EP #14: Mold in SWFL
EP #14: Mold in SWFL
Charlie:
Welcome to the trade secrets inspections podcast because you need to know, here’s your host, Rick Kooyman. Welcome back, awesome listeners. And viewers, Charlie McDermott, co host producer of the show here, as always with Rick Kooyman and Rick, how you doing?
Rick Kooyman:
I am excellent and awesomely happy to be with you again.
Charlie:
And, and, you know, I think we’re all doing excellent because so far so good. It was a close call with a recent hurricane. And I hate to even say it after last year, but so far, it’s
Rick Kooyman:
just got to be prepared and expected I think Florida is a wet place
Charlie:
the good certainly outweighs the bad. And speaking of the bad, the big bad mold thing. I mean, it gets a lot of play during the hurricane season and right after Hurricane, you know, certainly leaks and all that. But you know, it’s just, it’s just always out there. Right?
Rick Kooyman:
Yeah, it really is. And, you know, the big part of the topic or what I wanted to talk about it again today is it really affects us health wise. And it’s awesomely around us all the time in our homes, and we don’t even realize it. And because it’s you know, just part of our daily exposures. We don’t realize that it’s the thing that’s causing the irritations respiratory distress and headaches. Everything from hair loss to depression.
Charlie:
Dang hair loss too Holy moly. Yeah, you know, our our environment plays along it being cheese, the recent wildfires fires, I guess they’re still going on. But you know, we were not we down here in Florida. But folks up in northern part of the country were told to stay indoors. Right. Yeah. And because of the air situation problem, unhealthy. Right, right. But we could be in a home in southwest Florida, not even knowing that it’s possibly worse than what folks are dealing with. Up north and they knew about it see the unknown, right?
Rick Kooyman:
Yeah, you know, people don’t even think about it, we we really live in our homes down here close up most of the year. I mean, everybody comes down here for the wonderful environment. But you know, ultimately, it’s hot and humid. And really, you don’t want to keep your interior your home in those conditions. So ultimately, it’s closed up most of the time. And that’s the, that’s where we spend the majority of our time, especially sleeping, we don’t realize a large percentage of our life is spent just resting in an ambient environment that’s a player and how we feel throughout the day. Yeah, it’s a big deal.
Charlie:
So what do you recommend, you know, whether you’re a homeowner or or condo or whatever, you know, because my daughter is in a condo, her and her husband, and they just went through a situation where the roofing company kind of messed up. And they’re three, three storey building, they’re on the second floor, and they had water issues, and mold was a big question mark, and no one really seemed to find it. Interesting. Yeah. And, you know,
Rick Kooyman:
it becomes a dirty word literally. And honestly, that’s, that’s a big deal. Because, you know, our exposure over a very short period of time becomes its own issue. You know, most of the items in our homes, the stuff that we build our, our residences with, we basically say that they come prepackaged with the mold pre installed, it’s just because it’s basically around us everywhere. I mean, unless you’re in you know, a sterile environment, which is basically a hospital kind of condition. It is around us it is there, it’s just waiting for the conditions to come together for you know, to become the life form that it wants to be but basically, you know, you start with, you know, even not even a roof leak, but a clean water leak, you know, you can have, you know, your your source of water from your sink, that you drink, you know, become an issue in your cabinet or on your floor or you know, your your refrigerator, icemaker line leaks. And, you know, legitimately after 24 hours of that water being on your surfaces, it’s no longer clean situation. It’s considered a category two water or you know, like a grey water beginning of the sewage stage of things. So, yeah, within within a day, you’re looking at a possible problem begins so it often doesn’t get realized that quickly. And, you know, it’s it’s weeks or months later, and people are like, Oh, is it a problem, it was a problem a long time ago. So it’s a, it’s a latent issue that it just sits there dormant, and then it gets kind of triggered, and people don’t quite pick up on it right away. Especially in our human environment here, I would say, one thing to pay attention to is your air conditioning system, I mean, take a look at your, at the grilles on your ceiling ducts on your supply side. And the return, you know, when you’re changing your air filter, stick your head up under there and look at the condition of that heat exchanger that coil in there. It’s not shiny and clean. It’s, that’s what you’re breathing. Right? That is you that is your air source coming through there. That’s past the filter. So after that, it’s kinda like what we say about water, you don’t filter it, you are.
Charlie:
Interesting. Interesting. So, recommendations. Yeah, I think it’s semi obvious, but I don’t think extremely obvious, you know, if we’ve had water in the home or in the residence, sometimes we cleaned it up and go, well, we should be good, you know, put a fan on it and, you know, looks dry now. You know, is this in situations, like you said, homes come you know, prepackaged with all the you know, it’s like, just that water, and maybe it’s water, we don’t see, this is something we shouldn’t be doing on an annual basis. I mean, just just as part of like everything else, you know, we go to the dentist on a regular basis to keep our teeth in our mouth and, and all that.
Rick Kooyman:
And not only just in the mold area, but interested in your indoor air quality, you know, and adding radon to the conversation. Another podcast here we can dive into what Radon is. Yeah, this stuff changes, you know, year after year, and the conditions of, you know, everything from the water table to the air. You know, what is, you know, ultimately hot and dry year or cool and wet year? You know, those things all affect what’s going on in our interior source or interior environment. So, yeah, I mean, you go in for a yearly physical, I would say that every, you know, at least every couple of years, you should have your interior evaluated. Even if you don’t have radon, you could have radon develop over a couple year period and the conditions change.
Charlie:
And I’ve heard stories of and here we go talking about radon now, but the was it the marble cabinetry or the sleet and rain? That can be a
Rick Kooyman:
source of radar? Yeah, radon comes from uranium and uranium is basically a stone. Right? So any of your earthly stone products, you know, whether they’re processed or granite polished, the other potentially radioactive
Charlie:
stuff for sure. Not funny, but holy moly, yeah, you
Rick Kooyman:
just don’t realize it, but we live with it, you know, and it’s kind of like why we moved out of caves, ultimately wasn’t a healthy place. So
Charlie:
what do you do? I mean, if you find, I mean, one, is that something that you should test before you invest it? It just goes out, you know, a stone top? It’s not cheap. I mean,
Rick Kooyman:
all right. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, it’s it. It’s incorporated in the new construction to some extent, and the builders won’t let you test for it until you own it. But yeah, absolutely. It’s your home, it’s your interior source, your space, and you should absolutely know what you’re living, for sure. If you have water issues in your home, and it’s been there for a while, and all you did was put a fan on it, or you know, put a dehumidifier in there and dry things up. You most likely have a hidden or latent mold issue in there, that is probably have some bit of an irritant or you know, an allergen is a better word to put it as people kind of respond better to saying, Oh, it’s kinda like an allergic reaction. Yeah, it is. And you know, some people are more sensitive than others to it. But basically, that’s what’s going on. It’s a response to what’s in the air.
Charlie:
And then we see that black area, and probably the knee jerk reaction is grab a bottle of bleach and
Rick Kooyman:
you know, tonics is a wonderful product. It’s basically a dilute bleach, which is a great cleaner and is effective. The problem is, is that it doesn’t get rid of what is going on that you don’t see. So it’s kinda like, you know, cutting the flowers off instead of pulling the weeds right So you got rid of the black stuff on top. But the fungus, which is what mold is, is a fungus, it has a root system, that that root system was probably developed into the material. If it’s any kind of a semi porous or a porous material, it’s very difficult to get the most out of it. It’s a hard surface a tile, a metal product, a porcelain, you know, a non porous, that bleach product is a perfect item to remove it, get it off, and it should absolutely do the job for you. The problem is, is that we mostly have semi porous materials, which includes the grout, and there in lies, you know, the mold in our showers or the car, it’s, you know, it’s in there, and you’re not going to get it out, or you’re not going to treat it to make it go away. And that’s kind of one of the big problems that goes on down here in Florida with the houses that the damage is they get dried out, and they get chemically treated. And now they’re actually toxic from what is pesticide applied to the surfaces, right, because you put on an antifungal instead of actually a bleach. And that’s a pesticide product. And now, you’ve ever contaminated surface, chemically, you know, so there, there’s a, there’s a lot of missteps to be had in the way that mold is dealt with. And people don’t understand why it’s such a big issue to get rid of it. And really, if you have it, the only way to deal with it is to get rid of it. So most of the time those things, those items are best removed and replaced. And you disturb it, you’ll spread it around. And if you spread it around, it goes to the places it wasn’t, and you made it worse. So their incomes remediations and all the protocols and the importance of how you do it, and why we have this industry and why I have this special license to go in and do these assessments and these testings, and to be the independent voice, that’s not actually out there telling you, hey, you got to get rid of this. And that because it’s, you know, beneficial to me financially to have you have me do that for you. I’m not doing that. I’m just telling you, this is what you got going on. This is how it happened. This is what needs to be done to correct it. You know, have whoever you want. Do that. And when they get done, have someone else come and make sure that it was done properly. Don’t have the person that did it tell you that they did it perfectly. And then move on because all you did was spend money and you just push the can down the road. Yeah.
Charlie:
So that’s, that’s really great advice. So the and I don’t know how mold companies work, I’m assuming that maybe they could do an inspection don’t know. But to get an independent company, individually,
Rick Kooyman:
for no other reason, do what we call the final clearance test. Third party. Ideally, you want to separate it from beginning to end so that you have some oversight in what’s going on. But typically, no the remediators come in, and it’s not wrong for them to come in and find the source of where the water is and remove the damaged areas. Florida law says that there’s required to be a final third party test. But there’s a loophole in the law that says you know, you as the customer can say that you’re satisfied with the outcome of the project. And if that contractor can convince you that hey, are you happy with what we did? And we took the samples and our test came back good. And they go yes, it’s great. We trust you. We believe you. But you don’t know what you don’t know. You don’t know that? They didn’t include a whole portion of the job that just wasn’t included. And if you don’t do it all, then why do anyone?
Charlie:
Wow. Wow. Good, good advice. Speaking of which, anything else that we should know when it comes to, to mold
Rick Kooyman:
are we basically say, to give it a little bit more respect than most people are generally willing to understand that it’s present in all of our environments. It’s just to what extent it is. And it’s not that it’s the cleanliness of your house necessarily, but sometimes it is, but you know, independent third party, just come in there and tell you what’s going on. You know, it’s kinda like that physical things you go to yearly just to have someone say, Hey, you should think about this.
Charlie:
Love it, love it. So once a year, add it to your list folks. Get the mold situation. I get peace of mind. I mean, if nothing else, and more importantly, it’s those invisible invaders And she’s you think about I mean we eat three times a day but we breathe every so many seconds you know? So yeah. All right. I
Rick Kooyman:
love the line of no filter be a filter.
Charlie:
Yeah wreck for those who want to talk to you more about mold maybe getting you over to to do one of those tests what’s the best way for folks to get in touch?
Rick Kooyman:
Oh simply give us a call 239-537-1186 You can tax me you can email me at Rick at trade secrets inspections.com I’m pretty easy to get a hold of. Awesome.
Charlie:
Well, thanks again, Rick for your knowledge and sharing really important. Yeah, really important topic. And we go get out there and get them. I mean, keep keep homeowners from being a filter, and condo dwellers and everyone else and we’ll talk to you soon see, right.
Rick Kooyman:
All right, you too. Thank you, Charlie.
Charlie:
Thanks for listening to the Trade Secrets Inspections podcast. To learn more about Trade Secrets Inspections go to www.tradesecretsinspections.com or call 239-537-1186
Thanks for listening to the Trade Secrets Inspections podcast to learn more about Trade Secrets Inspections, go to www.TradeSecretsInspections.com or call 239-537-1186