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Today Rick explains how the temperature you set your thermostat on can directly affect the mold in your home. Listen in for some clarity on the subject!
Charlie
Welcome to the Trade Secrets Inspections podcast, because “You need to know!”. Here’s your host, Rick Kooyman.
Hey, welcome back to the Trade Secrets Inspections podcast. I’m back Charlie McDermott here with Rick Kooyman. Rick, how you doing?
Rick
I’m doing excellent. It’s great to be back with you, Charlie. Looking forward to having a great discussion today.
Charlie
Yeah, and I love today’s-well… it’s a love/hate, relationship today. Anyway, I don’t love mold. But I love talking about mold and how to make sure one, you don’t end up in a situation where you have an existing situation with mold. And but that’s a hot topic and important topic for Southwest Florida. And so glad you’re going to share a lot of information that you have today. This might be one of those longer episodes, which is fine, because I think this is well, well worth it. So Rick, let’s start with the old topic. You take it away.
Rick
All right, excellent. Yeah, that’s uh, let’s discuss one of the hot topics is Southwest Florida, really all of Florida but yeah, mold is huge., and an issue and a definite concern. We often jokingly call it the “fungus among us”, but you know, we’ll talk about why that is and what we can do about it. So how’s that sound?
Charlie
I love it. I love it.
Rick
Alright, so, like I said, mold actually a fungus. In general, when we look out on the planet, there’s basically three things out there that we see. There’s a little more than that. But for our purposes, there’s animals. there’s plants, and there’s fungus. Yeah, well, mold falls under the fungus family, but not all fungus is mold. So we could clarify that now. But there’s basically three types of molds that are really of a concern to us. And we consider them either allergenic meaning that they’re irritants to us. They’re pathogenic, that they’re, they’re a little more than an irritant. They make us sick. They cause lung irritations and sinus infections. And then we have toxigenic molds. And those are the ones that can actually kill us. You know, and they make us really sick. And we call them toxic mold.
So we’ll get to that topic here shortly. But yes, so what’s going on with mold, and what happens is, it’s always around us. So mold is always out in around us. It’s, it’s in different levels, because it is a plant of a nature, and it responds to the environment. So depending on the time of day, the season a year what the weather’s doing, you know, all those environmental factors will attribute to what molds and to what level those molds are present around us. So people always say, Well, is there mold in my house? The answer’s yes. Yeah, there’s definitely your house, there’s mold everywhere and includes your house, that’s what we really want to know is, is are we creating an environment for that mold to grow? And okay, so when we look at mold, when I look for mold, I’m doing a comparison, I’m looking at what’s outside in the environment, and what’s inside in the house. And they ideally should relate, right. So there should be some correlation to what’s seen inside and outside. And if we see something going on inside, that’s what we call elevated or, you know, substantially different from what’s outside then we can say, well, something’s growing inside that house.
So we take it to the next step and try to figure out what that is, and how to correct it. But typically, with any mold, you generally need really basically, a few things for it to grow. You need the spore, obviously, you know the seed, you need a food source for it, which can be any organic material, wood, dirt, you know, skin, dead insects, any organic material will grow mold, and that includes any synthetic material that has organic debris on top of it. So we often see mold growing on plastics and metals and all kinds of things you wouldn’t think are organic, or a food source, but they have a food source on top of them, because they’re not sterile, if you will, right. So if we have those environments, and we give it a little bit of water, okay, so generally humidity is all it needs for water. Typically humidity levels above 60%. And boom, it’s it’s in its zone. You know, if the temperatures between, let’s say, 40 and a 100 degrees, that’s its ideal range, it’s going to grow. So
Charlie
as chilly is 40 degrees?
Rick
Yeah, there’s actually molds that are grow sub freezing. And there’s many that’ll live above 120. But you know, for general reasons, general topic of, you know, discussion is 40 to 100. So, anywhere inside your attic, you know, even if you’re up north in a freezing environment, it can happen. So the biggest thing we look for then is the water. Because the spores are there, there’s probably a food source there, because it’s not a sterile environment. And humidity, that’s something we control can control. And that is the variable in which we play with basically to mitigate what’s going on. And so water intrusion, humidity levels, you know, like I said, 60% or above, you’re, you’re itching for mold to grow, you know, so down here, we have a lot of part time residents. We often see thermostats get set up at 80 degrees, or even they turn the ACS off. Yeah, you’re, you’re just looking for a problem, in my opinion, right. So you really need to keep the thermostat set to about, I would say, 77, a lot of people will go to 78. But what we’re trying to do there is drop the humidity, it’s not the temperature, because obviously it’s in the 40 to 100 degrees zone, it’s the humidity, and it’s the air conditioner that’s drying out the interior. So as it’s cooling air, it’s pulling that water out, which goes down the condensate drain, hopefully that’s not blocked. And it goes outside. And then in turn, the humidity in interior is lower than the humidity outside. And we hopefully are at 60% or lower. Me personally, I run a dehumidifier in my house, in addition to the air conditioner. And in doing so, it drops another 10% of the humidity in the interior. And in 1500 square feet and 24 hours, I’ll dump five gallons of water.
Charlie
Wow. Yeah. So the water that’s in your house that you don’t… amazing. Isn’t that incredible? Yeah. And
it’s already a condition.
Rick
Yeah, yeah. And you know, it’s in the mid 70s 75/76 degrees. Yeah, five gallons a day routinely.
Charlie
So yeah, you can see how quickly, mold can just take over. Wow, yeah,
Rick
I’ve seen horrible things happen. I’ve seen mold takeover cars, you wouldn’t even imagine, you know that you’ll leave your car locked up. And it might have a little moisture leak in the floor. I’ve seen those bucket dehumidifier products left in a cars that collect supposedly, the moisture in a bucket, if you will. And it turns the inside of the car into like a big, fuzzy, growing green thing.
Charlie
You know, it’s interesting, you brought back memories, you know, when I first got down here, yeah, I saw these heard about these air conditioned garages in these places actually, place was just built off of Bonita Beach Road that has air conditioning. Auto storage garage, you said and now I get it, you know, you just you can’t leave her car garage, just sit there.
Rick
No, it and you know moisture and heat down here contribute to the deterioration of all our products as well. So not only invites an opportunity for molds to grow, but it also is causing the components to basically off gas and decompose at a rapid rate. So we see things get gooey and fall apart a lot down here. That’s a part of the environment, if you will..
Charlie
on a paradise. Yeah, right. So even. Yeah, negative side. Yeah,
Rick
yeah. So so just to get back to the mold for a second here. There’s basically well let there’s four major types of molds. We have aspergillus, which is one of those irritant kind of ones we see all the time. And then penicillin, which is very common, and it’s also what we call the pathogenic where it can make us sick. It’s definitely an allergenic it’s not toxic, though. So we get into the toxic molds, and we call those stachybotrys. There’s a few others, but those are the ones that the common name is black mold. But not all black mold is stachybotrys. So that’s kind of the misnomer there. And that’s why just because we see something growing we don’t say that it’s mold right away. We call it a microbial growth. It needs to be tested and determined what exactly microbial there is growing. And maybe it’s a fungus, maybe it’s a fungal mold. It could even be a bacteria product for that matter. But depending on what type of mold we find there, the kind of anticipates what practices, we’re going to need to mitigate it or remediate it. And it will also you can also take these results straight to your doctor, because this has a direct effect on our health, because we’re living in it. And you would be amazed that when a doctor sees what’s in the air, and you’re living in it, and they go, Oh, aha, this or correlates to this other, we didn’t even think about it. And oftentimes, you know, it’s sinusitis, or lung disease, or something of that nature. And we’re trying everything else. But really, it’s the house we’re living in, that’s really aggravating the situation. So what we do is we come in with our various tools, and we look for oddities, if you will, we’re looking for moisture, discolorations, musty odors, using various tools from, humidity readers, temperature gauges, and thermal cameras, if we can, because most of what we try to do is non invasive, borescopes, to see kind of in walls and behind and look at plumbing fittings, you know, but air conditioning vents, here’s a big thing, because you know, metal is cold, and it condensates and you often see mold growing on the vents. And you just, if you just leave it there, you’re you’re inviting the condition to be blown around in the house. So you know, areas like that we should keep an eye on and don’t be afraid to take those vents down and put them in the sink and clean them. Let them dry. Put them back on the wall. It’s there’s nothing wrong with that. Take a vacuum clean up the vent hole, you know that those things are good practices for homeowners to do if they can do it. And it’s not 20 feet in the air because it’s a big, huge vaulted ceiling.
Charlie
Wow. Wow. So it’s a it’s what you don’t see that could be a real problem, obviously. Yeah,
Rick
yeah. And you know, going on that topic, that’s a good transition for us, here’s what’s safe for us to deal with and what’s not. And what’s the law say? Again, molds a very sensitive topic here in Florida. Really, nobody unless you have a license is allowed to do mold work if we use that word. So there’s basically two people with that license. There’s a mold assessor and a mold remediator assessor is the guy that goes in and finds the degree of the problem and writes the protocols. And says, This is what needs to be done. And this is how it needs to be done. And then the remediator comes in and follows that protocol. And then when they’re done, the assessor comes back and test to make sure that it’s all clear. And then the project can be put back together. Those people are, must be involved, if we have a condition that’s greater than 10 square feet in total affected area, which isn’t a big area. So basically something a little bigger than three foot by three foot. And it’s a remediation project. You know, so behind the bathroom cabinet that’s been leaking for 15-20 years. You know, that’s typically enough area that that’s a remediation. And why is that important? Because if you open that, and don’t treat it properly, you’ve just exposed the whole rest of the house and every nook and cranny and like a big burst of spores when you open it up and it just goes airborne, and you’ve contaminated now the whole rest of your house. Wow. And, you know, so the environment is what we’re trying to protect. Like I said, mold is around us it’s always outside when it’s growing outside, there is no remediation practices because it’s outside. We just remove it and clean it up and and in that regard the remediation practices for inside is just that there’s no real easy way to just spray treat it and move on. It physically has to be removed. So it’s about treating it with a biocide. Sometimes a bleach mix of products but bleach by itself will not solve the problem. It just kills the stuff on top and bleaches the spores that are still alive and it just comes right back. Right so we got a we got to physically remove it and then it’s gone and that’s why you know encapsulation prop processes and you know negative air processes are all used contained, so that we’re not spreading it around. So 10 Square feets the rule. Under that, you know, any homeowner is allowed to deal with that issue. Technically, they could do it and test it themselves, if they could get, you know, a self test for maybe a DIY store or something. Our lab tests are very high, accurate. You know, they’re PhD lab tests. So they’re, they’re a little expensive, but they’re worth the money. Like I said, they’re definitive in nature. And you can take it to the doctor basically.
Charlie
So, so the obvious is, you know, before buying home equal to make sure it checks out as best you can. So certainly, that’s, that’s where you come in. But I know we have listeners who have no intention in moving/ buying a home, but maybe in the back of the mind are going, geez, you know, I’ve had some sinus issues, or I just want to know, just from a health standpoint, is, is that something that you can help them with? Is that something?.
Rick
Oh, absolutely That’s absolutely what we do. We do everybody from the buyers and the sellers, you know, to the people that are living in their house, and have no intention of moving, you know, that that is a good portion of what we deal with. Because when you when you’re moving, you generally move all the belongings in the house and expose things that are kind of hidden, non visible, you know, when we live in the house, and we build up our collection over 20 plus years, or whatever, we become a little bit not aware of what’s going on. And it gets a little out of hand sometimes. So yeah, a lot of it is dealing with just that. Right there. And we welcome all kinds so yeah, we’re here to help everybody.
Charlie
Awesome. Well, this was a great, great episode, like all of your episodes, but really, I think important for a lot of different reasons for for our listeners, and folks in Southwest Florida, like you said, all over the state of Florida, cuz I know you’re, you broadcast this podcast all over the country, for that matter. So good for you. Any final words on mold, Rick, that that you want to circle back around and emphasize and maybe something we forgot about?
Rick
Yeah, absolutely. Let’s just remember that mold is everywhere, it’s always going to be around us. And the way we remediate and treat for it is to, you know, keep our environments clean and control the exposure of water and humidity, and, you know, and the food which is the debris and dirt in our environment. So we control these things, and it’s within our realm to to deal and live with this product. It’s always going to be there.
Charlie
Well, hey, thanks again. Look forward to catching up in the next episode.
Rick
Absolutely. It’s great talking with Charlie, I can’t wait to do it again.
Charlie
Thanks for listening to the Trade Secrets Inspections podcast. To learn more about Trade Secrets Inspections, go to www.TradeSecretsInspections.com or call to 239-537-1186.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
