yeah, love em. I’m not in my own home. I actually have portable dehumidifiers. I used to 70 pint dehumidifiers in the summertime I MTM at least every eight hours. That is a lot of water coming out of there. But you can also hook them into your drain lines. Get a whole house you know that I have you in line? Yeah, yeah, exactly right. At least for the first week. I love people not to put them to the drain lines because I want them to see how much moisture they’re actually taking out of the air.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Unbelievable how much comes out and people Like, well, I don’t have a leak. It’s like the first leak is the internal leak of just moisture, right when, when the air is too saturated natural water that develops can’t evaporate, therefore, mold grows.
Jeff Bookout: Yeah, so I’m looking at a lot of phone calls throughout the day, Jeff, my basement smells musty. Well, when it smells musty, that’s MBO sees mold, volatile organic compounds, that’s the odor that you’re smelling. Is it due just to high humidity or is there actually water sitting up against the foundation or moisture intrusion, but a lot of times it’s just excessive humidity. So that number I like is below 50%. between 40 and 50 is probably prime in my own home I tried to keep it around 40. So once I get above 50, let’s say 60 to 65% mulk and start just growing right off the high humidity and dust into the air 65 to 70. I’m seeing it on every surface is going roster on top of your laptop, and it can’t feed off anything off your laptop. So in the reason why I don’t like to get too far low, especially during the wintertime. So I’d like to keep at least about 35%, around 35 to 40% in the wintertime, because there’s where viruses actually flourishes in real low humidity. Luckily, I don’t have a house full of sick people. But if people are prone to getting sick quite often, the lower the humidity, you’re actually going to start allowing by viruses, things like.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, so that’s great. So we’re on that it gets actually very, very dry in the winter. So we do have a whole house humidifier that I’ll turn on for 35% is that a good percent and to put it on and do you like whole house humidifiers for that reason?
Jeff Bookout: I’ll say 35 to 40%. Every other week, I’m in the Denver area. I do not like humidifiers. attached to my HVAC system. Unfortunately, I live in Oklahoma, I go to Denver a lot. I see the need for right because I don’t want bloody noses. I don’t want to touch everything and static electricity is coming off. So if you do have one Make sure that the filter remains clean, the filter housing remains clean, and the drain line remains clean. There’s where mold is going to more than likely grow.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, good. So if you have that in there, just maybe a good hvac guy kind of come out, look at everything, look at the filtration. Make sure everything’s good. And you also mentioned earlier about I think, was a Merv 11 is the filtration number you want for the air filter that you put in for the filter on the H back as well. How important is that?
Jeff Bookout: I think it’s extremely important. If you look at your cheap one that I buy at the hardware store that’s green, they measure everything in microns. So a human hair is about 100 microns in size and a mold spores roughly three microns in size. Your cheap 99 cent air filter allows human hair to go right through it. Whereas your Moravian elevens can capture about 97% of all those small particles such as your mold spores.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, got it. So, the Merv 11 would filter out something Three microns eyes. That is correct. So there’s 11 does not correlate with the micron size?
Jeff Bookout: though the 11 core Yeah, it does the nut it doesn’t sound correct but we’re writing 11 will filter that point three or three micron and three microns out.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay got it, and some filters are like a 2.3 filters out point three microns or point three, but then some say point oh three, is there any thing to that at all when you see
Jeff Bookout: that there is a difference there because you’re talking about numbers, but at the end of the day, I don’t want to put too much strain on my hvac system. That’s why I don’t go above more random 11 in there. Where is your Austin Aries that I know you have the radium 16. But if to keep my hvac system running without putting too much strain on that by restricting air, I like just a Moravian 11. So as I go down to let’s say, point, three microns, okay, it may not be getting 97% of those, but it’s getting what 85 You know, I’m not For sure, but that number is still pretty high.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And this is the reason why you don’t want to rely fully on a whole house filters because it just puts a lot of strain on the whole system. So you rather have a really good filter at the Merv 11 and then have a couple of these, you know, really high quality air filters that we talked about, like the Austin or those kind of things at that 16 rating.
Jeff Bookout: Exactly right. And the other thing I look at is hey, this is my eight hour a day sanctuary in my master bedroom. I’m going to have one in there right I want the best that I can.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, exactly. I look at it as Hey, you know, your workspace where you’re working and where you’re sleeping. Those are like your prime spots because you’re going to be sleeping eight hours a day and you’d be working eight hours there’s that covers at least at you know 75% of your day right there. You’re breathing awesome air.
Jeff Bookout: Exactly right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, good. So we have air filtration we have the whole house air filtration Merv 11 and any just name brands with those filters. Is that good enough?
Jeff Bookout: I use Phil tree from Lowes by military full package. Yeah, that’s the ones I personally use as long as It is meridiem 11, I’m happy. Okay, got the brand.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Good. If we are in a climate where it’s very dry, we’ll put the whole house will put a whole house humidifier and we just gotta make sure our filters clean lines clean. All that stuff is good to go and probably just have a good hvac back person come out to make sure things are set.
Jeff Bookout: And that’s something you can do yourself too if you’re somewhat crafty, kind of say save a guy from coming out. Because that’s probably Yeah, they’re probably I’m not sure the exact recommendation on how often to change that filter. But if it’s me, especially during the wintertime when it’s being used a lot, I’m going to check it probably over 30 days. Make sure that things cleaned out.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Wow. Okay, all right, that’s really good to know. Alright, so we have the filtration aspect of the whole house. We already talked a little bit about some of the devices that I use and you use I use Austin air I also have a molecule that does different technology. I also have an air doctor as well. I’m a big fan of the Austin Aries we sell that on my website as well. So big fan will put links down below anything else you want. Want to say about this specific whole house? Or the specific air filtration that you may put in and plug in? per room? Anything else people should look at there?
Jeff Bookout: Yeah, and my personal opinion is, is what I’m looking for is by reading a 16 air purification and voc filtration. So what does the best in my opinion, Austin air IQ air I liked a lot is doctor is up there. Anything that makes a chemical change I don’t want and the reason why it may be just fine for me, but a lot of my mold sensitive patients are also chemically sensitive. So when you take a device that uses hydroxyl, which is one of the ones that you’re talking about, or if you have a unit that uses ozone, those will produce a chemical change that a lot of these people can have a reaction to. That’s why I like to keep it simple.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, good. All right. And then with the See here, I think it’s the helpmate plus the big size actually does 15 pounds activated charcoal 15 pounds of the zeolites that kind of pulls a lot of that nasty stuff out of the air and doesn’t create that chemical changes more sucking it up and then it is reacting with it.
Jeff Bookout: That is correct. Okay, good. Excellent. Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So that’s going to decrease the volatile organic compounds as well as the mold of volatile organic compounds as well. Correct. Exactly. Okay, good. Alright, so let’s kind of hit so we have good air exchange, we talked about the the MECS or the Can you repeat those devices again? I mean, no, HRV is that way terminal HRV and me V and E RV. Alright, so HRV HRV. I think of heart rate variability testing, so HRV and the second one was the ER V, we’ll put links down below and we’ll have a transcription. I’ll try to dig some good products that we find with good ratings will put some links below. All right, good. So we want those in to help exchange the air outside of the house. We want good whole house filtration, right? 11 murf 16 on the higher quality ones. We talked about a whole house dehumidifier, potentially a humidifier. If you’re a climate where it gets dry enough. What about what specific about these crawl spaces or basements now because you mentioned What if you have a dirt crawl space? How do you handle that?
Jeff Bookout: Yeah, so there again number one reason why people get sick from mold exposures and dirt poor crawl space. So, in what happens is joma crawl space air is communicating with a breathable air above it pipes, holes, my water lines, cable line, some electric, anywhere that air can be sucked up, that’s where it’s going to suck up. So when if you have an H HVAC system, when it comes on, it creates so much negative air pressure, it will pull the air from that crawl space and allow it to communicate with that breathable air. So what needs to be done? My general rule of thumb is number one, a 20 mil vapor barrier that completely encapsulates that soul. That’s just a real thick plastic. Jeff six is code. Okay. My problem is with a thinner vapor barrier, somebody gets underneath their works on the house, they can rip it hold punctures tears. Now imagine that soil as it’s not correct, but you get a visual this way. The Scooby Doo green gas. Yeah, that green gas is coming out of that soil and now communicating, but when I put that vapor barrier over there, encapsulate that soil so that soul can no longer talk to the air above.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So with just some cement be enough with something like a professional grade laminate be enough. What needs to go down besides that plastic sheeting,
Jeff Bookout: So if you were building a house from scratch, and having the summit there already would be a great option,
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: but it’s already good. But if you had that plastic barrier, you could probably cement over that as well. Right?
Jeff Bookout: I probably wouldn’t. The cost of doing that makes that prohibited. So easiest fix is is that vapor barrier that completely encapsulates the soul.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, good. So that encapsulates it. And then what about the summit foundation because that kind of acts like a heatsink there’s a reason why I just seen that you probably seen it too is basements always tend to more humid, humid and that’s because of the porous air exchange between the outside in the ground just being more humid and then kind of going right into the basement. It’s kind of a straight shot is that the reason why it’s more humid in the basement? And then can you waterproof the cement.
Jeff Bookout: If I was building a house from scratch, I would actually like a basement. From a mold standpoint of view try to stay away from a basement because generally it is more moist. But if I was starting from scratch, I have my basement walls waterproof. I have what’s called a spider drain system underneath the flooring. That way of water sits up against the foundation, it goes into that drain. I have spider legs out through the middle of the flooring in the basement. So with a high water table comes up and goes into that drainage. A sump pump will take it away.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, so that’s spider pump. That’s basically your typical sub pump that lines the the foundation perimeter and any water that sits there. It just pumps it away from it. That’s correct. Correct. We have that and then you mentioned the water glass. You mentioned the waterproofing to go ahead.
Jeff Bookout: Yeah so in a perfect world the outside should be waterproof and the inside I would double up on that. But the big thing is on basements today most of them aren’t new builds, it’s keeping moisture away from the foundation of the house. Number two is to make sure we don’t have a high water table that’s causing SS and moisture into that concrete. But generally your basements are about 10% higher and humidity than the air above. So combination of reasons just what you talked about or excessive moisture either against the foundation or coming up from the slide.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah What I did my house we have sub pumps all around the whole perimeter and obviously hooked up to a battery power unit because in case you have a storm and the power goes out you want those sub pumps working so separate battery, and then also are like the what’s what’s the word I’m looking for? the gutter system on my house where it goes down off the sides. We have all the lines buried and they go way away from the house. So in the water It goes down off the off the gutter system, it’s buried and goes out, you know 3040 feet away
Jeff Bookout: that way you’re not having moisture against the foundation.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, and that’s another good thing I’ve seen that that’s worked really well keeps the moisture away sub pump but then also bury those lines and get away from the house. Any feedback on house drainage like that?
Jeff Bookout: No, not really, trench train French train systems. Yes, kind of what you did one thing before we get off sump pumps, everyone out there that has a sump pump. Make sure that that pit cover or that pit is sealed from your breathable air. Because I’ll see a lot of times you’ll have a hole that goes down in there, I can look down in it, get your nose close enough to it, you’re going to smell it. So if you imagine there’s always water most of the time sending in a sump pump, that water brain small growth, I just don’t want those two wires to talk to each other. So giving a plexiglass cover that goes over that in seal around the pipe and the electrical cord coming out. That way I can still see what’s going on down there. But those two wires aren’t Communicate.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, good. So I’m already making notes here, I’m going to have an H fat guy come in, install a cup of those devices and make sure that my system is fully Plexiglas off. Excellent. And then if people are in the basement now and they don’t have a sub pump installed, and they don’t have let’s just say, you know, the water proof coating inside or out, what can they do besides with the only options be just dehumidifier and their water, air exchange, air exchange, maybe get the water way away from their house with their with the gutter system? Is that those be the key key things to do.
Jeff Bookout: That’s exactly right. can set it better?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, and what does the sub pop cost to put in five or 10? grand?
Jeff Bookout: Um, I don’t know, but I’m assuming a lot less than that. Okay. All right. My guess is to $3,000 range.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay. All right, guys. They’re just kind of laying out some options for people that may be chemically sensitive. These are things you definitely want to look at. When you get your house done. I’m just shocked that people don’t use this waterproof coating on the inside or out. I mean, you That’s just so common sense and probably so cheap. Why isn’t that used?
Jeff Bookout: frequently? Money? Yeah, the builder, the builder built it, he’s building it as cheapest cost as possible. So why is he going to go through that extra expensive? waterproof?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, yeah, no, I guess unless your custom built for sure. And then can you do the coding after the fact probably on the inside you could right?
Jeff Bookout: definitely on the inside the only thing I would seal off the upstairs there that way any voc is coming off from that ceiling. We’re not breathing those in let that air out really good. Because a lot of times the things
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: that I find though, I mean, I’ve dealt with a couple of different mobile companies and you are so much more knowledgeable than 99%. So there’s just there’s not, I mean, you deal with more people when you go to reach out to more people you think there’s an expectation that everyone knows the things that you know, but they don’t. So can people get ahold of you and schedule console with you so they can kind of walk through their house and maybe create a plan or do you have people that are certified by you
Jeff Bookout: So I’m working on that right now he’ll be having with me to Denver. I used to travel the country doing this got to be too much. I still have one my one of my girls is still in high school and, and I’ll be back Friday night for her cheering at that football game. So great hanging Brandon and Brandon will eventually be the next me and he’ll be able to travel a lot more. That’s one way I spend. I probably do 4050 phone calls a day. A lot of those are mainly console’s. Jeff, Jeff, have a question. I don’t care who you are, feel free to give me a call. I’m happy to walk you through anything that I can. I believe God gave me a gift to help people. And that’s exactly what I do.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So someone could if I refer patients over to schedule, like a FaceTime and they can just walk with a camera and record their basement and you can kind of give them feedback on things.
Jeff Bookout: Yeah, as long as that console stays low, I’m always happy to do that for free. There are what I call virtual inspections. I don’t like those as well as me physically being in your home, but it comes to it and we need to do a virtual inspection. With me, I’m going to charge you for that. But I want to picture a bunch of history, then we’ll FaceTime and go through the house. It’s not as good as having somebody there like me, but a lot of times, just the knowledge that I have, will tremendously help them.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I have a lot of people that are reaching out there, like, I just can’t find someone that’s knowledgeable. So this is great. We’re going to put your info below as people can schedule these virtual home inspections, because it’s better than nothing. Could they team up and get a conventional mold, expect to report and then you could use the report along with a virtual inspection? Would that be better?
Jeff Bookout: I do that all the time, because I like data. Problem with data is it comes with a cost. So if I could get everyone to do about three different ways of air testing, my visual inspection, all that data combined is great, but it becomes cost prohibitive, prohibitive. But the more data I can have from somebody else being there, I’m usually not the first guy they’re usually things that failed. That’s why it’s only me
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And people spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on some other more mediations. And I think it could be a lot cheaper to so we’re going to talk about some of the natural methods in a minute. So we hit the crawlspace. We hit the basement. Was there anything else you want to add to the basement?
Jeff Bookout: I think that’s it on basements. If you’re looking at a new home or your home currently, if the first two things I’m asking you is water against the foundation, do you have a must do? And if you do, that’s a great sign that we have some issues going on down there.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, very good. And could people do a retrofit of that, let’s say, that waterproof coating on the outside of the house, Could someone come in and still coat it after the fact?
Jeff Bookout: Yeah, they have to excavate all that dirt up against the foundation. Then they put a sealant on there. Then they put all the dirt back. Yeah, I’ve seen it done.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: costly, expensive. Okay. All right. So probably maybe a sump pump will probably be the easier way then to start.
Jeff Bookout: I do I think I think most people can probably get away on that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: okay or that’s good to know so we hit the basement What about the attic so I know with Evans situation he had really poor air exchange in the attic is it just as simple as getting ventilation up there is it just as simple as making sure your roofs not leaking in the attic what you would be looking at in the attic.
Jeff Bookout: So a couple things one, the first thing I always looked at as proper ventilation, I need a way for air to go into that adequate for air to go back out of the attic. In my own home I actually put it’s my definition of an attic fan. That fan is attached to the roof of my house set at five degrees in temperature and 45% humidity so when it reaches that those fans automatically come on suck air from the soft events and force it out. That way I know I’m getting great air exchange up there. The other thing I’m looking at is my joist in my decking Do I have roof leaks or have I had Roof Leaks? I tried to trace those back because you can have a roughly I hear it travels down the Joyce then finally shows up You know, 1020 feet away from the, from the actual intrusion site, and there’s where mold is going to be into that insulation or the top side of that sheet.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And how are you tracing that back and using an infrared camera to kind of see where that heat exchanges to see what that leak could be?
Jeff Bookout:If it’s currently going on at the time, you can use infrared to find that, but if not, I mean, basic skills. Okay, here’s a water line yet I’m gonna fall out of line just go well, more water line. It’s going to be dropping right there. Okay, good. Move away. The insulation is the real problem yesterday, but a lot of times on the ceiling side, this is my living room. I look up I have a water spot.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s the one spot there because it will eventually hit you got a stain?
Jeff Bookout: Yeah, you’re looking at 10% the problem the other 90% on the backside of that sheet right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Now when you get a watermark like that, do you have to go in there and cut everything away? Or is it is it acceptable for it to dry fix the environment and that mold won’t be there if you can’t see it visually.
Jeff Bookout: I will always tell you if you see water damage on sheetrock, especially a ceiling Cut it up. The reason why I know I know is there more than 48 hours, and there’s where mold starts to grow right exponential after that. So I knew it stayed there for more than 48 hours, it’s more than a 50% chance that there’s more growth on the backside.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, got it. So you see water damage, cut it away. We’ll talk about some of the natural compounds that you created over at bio bound, which I’m really excited to chat about. So we’re looking at the attic Tell me about these fans is this kind of standard operating procedure in an addict or it’s for there to be ventilation for it to be fans?
Jeff Bookout: Not necessarily a fan that’s just forcing the air? Generally, it’s either I have a vent or several events on the roof. That’s how the air gets out or rich cap or, or table that one on each side that allows air flow. So there’s different ways that people do it. I like attaching the fans because it forces that
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, got it. So how would if someone’s like in that predicament? reaching out to a mold guy to have that looked at or that be a general idea? Bad guy that could give you more insight into that
Jeff Bookout: General Roofing roofing guy. So hey, it’s my roof adequately ventilated,
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: ventilate. Okay, good. So it’d be something that they would be able to still be educated about.
Jeff Bookout: Correct. And a lot of times I’ll go there’s no way for me to go out there’ll be a soffits underneath the house underneath the ease, but no Ruffin so all that excess moisture stays and you’ll have mold destroying all over the decking because of that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, so make sure we have good ventilation in the attic space we can find a roofer probably good h fat guy and then obviously make sure there’s no leaks any other key take homes for the attic area.
Jeff Bookout: Now, the biggest thing is you’re looking for any visible damage. Jeff, what is mold look like? It doesn’t look like a new piece of wood. That might be a problem.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right? Okay, good. Very good. And some more, I find two by fours are staying just because they set out in the outside, when they’re being built when they’re being built to begin with. So you can have some mold, but it may not be an active infection or active mold issue. How do you differentiate that?
Jeff Bookout: Great question, so you can always send a swab to the lab To answer that question, Debbie has a great lab there, Amy noetic said I do a lot of testing with Yes. But if I visibly see mold, you will never convince me that it’s not active, whether it’s giving out mycotoxins or not whether it’s, you know, dried for 100 years, I see visible mold growth, I’m going to treat it with a 12% hydrogen peroxide solution. And I’m going to seal it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, yeah, we had the same issue in my basement and I tested I use the analytics kits and my basement came back at one and then Oh, great. We hit it with the 20% hydrogen peroxide hit all the two by fours anyway, and then we did the fogging solution afterwards, and we got it down to zero. So it wasn’t much to begin with. And I’ll kind of share my experience so I had an I found some mold behind the back of my range stovetop, and I’m not sure if the sealant from the previous owner wasn’t quite sealed properly. So moisture or water was kind of falling behind the drywall in between, essentially the cabinet and the drywall and it created this kind of more The environment right behind there. And so we were like shoot. And the I think the biggest fear with most people is, if they don’t see any damage on the drywall, they feel the need to Should I rip every wall up and you kind of get this anxiety of like, Oh my God, my whole house, I’m going to wrap it all up. But then I did when I talked to you and JW was like, hey, if you don’t see any damage, let’s just treat what we know is there and we hit it with the 20% hydrogen peroxide and then we fogged everything else because we don’t have any damage, visible damage, it can’t be that bad. So we’ll just fog everything else. And it will make sure that the environment is fixing the root cause of that issue is fixed. And we were able to knock I think multicores down at I think I’m 18 or 20 or so in the kitchen. We knocked down to one and everything in the house is between one two or zero.
Jeff Bookout: That’s my great now that’s that’s phenomenal. And always I like that analogy because everyone is scared and rightfully so. So yeah, I’m Jeff I’m going to tear out every wall. I don’t let let’s find what we do know fix what we know. You’ll always have mold in your environment. We just wanted at proper levels, right? So am I going to spend my sanity trying to find every little pea sized spot in a perfect world? Yes, but that’s not realistic.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So let’s go into the top like mistakes that people make. And I think that’s probably one of them is that overreaction feeling, but let’s go over the top mistakes that cause people to overspend in their mediation. I see people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars where they may have been able to get away with 10,000 or $20,000. For a really bad one, some maybe only maybe only 1000 or two or maybe just a couple hundred bucks. If it’s a humidity issue. Can you talk about those big mistakes and and kind of what’s the hierarchy people should be looking at?
Jeff Bookout: That’s a loaded question. I could go on for a couple hours with this one, but at the end of the day, three things need to happen. One is I have to find moisture intrusion and stopping, whether that’s an ongoing leak, high humidity, whatever that case is, the moisture is gotta stop. And as long as I find that and stop that, then we’re going to keep that from reoccurring. Then secondly is finding identify any mold damaged materials, either remove them or make proper corrections. So, in my opinion, there’s no substitution for removing damaged materials. There are some, some things in there let’s say I ripped open behind your stove. I pulled all the damage sheetrock out, I I’m down to studs, my studs, I’ve got a couple spots, a little bit of mold growth here there. I don’t have as long as that Woods not wet, wet or dry rotted out, I can keep that word I’m going to treat it with hydrogen peroxide 12%. Then I am from 12 to 22 and no longer use the 20 Yeah. Then I’m going to use a sealant I like to use a safe sealant such as as a EMF safe coat. So some of the products that we use are, are huge key because I’m dealing with a medically sensitive patient that needs More than likely is going to be chemical sensitive as well. So I don’t like the biocides germicide fungus sides ozone in high doses. do they work? Yes. Can they hurt you at the same time? Yes, that’s why we tried to use hydrogen peroxide and the treatment protocols that we’ll be talking about in a minute. So, number one, stop the moisture number to remove damaged materials or make proper corrections. And do it under proper containment. There’s where a lot of people mess up. Mold works like a dandelion out in the yard soon as you kick it disturb it thinks it’s going to die those this mold spores out to regenerate somewhere else. So when I rip open your cavity transit through the house I’m throwing excess a mold spores everywhere making that problem worse than what it was before. So make sure it’s done correctly. That’s why I do love mold remediators, they come in contain that area off use negative air pressure,
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: negative air pressure important Hmm.
Jeff Bookout: So that’s Rule number two, rule number three, treat the air to get those excess and mold sports back under control. And there’s where I see a lot of people go wrong as well. Jeff, I’ve got a clearance report in that stove area, everything’s fine. A problem more than likely it’s been going on for several years putting excess a mold spores and mycotoxins throughout your entire environment. That’s why we treat the entire house, get those things back under control and do it safely.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And that includes leaving all your clothes up, right kind of leaving all your books, they are kind of getting into all that don’t put it all away because you may be putting mold spores away and then bringing that back out later on.
Jeff Bookout: I’ll hit that two ways. One, there’s a general rule of thumb on all belongings, no visible mold damage, no visible water damage, probably most importantly, no mouth odor into those items. My nose is very specific, has three different odors for mold. Your nose may be different than mine. If it smells funky, get rid of it, as long as it passes those first three criteria. You’re exactly right. Get that fog into everything into your clothes into your bedding into your furniture, into your dishes, to say, maybe put it in my mouth and in my eye to get it on a flight to Salt Lake City. This is a product that has a material safety data sheet and zero. It’s GSE based grapefruit seed extract, lemon, lime and tangerine extracts. Then we’ll we’ll let you ask those questions on the material.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, yeah, we’re going to go into that. So I just I think the big thing I really just want to hone in on because this is the mistake that most people make is they just go ripping down random walls and stuff. So you find your leg you see it, and then you isolate that area and then you don’t go ripping everything up. You just you you see it, whatever’s damaged. You trace the leak, you see where it’s exposed, you remove that area but then you don’t go ripping up everything else. But then you you fog all into behind the walls, the choices, the two by fours. You get it into the H back you hit everything so even if you can’t see it, you’re still going to be treating it to correctly
Jeff Bookout: exactly right this so I go to foot past any visible damage water damage-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: only two feet only two feet. Got it.
Jeff Bookout: Mojave will grow up to about six inches in length without being able to see it with the naked eye. That’s why we go that extra two feet.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Great. Alright, two feet. Excellent. And then anything else we use the fogging solution to hit it. Anything else you want to say about that about topically treating and heading.
Jeff Bookout: Now I think that’s the big three kids three things I could hit your head stop moisture, remove damaged materials treat there.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: All right. And then you have the bio balance website where you sell some awesome products that are essential oil based. You have the fogging solution which can get to that one to 10 micron size, which is really important because that dry fog can get into really, really tiny spaces it can get behind underneath the floorboards it can get behind the drywall in between studs and drywall, it can do all of that. So that’s the benefit of the fogger. Can you highlight that and can you compare the fogger Let’s say to Mr. Because this is one of the new devices you have, which is pretty cool, but I don’t think that quite gets to the same micron size.
Jeff Bookout: You bet. So I use it in this way. I use tripod for treatment. Yeah, what went wrong for maintenance? It’s the treatment system, the maintenance system. Can the maintenance be used as a treatment in some cases where you can’t do a tripod? Sure, but by far the best ways to drive on so let’s look at it visually. If you imagine golf balls in, these are most galleries now Now I can see them put up a dry fog which is a true dry fog looks like smoke stays in the air from me to you, Justin, you wouldn’t be able to see my hand in front of your face. Exactly. So it stays in the air roughly 30 minutes to two hours depends on temperature and humidity, capturing all those excess of mold spores, dust, debris, virus, bacteria, yeast, it’s all that back out of your air. So now imagine let’s use a wet maintenance system. In not just mine anytime. That issues it goes up into the air and a fine mist falls out the air extremely quickly. Are you able to capture some? Yes, does it do as thorough of a job as a dry farm by farm
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: so if you have a serious issue higher amounts of mold, you probably or any visible mold you definitely want to go to the dry dry fog if you maybe just have mold issues that are more maybe because of a humidity environment issue and maybe you can get away with a Mr.
Jeff Bookout: Exactly.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay. All right, that’s really good. And let’s talk about some of the different misters so there’s a commercial grade Mr. There’s a home grade one and there’s a travel one can someone get away with the travel one for their home or should people be using like when would you use one over the other?
Jeff Bookout: I wish I had the product in front and I do out a little bit. You kind of see it especially the home is perfect for me because it can do commercial applications. Yep, that’s my regular residential. But can a little travel Mr be able to go around, treat my 3500 or 2500 square foot home, you’ll get a little frustrated.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So that’s a little travel mystery is probably what it is you’re going to a hotel, you’re going somewhere it’s a probably a 500 square foot, couple hundred square foot area. You just want to get the couch get the bad maybe get your little office environment if you’re on a business trip or something or vacation. Would that be a good application?
Jeff Bookout: Exactly right my cubicle or my classroom? If I’m a teacher, that’s perfect for small areas.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, this is perfect. This is a great great you’ve just hit my next read here. I have a lot of people that are teachers or they’re in an environment they can’t control and they’re like I don’t want to use this dry fog that’s going to make it a world of you know it’s gonna make a huge mess smoke and everything for a couple hours. Like you mentioned. It sounds like these portable ministers or maybe the home based Mr. Maybe a good option to fog it after work and no one’s there because you wouldn’t even have an issue
Jeff Bookout: or do it while you’re there. You’re able to do this correctly. So yeah, I have the same issue with you teachers. I can’t go to school won’t let me solve the problem. But I can make that classroom not day better than what it was, and I get this feedback. I’ve heard this feedback that’s kind of frustrating from some doctors in the past. Why you fog and it’s a waste of people’s money. Not if they’re not fighting, my job is to tell you always find the source, stop the moisture, remove the damaged materials. But let’s say I’m an apartment complex or school or an office that I can’t control that. That’s the next best thing. I can make that air night and day better than what it was before. Is it going to be great? The answer’s no. But I’ve seen teachers in classrooms just by using this immediately get better. And I didn’t even solve their mold issues in that property. They’re just maintaining the air.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right. So you can pretty discreetly use the Mr. It’s not going to create tons of you know, the thicker smoke, we’re could set off a fire alarm which can happen. You’re not gonna set up a fire alarm. It’s pretty discretes and it happened pretty fast. Obviously, you’d want to invest in probably a really good awesome air filter for the classroom to correct yes, exactly right. What else can we do in that office environment besides The monthly treatment using the bio balance products and a good air filter What else can we do?
Jeff Bookout: The only other thing you can get away with it in some places my wife loves the candles from citrisafe.com it’s a soy based candle. It’s like a mini treatment. So in places that you can use them and can’t use the wet or a combination. We look we love using them. So
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: great and and the big thing too I want to highlight for anyone using these products do a pre and post test. You know, don’t just believe it get to get some data on the beginning side with at least to play testing if you want to spend a little bit more into Urmi fine and then do a treatment and then follow up on the post. I think it’s the best way to see what’s going on because some people and I want to highlight this to some people I’ve seen it drops but it’s not quite enough and you need more treatment or some I’ve actually seen it go up and I’ve talked to JW about this at the mold is stressing and then producing more mold to toxins, can you talk about what happens when what to do when mold goes off after treatment?
Jeff Bookout: Yeah, always, always give me a call when that happens, because generally there’s more than likely still a source somewhere. And you may know that there’s a source or you may not know that there’s a source. But when we It is rare that that happens. But if there’s those issues, give me a call. I love helping people and walking people through those protocols. Because sometimes once isn’t enough, they do it the second time and all of a sudden dramatic results. So So the big thing is, is is getting results At the end of the day.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, so we start off with the dry fog and then would you still want to use the dry fog until we get it down and then do Mr. afterwards? I mean, it’s okay. And then when people have those issues, what do they tend to be like our pets have a factor What else could be a factor if there’s not an active league? And if the humidity is good, and air exchanges good.
Jeff Bookout: Yeah, plants, pets, pets are one of the worst. But what I like to do is okay, if you can keep your Let’s do a tap tests on your pets. Yes. Wait, we know the moles that are coming off of your pets. Does that add up to the molds I have in my air? Yes. Oh my pets the problem. I’m going to maintain that with a pet kit from citrusafe.com. Or, Hey, I know that it’s not something else that I have a source of. It’s just my pet skimming this off. I’m just gonna have to do a better job there.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Jeff on the taps. Yeah. This is this is like my mold plate tapped. So just kind of tapping it literally against the source, what three to five times.
Jeff Bookout: I like four times a cup of my hand,
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: pop pop pop, just tap it and you can do it up against your clothes. Or if you got like a moldy couch and you’re not sure you can just tap it against that too. Right? Exactly. Right. Okay, this is great. This is all actionable stuff. I’m telling you. I have patients that have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars remediating their moldy houses and if you’re in that position, and you listen to this podcast, you’ll save probably, probably five figures if you do it the right way. And plus, you can reach out to Jeff for that virtual homeless. inspection. That’s great. So we have the mold testing with the kit or the plates. Can you highlight the Urmi? Like when would you do the Urmi? Is that necessary? Is playtesting enough?
Jeff Bookout: loaded question. I’m not a fan. But the answer is it’s a dust DNA analysis. A very intelligent guy told me the other day said, Jeff, if I walked out into my yard came back in did an army testing my shoe I’m going to fail. Probably. I see stuff like that happen all the time. But every way of testing has its flaws. gravity fed plates have the flaws aerosol cassette, indoor and outdoor comparison has its flaws. I just think army gets me the least amount of data for the most amount of money. What I do like about the army, it can show [inaudible] where a lot of different tests don’t because if you imagine mold spores as balls, I had a ping pong ball, a tennis ball, a baseball a bowling ball, throw all those up into the air stacking atomium are your bowling balls, they fall out there extremely quickly difficult to get on an air test where it does show up on does DNA analysis. The other problem let’s say I do a dry fog. I do an army afterwards. And if I’ve been at start over with all new dust, that dust is still there, even though it’s not producing mycotoxins are causing me a problem anymore, that dust is there. So I always just after somebody doesn’t dry fog, where is I always say 95% of the problem is what I’m breathing into the air. So after I fog, I’ve taken care of that. But where’s the other 5% dead mold spores that could still be producing mycotoxins. So where’s that going to fall that is going to fall on my horizontal surfaces. So do a good job wipe down of all my horizontal surfaces to get rid of all that dust, dirt, debris, dead mold spores, viruses, bacteria that was in my air that I got out of the
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: and is it good to agitate the air before you put a plate down, so when it falls, you’re going to get a better sample. versus something that may already be under the plate? Or would that give you a false positive
Jeff Bookout: So my answer is no, unless I’m pinpointing. So if I’m just seeing if I have mold in my house at what level it’s at, I’m going to do everything normal. If I want to get a little bit more, okay, I’ve got high multiple accounts, Where’s it coming from? I’m going to agitate my carpet, I’m going to be do tap test, then I’m trying to find that area. But in a general setting, if I’m just trying to find a snapshot of my area, is it good? Is it bad? No, I don’t want them to take some testing.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, because I have one patient who I’m thinking of right now whose mold levels have kept on going up after testing. And there was a pet issue. So we’re working on that. And then there the humidification the dehumidifiers are installed. The only thing I could think of is this air exchange mediator, which you mentioned the HRV and the other devices that at the HRV was the more tropical one. How important is that? If everything else is good is that a deal breaker for some people,
Jeff Bookout: I don’t necessarily think it’s a deal breaker but one thing that is a deal breaker is AdvoCare crawl space air air behind my walls communicating with my breathable air. So go back to my h pack analogy earlier every time it comes on create so much native air pressure pulls air in, so my can lights attic access in my bedroom wall plate coverings or outlet switches that aren’t sealed. I’m pulling that air behind my wall in my attic or in my crawlspace into my breathable air. I had a guy that was getting sick just because his access was not soon.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, so the attic is gonna be really important when you say attic access wasn’t sealed. That means that that addict needs to have its own air containment that is not ever come down to the house.
Jeff Bookout: Yeah, so sometimes I see the big ladder pull down inside this house. I definitely don’t like that. But usually it’s just a little pop off. I’m pushing up the sheet. Rock and has a little cut out. But where that cutout is on the interior that takes some silicone sealant around the inside of that, that’ll stop those two areas from talking to each other. I need to get my act i just break that seal
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: okay so if i emulate a person I need someone to do that a fact I could do it you say hey, I really want to seal off my attic from the regular part of my house is that a
Jeff Bookout: general contractor pretty much anyone in on the website bio balance now calm, I put together a set of videos where I actually pulled out I have your light switch your outlets, some ductwork can lie so you can see them outside of your wall in my hand and show you where those areas are more than likely going to take AdvoCare and into my breathable air.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s great. So let’s talk about some of the bio balanced products. So obviously you mentioned lime, grapefruit, lemon, various citrus seed oils that are going to be in a concentrated liquid formula. And then we have the various foggers They can dry forget to one to 10 microns and then we have the Mr. Can you go into the ingredients a little bit more than then the different application processes.
Jeff Bookout: Give it both on merging are everything that we have is GSE based grapefruit seed extract is its primer there, again, we’re looking for a safe product, something that is not going to cause issues like chemical base that would cause somebody to have issues, lemon lime and tangerine extracts. The synergy of all those put together is what makes this product what it is. So the two formulations ones, one is a water base where the maintenance so it just goes out to the air. The other one you do have to add it for grade glycol propylene to actually make it go into a fog form. That’s the only difference. But when you heat up those botanicals as well, they make them more activated. There again is another way it becomes more potent than what the wet maintenance is. So we’re looking for at the end of the day, how can I safely get stuff out of the In as long as you’re safely getting stuff out of the air, I could care less what product that you’re using. Do I think we have the best product for that without a doubt?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Excellent.
Jeff Bookout: That’s the, you know, the third thing and the three step, stop the moisture, remove the damaged materials, you must treat that air to get those excessive mold spores back under control and a quick story. Love analogy. So I was at a lady’s house. This was in Oklahoma, Jeff, I walked into the walls of my hair salon, nosebleeds every day for the last two years. See Pat machine. I drive up to her house to do an evaluation on the property. I think you know, my 80 year old client No, she was 30 he no Corvette in the driveway. Oh my gosh. It’s not doesn’t match the symptoms that she had. what she had done gravity fed played other testing. I think the highest was in average was about 35. So I knew there was definitely miss you in there. Go through the entire process of looking at the house no problems inside of her house. We sit down we went over past history nothing. So went back to her. You’re hiding something from me because what I’m finding in your house doesn’t match your mo plates. She does her head Jeff I had an AC leak in my attic from a kitchen wall living room wall that last month the insurance company came in they removed all that. Well they didn’t do it on a proper containment. So all I was dealing with was excessive mold spores in the air. In a dry fog. She calls me the next day Jeff I don’t have a nosebleed. Within a week she’s offered see Pat no more walking into the walls of a hair salon she called me from Knoxville Tennessee. She had moved there when we to fly third to trader house.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So regarding any area, anytime you’re removing wet area, wet or moldy area, even if mold not President got to do a present. It’s got to be done in negative air containment. That’s kind of the rule of thumb there.
Jeff Bookout: Yeah, contained that area off use negative air pressure. Sometimes you can get away with just an air scrubber, same device. If it’s a small enough area that diffusing an air scrubber instead of taking that air and throwing it outside, but your larger containment areas have to have that negative air pressure.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay. All right. Got it. So we have the maintenance. Mr. And we have the commercial Mr. Which can be used in your home. You mentioned the travel Mr as well. Is the water base Mr is at the same ingredients as the dry fogger.
Jeff Bookout: That is exactly correct. The only difference is that it doesn’t have a carrier to take it and put it into a dry fog form. That’s the only difference.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, I do notice it a little bit. I think there’s a little bit of was it propylene glycol in there is that just a stabilizer or a preservative to keep the herbs intact with
Jeff Bookout: that that is only in the dry fog. And that’s what gets it into that suspension state allows it to stay trapped in the air and go through that heat exchange system.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: If anyone sensitive to that at all to the propylene glycol or no it’s a small and I’ve
Jeff Bookout: done it for I’ve done it for 17 years professionally, going into people’s homes and I’ve never had anyone react to it. I always suggest that Somebody stays out of the house for 24 hours after they treat a minimum of 12. So that air is completely back to normal. That way we avoid any issues that could happen.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, good. So we have the water based, and then we have the dry fog or there’s a little bit of the propylene glycol, which is the carrier to make it go in there into that dry fog suspension stay which is that one to 10 micron size really tiny. Do you know how big the micron sizes for the wider base?
Jeff Bookout: We always want the manufacturer to post that for us. They will basically sell you tell you five to 10 microns is the answer from them
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: on the water so it’s still pretty small.
Jeff Bookout: I feel pretty small. And imagine a Windex bottle spraying fine mist into the air. That’s what it looks like.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, good. We’re going to put links here and again, we have a promo code here. If you guys want to support the podcast or support Jeff promo code is Dr. J, Dr. J, all one word, no spaces. We appreciate it. We’re going to put the link down below biobalancenow.com I can give you my personal everyone listening my personal recommendation and referral I’ve used the the fogging kit on my house I had mold issues pre and post testing was able to knock it down to two nothing and I’ve done it we’ve done a video on a podcast on this where we look over my pre and post test so I can vouch for the solution and the products one thing I’m really interested in is this maintenance Mr. Because this is a newer product that it over the last what six to nine months it’s come out yes correct Yeah, yeah. So this is great because this allows a little bit more maintenance and a little bit faster and easier. So you’re bringing your kid to college you’re traveling and you’re staying in a hotel wherever your Airbnb in somewhere this can be a great option for you to bring along. So I like this Anything else? Jeff, you want to say about the various products?
Jeff Bookout: No probably the big thing but I want to get five things into people’s heads that yes like this down. Dry fog my own house once a year no matter what. Okay, next I used the monthly maintenance system once a month throughout the house to maintain levels in my Next is I use Moravian 11 air filters in my pack system. Those are the ones that you change out every three months, I suggest that you use portable air purifiers in the house strategically and where you’re spending the most time and number five, get good air exchange in your house. So going forward for multitude of patients. That’s what I like to do maintenance wise, this
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: podcast is going to save people, the listeners millions and millions of dollars. So I appreciate the value that you’re providing here, Jeff, it’s absolutely amazing. Anything else you want to leave listeners with?
Jeff Bookout: Anything I can do to help, just let me know.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Head over to biobalancenow.com lots of good videos on how to use the various products. Lots of great educational info and then feel free. How can they reach out to you directly? Jeff if they want to schedule a virtual home inspection with you?
Jeff Bookout: We can give you my cell phone 585741373 I know what I just did. That’s fine. You got my cell phone, feel free to use it. Can you say it One more time. 580-574-1373. And is it better for people just to text you first? sure you always fine. If I don’t answer I am extremely busy. I’m on the road a lot and I’m on job sites a lot. Leave me a message. If I do not answer the call if I have not responded in 24 hours, please call me back because for whatever reason, I did not get your message.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely. If you’re dealing with an active issue, definitely schedule that home inspection or virtual Home Inspection because you’re probably gonna have a lot more questions if you’re on the fence and not quite sure. I think that may be better for a quick call. Excellent here, Jeff, anything else you want to leave listeners with?
Jeff Bookout: maintenance, maintenance maintenance, when you are exposed to mold and you want to get better. It’s you don’t have to live inside of a bubble, but we do need to make a lifestyle change. And by following those five tips on that protocol, I think it’ll make a dramatic difference in your health.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Excellent. I’ve used your services and your products as well as JW as well. You guys have been super helpful, very knowledgeable, so I’m really happy that the listeners have access to you. And biobalancenow.com promo code: DRJ. Appreciate it. Jeff, you have a phenomenal day. I look forward to having you back on the show real soon. You take care.
Jeff Bookout: Dr. Jay, thanks so much.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Thanks, man. Appreciate it. All right. Bye now. Bye bye. All right, great. That was wonderful.
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How to Address and Test for Mold in your Home with JW Biava | Podcast #251
Mold is a common bacteria found in our homes where we spend most of the time resting. If left untreated, mold can cause different illnesses for you and your family.
In this podcast, Dr. Justin and JW Biava talk about mold, how we test it in our homes, and what we do about it. Read below for more info.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
01:10 What to do when there’s mold
02:35 Urmi testing
13:57 Humidity factors
22:30 Toxic species of mold
49:40 Mold stressors
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And we are live. it’s Dr. J here in the house really excited. Today’s topic is going to be all on mold addressing it and testing it to see if you have toxic mold in your home and we have the CEO and head of Immunolytics lab, which of The Cutting Edge Cutting Edge mold detection lab out of New Mexico. And JW is the founder here. We have JW welcome to the show.
JW Biava: Thanks. Dr. J. Go to be here
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: hey same here. So let’s dive in because I had personal mold issues in my house and I was able to reach out to you and you helped me and then I was seeing a lot of patients over time. That was Heather just a lot of mold symptoms and it becomes difficult because one how to get tested number two how do you fix the root cause of the mold in the home in typical mold remediation techniques have been really really expensive and your lab and you kind of working with Jeff over at citrusafe have really kind of one have really good testing. that’s that’s really good entry-level to assess what’s going on and then more techniques to remediate it and it more costly.
JW Biava: Sure will let you know. Where do we start at right that the best solution for everybody is to do everything right have an environmental inspector come out and inspect the property look for moisture hidden mold and collect a bunch of samples aero samples swab samples, maybe inner me but nobody can afford that right. That means you get two to three thousand dollars. So what’s the best alternative that people can afford and that’s kind of where we try to come in. So we use the gravity plates, which is just a one-hour settling play to collect air samples throughout the house, you know, they run around $33 piece. So you can test numerous areas of your home get kind of a statistical analysis of your home a good representation of all the rooms and then use the same place to do tap testing where your testing fabric material weather clothing or Furniture carpeting to really try and help you identify. Is there a problem and if so, what are the potential sources so that way The tap testing with the place that you put a plate in the palm of your hand and you tap testing item four times. And so any of those mold spores a fly onto the plate and we can see if that’s potentially affect your health your health.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s great.
JW Biava: You got that very chair you sit in every night and you’re like, you know what I just don’t quite feel well or I feel real tired when I sit in it, you test that chair see what’s in it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: that’s great. And how does what’s the price of the Urmi testing?
JW Biava: Urmi typically runs 125 175 depending on the lab using sun go as high as 225 protest. So you’re you’re looking at one sample for anywhere between say 150 in 225.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I did some generalized air sample testing in my house. When I knew I had visible mold we talked about it was right there and we it was some kind of a green or mold at go to aspergillus family and we sent the swap writes your lab and you guys picked up but they are testing didn’t come back elevated it all and then after we actually remediated and we did air samples again, it actually came back a slight bit higher, but it was still negative anyway, so that always perplexed me but we did the playtesting to start and in the room of the house where the most visible without the chart. I was like, you know, I think it in your lab is greater than 5 is considered to be an elevation of mold and we were at 18 or 19 and it was definitely more of the water the water base mold and so on remediation and we retested it was basically down to 1 to 0 across the home. So the plates scene detective were some of the air testing and it was more of the conventional remediation company based testing. Probably not the Urmi where you going to get the vacuum thing and you can kind of go around but that didn’t even pick it up you talk about some of the shortcomings and in the conventional mold testing.
JW Biava: Sure well, let’s talk about mold first and kind of what it does. Right? So yes, some mold grows these little Highfield hyphal fragments out of the material and then it develops spores and those s’mores or just like seeds from a tree and they travel just like dust and so as the mold especially when it dries out then those seeds or spores are easily transported through the air just like dust is so they’re going to go in they’re like this if I can fall out of here like dust in the rate at which they follow us depending on the size of the mold the density of the mold and there’s some real great research that shows the settling time some old with something real small. I can aspergillus penicillium Spore you’ll stay in the air for about an hour stacky botrus alternaria may fall out just a few minutes. And so you have this scenario where you have hidden mold growing in walls, that mold is thing in the entrance. Your breathable are presumably through electrical outlets, light switches recessed lighting any holes between the drywall make the cavities wall space or sling space and breathable air, so kind of picture this what’s occurring and of course as the house Heats and cools throughout the day you have kind of a Billows effect where part of the house is heated and then the air expands and blows into the breathable air and at night it cools and it’s kind of sucked back in. So this is the way that the mold is kind of transport it around and you’re going to get exposed to it and then of course, there’s the Mechanical dispersion the mold where there it’s like a Wallace hit or carpet has walked on and the Sportster then distributed back through the air. So with all that being said we look at testing we say okay while the primary route of exposure for mold is going to be inhalation you’re going to read it. And so what is it you’re breathing and what could you be breathing the gravity place for 1 hour snapshot in time of the air that you’re breathing but we also sell the swab swear if you have anything that’s visible. You think maybe mold, you just swap it with something like a Q-tip. We Analyze That see what it is. Any visible mall would have to be removed and there’s an indication of some type of water damage your water leak and then that the selling plate shows the route of exposure when you get something like an urn me what you’re doing is collecting a dust sample as much dust as possible and hoping that dust it kind of represents which is potentially breathing. Of course if you snap on the floor you have contamination, Outdoor sources if you walk through your garden get some compost in your dog walked in so they can buy us the results. That way at best would be to take a dust sample a little higher up. I find Urmi false positives what I really like about Urmi is it picks up to stachybotrys pretty well.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: it’s just it’s another black mold.
JW Biava: Yeah. It’s another tool to write each of these sampling methods is a tool to try and address what may be a mold problem.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Where’s the best place to get the Urmi test done?
JW Biava: Well, you know, I think we have some of our Fair Labs the one that everybody seems to use right now. it’s micrometrics because that’s kind of the Shoemaker lab Lab P&K. I believe we’ve used a lot in Alamance you put me on the spot. I can’t remember all the lies that those those are to your right there that if they’re good labs.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And are you guys going to start covering or start doing the Urmi testing at all yourself too?
JW Biava: No way I talk to Steve Jasper who developed the Urmi man. This is right after it came out yo 15 to 17 years ago. Yeah, and I just realized that the assumptions that were made in the Urmi and Analysis and interpretation just completely flawed. And so no wonder hes not of interest to me. We might eventually do some type of qpcr analysis. We are looking at DNA DNA analysis, but I can’t really find a good application it if you look at me they analyzed I think it’s 36 species, right? If you look at it if it lands on a plate it grows we detect it. So were talkin we look at about 50 Genera which represents like 35,000 species. So, you know, it’s kind of like they keep it simple, right? You know that if it grows–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: : The fact that you can test if an area.
JW Biava: It is and I mean, I want to go and all the specifics with me, but let me just give you 1, okay, if you look at Urmi, there’s Group 1, Group 2, molds group to as what you subtract out of group 1 to get your score group 2 has Alternaria in there, but Alternaria¡¯s the most antigen Mystic molded reduces some really nasty talks. So it’s pretty important enough you have alternaria some the six people. We see are exposed to Alternaria and get that something or he says, it’s not a problem. So that’s why I love doctors have developed. Their own interpretation is to try to get away from some of these issues.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Very interesting and how does mold get on the play? Cuz my concern is it okay if mold is already kind of rested on the ground and we put the plate on the countertop or on the ground. How does the mold get in there so we can test it assess it.
JW Biava: Yeah, it’s it’s settling out. So just as dust, you know, if you if you stare at the light shining into your house and you see the dust traveling it travels generally down work, right? And so it’s just a general trend to disable out. So in 1 hour exposure that the doctors we worked with over the last 30 years have developed this hell scale that says that if you’re less than five colonies for 1 [inaudible] your health is probably going to be pretty good. It’s like to be affected by the environment. You notice that’s not based on the type of mold because we don’t know synergies between mold. I mean is aspergillus and penicillium together. Is that worse than alternaria bipolaris together. We don’t really know these things. So we do look at the the Genera cuz there is some significance their core stacky botrus is much worse than class Purim as far as health goes so there is significance but we do also base the potential mold loading on the total accounts.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Very good. So we talked about some different techniques. You can do the tapping technique where he have a clothes item. You can tap it for time played against the clothes. Is there a technique with putting the play down should you kind of agitate that area if you just walking through it and then putting the plate down that way there’s a greater chance that anything that was there will now make it’s way on the plate?
JW Biava: Sure what you’re talking about. you’re getting pretty sophisticated here. We ask wonderful cuz what we want to do and were actually doing right now is developing educational materials to teach people how to do this as cheap as possible. So were selling these $3 Plate it’s you can just take Use them as a tap test ordered test grow in your cabinet look at them and kind of be educated enough to know. Yeah, I’m still good or maybe I should send us into the lab. So what you’re talking about, there’s kind of an aggressive sample is what we would call in the sky and that’s where you’re stirring things up to see what falls on the plate that can be beneficial. But what we really want to do primarily a see what you can be exposed to day today. So if you’re normally run an HVAC system run that if you normally walking around in the house do that preferably turn off any air purification because we don’t want to get a sample is biased a little low rights and see what’s truly environment. So, you know, those those things come into consideration is the same thought on should I test my attic or crawl space attic and crawl spaces are always nasty if you’re storing materials up there or if you’re looking for a source of the mold that your test them. Otherwise, well see first of all what you’re being exposed to.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Very good very interesting. Let’s go for a lot of people listening to some probably maybe have no mold issues at all. Maybe they have health symptoms that are connected to it who knows bold as so many different symptoms connected to it. If there’s a TED talks to seeing your body. So why is mold a problem if I’m outside and theres no leaves that are just naturally breaking down. Why aren’t I getting sick there, but mold in the house has a bigger problem. Write that down?
JW Biava: Sure in quite honestly, there’s a little bit of a fallacy there in that some people think so but I can’t get sick from mold outside. I know that my wife and daughter when they were severely affected by mold. My wife couldn’t run her compost heap anymore cuz she would get city of brunette and for a while she could even Garden so she was so sensitive to the mold that just a little bit would set her off now so why is mold indoors typically worse than Outdoors? Cuz we still up this toxic box, right? So based on what you’ve done is create an incubator you got completely closed in house. So it’s wonderfully energy-efficient. There’s no communication of inside and outside air by dilution of toxins mold spores are ubiquitous. they’re absolutely everywhere. And so we build our houses out of mold candy, which would be Right backing on drywall. it’s piggybacking on insulation [inaudible] members. Yeah, and so the only thing missing is water you know it and that’s why I always say when my little catchphrases is no water no mold. Tf you can keep the water out you keep the mold out and when I say keep the water out that means humidity less than 60% and no standing water mold grows preferentially based on the amount of water activity. So cute in that water low keeps the mold low.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Very good. Were going to go into that in a minute because I have so many patients that are like have never had a water leak. it’s like yeah, but you got 65% humidity in your basement and that’s an easy cubatur for mold that will eventually work it’s way to the house where you have not necessarily an attic leak or a leak in the drywall you have high humidity which is creating an incubation for mold that happens a lot. Right?
JW Biava: Absolutely. Yeah, if there were no known Water Events within a house and house had a basement. you’re just about guaranteed the basic. Going to be the highest levels in the house. And that’s because subgrade and you always got some water up against those walls external walls. And so there is some type of humidity condition that will lead to mold growth.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It’s a why is that because because the cement foundations kind of creating a heatsink between the wet environment on the ground on the outside and there’s some kind of moisture transmitted through that is what’s happening?
JW Biava: Cements like a sponge most people think of it as a hard surface water goes right through it. It may not even appear wet but it’s producing humidity inside to give me an example. I had this beautiful house here in Corrales, New Mexico. I just I really liked it flat roof houses a lots of mistakes, but I had to scrape on the front and the dang Pond. I had to put like a hundred gallons of water a week in it because it was leaking and I didn’t have time to fix it because they had to quit while that water was going underneath my foundation and I had no water leaks at all. But is very high humidity. I mean, it was read in 65 70% in the desert. Wow, respond in this water underneath the foundation. This is early on I’m hopefully a lot smarter now, but I can’t really take it up until until a little later with the cost was.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Wow, unbelievable. So we have the humidity kind of factors. We have to look at humidity. So we should get some kind of humidity meter whether it’s attached to your thermostat or individual detecting device now, I spoke with you earlier. Maybe you change your assessment think last time we chatted you said you wanted it like 50% or less. Now, you said 60 so is is 60 at the better Gauger 60s the–
JW Biava: Drop-dead cut off 50 is robbed at Target. Yes. I really prefer 35 to 40% 50mm started. Okay. See the promise if you’re 50 on average you could have isolated pockets in your house is 60, right? So you’re just in the best. You can keep that humidity low.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Now after we spoke I purchase a whole house dehumidifier. I got one of the Aprilaire versions that’s covers 5000 square feet and I have that for the most part attached to my basement my base. I keep at about 48% all the time that works great. And then during the summer months when the air conditioner is on that has a natural dehumidifier in the fact. So for the most part were good and then the offseason I have Nest thermostats that monitor the humidity summer always keeping it below 50% You think that’s a pretty good gauge for most people to Chief.
JW Biava: That’s great. that’s a good set of humidity. But especially in like Kentucky we know certain person there that they wrestle with that and so, you know that the natural thinking as well, you know dilution is the solution to pollution set a certain person brought him so much outside their that their HVAC system was drinking water. And so you have to kind of manage this and be responsible with bringing in the fresh air dehumidifier and did not frighten mold Problems by by doing those two things.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly as I could tell you my basement, which is a 2000 square feet. It had about a 68% humidity. So now I keep the Aprilaire on I just have it set to about 49% and Is really well this time of year the humidity naturally drops where we actually have to put a humidifier on because the humidity gets about 15% worse is still bloody dry. So we will bring it up to about thirty in the winter. I was still very dry which you know, you would think there’s not going to be any chance of mold grow up with that correct?
JW Biava: No, there shouldn’t be a humidifier that’s always a bit of a concern if it’s got to keep those things clean. You got to make sure you don’t have those isolated pockets of humidity, but certainly understand Comfort.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Our is connected to the HVAC but we only do it once a year, I use airbrand for the humidifier, and for the [inaudible] Any feedback on brands?
JW Biava: No, I always just look at the reviews and determine that way. I don’t keep in my head.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Perfect, so we have that kind of obvious thing which is going to be hit the humidity. So $10 humidity detector that’s going to be the best way to assess that and what about more things like leak in the roof? Leak in the drywall. what’s the best way to assess this? Do you recommend moisture meters? How do you attack it outside of like? Hey the drywall is wet. Hey, there’s a water stain on the ceiling. How do you assess that?
JW Biava: That’s the tough part. So we want to try to educate people that just keep their eyes out. Right? So the first is if there’s any water at all within a home and used to be dry within 48 hours 48 hours against absolute the foremost can start to grow. So if you see a problem don’t say I’m just going to wait and I’m just going to dress it later. It needs to be dried quickly. So you want to use fans dehumidifiers and get that dry. If it’s been longer than 48 hours just be careful pants cuz he can spread mold spores all around but certainly drying is the key me personally just one of the tips I like is every 12 to 18 months. I have my roofing contractor come out and inspect my roof. It’s the most obvious source of potential water. And so we look at the roof often and then of course, you know, you want to make sure you don’t have flooding or any water up against external walls that gutters are extended away from the foundation just think about keeping water off of your house. that’s the key. don’t let Landscaping slant towards the house just consider water has to be a way.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, one of the big things I did it made a big difference is once we chat and I think it’s January February this year. I am proactively hiring a roof guy to go off my roof. Give me a couple hundred bucks go in there and check out all the flashing check out all the seams make sure proactively there is no lease best couple of hundred bucks ever to spend. So 100% agree with that make everyone should be on top of that number to was we made sure our sub pumps were dial in and they had individual battery power to itself is ever an outage cuz of a flood we had those sub pumps able to run an external battery source is any feedback on the sub pumps which are basically a pump in between the concrete foundation in the ground to get that trap water out. Any feedback on that?
JW Biava: It just got to keep it dry and monitor it if I go and it looks like there’s any growth in the sump pump. I might treat it, you know, it’s peroxide or some people could tolerate bleach course, we don’t like to promote leash. But yeah, you know just something to kind of treat it and make sure if you got a sump pump and you got all 70 humidifier cuz it’s just it’s going to be humid down there.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Everyone in my opinion whos got a crawl space or basement just investing money to have a whole house dehumidifier. It’s worth it. I know people that have regular, you know, dehumidifiers that are connected to a drain and I can tell you within by the end of the day there’s a gallon or two already filled and those things are naturally set to trigger once it gets full it stops to humidify. So you got to be changing it at least once or twice a day and have a humidity months and most people can’t keep up with that.
JW Biava: Sure, of course where you are. that’s it. that’s a real problem where we are here in the desert Southwest we have crawl spaces and we don’t need dehumidifiers. But since you brought a crawl spaces, I do want to talk about that briefly is that there’s two ways to handle crawl space either make it Immaculate or you make it into a wind tunnel. And those are the only two ways to handle it and eat healthy crawl space. So it has to be is just as clean is your in pristine is your indoor environment or you have to have a crawl space fan and draw the air through there so that you’re not getting you sent you get a negative pressure the crawl space you don’t get that are communicating up in your breathable are so those are the only two ways to keep crawl spaces healthy.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Very good. What kind of simple tools can people get at home to assess what’s happening in their home? So we have obviously we have like a dehumidifier gay humidity Factor. that’s a simple one, right? We know that anything 60 or up. Were really concerned. Are you concerned at 55% like that kind of still a you’re talkin statistics.
JW Biava: If your 55 you might be at 60 somewhere, right? So it’s just don’t play with fire. You can’t keep as low as you can.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And I’m not sure if we kind of broken it down while humidity even matters. I’m going to go into my explanation. I’ll give you a whack at it too. So basically humidity is going to look at the saturation of water or moisture in the air and the more saturated the air is the harder it is for water in your house to evaporate. So like JW said after 48 Hours standing water is in a create mold. Why because it hasn’t been evaporator. So the more the dryer the air is 2 greater chance of that acts like a sponge and pulls that water up there for providing less chance for mold to grow. Is that a pretty good assessment?
JW Biava: That’s pretty good. Let me throw this out you okay is so so you have dried fruit, right Redford doesn’t grow multiplayer on the shelf forever. If you have fresh fruit on the Shelf week 2 weeks is starting to Decay and break down it’s water activity. There’s just more water in the fresh fruit and allows the Mold and bacteria to grow this dry doesnt have the mold and bacteria to grow it’s all about water activity.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Big of air is a sponge. You got a wet sponge trying to basically wipe off a wet area. It’s not going to be able to because it’s so saturated. Totally. How is dew point and humidity. Hows that different people talk about dew point which has a correlation to humidity. Hows that different?
JW Biava: Well dew point does not usually come in to conversation with mold is much. I mean that’s the point at which the temperature in the humidity levels achieve 100% right so that you get done or water forming on the surface. Yeah. it’s interesting. I mean the idea of Being Earnest is there Active water do would be active water in high-humidity where the material is essentially saturated? See if you get the material above a water activity of I guess about .8 Bowl start to grow and what gets a point 9.95. Then it really takes off, especially some of the nastier species and so keep in that water down keep materials dry is absolutely the key.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Excellent. Let’s talk about some of the more toxic species of mold. We have like to eat though in the Michael phenolic types, which are going to be more water-based. You have the the black mold that you mention the penicillium base mold. And then we also have like the mycotoxins which are toxins that come from the mold a lot of people there really having issues. With a lot of the toxins that come from the mold not just the mold. Can you get a break down like, you know your top 5 or top 10 like cheat list of the mold and then kind of go into some of those really damning mycotoxins
JW Biava: Sure, and that’s it. that’s really tricky because mycotoxins last I saw the cat was it right about a thousand mycotoxins it or not or is he and then there’s also the the MDOC is microbial volatile organic compounds. Some of the mold is starting to grow it’s putting off the [inaudible], which include alcohols aldehydes ketones in their vault organic chemicals that people would react to and be sensitive to an infant make him sick, but then you get into the actual mycotoxins in which small amounts of this chemical compound inside. The body is toxic and krates toxic symptoms. And so when we look at the mycotoxins where they sell stachybotrys black mold has the worst from exposure to ask for [inaudible] just because it’s more common is more prevalent. And so, you know, when you look at mold sickness mold illness or mold toxicity it often is a matter of what you’re being exposed to in the most likely culprit more than what’s the most toxic like Pepto myces produces some real nasty mycotoxins, but it’s hardly ever discussed as I said alternaria. it’s actually the most antigen istaqbal. that’s when it creates that the real autoimmune types of symptoms in people, but a lot of people don’t even have it on the radar. So I just lost a little tricks to it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Interesting and I know I thought I had black mold and I think when we test it out pull up my labs here in a minute pre and post will talk about it. Cuz I thought we had black mold. I think when we ran into the lab you guys said it was more aspergillus and everything else.
JW Biava: And that’s not uncommon for short-term water leak. So you could have a growth sequence where you’ll start getting, you know, if there is a water leak to get some aspergillus penicillium growth some cloud of spores and if they’re there’s more water is water produced persist for longer time and you start getting the mower toxic species, maybe some alternaria and then some chaetomium and then eventually stacky botrus so that there is kind of a growth sequence based on the length of the leak in that spare –.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So let’s talk about the big ones aspergillus right? And then you have your your your your the black mold that you mention there. Is there anything else you wanted to highlight their just a big bounce?
JW Biava: Yeah. Well, you know it in our reports we detail the types of mold in the mycotoxins are currently known with them. And I think you’re nailing at their aspergillus penicillium chaetomium fusaro. Trichoderma stacky botrus alternaria. If I didn’t say that one. Those are the most common we see that are crate mold toxicity and people.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Let me share my screen take a look at this real fast. That way people can actually see what some of these Labs look like and they can see the sum of the mold that was actually my house and then well look at the pre and post on that and then we will go into what we can do about this how to test it how to assess it what to do when I guess it’s really important. I let me share my screen here. Actually, Ill pull this up in just a few minutes. Give me a few minutes to get this all prepped up shirt, but in general with the labs that you guys are running is a couple of x factors on there. I want to talk about some of the X Factors which are going to be mold brought in from animals. How are you assessing or trying to you know, extract the mold from animals coming from the outdoor versus the mold from a water leak inside the house that being done?
JW Biava: Well, that’s a great question. that’s why I what I say is 50% of what we do as the company is the laboratory analysis. The other 50% is on the consultation the really somebodys going to send us samples. They really should request consultation wear one of our trained experts can look at this and give suggestions on potential problems. So if we see like candida candida and the cardia sometimes trichoderma sometimes microsporum Road at Roula these Janeiro mold are often from people or pets rather than water damage and so we can kind of didn’t say hey, you have high candida in this area. Do you have a person or pet in their baby has some type of yeast infection or if you know, the claw disporum is fairly consistent across the board say it’s two colonies across the board. Will that looks to be the normal background level for the house. Now, if you have high levels of of chaetomium that shouldn’t be anywhere that should we shouldn’t see that and so that’s a definite indication of some type of water damage. So we look at this based on the statistics the number of samples collected the prevalence of a certain Genera mold within the home and then kind of make some recommendations there along with the homeowners knowledge of water bit’s. So again, it’s kind of an iterative process trying to determine potential sources and make improvements in the environment.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Interesting are the score what a panel looks like here to go break this down. Alright, so here’s my panel here. Let me know if you can see my screen yet. Yep. I can see it. All right cool. So here’s my panel here from last February and there was like a black mold sample essentially in the kitchen behind the stove. I think what happened is some of the caulking the kind of seals the countertop from the back of the wall. I think it kind of fail than just water and moisture weather is from cooking or humidity on the stove or just spills in the countertop went back behind and mold was growing all up behind for you to stove range and you can see here 19 in the air and 19 will go or what that look like and then everywhere else basement, which I actually had a little bit of visible black mold on the two-by-fours on the ceiling that the various choices will talk about that too. And then master bedroom is pretty good and looks kind of breakdown what were seeing here on the analysis.
JW Biava: Sure, it will just start their basement Island. that’s kind of a normal background that account right you’d expect to see the last for jealousy a little side of Spore on those are most common in the environment than candida baby come from people or pets Gap Kids kitchen island. Of course 19 is is very high with that mucor is a mold that requires long-term water in quite a bit of it and so want to see mukoro or like okay, there’s been severely for a long time. Of time horse penis lamb gross, you know, is it microsporum how to swear in those are common most to show up if there is an initial problem. Let me also point out there you have bacteria these small plates. We use a side Rod extra Sagar that’s intended to grow mold and inhibit bacterial growth. But if there is a tremendous amount of bacteria, it’ll break through and grown. So we note that on the report cuz that’s interesting on the overall biological condition of of that room weather the bacteria good bacteria back bad bacteria, you know, and we don’t really know. it’s just interesting to consider in the overall biological Go to that room.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: very good. And in the master bedroom, not too much there. Be normal background cool and let me just talk about what I did based on your advice and your recommendations. And then I want to get a sense of just you know, you talked about some of their mediation process can create some of these metabolites that are actually even worse than the mold and you mentioned that your daughter is very sensitive really want to go into that. So what I did based off of your advice is number one, make sure the water leak is addressed. that’s number one. that’s the first thing we Sasson dial then second. We looked at addressing the environment the basement though didn’t seem to be affected but we still addressed it. Anyway just for safekeeping. So we got the whole house dehumidifier kind of lined up there. Make sure sub pumps were good number 3, wei topically address the mold and we did it with 20% hydrogen peroxide and a negative air containment. So all areas that we can visibly see we hit it with the 20% hydrogen peroxide after that. We then use the citroxade solution to fog the that tire area. We opened up behind the dry walls with the dryfall which gets about a 1/2 10 Micron size. So it’s very tiny. You can get in-between that the floorboards and socks that got all in that area with fog the whole entire house. Let it sit for 24 hours. So any of that solution any mold that was agitated would come back down hit it be neutralized and then we came back in and then we just upgraded some of the air filter in the house be upgraded to well talk about this the Austin Air healthmate plus I have a couple others that are really good are doctors. Well as the as was one other one that I have is well the moldcule those are the big ones that we upgraded to thoughts on my remediation process. You help guide me through that. Can you walk us through that in general?
JW Biava: That is a perfect scenario. So people can afford to do that. you’re absolutely right. There is no sense in doing anything else until you stop the source of the moisture is there’s no substitute for Source removal whatever the mold is growing on needs to be removed properly and then once you do that, then you’re that’s 90% of the work than the last ten per-cent is some type of filtration or dilution. We were talking about the Erv systems bringing in error that clean control their into the house exhausting out bad air or if you doing some type of filtration, whether it’s just HEPA filtration or it’s happen along with zeolite activated charcoal things like that. So that gets kind of into what I consider a maintenance strategy. Were trying to keep the the mold load within your house low.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: that’s very good. Now one of the things I want to highlight I’m going to just tell you so this is really cool on the back page you we have the aspergillus to talk about some of the species here. And here’s the interesting thing right aspergillus and these are where a lot of the problems, is all these potential mycotoxins or maybe spit out from these molds aspergillus. You can see some of the various mycotoxins candida more from the pets and then you can see some of the microspore am here and then well as the music or And then the penicillium in the associated mycotoxins of that anything you wanted to say about the analysis how to interpret the back page of this.
JW Biava: Well, that’s a lot of us for two reasons. So 1 is you know, we work with a lot of doctors and they have found that buy us included pictures and a list of toxins increases patient compliance. So we know that improving environments approves hell how do you convince others of that? it’s a lot of this information to try and increase compliance the other side of it is that this is this is the current understanding the current research their find him or talked since all the time quite honestly, I probably need to revisit these list to see if we need to add additional mycotoxins. So it’s useful information. Some of it can be correlated to like a urine mycotoxin type analysis, but you’re in mycotoxins only test for yeah, maybe 12:00 and stop by Michael toxins. So, you know, that’s it’s it sometimes difficult correlate.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Interesting very very good. Love it. Love it. So a couple things here one of the Highlights cuz when I and it just to get people kind of a baseline of how much it cost me it cost me about 6,000 everything remediated wasn’t too bad. I mean in the grand scheme of things it used to cost used to feel like it cost other people that I know 50 to 100,000 insane right that the remortgage your house to afford a lot of that. So with some of these newer techniques with some of the fogging solution, what’s your assessment on that bike compared to how it used to be in some of the older more expensive methods?
JW Biava: Well, you know the following Solutions specifically we refer to as the bounce volume solution because we’ve done the testing on it and we know that is very effective and we haven’t had eBay report back that they’ve had some type of reaction to it. A lot of times people are are just as sick from the chemicals that are used as the mold. So we’ve had severe reactions to Concordia microban even some to to benefact which is supposed to be a natural time will I think it is sir. Yes. So, you know we work with what we know works. And so that’s why I long time to refer to Citrus a furball balance is their products we work with over the last 20 years ago. They work now as far as their use yet whisk is I considered a polishing technique. I think it’s fabulous and that it touches every little bit of air it treats the mold and it actually kind of I called flocculating drops the mold spores out of the air on to the horizontal surfaces. Where can be easily clean. It does penetrate the wall spaces and sealing spaces. So it’s very effective in those cases in which people can’t remove the source it buys them time too, so we have a lot of times people say all volume doesn’t work fog in this fog in that will match in if you’re in an apartment or condo or rental house, you’re not able to do the remediation. What are you do? I mean you just died filtration improvements are fogging improvements are deluding by opening Windows. I’m guessing that you can do to try to keep your total toxic load below your threshold.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Very good and you mentioned the corn chromium, which is the the the major kind of method for spraying in the people that I heard. They wanted to do that they kind of had a peracetic acid hydrogen peroxide blend at the 20% level which you like was acceptable cuz I didn’t create a lot of those metabolites. They also had the concrobium. So we just kind of negotiated. Lets keep the corn chromium out because of the metabolites. Can you talk about some of those metabolites? Can you talk about your personal history with your daughter? Because I think you said that she would react that Nick even more to the metabolites in the actual mold itself, is that correct?
JW Biava: Well, not switch the metabolites as it was just actual chemicals. So this is this is you know, my my history with this starts 20 years ago and my daughter is almost 18 now and when she was about five we knew we had to smoke, this temporary rental, we had between houses and I used a bunch of bleach one time and man. She got the same. Turn the bleach needed from the mold and for her that was 105 degree fever flu-like symptoms that lasted 3 days and they would recur every 2 weeks at that when exposed to bolt. She got the same symptoms exposed to bleach. Now, we talked about that the secondary chemicals were talking more like ozone when ozone you know, it sounds very effective at treating mold and I have no problem using it crawl spaces and places like that. You surely don’t want to breathe that everybody can understand that but it also can interact with the pain send the furnished goes that she has in the house and create these secondary chemicals. That can be hazardous. What are they? Not sure if this is just kind of my understanding based on the research. I’ve seen so based on the inhalation Hazard and potential for creating additional chemicals does not typically recommended for treatment, but it does work, you know, just like I had a guy call me the other day said hey, we got a remediation company wants to use chlorine dioxide gas in the house. I killed a mold. I see absolutely. No kill the mold kill you too. But you know, there’s a delicate balance between treating the environment and creating a bigger problem. And so we try to do those things that are going to do any harm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That makes sense. So you’re the secondary chemicals from the ozone ozone works good, but the secondary chemicals can be a little bit more harmful?
JW Biava: That could be so use caution.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: What are the things that it’s kind of an emotional thing? A lot of people once they see mold in a spot like for a Forenza to me in the kitchen. it’s like crap. They kind of feel the need. Should I like knocked down every piece of drywall to go dig from mold in this house. So it’s just kind of assessment of like, oh my gosh, is it going to be so crazy so expensive. So how do you handle the mindset of an okay? Here’s mold right here. You can see it. How do you assess the rest of the house without creating a whole bunch of damage?
JW Biava: Well, that’s that’s kind of the million-dollar question, isn’t it? that’s that’s why we recommend the fogging is because it’s going to get those quarter-sized spots that are you know, every 20 feet or something. You never going to find without some type of destructive analysis. So, you know, we have an inspection company here to Mexico and one of the ways to sample within the walls to draw a little hole and do what we call a wall check where you pull sport rap cassette out of that wall. What is most wall space living space is contaminated so she could be higher than breathable air. So don’t let that are communicate. that’s kind of rule number one. But when your talk about testing you test between two wall. Joist. What about the next to you know, theres theres are restrictions. Are you are you sure that you actually got to represent a sample or you can test between every single wall. Joist. You just practically can’t do that. So that’s why we tried to use air samples at does samples to to best see what we’re being exposed to.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: it gets really pricey. So we have the fogging solution that we can kind of get throughout the whole entire crawl space or the What are back of the wall is once you’ve had an open up the wall stud estate we can really get a significant bit of fogging solution through that area. We can fall throughout the whole entire house. We can also bring it down to the HVAC turn the fan on and let it go throughout the HVAC as well.
JW Biava: Correct, correct. Yeah, that’s great for treating the HVAC system change out the filter pump it through the HVAC system. It does a good job.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And what are you what do you recommend on the regard to or in regards to the preventive side? Okay. My house is good. I don’t even have a problem. But maybe I want to use some of these Solutions preventively. what’s your thought on that?
JW Biava: You know Jeff—. He now has that Home Maintenance misting kit. I love that thing. it’s like $195 for that little maintenance. Mr. And then you know a bottle is like 45 bucks and I can treat my entire house with one bottle and it takes me about 15 minutes. So, you know, I keep telling people and it sounds like a joke, but it’s not I got six kids and two dogs and their nasty I said they just they bring stuff and you know, an inside can go through and treat my entire house. Lower the biological loading in my house and I just do it periodically every 2-3 months. If I don’t have a water vent. I don’t worry that much fiber. I use my Erv system to bring fresh area. I use my IQ are my Austin are too kind of filter the air and my familys wonderfully healthy.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s great. that’s a really really good. Okay, so you give me a couple of other questions here, they come up from that. So the air Mister is a newer product. I think I have seen I have a couple of patients that have used it Evan and I talked about it. He used it. Now. When would you use the fogger versus the air master?
JW Biava: Oh, you know I think I probably fall back on wet and Jeff kind of determine that but the fogger does a much better job at penetrating. it’s a much more thorough solution. So you may want to fog initially or if you know, you have a problem and then the maintenance mr. Is just to keep the levels down low. I know the advantage of the maintenance mr. The made him a misting solution is he doesn’t have to leave you can use it and just be there and it’s locking set off the fire alarm to stop going to alert the neighbors. I mean if I have hot fog before a townhome and the fox penetrate into the adjacent homes, you know that freaks people use me to ask. Mr. You don’t have that problem. So dorm rooms Apartments the maintenance Miss easy way to do I go.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally that makes sense. Also, I think the dry fogger is going to have a smaller Micron size try to penetrate certain areas when you actually know you have mold that makes sense to do it when you know it and where the air want to be more maintenance they but you can still do it topically as well just hit you get a little more penetration with the fogger?
JW Biava: What you do but in the hot fire I mean anytime you heat something it activates it. it’s more effective. that’s why we use hot water. Right? So the hot solution is more effective.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Got it in the part of a dorm or a hotel maybe even if maybe even somewhere you’re traveling and you kind of see all this water water stains on the ceiling I can bring that little dry fogger missed that are fog or mist and I could still take care of my apartment on Airbnb. that’s great. Let’s talk about air filtration. You mentioned a couple devices you mention Austin are which I like you mentioned are IQ, I have ear doctors. What was the moldcule? Can you talk about what people should look at? We already mentioned some Brands up with some links Down Below in the video and well put some links down below to some of the products that we talked about some of the air testing as well as some of the Citrus a product you talked about what we should be looking for any good air filter.
JW Biava: Well, you know that’s a little tricky and everybody has their opinion and I guarantee you whatever I say now somebodys going to disagree with and some people really agree with me real simple. I mean filtration mechanical removal of the spores is best. And so anything that has a HEPA level filter is wonderful. You’ll see all these marketing campaigns that say, well I have only removes 99.97% of 2.3 mi from particles that ultrafine particles or less than that. Well, yeah, but the ultrafine particles that still probably has a ninety 85% removal efficiency. that’s great, you know, but that’s the way they sell these katalyst Technologies the breakdown the spores or break down the toxins. So, you know, you have air purification which should be the traditional HEPA filter is usually have some zeolite or some activated charcoal to the Austin air like you are they both do then you got that you have the technology Sebastian you will try to break down the toxins and I put those more to like an air treatment category. Hope you like your moldcule. Yeah, I believe they are Oasis does it there’s a few that use those Technologies
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, we got to talk about some of the Year filtration. I like I’ve been liking the Austin are just because of the fact that I want to change the filter for a long time. that’s kind of one of those in the nicer facts that one.
JW Biava: Yeah. I think I have six of them between my businesses and home. So yeah, I’m a fan of him as well what I like about him the same silly but like the IQR has a real fancy digital display. The Austin area has a little switch with like it just goes 1 2 or 3. I can set it and then pull the knob off and then my kids can turn it on and off so that’s why I like it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh, oh, I love that. Yeah, that’s that is once Im one of the good features does a couple of the unit’s. I have a light on even like I think it’s the ear doctor has a little Moon that goes on at night. it’s like what I want and sleep on I want any light, you know, the one I liked him. And so the nice thing about Austin is the fact that there is no light. that’s cool. Anything else that we should be looking at regarding at home devices outside of a kiwi have the air Mister we talked about that. it’s kind of more of a one-off treatment maybe every 6 months to a year or for traveling. We have the air filter that got to be up a routine maintenance thing. We have like a dehumidifier that we can run the humidity down anything else. We should add to our report home. So we have like a moisture meter there any other text that you recommend to assess what’s happening in
JW Biava: Meters are good. If you have a suspect area that you think is wet. And so if you’re saying hey this drywall here I think is wetting take moisture meter in either stabbed the frogs into it or some have RF technology or you just hold it up against it. The problem is that you got to know that wet if you’re looking all the drywall in your house. If you don’t suspect it’s wet you’re not going to touch it with a moisture meter every single some moisture meters can be helpful, but there are no absolutes solution. I know Fleer makes now an infrared camera that plugs into my phone and I think I paid $400 for it and for her. Is a lot for most people but when you consider my first infrared camera was $13,000. it’s pretty cool that night. I have a $400 device that I can definitely awesome to see if there’s moisture yet. So I like that a lot. So that’s the text cite. I mean, Id I want a re-emphasize to just to make sure we understand that delusion is still the key and if people aren’t familiar with these Erv systems the energy recovery ventilation systems, they’re fabulous that they take your inside air and exhausted out and bring an inside outside are 2-year inside in the path of the are kind of crosses that your cover 80% of your energy. it’s a fabulous way to get continuous ventilation of your house in most areas can handle them. You would have to talk with an HVAC guy. Cuz if you have real high humidity, you don’t want to condense too much water in your house, but just keep in mind illusion is keep a lot of other professional biologists will talk about positive pressure of the house. That’s wonderful if if you’re able to modify your HVAC system or if you’re putting in a new one, but You know there were getting to where cost is getting kind of prohibitive.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That makes sense. What about people that have already done some of the fogging and they see an increase in the mold count on the plates on retests Avenue A couple of patients of mine is flexing and we’ve been texting about it. what’s happening there and what can we do about that?
JW Biava: Well, there’s never a hundred percent answer. it’s situation by situation. Basically if the fog touches it it treats it. I mean it’s it’s pretty simple. So what are the conditions at which that didn’t happen. Well one may be that the most sources external to the fog area say it’s in their crawl space or attic space. It didn’t get out of quickly fog then maybe that didn’t get treated. Maybe the source got Disturbed or dried. So we talked about mold. I would just like dust or picture it movie like this. And what does doesn’t move dry dust mooseberry. You see if you picture mold like a dandelion and you blow cross-eyed NY and all that goes into the are very similar with mold. She walked up to your drywall say you had a wall that was smoked ham date on the inside and you hit it with your fist once watch can put all those spores into that are in the in the wall space to think could introduce your breathable air so there is lots of different potential problems there. I know I work with Jeff extensively if there’s a case where the the the volume doesn’t work. He works with the people to get him some free solution to help fix that problem.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So that’s great. that’s really good. So Im going to sesmas Tampa have one patient that comes to mind lives in a very tropical environment. So first thing is, all right. Were assessing humidity. it’s like 75 or sending me all the times. We have a whole house dehumidifier kiwi outside air conditioning running, you know, most of the time we looked at Ruess we looked at least we’re looking at the foundation crawl spaces. Make sure there’s no mold in those areas and then keep the humidity low and then fog and then retests that kind of the recipe there?
JW Biava: That is the recipe. I know it’s not surprising when people take and I dehumidification take humidity from the 70s. At 80% down to you know, Thirty 40% that all the sudden the mold levels go up that does that does occur fairly frequently also people modify the house whatever they’re doing to address it. Sometimes they stir up more Mold good example, as you know carpet is a horrible reservoir for mold to get Cerrito re-suspended into the air. So when you go to remove the carpet, of course that can create a temporary situation which levels are highly elevated because the removal.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Makes sense that you also highlighted the fact that mold can be stressed and when will gets stressed more mold comes about or more mold. Can you highlight that the idea is stressing the mold? What does that mean?
JW Biava: Yeah. Well, you know where this came from a Mycologist that I worked with years ago and you know, I hate to repeat things in which I had really seen too much of data, but I think this is widely accepted in the industry. So were going with it for now when mold is stressed, it produces more toxins. And so that’s usually hate, you know in regards to competition. So if aspergillus is growing in The chaetomium comes in and produces more toxins to come to ward off the ask for Jose for the penicillium and it takes over. I think that’s more regardless with what were talking about. As far as stress mold of course is trying to preserve it’s also it’s creating toxins and releasing spores to promote it’s life. So anything that stress is it is adversely affecting us, I guess in our house.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That makes sense. So anyone that’s having these issues where mold levels are going up on retest really make sure crawl spaces are good really make sure attics basements are good look and see if water is hanging around the foundation and you if it is I think you would see the mold levels higher in the basement the right?
JW Biava: Typically yes definitely was based on when you perform the sampling and you know part of what were doing. This is an iterative process. Were trying to help you diagnose your house and do it as cost-effectively as possible. I mean you kind of alluded to this site I know certain remediators Walking to a house at the mold problem and they say, okay. I’ll fix your problem for $100,000. that’s just the blanket amount and they do and they do a great job fixing it. But whoever else wants to spend $100,000 fixing the house and maybe we can improve our environment well enough for you know, what’s $1,000.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly and if were seeing mold in the basement, we’ve gotten a dehumidifier set up a water still on the foundation. Are we going to have to do a sub pump to really fix that issue a true cost to get that water away from the cement Foundation?
JW Biava: Yes, you want you don’t want any standing water against the foundation or basement walls? Yeah, that’s always a bad idea.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So you need sub pump dehumidifier. And then of course then fogging good air filtration in it, and then were pretty good.
JW Biava: You know French drains to divert the water away from the gutter extensions just real practical easy things just to get water away. If you got a high water table and the water is just naturally sitting against the basement concrete it in get rid of You know, but the idea being anything said great. it’s not a good idea for anybody who is most susceptible.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Now this is a great thing that I see a lot of patients kind of me what they’re like they’re looking at buying new houses. they’re like my last house may have had some issues. I really want to look at in this s what new house I can buy but I also want to know if there’s mold issues to begin with and we know people may not disclose things all the time on their on their sellers disclosure is a lot of my patients are bringing a couple of these plates and they’re they’re asking the realtor handy to put these in the house for an hour and they’ll go around and plate the house so want to think it’s a great idea has plate the house that you know what your daddy your final to play at the house when I get your take on what other things can people utilize when they go into a house for the first time to be mold detectors that has been where they can pick up little signs or symptoms.
JW Biava: Well, you know, I think the first and then if you’re buying a house you’re going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars. Hire a local inspector somebody whos really good looks at these things and typically home inspectors are not mold inspectors. Home inspectors often offer a mold service for low take a sample inside. Stepped outside to prepare the two that doesn’t really give you a good snapshot of what’s actually occurring in the home. So, you know spend three to $500 to hire somebody local to go in with him Fred camera collect samples put their professional ice on it give you recommendations. it’s just a good practice. If you can’t afford to do that. Yeah, at least do the do-it-yourself test get to see what’s going on understand it the way we do it is said that the test in the gravity place we use is really the best indication of potential health effects. Most of the mold testing does not linked to health scale. So it is valuable information.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: it’s so easy things you could do is just if is a crawl space or an addict you could put up or basement put up a plate up there and then you can also just look at General history of leeks and those kind of things look for stains on the ceiling what’s going on with they can all be painted over most people came over. Anyway, would you look at cracks in the foundation things like that too?
JW Biava: Just consider- How can water move here? How can water can infiltrate, you know here in New Mexico we have Flat roof houses which are always a big red flag and shoe is the stucco and if you see a bunch of crust cracks in Stucco will clearly water can go through a crack. So that’s a potential problem. What we call Red Flag.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Anything else do is our don’t that typical worker mediators would do that. You should probably modify kind of like the concrobium of the other compounds that could create more secondary talks–
JW Biava: Why I think the first Keanu specialty remediators to make sure they understand the negative air containment. I use that as a screening question. I tell people ask him if he are you going to use a negative air containment and if they say what is saturn then third general contractor not a mold remediator and don’t use them because they’re going to make the problem worse after you get through-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Can you highlight that? What is a negative?
JW Biava: Yeah in why don’t you just go to YouTube and type it in because it’s been used in the asbestos industry forever and you can actually see visually all it is is plastic sheeting and then a machine with a HEPA filter that sucks the air out of that area that can be remediated and then discharge is it outside so creates negative pressure so that when those mold spores or at least they don’t travel into the rest of the house they go through the filter and get filtered out. Doesnt doesnt Stir It Up desecrate a bigger problem. A lot of people try to do it themselves or general contractor. They start ripping out drywall turn it through the house. And then the whole house is contaminated and becomes a much larger issue then.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Excellent very good anything else?
JW Biava: Don’t use things that are hazardous to don’t use a whole lot of the chemicals even some of these that they promote is being natural are Sols they still seem to create reactions. We do like hydrogen peroxide cuz I really haven’t had too many people react to it. A few people have told me that part of reactions, but I can’t pinpoint why so it’s a pretty easy one. And then make sure that they’re going to do a third-party verification after a mediation is complete somebody that you can come in and say yeah, there’s not any mold left. The job is complete.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Very good. Let me just summarize everything first. You can correct me. First thing is one if there’s a mold issue. Is it visible to where’s the leak coming from assess the root cause of that leak 3 isn’t environmental moisture issue, that could be just one water sitting up against the foundation. You want to fix that or getting the whole house dehumidifier to bring the humidity down to that 50% kind of range and then four will be using some kind of topical spray. Just hit any visible mold. that’s where the hydrogen peroxide 20% will come in five the fogging solution to get the whole house behind all of that the drywall and everything and then six maybe a maintenance kind of like that are mr. The maintenance kind of solution after that and of course assessing pre and post that I miss anything?
JW Biava: Nothing you got adjusted maintenance. I would put their filtration in there, too. Get a huge benefit by changing out their HVAC filter for a high-efficiency one. Even if you go to Lowes or Home Depot and get those filters that are rated for allergens and mold. that’s a big improvement over that the cheesy paper filter say you should put in.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Excellent. Is there anything JW one of the Highlight here that we didn’t have to dress like or questions that most people ask or just really important clinical things. The patient should be aware of?
JW Biava: What I think what I really like to emphasize that improving about your environment will improve your health if people understand you got to have clean food you got to have clean water and you got to have clean air. I mean the air that you breathe it’s a huge potential source of contaminants getting at your body or toxins getting into your body and you know by doing these things that we talked about to improve your environment from a mold standpoint. It improves it from every standpoint. I mean by bringing in and ventilating and deleting out toxins to remove vocs or chemicals that have accumulated environment by doing filtration to remove particulate matter whether it’s Flame retardant Scotchgard, whatever it may be from your are all these things that were talking about overall improve your environment will improve your health.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Very good and two questions for people that are on the chat here there chiming in number one fox on UV lights and their effect of knocking down mode.
JW Biava: Well UV lights are effective at killing mold if there’s a long enough residence time and so people put a UV light in a duck in the air is traveling by it so fast that it won’t be real effective. So then I’ll put a UV light kind of close to the filter. So the mold spores get caught on the filter in the UV light kills them. I’m not real sure what the benefit of that is because sports are already filter down you just going to remove the filter. So I’m not a big fan of Eli don’t see a huge Effectiveness for it, but it does kill mold is just not the most effective way to go about it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: What are the best essential oils for killing mold in of the Citrus a that uses a bunch of those just for the listener? What are those oils?
JW Biava: I’m gonna tell you the ones that I’m familiar with horse tea tree oil does a great job grapefruit seed extract Citrus seed extract lemon lime Tangerine do real. Well, Ive seen some data shown thieves oil does real well and then oregano oil but you smell like a sub shop in Italian sub shops. that’s kind of a tough one. Those are the ones that Im most familiar with.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And what are the big modifications? I know you mentioned one earlier, which I want you to highlight One Last Time. What are the Dez, you know, the more complex to the less complex modifications that people can make to their HVAC to make it more mold. Friendly.
JW Biava: Yes. The number one is is put a better filter in it. I mean system if you see that a Merv 11 or greater is is wonderful. I have another 16 in my filter filter my HVAC system, but mine was kind of designs for that. So filtrations number 1, two do is keep it clean. I mean certainly you can have your Ducks swept especially if they’re hard. She got to be careful on on the flex ducts cuz you don’t want to penetrate them. If they do that that you want to make sure that the vacuum cleaner is outside of the house and that they’re running the vacuum through a HEPA filters. you’re not committing your house. So that would be the second keep registers clean. I mean if you look at a register on HVAC system and it’s black it’s dust and dust contains mold just as a general rule by reducing dust, you’re always reducing bolt. So those are the real simple things. Let me tell you something that that was presented to me just a few weeks ago that I thought was brilliant and it was somebody that wanted to treat their ducts that they couldn’t replace them. They were contaminated and instead they wanted to use the hydrogen peroxide is soaked and Nerf ball with the peroxide and then use a string of pulled it through the ducts to actually treat the Ducts. So you had a sophisticated there, but what a brilliant little solution ducting.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Wow, that’s amazing. And of course you can do this at your safe solution through that as well.
JW Biava: Sure. You can just do it foggy at that’s a simple way, you know you Reduce the total buildup of dust but the fog integrate treatment.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And for people that don’t have their renters. Are there Airbnb people right or you’re in a hotel easy thing is at least if you can’t do the fog can you can at least do the air Mister?
JW Biava: Yes. Yeah. I carry one with me every time I go to a hotel and I just miss my hotel room cuz I’ve actually I did the studies early on against pseudomonas. Aeruginosa E. Coli methicillin-resistant staph and the VI safe Solutions wiped them out, even though they don’t advertise that they worked wonderfully.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, you can at least keep the AC on which does have a natural effect of reducing the humidity so you could at least do that. And if you’re somewhere long-term, you could at least get a portable dehumidifier, maybe one that links into a drain so you don’t have to worry about anything at all the time. Great is there anything we need to highlight?
JW Biava: Man I’m telling suck everything out of my brain. I don’t think I don’t think you left.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: This is great. I need these calls for patients because they have so many questions that you really lined everything up and then again for resources here Immunolytics is going to be the place to stay. A preferred mold Lab company and we used a lot of the citrusafe fogging Solutions in this new water misters in to be a new one that I incorporate with patience. Any other places patients are people listening should be gone.
JW Biava: I don’t know you and Evan do great job hunt talking about these are website. Lets see Citrusafe.com, BalanceNow.com our website great resources.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Can you repeat the URL of your site?
JW Biava: Yeah immunolytics.com?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I’ll put all the links below anyone listening and driving. I can’t write it all down. Don’t worry links will be able I will also have a full transcription of the podcast. You don’t want to listen. You can read it anything else.
JW Biava: Well, let me tell you give us another month. Were really working with the company and prove our educational materials on our site make it a lot easier. So give us a month and check it out. I think you guys will be impressed with what were working on.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Excellent. JW thank you so much for everything and being a great guest and look forward to having you come back soon you take care.
JW Biava: You too. Thanks.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Thanks, bye-bye.
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