Environmental Mold Remediation with Michael Rubino, Founder of HomeCleanse
This week on The Less Stressed Life Podcast, I have on Michael Rubino who is an air quality expert, wellness advocate, and founder of HomeCleanse. In this episode, Michael tells us why mold is harming us more now than it has in the past, why we should dust, and how to save money by knowing what steps to take when you suspect or see mold within your home. Michael leaves us with empowering instructions on how to address mold and get the most bang for your buck. I'd LOVE to have Michael back so if you have questions for him, leave them here.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- The best mold test
- Top places in the home where mold hides
- What indoor air quality actually means
- How often should you clean you HVAC system?
- Why should we dust?
- Air purifier & HVAC filter vs individual room filter
- HVAC filtration
- MERV ratings on filters & the best one for mold
- Porous vs semi-porous vs non-porous
- Christa & Michael's fav air purifier
ABOUT GUEST:
Michael Rubino is championing “the new frontier of holistic health.” He is an air quality expert and wellness advocate who is bridging the gap between our homes and their direct impact on health.
He is the founder of HomeCleanse, a company dedicated to addressing the worldwide health epidemic caused by poor indoor air quality. He works closely with the company's advisory team, which includes global well-being trailblazers Deepak Chopra’s The Chopra Foundation and Gwyneth Paltrow, to achieve the company's mission to improve the quality of life for 100 million people each year by 2030. Rubino is also the founder of Change the Air Foundation, a nonprofit committed to empowering the world to achieve better health by establishing safer and healthier indoor environments.
In an effort to share his expert knowledge, Rubino is an ongoing contributor to MindBodyGreen. He has been featured on Gwyneth Paltrow’s The goop Podcast, Vice TV, Vogue, LiveStrong, Dr. Will Cole's The Art of Being Well Podcast, Forbes, MarketWatch, and USA Today. Rubino has appeared on television as a featured expert, including local NBC, Fox, and ABC affiliates, to name a few.
WHERE TO FIND:
Michael's Website: https://www.themichaelrubino.com/
Michael's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themichaelrubino/
Website: https://www.homecleanse.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/homecleanse/
Non-Profit: https://changetheairfoundation.org/
WHERE TO FIND CHRISTA:
Website: https://www.christabiegler.com/
Instagram: @anti.inflammatory.nutritionist
Podcast Instagram: @lessstressedlife
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lessstressedlife
Leave a review, submit a questions for the podcast or take one of my quizzes here: https://www.christabiegler.com/links
WORK WITH CHRISTA:
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[00:00:00] Christa: Stress is the inflammation that robs us of life, energy, and happiness. Our typical solutions for gut health and hormone balance have let a lot of us down. We're over medicated and underserved. At The Less Stressed Life, we're a community of health savvy women exploring solutions outside of our traditional Western medicine toolbox and training to raise the bar and change our stories.
[00:00:26] Christa: Each week, our hope is that you leave our sessions inspired to learn, grow, and share these stories to raise the bar in your life and home.
[00:00:45] Christa: Today on The Last Dress Life, I have Michael Rubino, who is championing the new frontier of holistic health. He is really truly doing the stuff that I need for my clients that I cannot do. So that's why we're talking to Michael today. He's an air quality expert and wellness advocate who is bridging the gap between our homes and the direct impact on health.
[00:01:07] Christa: He's the founder of Home Cleanse, a company dedicated to addressing the worldwide health epidemic caused by poor indoor air quality. He works closely with the company's advisory team, which includes global wellness, well being trailblazers like Deepak Chopra's, the Chopra Foundation and Gwyneth Paltrow to achieve the company's mission to improve the quality of life for a hundred million people each year by 2030.
[00:01:28] Christa: He's also the founder of Change the Air Foundation, a nonprofit committed to empowering the world to achieve better health by establishing safer and healthier indoor environments. And largely he and I will probably talk about mold today, which is too darn common. And I mentioned off air that it often blows a hole in my sales. And he said, well, let's put the wind back in. So thank you for that beautiful imagery. Welcome to the show, Michael.
[00:01:52] Michael Rubino: Hey, thanks so much for having me here today.
[00:01:53] Christa: Yeah. Alright, so let's just get into it. Maybe we'll start with dust. One of the things that mold loves to just eat.
[00:02:01] Christa: Actually, let's start with your story cause of course that's always the most interesting. Tell me why in the world you've got all this going on. Why did you change your life into this guy.
[00:02:10] Michael Rubino: No, I like, as soon as I was born, I knew mold was my enemy and it just, no, my dad's been a contractor my entire life, so I've been around construction since I'm literally five years old.
[00:02:22] Michael Rubino: I can vividly remember, going to sites and taking a broom and messing around, in these brand new constructed homes. And I learned a lot through that experience, just being around it my entire life. But actually it was Hurricane Sandy that hit the Northeast where after that I'm working for my dad and I'm in my mid twenties Hurricane Sandy happens and I start seeing this pattern of people getting sick.
[00:02:47] Michael Rubino: I mean, every time I ring the doorbell coming in, are we here to take a look at create a scope of work for and it's. I don't feel well, ever since the flood and, so and so company came in and fixed it, but it's still, something isn't right. And I started really diving into the science behind what happens in our homes.
[00:03:08] Michael Rubino: Versus the scope of work that insurance companies typically put together to fix things. I realized that there's a big difference between something looks like it's fixed, but actually scientifically is fixed. And that led to this whole journey of helping thousands of people wrote a book. And the rest is really history at this point.
[00:03:29] Michael Rubino: I've been doing this for 11 years and it's something that I really am passionate about and enjoy. It's every, I look at every single person as a puzzle. And my job is to try to understand the relationship between the air they're breathing and whatever mysterious health symptoms they might be having.
[00:03:47] Michael Rubino: And I'm looking for correlations between tests in their home and tests in their body. And I'm trying to make all of it improve and it's really nice because it always does
[00:03:58] Christa: with mold. I always say it's hard for me to have an amazing symptom questionnaire. I have some, but they're just not quite good enough in my opinion.
[00:04:07] Christa: I feel like I look at it and you just see it coming forward because fungal patterns. look a certain way, but sometimes it's a little more hidden or if people had an earlier exposure earlier in life, they can still have some of that kind of wreaking havoc today because once mold is inside, it can create this colony over and over.
[00:04:22] Christa: But the point of me saying all of this is that it really doesn't know any boundary. And so if your adrenals are not looking like good shape, which could just look like fatigue or just poor resilience to things in life that can be mold. If you're reacting to a jillion foods or you have adult onset allergies out of nowhere, That could be mold, right?
[00:04:41] Christa: If you've got itchy ears, that could be mold. If you've got rashes, so all day, every day, like you, I am looking for patterns and puzzles to put together. Because if you don't address mold, and you're exposed to it, which is kind of, in my opinion, the worst case scenario. In trying to heal, then it just kind of just comes back.
[00:05:01] Christa: Right. So that's really what happens is they get better or they don't get better at a certain level, and they may be backslide. And that could maybe relate to a lot of indoor air quality. So I am kind of going down this mold rabbit hole in our conversation. But let me back up for a little bit. Maybe let's talk about big picture indoor air quality because you grew up around new construction.
[00:05:19] Christa: There's all this crap given off. So thoughts about it. Other indoor air quality issues besides mold and dust. And then we can kind of get into some old stuff, maybe.
[00:05:29] Michael Rubino: Yeah. I mean, radon VOCs, formaldehyde. Those are some of the big ones. If you have mold, you typically also have bacteria. They're pretty much one in the same, they'll grow in the same locations, both like water.
[00:05:41] Michael Rubino: HVAC issues are probably some of the biggest problems that I see with mold, bacteria, et cetera. That we. Pretty much have issues with, but then you have like pet dander allergens and just other toxins that naturally occur in our environment just because we're human beings. We're going to leave our house.
[00:05:59] Michael Rubino: We're going to track stuff in with us. We're going to want to open doors and windows. Occasionally stuff's going to come inside. It's all part of the package here. The issue is that really since the 1970s, when we had this massive energy crisis and Richard Nixon's president, we start going into this direction of energy efficiency, which we have not got off of, even though we're no longer in an energy crisis.
[00:06:22] Michael Rubino: And I think one of the issues with this. Not that energy efficiency and, trying to figure out how to make the climate better is not important, but we also have to figure out how to do it in a way where we're not dying in the process. Right. And I'll give you an example of this. Almost every house today is built with spray foam and it is built to specific standards to basically make sure that there is no air exchange between outside and inside because air exchange is what actually transfers that heat or heat loss or energy loss, right?
[00:06:54] Michael Rubino: As a matter of fact, you can go to Long Island right now and build a home and they will actually do like a smoke test to make sure that nothing escapes. Which. Is horrible because human beings can release millions and billions of bacteria particles every time they exhale a breath. So that stuff accumulates in the environment.
[00:07:14] Michael Rubino: We have mold because we have water and water creates mold. And it's going to happen in our environment. Every time we have a leak, now this thing becomes more of a problem. We have modern HVAC systems that condensate all the time, provide a great environment for mold. And so we start chemicals, pet dander, proteins, toxins, allergens, all these things accumulate in our environment and become a part of our dust.
[00:07:37] Michael Rubino: And we have no air exchange to dilute it. Right? So this is becoming a bigger problem than it's ever been before, which is why we're getting sicker and sicker as a global population. Cause we're going in the wrong direction. Air quality wise, we're not thinking about it. So we make advancements in medicine and technology all the time.
[00:07:58] Michael Rubino: Those things aren't helping because we're still getting sicker. 74 percent of the U. S. adult population is on at least one prescription drug. 60 percent of the global population deals with at least one chronic condition. 40 percent deals with multiple chronic conditions, two or more. And these numbers have all increased over the years.
[00:08:15] Michael Rubino: Everybody has Google these days and can look these things up. So, we have never been sicker than we are today. And this is why I believe that this is the case.
[00:08:25] Christa: All right you started this conversation?
[00:08:27] Christa: And it's tricky because I think there's two sides to it. Like, when you're talking about spray foam, I was like, I love my spray foam. Cause it keeps my house nice and warm when I live in the upper Midwest and it's negative 30 degree windshield outside. But, it's a tricky situation when we're in these enclosed buildings and it's imperfect.
[00:08:44] Christa: And there's a lot of flipping of things, like you said, right? Like trying to re rehab houses where we're not really dealing with stuff. So one of my clients brought up a question a while back, and she said, why do you think mold is more prevalent now? Do you think we just, like, doesn't it seem like mold is a bigger issue now than it ever was before?
[00:09:05] Christa: And so what do you want to say about that?
[00:09:08] Michael Rubino: Yeah, I mean, I really think it is, I think our building styles have changed drastically. So for example, back in the day, our homes were balloon framed, which means they had gaps in between the walls where pipes and electrical all used to run up and down our house.
[00:09:24] Michael Rubino: We don't have those anymore. We have more of a closed system, so we have less air ventilation from floor to floor. The problem with that is, is that when moisture used to intrude into our homes. There was no insulation. It was basically wood frame plaster with an air gap in between. So things dried out pretty well.
[00:09:44] Michael Rubino: So we didn't really have these types of issues. Our homes were leaky. They would breathe more, but they didn't really have these massive problems because of the way they were built. Well, then we started building with insulation and drywall, right? Plaster's gone, drywall's in. Well, plaster's cementuous, drywall is literally paper and chalk.
[00:10:03] Michael Rubino: Okay, so these things absorb moisture really well, and they start creating problems. Coupled with, depending on the decade, some of the building styles that we've done. A lot of them have gotten better. A lot of them have gotten worse. Right. And so there's always a trade off between we're changing and what we're doing, how we're doing it and what we're using to do it.
[00:10:22] Michael Rubino: Right. And so these things create an opportunity for mold to grow modern HVAC systems. Again, you still go to some older homes. They don't even have HVAC systems, right? Every home now has an HVAC system and HVAC systems wreak havoc on our health because they have the greatest opportunity for mold and bacteria to start to grow and thrive in there.
[00:10:43] Michael Rubino: And almost nobody is educated on that aspect or what filters they might need to install to kind of slow down that process or prevent it. Or that they can clean these systems and they should clean them regularly. You go on the street and ask people, Hey, when's the last time you had your ducks cleaned or your HVAC clean?
[00:11:01] Michael Rubino: They'd be like, well, I'm supposed to do that. I had no idea. Right. So we started looking at this from an educational standpoint. Yeah, because we don't know about it because it's, we've just been led to believe it's not this prevalent issue that it's more rare. It's not on our radar. And if it's not on our radar, we're not taking proactive measures.
[00:11:20] Michael Rubino: And then we don't find out until we get really sick, which is almost every story that I come in and come across and into contact with, right. It's like, help me. I'm definitely ill or my kids are definitely ill. I need help. And I just discovered mold after, going down this rabbit hole for five years.
[00:11:38] Michael Rubino: So it's really like this, as much as we say it's more prevalent, I think people are becoming more aware and being more vocal about it, which is good because it used to have more of a negative stigma or connotation on it, so yeah there's some stuff happening, but hopefully a lot of the commentary just provided answers the question in a roundabout way.
[00:11:58] Christa: Yeah, no, it does. And I think I'm going to add to it a little bit, some perspectives really the last like 10, 20 years, there was a lot of chitter chatter about Candida as the fungus of type, but what if it was like mold anyway? Right. Cause mold is just a more, in my opinion, more aggressive fungus that just burden systems further.
[00:12:15] Christa: I think I was always dealing with it. I was just, oh, if I wasn't successful initially by my. timelines I prescribed for myself that were pretty normal for people, right? Pattern recognition. Then I must just need to keep going and be a little more intense. That could have been mold earlier. For me, there was a turning point on how much I was seeing mold.
[00:12:34] Christa: I feel like I like to catch mild to moderate mold. When something is severe, there are people who are specialists in mold. Your experience is people are deathly ill. I'd like to get way before that when it's more of a chronic annoyance, like I cannot get rid of this rash type thing, because once you get deathly ill, it's like there's some instability that happens medically, and so it's just kind of nicer if they're working with a specialist.
[00:12:56] Christa: So I'm kind of hanging over out over here of like, I hate to tell you this, but it looks a little moldy. These symptoms, right? There's all these patterns that present. And so, the only thing that kind of sort of takes the wind from my sails is if it's in the home at that time. And so it's kind of like swimming upstream, right?
[00:13:18] Christa: Like you are trying to empty the bathtub, but there's a hole in the bathtub, right? Like, you're not gonna get that person better when they're exposed. So the problem is, I do want to go back and talk about HVAC because really good comments about that, but big picture.
[00:13:30] Christa: Mold stuff, the big thing that comes up the most for people, and this is kind of loaded, in my approach to this is let me test your body. Cause if I can test your body and we can see it in your body, then we can kind of see where it's at. I actually didn't finish the story. I was trying to tell you, sorry.
[00:13:45] Christa: My turning point was when I had this woman with narcolepsy and all of her other symptoms got better, except for this weird presentation of narcolepsy, her mold test showed that her mold results were just moderate. I was like, Hmm, well. Nothing to lose here. Let's proceed. She had a massive, very characteristic die off style from changing up her glutathione and her mold supplements.
[00:14:04] Christa: Worst case scenario for me, like die off reaction would be like the hot sweat, it's kind of like you feel like you're sick, like you got a fever or something. And then she had the best sleep of her life. And best, and I was like, Oh my gosh, this is the turning point. Like you cannot discard stuff that does not look life threatening.
[00:14:22] Christa: The rest of it is very important too. I love the mild to moderate because we can do something. The only thing that sucks is when you live in it and you cannot tell that you live in it. But clearly you do, because all the stuff is like, just had someone who just moved out of a one house to another and now she's better.
[00:14:41] Christa: Fantastic. Right. But this happens a lot and there's a lot of emotions wrapped up in this. So I wanna talk to you about the thing that I run into the most, which sucks, which is people want to have someone come inspect and fix the problem, but the inspectors do not find anything. What are we gonna do with this michael ? What is the answer to that? Maybe there's a lot of answers because I know we can talk about things you can do on your own, et cetera. But help me out.
[00:15:05] Michael Rubino: Yeah. We need to fire all the inspectors and start over.
[00:15:08] Christa: Yeah.
[00:15:08] Michael Rubino: So here's the flawed logic here. We have 50, 000 companies in the space of let's call it remediation because that's typically what the industry people call it.
[00:15:17] Michael Rubino: I call it something different. I'm trying to create healthy environments. Let's just throw away remediation for a minute because honestly it just brings you back to this industry that was created by insurance companies so that they can make it look like it's better. Right. The issue with these inspectors and why they don't find anything typically is because all of them have a pump and a little aerosol.
[00:15:41] Michael Rubino: And they essentially just want to collect an air sample in the center of each room, charge you a couple thousand dollars, send it to the lab, get the report from the lab and forward it over to you and tell you everything looks normal. I mean, I kid you not. This is what most people want to do. Why? Because it's easy.
[00:16:02] Michael Rubino: Doesn't require much work. And what they think that they're doing is they think they're providing people with peace of mind. But we can't have peace of mind until we have truthful information. And if you're calling an inspector, yeah, peace of mind is good. But you're typically trying to understand if there's something going on in the home that could answer the question of why you're feeling the way you're feeling.
[00:16:28] Michael Rubino: And so when you go in and give people this false sense of security, By not answering that question properly, you're not actually doing anybody a service, you're doing them a disservice. You're making you're going to extend the amount of time it's going to take for them to circle back to that problem all over again, and then finally find the answer.
[00:16:49] Michael Rubino: And so I actually created an answer for this. I created a product called the Dust Test.
[00:16:55] Christa: Ah yes, I have seen this test.
[00:16:57] Michael Rubino: Okay, so with -the Dust Test, people can test their dust in their house themselves. It is the better screening tool as opposed to an air test. And then they can take that information and call these inspectors and say, here's what I had found that's abnormal.
[00:17:13] Michael Rubino: Can you help me figure out where the sources of this are coming from? And if they start telling you, no, I don't like that technology, then just delete them. They're gone. Go to the next person until you find somebody who actually wants to utilize science to help you figure out solutions to problems.
[00:17:31] Michael Rubino: Cause that's what we need. And I think that's the best answer I can come up with guys, other than, shutting things down, opening a school, retraining inspectors, creating a new certification. And to be honest, I don't have time for that. Right. Right. This month. So I want to empower people to take their own decisions into their hands.
[00:17:48] Christa: Yeah, that was super helpful because the only thing that really sucks about mold. Everything is fixable, Michael. It's just that the thing that sucks about mold is there's no end to this money meter that can happen when you start to get into the quote unquote remediation game, and that just induces a lot of stress, which is essentially going to be a giant root cause of all health stuff anyway.
[00:18:10] Christa: So it's like kind of been a bit of a sore spot for me, to be perfectly honest.
[00:18:15] Michael Rubino: Yeah, I totally understand. And I agree with you. It's because a lot of people, especially people that we rely on as professionals to guide us through this, they don't understand the science themselves. So it's like we have science teachers that don't understand science that are teaching us science.
[00:18:34] Michael Rubino: Like that's what's happening. And the worst part about it is the classroom is our home and the home is making us sick and we're trying to get answers. So it's almost the most ridiculous thing on the planet. And you have these mold remediation guys. Who then are supposed to follow a plan by the inspector.
[00:18:51] Michael Rubino: And here's where it all gets screwed up. The inspector doesn't get us the data we need, and the mold remediation guy is working off a work plan based upon the lack of data that he has. And now we just get into this vicious cycle of, Okay, my house was remediated, but I still have expressed the same symptoms.
[00:19:09] Michael Rubino: Why is that? Because they didn't actually do the right, what they were supposed to do. Now, the right way to do this is get the data, look at all the sources, cause I'm going to tell you right now, I don't care how nice of a home you have, Gwyneth Paltrow's home had multiple sources. It's not just one little thing.
[00:19:25] Michael Rubino: You're going to find problems all over the house. And so when we get down to that, then we're looking at data and saying, well, how much is each source actually impacting the air that we're breathing? And it's not an easy question to answer, but you have to look at data and you have to interpret, okay, well, this spot, which is in the HVAC, which is the lungs of the home is clearly creating more contamination that's spreading across the home that's impacting each of the 20, 000 breaths that I'm taking by allowing these particles and toxins to come in contact.
[00:19:58] Michael Rubino: And what's crazy about all this stuff too. Cause a lot of people say like, mold's not that big of a deal. It can't harm you go on the American lung association website right now. And what you will learn on the American Lung Association website is that any particle smaller than 10 microns poses the greatest human health risk because it is too small for our body's self defense mechanisms.
[00:20:21] Michael Rubino: And so it immediately bypasses our mucous membranes, lungs, and it enters our bloodstream where it can just wreck our gut which obviously we understand the gut brain connection is going to cause issues with the brain, which is why brain fog is probably one of the largest symptoms, right? It just ruins everything.
[00:20:38] Michael Rubino: It ruins everything. Hormones. I mean, you name it, right? I mean, I could tell you stories of almost any diagnosis you could think of and seeing some correlation out of their environments, creating an impact on them. Right. But going back to this. Okay. So what do we do about this? Well, need to hire people that understand science and understand data that can help us build a plan.
[00:20:59] Michael Rubino: Now I will tell you, this is why I want to put wind back in your sales here, because the whole money aspect of this, I will tell you that you can do something about your place. I don't care who you are, how much money you have. You can make a difference in your place right now with the resources that you have.
[00:21:19] Michael Rubino: Now, if you have a bigger home, you have more resources because you were able to buy that bigger home, right? So if you have more issues and it's going to cost a little more than the average person, you should be able to do that. Or maybe downsize. I don't know. I'm not a financial advisor, but what I'm telling you is no matter what situation you are in, You have to make that decision of how you're going to handle this.
[00:21:44] Michael Rubino: And I've worked with people with 10, 000 budgets. I've worked with renters that don't have any budget. I've worked with people that have million dollar budgets, right? The bottom line is every single one of those people, I was able to advise how to take the proper next steps to get themselves into a healthier environment.
[00:22:04] Michael Rubino: And. There is no reason we cannot do that.
[00:22:07] Christa: Yes. Okay. We're going to go there before we start talking about simple things, I think there's a list of things that everyone can do in their home. They can feel inspired to do today, but you have this dust test, if the dust test comes back with positive results, it's like.
[00:22:24] Christa: Let's go remediate. For me, my test is like, let me look at the body because that's all I can control. Can't control your home inspection. So now I'm happy that you filled a gap here. Thank you so much. So if you have that being positive one of the questions, or maybe negative, maybe some inspectors come.
[00:22:41] Christa: This is actually a client question that submitted this for you today. She said, what are some of these AHA hidden sources of mold or places when you feel like you've already looked everywhere? Change your floors, etc.
[00:22:54] Michael Rubino: Number one HVAC. Number one. Hands down. It's the number one problem I see. As a matter of fact, I think the HVAC system has more of a capability of causing us harm than anything else in our home.
[00:23:08] Michael Rubino: and I would put a close second would be crawl spaces, basements. Because, they're both subgrade spaces. And then the spaces that our HVAC systems are located in as well. Right. 'cause the HVAC is really gonna be the bigger piece here, you gotta think about, it's a pathway across your house with all this duct work and stuff like that.
[00:23:29] Michael Rubino: It has an evaporator coil, which condensates all the time, which is why we have drip pans and drain lines that drain the water away. So it's a wet environment where mold and bacteria can literally thrive. And you probably don't have a good enough filter that would. Protect you from a small enough particle, which is a big part of the issue.
[00:23:48] Michael Rubino: Indoor air quality. When you think of indoor air quality, you typically think of HVAC and, heating and cooling and having a comfortable temperature. It's actually not what it means. Indoor air quality really is talking about, is it ventilated? What sort of filtration do we have? What sort of moisture controls do we have in place?
[00:24:07] Michael Rubino: Right. So. A lot of HVAC professionals have absolutely no clue about mold or bacteria and their systems are vulnerable to mold and bacteria. Blows my mind every single day. But you know, we have a whole industry that tests people's houses that don't know how to do that either. So, I digress.
[00:24:27] Christa: Yes.
[00:24:28] Christa: Yeah, we'll go to answers cause everyone wants answers here today. We're going to kind of make a roundabout list of like things we can do. And then I'm going to tell you a little bit about, I tagged you on social media this week. Cause I had a leak this week and I'm going to tell you what I did.
[00:24:42] Christa: And you can tell me if I did things wrong and it'll be fun. Okay. First up cleaning the HVAC system is not an expensive thing, in my opinion, from what I have experienced. It also took me almost a decade to realize I need to clean the HVAC system in my house, sadly. And the guy's like, wow, that was really dusty.
[00:25:07] Michael Rubino: Oh, I was 25 years old before I ever realized it. So no harm, no foul.
[00:25:10] Christa: It happens. So, clean HVAC, but is there also like some lights UV lights and things like, do you have any comments let's start with ducks being cleaned. Then let's talk about HVAC systems and filters and assessing the HVAC system.
[00:25:24] Michael Rubino: Yeah, so I think ducks being clean is very vital. Cause, and it don't just clean. Once a year, and actually once a year, if you have a good filter, if you don't have a good filter, probably twice a year, spring and fall better. If you invest in a better filter, you can go longer without cleanings because you're going to be stopping these particles from getting into the unit, right?
[00:25:45] Michael Rubino: Cleaning the, not just the ducks, but the system, the cabinet, the coil, the blower unit, like me. The HVAC unit that we typically see in some closet or attic space or our basements, right? That thing needs to be cleaned too. Cause that is the mothership where all this stuff will actually grow.
[00:26:02] Michael Rubino: Okay. So cleaning that is. Top of the list. Okay. Second part of the list is investing in a filtration system that can stop these particles from continuing to get in there. That's huge. Right. And economically that'll help lessen the amount of cleanings we'll need to do. So there's that double whammy there.
[00:26:24] Michael Rubino: I would say third most important thing, and now I'm just riffing at this point, so please stop me. Fantastic. Love it. Is the buildup of our dust, right? Our dust is going to have microbial pathogens, toxins, you name it. Everything accumulates there. Heck you could test formaldehyde in the dust, right?
[00:26:43] Michael Rubino: When they test for lead, what do they do? They test the dust. Everything we don't want to be breathing in is in our dust. And guess what? Our dust is everywhere. If I were to turn off my lights right now and put a flashlight on, I'd be able to show you how much dust is in this environment. And that's with.
[00:26:59] Michael Rubino: air purification systems out the wazoo, all the things, right? It's because our dust, it just, it's just how it works, right? Our dead skin cells, our hair follicles, all this stuff accumulates in our environment. I have two kids. These guys generate a lot of dust. You wouldn't believe it. And it's part of our ecosystem, right?
[00:27:19] Michael Rubino: And so we have to try to be diligent about removing it because every time we remove it, We're not just removing those skin cells or hair cells. We're also removing contaminants. We don't want to be breathing in. So I would say those three things, if you did nothing else, but those three things, I promise you, you will notice a major difference.
[00:27:39] Christa: I'm off making a note on figuring out how to open my HVAC system to clean the cabinet and the coil in the blower unit.
[00:27:47] Michael Rubino: I would say it's probably better off hiring like a certified professional because I'll tell you the coil, it's got two sides to it. Both sides are like two inches thick.
[00:27:57] Michael Rubino: There's a million pieces of metal in there. And when you look at it, you will probably go, how the heck do I clean this thing?
[00:28:04] Christa: All right.
[00:28:05] Christa: I'll see what I can find. I live in the middle of nowhere, but you know, meanwhile .
[00:28:08] Christa: Okay. Let's talk about filters. So I'm going to get to my story later, but when I had this water intrusion, third water intrusion of the year, but the first one that I actually allowed to sit, cause I was gone out of the country.
[00:28:20] Christa: And then I came home and I was like, Oh, awesome mold. Yay. So anyway the next day I was like, okay, I am going to call, we can talk about air filters here too. I have three brands of air filters. Clearly this experience, I was like, oh, clear these IntelliPURE filters work better than the other two.
[00:28:38] Christa: Fantastic. You agree with me. We can talk more about that. Let's talk about furnace filters. So I was like, okay, husband, I'm actually just going to call IntelliPURE today, get one for the HVAC system. He's like, well, that's fine. But he made a comment that I was like, oh, interesting, but I feel like you're going to have a different feel.
[00:28:53] Christa: He said. Oh, that's fine. But it's really only going to run a couple hours a day because my house is spray foamed. So my temperature is really regulated. So my HVAC system isn't running much. And then I was like, Oh, it's interesting. Maybe I should just put a filter in every room that runs actually all day instead of putting on the filter.
[00:29:10] Christa: So then I stopped and I didn't buy the thing, right? Which that is a little bit of a fancy purification thing on the filter. I think we're going to talk about something cheaper for filters. So let's just unpack filters on the HVAC system and better filters.
[00:29:22] Michael Rubino: Okay. So I think you're talking about the super V, which is like their whole home air purification system.
[00:29:27] Michael Rubino: Yeah. That is also a filter. So I just want to explain what an air purifier is. It is a vacuum and a filter. That's no joke. That's what air purifiers are. And a lot of them have bells and whistles and all these crazy things. But essentially the most important part of any of this is the filter itself. How small of a particle can it remove?
[00:29:48] Michael Rubino: So your super V, if you were to invest in that, it would actually negate your need for filters elsewhere, like at the unit, or sometimes people have filters in their grills, right? Where they like open up their ceiling and change the filters. This would replace the need for all of that because it would essentially stop everything right at that point from getting to the system.
[00:30:09] Michael Rubino: So you wouldn't need filters everywhere else, nor would you want, because. It's such a robust Murph 16 filter that too much filters can actually cause a too much air restriction, which would mess up the unit too. Right? So that's step one. Now let's say 2, 500 bucks. You're falling off your chair way too much.
[00:30:29] Michael Rubino: I would argue that when you do the math, it's going to work out in your benefit because that filter last, like can last up to three years and the filter replacements, you start doing the math. It's actually pretty much right around the same price point as some of the Beck's, filter sets you would get at big box stores, but anyways, let's just say you can't get over that hump.
[00:30:48] Michael Rubino: And you want to just get top of the line filters that like discount filters. com or something, get the highest rating Merv rating that you can. But you also need to understand and you'll need to talk to an HVAC person and understand based upon the size duct that you have based upon the size unit that you have, what is the highest rating you can get, because these are just going to be one inch pleated filters or two inch pleated filters, right?
[00:31:15] Michael Rubino: And so if they restrict too much airflow, you're going to have an issue. So. Now you start getting into calculations and things that mechanical people can do to kind of help understand that.
[00:31:26] Christa: So over my head right now, I was like, Oh, dang, what does Merv mean?
[00:31:29] Michael Rubino: Yeah. It's an efficiency rating for a filter higher.
[00:31:32] Michael Rubino: The rating, the smaller, the particle removes, that's the key, right? So you want higher, better than lower, but like, let's talk about going to home Depot, Lowe's big box stores, right? The, probably the highest you will find is Merv 13, which 13. It basically won't do a thing for mold. It'll probably say mold on the package.
[00:31:52] Michael Rubino: It's wildly misleading because mold can be between two and four microns and Merv 13 can get down to 0. 3 microns. So you're missing probably a half of The sizes of molds that typically you would see encounter. So I don't know if you only want to protect against half the mold, maybe that's better than no mold, but in my opinion, you can get up to Merv 16, you're going to be much better protected.
[00:32:22] Michael Rubino: And we start thinking about bacteria too, which is another problem that often accompanies mold. Bacteria is much smaller than mold. And Merv 16 is probably about the only thing that would protect you against bacteria.
[00:32:36] Christa: Okay. Just don't mind me processing all of this filter information. So first things first, people could change the filter to a higher Merv rating.
[00:32:45] Christa: Can we say that pretty easily without getting too specific? Cause I don't want to get lost in the specifics, even though that could get easy, like, Oh, if they're like, Oh, I glazed over when I had to figure out what kind of duct I okay. So we're going to go with higher Merv rating. We're going to change the air filter on the HVAC.
[00:33:01] Christa: We're going to clean the HVAC up to twice a year. Or maybe twice a year, unless we have a really good filter.
[00:33:08] Christa: Okay, so we're talking about cheap things anyone can do to improve their indoor air quality, which is a flipped conversation of remediation. It's like, why don't I just improve my indoor air quality? Because dust is crap. So, at My goal is reducing dust, right? So air filters and HVAC massively improve dust.
[00:33:32] Christa: Okay, let's keep talking about cheap things, or maybe we talk more about air filters. You know what I was thinking? You said, oh, it's a fan and a filter, which reminded me of the viral Instagram reel of someone making a filter out of a box fan and a filter.
[00:33:45] Christa: And I was like, I'm not sure about that.
[00:33:47] Michael Rubino: Technically an air purifier.
[00:33:49] Christa: Oh, yeah, sorry.
[00:33:50] Michael Rubino: Yeah. If you tape a filter to a box fan, it technically would be an air purifier. The only thing that would be missing is this, beautiful little case and high end marketing price tag. Right. I think at the end of the day though, like the most important part of any air purification system is the filter itself.
[00:34:07] Michael Rubino: Right. So I think I've seen that viral photo as well. That is probably not a very good filter. So. A box fan with a filter, there's obviously going to be air gaps. It's not going to be her medically sealed. So there's a lot to be said about that effectiveness of that. But at the end of the day, that's essentially what they're trying to show you.
[00:34:25] Michael Rubino: They're trying to show you if you're on a budget. Really what a filter is something that's creating a vacuum, like a motor blowing air in one direction, that's pulling air from another direction, right? And a filter so that these particles get trapped in the filter so that by the time the air comes out the other side of the machine, it's cleaner, less particles, better for you to breathe in.
[00:34:46] Michael Rubino: That's the whole concept of air purification. Unfortunately, these manufacturers of air purification systems. They just start throwing more bells and whistles that you don't need. I do have one of those. And that is why, like it's just a race to who has the best marketing.
[00:35:04] Michael Rubino: Right. And so they just start throwing all these things in that you really don't need. And , we don't even want to go down a rabbit hole, naming all of them, because there's just so many of them, but essentially to make things simple. You can find good air purifiers out there, probably even on Amazon, probably for a heck of a lot cheaper than some of the big brand names.
[00:35:23] Michael Rubino: And all you need to look for is, well, what size particle can this remove? And you want to get the smallest one. And that's how you should really use to compare.
[00:35:33] Christa: Is that truthful? They're not, no one's holding them to that, right?
[00:35:38] Michael Rubino: I mean, there's one of the most popular brands has one of the laziest studies I've ever seen where they just put their filter inside of an HVAC duct and use that information, but that's not the same as how effective it would be inside their own machine.
[00:35:53] Michael Rubino: Right. And so, yeah, I mean, is that truthful? It's their truth. You could always take their truth and probably find other truths with it, which is. What makes this whole thing convoluted. But I think when you're looking for, how do I do this on a budget? You're probably going to have to.
[00:36:12] Michael Rubino: Hope that what they're telling you is factual.
[00:36:14] Christa: Yeah. It's tricky. We made a document that pulled pricing names, et cetera, and the filtration rate for multiple purifiers. And then I'm going through my stuff and, a lot of stuff is experience. So then , I'm only concerned if someone uses a popular air purifier. I'm thinking of a couple of brands and then they don't really see a difference in anything. Well, then I'm like very sad about this. Right. I only want people's results.
[00:36:37] Michael Rubino: They spent a thousand dollars, right?
[00:36:38] Christa: Right. Exactly. So that's kind of what sucks. I'm like, well, I tried a few brands guys.
[00:36:43] Christa: Pretty sure Intellipure worked really good. That's just where I'm going forward, but it kind of stinks in reverse. If people spent a whole bunch of money on it and it's like, well. Not really working very well. I don't know if you have any feelings about that. It's just kind of a, unfortunately, I'm not sure if your air purifier is effective.
[00:37:00] Michael Rubino: Yeah. I mean, I have seen some really bad stuff. That's about the best I can say, without dragging people through the mud, what I would say is. As like you've had good experience with Intellipure. I've had great experiences. I'm since 2017, I've done particle counting in front of big name brands and Intel up here and like bar none. It's the best results. I haven't done every brand.
[00:37:25] Christa: And on the note of not dragging companies under the bus, if you go to like YouTube and you search particle meter and air purifier, you'll find someone else that will do this. I was like real close to buying an air filter meter one day.
[00:37:37] Christa: I was like, Chris, you just don't need this right now. This is not a necessity. Just buy an air purifier. Yeah.
[00:37:43] Christa: Okay you brought up something, you mentioned something about the grill and the filters and that got me thinking about the house that I think are probably important to discuss when we're talking about indoor air quality.
[00:37:56] Christa: So let's talk about ventilation systems in the house, the filters that go out of your microwave or stove or bathroom or all the things. What do we need to know about that, if anything?
[00:38:06] Michael Rubino: Yeah. So any mechanical ventilation system we have, like our dryer vents, our bathroom exhaust fans, our kitchen exhaust hood, right, all these things are drawing air out.
[00:38:17] Michael Rubino: That typically either need makeup air or have makeup air already, depending on the engineer that was involved in the process when the home was being built. So if it's really long ago, they might not have done some of these modern day calculations to make sure you have enough makeup air coming in. This is going to be way over most people's heads.
[00:38:37] Michael Rubino: So I'm going to try to simplify this and say the bottom line is. The amount of air exchange from indoors to outdoors is really important. You want to have enough air changes per hour or per day that make sure that you're bringing in fresh air. Even if you have a spray foamed house, and you can do that with things like ERV systems or HRV systems, depending on where you are in the country, if you need that heating element or not but the point is that there are ways to do these types of tests, like manual J load calculations for HVAC, blower door tests to make sure we have enough makeup air coming into our environment, because if we don't, we're going to be breathing in a lot more particles.
[00:39:22] Michael Rubino: Then maybe our neighbors, friends, or family will be because there's just no air exchange from indoors to outdoors.
[00:39:32] Christa: So if I'm just thinking about how people figure this out you said there are some ways to measure this stuff, but then I got to find someone who knows what the hell I'm talking about.
[00:39:40] Christa: So my question actually is, if we go back to this dust test, does that help determine if we have good, in theory, right? Like a very dis Down the line way of kind of trying to decide, is this helping with me understand if I have good indoor, outdoor, where does someone start trying to understand if they have good indoor, outdoor exchange? Who's the person
[00:40:00] Christa: to call?
[00:40:01] Michael Rubino: Mechanical ventilation expert, mechanical engineer Eric Schofield air care technologies comes to mind, guys, super sharp very intelligent super nice guy, hit him up on Instagram, ask him some questions, he can do calculations for you, have them on the show.
[00:40:18] Michael Rubino: It's a very important endeavor. I had a client recently where I went in a dress mold. But as I'm there, I'm like, man, this house is just sticky. Like it's, I just feel sticky in this house. And I'm going up and down and I'm noticing humidities higher upstairs and downstairs, like not like 60 percent in some cases, the temperature upstairs is not good.
[00:40:41] Michael Rubino: I was like, listen, this is above my head. I'm not a mechanical engineer, but I'm going to bring in somebody to take a look at this system. Well, I got like a 15 page report about how there's all these things wrong with the house. And I told the client, I'm like, look, looking through all this support, seeing all these things wrong with the house, like the way your air is exchanging is not done properly.
[00:41:03] Michael Rubino: Your ducks are leaking like crazy. You're adding all this moisture into your living space that you just doesn't need to be there. And, it's going to cost. There's so many little things that need to be fixed, right? It's going to cost a pretty penny. But at the end of the day, there was all these other complaints that they had all along, like, Hey, it never gets cold in this room, or Hey, it never gets hot in this room.
[00:41:25] Michael Rubino: That is going to be fixed in the process. So he's not going to have, not only going to have cleaner air, but more comfortable air, because there's all these things wrong with the system. So it's. Definitely something worth exploring.
[00:41:38] Christa: It's definitely a problem in this office building where I rent a building, where I rent an office as you're talking, like, Oh, they have these problems here.
[00:41:45] Michael Rubino: Call Eric. He's your guy, but we were actually able to figure out that this house had a problem starting with testing the dust and then going next with. Source testing, figuring out where some of these problems are. We found like stucco issues. The great grading is bringing water towards the house and soaking it in past the stucco into the structure.
[00:42:06] Michael Rubino: So we were able to find a bunch of things and we're still in the process, correcting them because it's going to take some time to address some of these HVAC things, because there's so many little things, but probably within the next two weeks. This thing's done resolved and he's got a healthier place.
[00:42:23] Michael Rubino: Not only feels better, but scientifically is improved. And we're excited to see, the labs from the bodies of the family later, as they start to progress into that healing phase, I think the, cause this is very technical and scientific, right? What I do and where I bring experts in to cover some of the gaps of my knowledge.
[00:42:45] Michael Rubino: I think what people have to understand is. Creating a healthy home is important. I understand that it is technical. And a lot of us have not been educated on this, but it doesn't mean that we can't put a team of people around us to help us solve problems, just like if we were building a house from scratch, we would put a team of people like an architect, like an engineer, right?
[00:43:04] Michael Rubino: Like a designer that would help us build us our perfect dream home, right? This is something that we can do. And as I said, I've helped people with virtually no budget to people with unlimited budgets and everybody in between. How do we do that? Well, we do it by data. We address the worst problem areas to give them the relief that they need.
[00:43:26] Michael Rubino: And sometimes we're even advising them, listen, this place that you're renting, the landlord is not willing to make this a safe place for you. Here's an attorney. You need to get out of this lease. And sometimes that advice, as much as it sucks to hear or to have to even give that to somebody, sometimes it's exactly what they need.
[00:43:48] Christa: Well, a lot of times
[00:43:49] Christa: people are looking for permission to do things. I mean, just mentally, I think there's a big piece of that. What about insurance covering some of these things? What do you want to say about that?
[00:44:00] Michael Rubino: I want to bang my head against the wall. Can I have permission to do that? It's just so crazy.
[00:44:06] Christa: You're saying home insurance sucks as bad as health insurance?
[00:44:09] Michael Rubino: I think if they're the same people. They have to be. I think what happens is the way policies are written, It has to be a sudden and accidental occurrence. Imagine if it was written in the health, like, you have a sudden accidental occurrence that you got sick.
[00:44:24] Michael Rubino: It has to be a sudden and accidental occurrence, like, I went away from, on vacation and I came back and my house flooded because the pipe burst in my basement. That would be a sudden and accidental occurrence. Okay? But, I'm gonna give you an example that happens all the time that no one ever is covered for.
[00:44:40] Michael Rubino: My basement has water accumulation over time that allowed mold to grow. And I now need to get my basement and fix it and rebuild it not covered. Why? Cause it's water seepage. Water seepage is not considered a sudden accidental occurrence because apparently we were all supposed to know that every so often we have to dig a trench around the outside of our house and waterproof it.
[00:45:03] Michael Rubino: Okay. And then put all this dirt back to prevent water from coming in. Because apparently that's not an accident. Okay. so that's one issue. Windows could be leaking, right? You would think that's a sudden accident occurrence. Nope. Because apparently you are supposed to be a door and window expert your entire life and know inspect your doors and windows and make sure that they're properly maintained and not leaking.
[00:45:29] Michael Rubino: Your roof has to leak at a named storm. The storm has to have a name. If it doesn't have a name, not a storm. I mean, like they make it so hard to get coverage.
[00:45:42] Christa: It's good to know. Good to know.
[00:45:43] Michael Rubino: So hard. So hard.
[00:45:44] Christa: I'm actually going through the catalog of everything that's happened at my house.
[00:45:47] Christa: I'm like, Oh, that was a named storm when I had that hill.
[00:45:52] Michael Rubino: It's like, sir you need to file a claim. Good. Were you hopping up and down on your left foot while you dialed this phone number? Nope. Sorry. Read section 13 clause F you're just like, what? Like people need help. People need help. I mean, These renovations are not the cheapest thing in the world. If anyone's ever been through a renovation, exactly what I'm talking about, right?
[00:46:13] Christa: Yes, it will cost you three times as much.
[00:46:15] Michael Rubino: And it's sucks, right? When we don't have proper coverage and many of us don't, the other kicker to this is even if the stars align, the gods have given you goodwill, you have a cap on how much coverage they're going to give you.
[00:46:33] Michael Rubino: And it's typically on average, 10 grant. So unless you knew when you bought the insurance policy 17 years ago, when you bought the house, unless you knew at that moment to ask for the highest mold coverage you can get, which could be 50, 000 could be a hundred thousand. Sometimes they'll cover up the policy limit, but if you didn't know what to ask.
[00:46:52] Michael Rubino: They give you the minimum of 10 grand. And so now you have a flood, you have a leak, you have a problem. And they're like, well, here's 10 grand. And you're like, but it's going to cost me like 40, 000 to fix this. And they're like, cool. Well, you have a 10, 000 cap. So we're sending you a check for 10 grand. You have to cover the rest.
[00:47:08] Michael Rubino: Thank you. Have a good day. So anyone who's listening to this right now, call your insurance company, boost your mold numbers up to the highest you can get it. And like right now it'll cost you like an extra 10 a month, but it is freaking worth it because. You'd rather need it, you'd have it and not need it, then need it and not have it.
[00:47:25] Michael Rubino: Right. So please do that.
[00:47:27] Christa: You probably need it to be honest. I mean, I built my house and this year I thought I had three water intrusions this year. I actually had four because we had the outside. It's such a big hail storm last summer that it like broke so much. That was actually the cause that was the impotence for three of them actually where the outside pane of the window broke, which allowed for a ton of moisture to build up on the window and then whatever.
[00:47:50] Christa: So I'm going to tell you a story about what happened to me a couple of weeks ago, when I got back from Europe, which by the way, in Europe, they don't believe in air conditioning or HVAC systems at all.
[00:47:58] Christa: They're like, we get sick here. So we just like turn them off. Otherwise people get is nose problems.
[00:48:04] Michael Rubino: I guess that's why they're healthier.
[00:48:05] Christa: Yeah, I guess I've actually, I contemplated that the whole time I was there, cause they didn't sleep, they drank all the time and did a lot of smoking. I was like, I think it's just cause they're so happy
[00:48:15] Michael Rubino: and they don't gain any weight
[00:48:16] Christa: and they eat dinner for like two hours.
[00:48:18] Christa: At a time. And then they have free shots afterwards.
[00:48:21] Michael Rubino: Seven course meals. It's the craziest thing.
[00:48:23] Christa: At 10 p. m. It was very funny. I was thinking about that whole thing the whole time. I'm like, what is the answer here? I feel like they're just having fun in life. That might be it. Okay. So rate my job.
[00:48:34] Christa: this is what I did. So in the basement, I have my HVAC room, right? My utility room. And next to the utility room is the basement bathroom. It has I'm actually pretty much concrete only down there. I don't really have any permanent flooring except in bedrooms on the other end. Not close to this at all.
[00:48:52] Christa: So it's concrete in there. There was linoleum in the basement or in the bathroom floor. So what happened was the air filter or the water filtration system that was supposed to be protecting me from my hard water. I was like, Oh, I get one choice to be healthy. Leaked into over the two weeks, seepage, the water seepage, it leaked to slowly into the bathroom next to it.
[00:49:13] Christa: And I had MDF trim, which is basically like mold food in that bathroom. And so I got home, my daughter's like, this trim is moldy in my bathroom. I am going to move things like, what is going on? And I was like, oh my gosh, we have water. Anyway, so what I did was I ran an ozone generator to attempt to, again, you can rate me at any time, to attempt to kill some active mold spores.
[00:49:37] Christa: So I could get in there, pull the stuff out, get it in the dumpster. Then I sprayed some botanical mold spray on it and then ran the ozone generator again. And then I tried to dry everything out. So I could just see where I was, right? So I've got trim I've taken off that's moldy. It's disgusting.
[00:49:53] Christa: Then I've got drywall. I've got the antimicrobial drywall in this bathroom. So, I scrape off the outside of the drywall that is now dry, because I have now let it dry, right? That's the important part, I think. I scrape it off after dry, and then I put kills on it. And now I'm just at a standstill. I'm like, I don't know if I need to do more, because it did not, like, underneath, it was not moldy from what I scraped off. So I don't know, cause I'm like, well, I'm not sure if I did a very good job here. This is what I started with. Cause I live in the middle of nowhere and I must do something.
[00:50:25] Michael Rubino: there's a saying like a for effort, right? So you get an a irregardless. A couple of things.
[00:50:31] Michael Rubino: Mold has roots called hyphae. So we cannot scrape it off drywall. All right. Because at that point, the roots have already started growing and it may look like it's gone, but it's not gone. As a matter of fact. By the time you put the baseboard back, it'll just start growing again. And then the baseboard will cover it and you'll never know.
[00:50:50] Michael Rubino: So you have to cut off the bottom and it can grow a couple feet, right? So you typically want to go like a good two feet beyond wherever that spot was. Okay. So, and that could be a square. You can go two feet in all directions, cut out a nice square. It's pretty inexpensive to put the drywall back, right?
[00:51:09] Michael Rubino: So, not the end of the world. I'd rather be safe than sorry. Is there any insulation behind there?
[00:51:16] Christa: Actually, no. Let me think. There is no insulation. So, it's the utility room, bathroom. There's nothing in between that. It was just the drywall. And then, there's then an exterior basement wall.
[00:51:28] Christa: And that is made out of A foam block with concrete inside.
[00:51:32] Michael Rubino: Okay, cool. So I would bet like if I was going to Vegas or something and was betting, I would bet there's mold on the beams behind the drywall as well that you'll see, and you'll need to clean that off as well. Let's talk about the linoleum. Is it a glue down?
[00:51:51] Christa: It was glued down. I pulled it up. I pulled it up as far as I could. The only thing I didn't do though, was I had a pretty heavy vanity and over the top of it. And I was like, Oh, I can not move this by myself. I'm just going to get this far. And it's been real exciting because it's just been sitting there now.
[00:52:06] Christa: So I'm like, I wonder what I'm going to do with this. So anyway, carry on.
[00:52:10] Michael Rubino: Yeah. You should kind of disconnect it, pull it out, check behind it. So, depending on how much the moisture wicked up, you might actually see more growing on the backside of the vanity or on the drywall behind the vanity. And then did you see anything under the linoleum when you pulled it up?
[00:52:25] Michael Rubino: Did you see like black stuff growing in the glue underneath it?
[00:52:32] Christa: Well, it's interesting is what was leaking. Was a like a per, I think there was some peroxide in whatever the crap is for the water filter thing. I'm not, don't quote me on all of this. So the water just looks darker in general.
[00:52:47] Christa: And I thought it was because it was affecting the concrete when I wiped it up. And then after it was fully dry, it was Like good. So now you got me wondering, can mold grow on the concrete like that? I did not think concrete was a mold growth medium so much.
[00:53:01] Michael Rubino: Well, concrete is semi porous and it can grow in anything semi porous like wood or concrete.
[00:53:07] Michael Rubino: Most people think it can't grow because for 20 years, all of our builders and contractors have been telling us mold doesn't grow on cement. Right. They were wrong. They were wrong.
[00:53:18] Christa: So I need to extract all of the linoleum and then do I need to seal the concrete?
[00:53:24] Michael Rubino: Well, you could, because if you seal it, then you don't really have to worry about this type of stuff later.
[00:53:29] Michael Rubino: You can just wipe the floor down and you're good to go. Not that, we want to wish more leaks on you, but they do happen and
[00:53:35] Michael Rubino: it's nice. I mean, it can happen.
[00:53:37] Michael Rubino: That's the thing. It happens to anybody at any time.
[00:53:39] Christa: Yeah.
[00:53:39] Christa: You could do like an epoxy based sealer, put new linoleum down and you're good to go there.
[00:53:44] Christa: But for right now, because cement is porous or semi porous, you're really going to want to. Get the rest of the linoleum out from underneath the vanity
[00:53:53] Michael Rubino: and then like scrub it down really good. The botanical antimicrobial is perfect. So get that, put it on some microfiber towels. And I would probably do a combination of microfiber towels cause if it's raw concrete, it's kind of, you'll get snagged a lot with the microfiber. And like, those like deck brushes to clean like tile and bathrooms and stuff. I would get one of those. And the goal is to kind of loosen anything that's in the pores of the concrete with this deck brush and then wipe it clean with the microfiber after.
[00:54:23] Christa: Okay.
[00:54:23] Michael Rubino: And if you do it while it's wet, you're suppressing the air, these particles, right? So. I would still probably wear a mask and gloves and stuff like that, but I would,
[00:54:34] Christa: right.
[00:54:34] Christa: It's in theory dry now, but I guess I don't know underneath the vanity. Right.
[00:54:37] Michael Rubino: Well, that's a big misnomer between dry and not dry and mold and no mold. Like if there is mold, it doesn't matter dry or not. The mold doesn't just die off and disappear. Right. So if it was wet for 24 to 48 hours or more and that can happen if two surfaces are touching and water gets in between them right.
[00:54:56] Michael Rubino: Then You probably have mold there, and it could be very misleading. I can't tell you enough how many times I've seen like the tiniest water stain of like a vanity or on a wall where you'd think like, ah, it's just an old water stain. Probably not a big deal. And there's like millions of spores there when they test it.
[00:55:15] Michael Rubino: And you're like, huh, that's interesting. But yeah, they swab it or tape lifted, right. To test it and see what it is. And it'll be like, yeah, that was a million spores per cubic centimeter of aspergillus. And you're like, interesting. Would have never thought that. Yeah. Aspergillus can be white.
[00:55:35] Michael Rubino: Which when you look at a water stain, it's very light in color. Typically as compared to like toxic black,
[00:55:40] Christa: there, like that had grown, exciting stuff,
[00:55:47] Michael Rubino: like a whole Petri dish full of stuff.
[00:55:48] Christa: Yeah, exactly. I was like, Oh, that was fun. We took binders after like cleaning it up initially and then more immunoglobulins and binders the next day. And that was good. But you know, Post mold, like usually just feel sick.
[00:55:59] Christa: So what was interesting and what like threw me really off for a moment was I had to work from home in, an office on the other side of the house the next day, cause I locked my keys at my office in town. And anyway, so I was in my office, and I left my office and I was like, these rooms with InteliPUR air purifiers smell excellent and this office actually smells not good because already the HVAC had spread this around in my house.
[00:56:27] Christa: And then I became a psycho for a minute and I was like, I must have more air purifiers and this is where I was like, do I want an air filter on my HVAC, which at that point, yes, would have been really smart. Or do I want to also have them in this bathroom? That's not corrected. It sounds like, Oh, well, I'm not done correcting the bathroom, which is probably, what I thought, which is why I'm just over here waiting to be done with it.
[00:56:51] Christa: I want to just, wave a magic wand and have it be done, but it's like, it's okay. It's no problem.
[00:56:57] Michael Rubino: I'm so glad we can have this timely conversation.
[00:56:59] Christa: Yeah, exactly.
[00:57:00] Michael Rubino: Yes, to point that out, that investment for that system would have been great because it would have stopped all this stuff from happening.
[00:57:09] Michael Rubino: But that's okay too, because one, this is all said and done and you get your ducks cleaned and you clean your house and you remove all the dust, you'll be in a better spot. And the air purifiers will continuously help take these particles out of the air also. So you've got a good thing going and you still get an A for effort. And that's tremendous.
[00:57:31] Christa: Yeah. And to be clear about ozone, it's not killing. I'm under the impression. It's killing the top. Because it's sucking all the oxygen out of the air and then I got to cut a little bit of time to work, but maybe I'm making this up. I love my ozone generator for like stuff, animal smells that I've walked into.
[00:57:50] Christa: Anyway, I don't know if you have any opinions.
[00:57:51] Michael Rubino: Yeah, ozone is amazing at odor elimination. Really is. As far as mold goes. I'll be honest, like I stopped using it probably about seven years ago now, I just couldn't find any reason to need it because everything else you can do with just following the simple steps of cleaning the mold off the structure, removing the porous materials, cleaning the HVAC, upgrading the filters, cleaning the entire house, removing every speck of dust.
[00:58:21] Michael Rubino: As much as humanly possible, it's not possible to move everything. And then, like that'll give you a good jumpstart into a healthy environment. And then as soon as you continue to clean over time, it just gets better and better if. There's no more sources creating these particles and toxins, like the overflowing bathtub that you shared earlier.
[00:58:40] Michael Rubino: So, I just didn't see where it needed to fit in. Like I didn't, I couldn't really rationalize why I would use it. The only reason I was using it earlier in my career is because I was told that's what you do. And so I did.
[00:58:54] Christa: Yeah.
[00:58:55] Michael Rubino: But there's so many negative side effects with ozone. And I hear great things about it in medical cases, but for the home, we can damage like artwork and certain things.
[00:59:05] Christa: Sure.
[00:59:05] Michael Rubino: It is not really good to be breathing in. Right. So people have to leave when you run it and then it does eliminate odors, but it also, when it settles. It kind of has this like chlorine like smell, it's like the best way to to identify that. And that doesn't go away until you like clean the whole house again, or air it out and just allow it to dissipate over time.
[00:59:32] Christa: Right.
[00:59:32] Michael Rubino: So to me, it's like it adds a lot more work, a lot more risk. And I really don't know what the benefits would be. Because here's my theory on particles. You cannot create nor destroy a particle. It's actually like a science law. And when we look at that aspect of things and you actually think about it, it would be like going out to your lawn and trying to kill seeds that weeds produce to stop the weeds from regrowing rather than just pulling the weed out by its root and toss them aside.
[01:00:11] Michael Rubino: It's a vicious cycle. You'll never get rid of all weeds, right? And you definitely don't want to try to go out and start destroying seeds, but let's just say you did for argument's sake. If I crushed a seed, what would happen? It would break into tinier particles. That's true. So how do those tinier particles impact us?
[01:00:30] Michael Rubino: My bet would be not great.
[01:00:32] Christa: Yeah.
[01:00:32] Michael Rubino: So all these gimmicks of trying to kill, destroy, whatever mold or anything. I don't know how effective they actually are because we know so little about how mold impacts us already.
[01:00:46] Christa: Yeah. And it's really. It's really in nature on purpose, right? To like decompose crap.
[01:00:52] Michael Rubino: It's meant to decompose decaying matter. And unfortunately, since we're all born here, we start to decay. Right. The bottom line is let's like, I think it's, we're better off trying to not destroy and kill and all these things. And we just should focus on removing, think about if you had dirt on your counter, your kitchen counter, do you spray stuff?
[01:01:13] Michael Rubino: To like kill it, destroy it, and then walk away. No, you wipe it clean, right? It's the same thing with mold. We want to wipe it clean. We want to clean the area, get rid of it all, throw it away.
[01:01:25] Christa: Well, on that note, couple things. So botanical mold solution. I just happen to have, I think this was nice to have in the closet, by the way everyone should get some. The internet says don't use bleach because it's got a water base. And so it feeds the mold. Any comment about cleaning solutions?
[01:01:41] Michael Rubino: Well, the internet wins again, but also loses because your botanical cleaner is also water based.
[01:01:47] Christa: Yeah.
[01:01:47] Michael Rubino: Bleach is water based. Everything that you use is water based, okay?
[01:01:51] Michael Rubino: Water is Earth's life source. Pretty much everything you're going to find is going to be made of water. That doesn't mean that it's not effective because of the water but it is not effective because what it does is it bleaches things. Right. And that's what it does. So it's going to bleach the mold.
[01:02:10] Michael Rubino: It's going to make it look like it's gone, but it's not actually going to be gone. And it's going to keep coming back because it's not actually gone. And it's not just bleach, pretty much any product on its own two feet will not be effective. I can use the best antimicrobial encapsulant and paint over mold.
[01:02:29] Michael Rubino: And guess what? Mold is going to grow right through the paint. I can use the best botanical cleaner and if I just spray it and walk away, guess what, mold's coming back. Because at the end of the day, if we're not removing the roots, the mold organism itself entirely, it's coming right back. It'd be like going out to my yard and just cutting weeds off at the stem.
[01:02:50] Michael Rubino: And allowing it to grow back and then wondering why it did grow back.
[01:02:54] Christa: Well, on that note, then if I'm going to remove, so a couple of things, anti mildew sheet rock, is it useless? And two, if I have mold growing on the beams behind the sheet rock, which all I can check for is cleaning the porous wood enough.
[01:03:08] Michael Rubino: Yeah. Like I would use wire brush, epi vacuum with a bristle brush attachment, and you're just getting into the pores of the wood and helping remove the roots. And then it's gone. And you know what I use to verify that it's gone? Hydrogen peroxide. You want to know how I use it? I spray it on. If it bubbles up, it's still reacting to the proteins that are there.
[01:03:31] Michael Rubino: And you got to continue to clean. If it doesn't bubble up, guess what? It's gone. You got rid of it all. Now you might see the stains still because water will stain the wood. So you might still see like a water stain. But if it's not bubbling up, then it's stained and you still got it all. And that is definitely a neat trick that I learned.
[01:03:53] Christa: That's a really cool trick.
[01:03:54] Michael Rubino: It's kind of like my version of a UV light. They kind of be able to see what's there and what's not there. If it's reacting, not reacting, et cetera. But yeah, you have to just make sure you got it all. That's the key.
[01:04:05] Christa: On that. No,
[01:04:06] Christa: I can't wire scrape though, sheet rock and have the same result.
[01:04:10] Christa: That's just for,
[01:04:12] Michael Rubino: because it's porous.
[01:04:13] Christa: Yeah. Cause it's so porous. The other stuff is semi porous, right? The concrete, the wood.
[01:04:17] Michael Rubino: Yeah.
[01:04:17] Michael Rubino: So like when it's semi porous, it basically means the pores themselves, they have a beginning and an end, right? And it can only go to the end, which is going to be at most, a quarter of an inch.
[01:04:30] Michael Rubino: And if you're using a brush, you're getting into those pores. You're going to be able to get in there and remove it. Cause we're not talking about tree roots here. They're very small filamentous fragments that the second you start brushing them mechanically, it's coming off. When you get down to sheet rock is 100 percent porous, right?
[01:04:51] Michael Rubino: So it just can just grow with no end. It can grow in a tiny spot. If there's enough moisture or water, this thing can grow throughout your entire wall. Heck, it could turn the corner and go to the adjacent wall and start to grow on that wall too. There is no end. Right. So, and then there's non porous, which are things that don't have pores at all.
[01:05:12] Michael Rubino: And that's like glass and plastic and metal where it could grow on top of it and not grow into it, which is the easiest thing to clean up. Cause you just take a rag and go like that and wipe it away and you're done.
[01:05:24] Christa: Sheetrock. Damn.
[01:05:28] Michael Rubino: Sheetrock.
[01:05:29] Christa: It's tricky.
[01:05:30] Michael Rubino: It's the worst thing.
[01:05:31] Christa: Yeah. Anti mildew sheetrock doesn't matter.
[01:05:34] Michael Rubino: So it's moisture resistant, meaning it has a less absorption rate. It just means that it absorbs less moisture than traditional drywall. Less doesn't mean it's mold proof. So that stuff will grow mold too.
[01:05:51] Christa: Cool.
[01:05:52] Michael Rubino: Yeah.
[01:05:53] Christa: I learned so much today. Thank you so much for being a solution in a very much needed solution in this world.
[01:05:59] Christa: I probably could keep asking questions, but man, I think we covered a ton. And what's really cool is I like your approach, which is everyone can do something on any budget. It's possible.
[01:06:12] Michael Rubino: Take the steps you can take. And if you're on a budget. Make sure you're being conservative with how you're spending that money and what result you're going to get out of it. Right? So that's the biggest key.
[01:06:24] Michael Rubino: We have to make data driven decisions. And in order to make a data driven decision, testing is the first investment you're going to make to improving your quality of air, quality of life, et cetera, find out what you're breathing in, where it might be coming from. And then from there, you're looking at, okay, what are the worst areas and what are their impacts across the total volume of my house.
[01:06:47] Michael Rubino: And then you're focusing on top down. You can only address the worst area and maybe you have two others. They're not as bad. Then address the worst area. There's two other things, about them. You're going to monitor them and you're going to be in control of it.
[01:07:02] Michael Rubino: And later next year, maybe next spring, whatever it might be, you recuperate a bit, about those two things. You tackle those next, like. A lot of people get stressed out over remediating their home all at once, as if they're like renovating their entire house top to bottom. Not a lot of people can afford to buy a house at top dollar and then gut their entire house and start over, right?
[01:07:27] Michael Rubino: That's not a norm. So what we want to do, just like we would be renovating a house. Maybe this year we do the kitchen, maybe this fall we do, the bathroom, right? We know those are trouble spots. They're creating some issues. What can we do in the interim to just keep the toxic load that we're breathing in lower and lower?
[01:07:48] Michael Rubino: And we're putting some strategies in place for that. The bottom line is it's time that we take control of our environment and stop letting our environment take control of us. And we just need to put the right pieces of the puzzle in place and we can do it.
[01:08:03] Christa: What a great, empowered statement to end with excellent job, Michael, where can people find you online?
[01:08:10] Michael Rubino: You can check me out on Instagram at the Michael Rubino. The website is the same. And you can also, if you need help with your own home, go to home cleanse. com. And then if you're inspired by all the amazing work that I'm doing to try to change laws, like, make it. Make home insurance better, make healthcare better.
[01:08:28] Michael Rubino: I don't protect our people who are tenants protect our landlords from their insurance companies that don't cover for mold. There's, we have some big convoluted systems that need to be fixed. Check out what we're doing at change the air foundation. org.
[01:08:44] Christa: Thank you so much for coming on today. I hope that people send me all kinds of follow up questions for a follow up episode because it's very needed and I thank you for the work you're doing and the legacy that you're really creating.
[01:08:58] Michael Rubino: Yes. Yes. Thank you so much. Ask those questions. I'm ready for them. I'm excited. We can definitely do another episode.
[01:09:06] Christa: Sharing and reviewing this podcast is the best way to help us succeed with our mission to help integrate the best of East and West and empower you to raise the bar on your health story. Just go to review this podcast. com forward slash less stressed life. That's review this podcast. com forward slash less stressed life.
[01:09:27] Christa: And you'll be taken directly to a page where you can insert your review and hit post.
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