Podcast Transcript
Green Living with Tee
Fri, Oct 21, 2022 1:35PM • 33:17
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
mold, people, building, indoor air quality, problem, test, vocs, air, chemicals, indoor air, inspection, house, love, air purifiers, mold growth, true hepa, living, outdoor air, jason, sample
SPEAKERS
Therese Forton-Barnes, Jason Earle
Therese Forton-Barnes 00:01
Welcome to Green Living with Tee. I am your host Tee Forton-Barnes and head guru at the Green Living Gurus. You want to live a healthier life and I am here to help. I’ll be guiding you on a road to avoid toxic cancer and cancer-causing chemicals, as well as helping you navigate through the process of making healthier choices, ultimately increasing your odds of a long and healthy vital life. I’ll be interviewing inspiring guests who will share their stories and provide insight into healthier eating habits, alternative products that are friendly to our environment, and also your overall well-being. Let’s dive into Green Living with Tee.
Today we are talking about air quality, and how air quality can affect your health specifically indoor air quality. We are also going to touch on mold, which is a known indoor air pollutant along with the other ones that everybody recognizes such as carbon monoxide, asbestos, and of course cigarette smoke. But according to the EPA indoor air pollutants are known to cause irritation in the eyes and nose and throat and addition to causing headaches, dizziness, and fatigue. So today we are talking to Jason Earle who has appeared on Good Morning America, Extreme Makeover Home Editions, Dr. Oz, Entrepreneur, Wired, and two college textbooks.
And he comes to us with a knowledge of information regarding our indoor air quality, whether it’s your home, or if you’re living in a building, or wherever you’re working, and we’re going to touch on that. But Jason is a man on a mission. He’s an adoring father and an indoor air quality Crusader, which you know, I am all about the indoor air and he’s a founder and CEO of 1-800-GOT-MOLD?. So welcome, Jason.
Jason Earle 01:23
Thanks for having me.
Therese Forton-Barnes 01:23
Absolutely. Thank you for joining me. So let’s get started here because you’re coming to me from Minnesota. I’m in Buffalo, Sunny buffalo, and Sunny Minnesota. And let’s dive in a little bit. First, I’d like to know a little bit. I love history. I love knowing about where people came from and sharing a little bit about your background.
Jason Earle 01:37
Sure. Well, thanks again for having me. And that is actually a sunny day here. In Minnesota, we’ve had quite a bit of snow. So where to begin usually, we go back to the start here. I suppose I got into the indoor air quality business rather accidentally actually, this is an industry that attracts people that have had some sort of an experience with usually a health challenge associated with the indoor environment, and so I’m no exception to that. I got into the industry actually after a successful career on Wall Street. I met a stockbroker for nine years and one day woke up and wasn’t having fun anymore.
And I decided to go on a walkabout. And so I sold everything I owned, put 20 pounds of stuff in a backpack, and went traveling. This is right after September 11. And while I was away, I was in Hawaii, and I had a lot of time on my hands. So I was reading all the local newspapers and stuff. And there was a story about a gentleman who had gotten sick, presumably from the building in which he worked, which was one of the big Hilton properties and a lot of it was the Kalia Tower. It’s famous now for the mold problem. But it’s one of those iconic buildings. It’s in a lot of Waikiki, old Waikiki photos, you know, it’s got a rainbow on the side of it. It’s kind of an iconic building.
Anyway, it was shut down for this giant mold problem that had been discovered in the building while I was there. And his story was not unique in the sense that there were lots of people that were claiming to be affected by the building. But historic stood out for me because he had at 40 some odd years old developed adult-onset asthma. Which is something I’d never heard of, and also sensitivities to a variety of different foods and environmental things that he had never had a problem with before. And he attributed that to the mold exposure. And for me, the light bulb went on immediately. I had, at four years old, suddenly fallen ill.
I had lost about 30% of my body weight in a three-week period, according to my parents. And so they took me to the pediatrician who said nope, you got to take him to Children’s Hospital. And their initial diagnosis was cystic fibrosis, which is a devastating diagnosis, especially back then a death sentence, really. My father had four cousins who died before 14 from CF.
So that’s largely where the diagnosis came from this family history but six weeks later, they got a second opinion. And they concluded that I did not have cystic fibrosis evidenced by the fact that I see here at 45 years old. But rather I had asthma compounded by pneumonia. And when they tested me for allergies at the time, this is one of my first memories of actually being in a straitjacket for toddlers. Best way to describe it with like an open-back papoose.
So they drew this grid on my back and put these allergens or antigens on my back and my dad said I looked like a ladybug, red swollen back with dots all over it. And I was testing allergic to everything in my environment. So it was grass, wheat, corn, eggs, dogs, cats, cotton, soybeans, cotton was tough, you know sheets, clothing. This is pretty abundant. And I happen to be growing up on a group on a small non-working farm outside of Princeton, New Jersey, where I was surrounded by all of the things in abundance, grass, wheat, corn, eggs, dogs, cats, cotton, soybean, surrounded by sweeping fields, cornfields.
And so needless to say, you know, childhood was uncomfortable, and I lived on inhalers and spent a lot of time outside and it was interesting. I had a lot… I look back at that now and realize, you know, I did really well outside was okay, indoors, not so much. I spent a lot of time outdoors. And that was also the era back then kids spent a lot more time, of course, but anyway, this thing in Hawaii is I call my father immediately after reading this article.
I thought, Geez, I wonder if we had a mold problem. And so I called him up from a payphone, which probably isn’t there anymore, and said, hey, do you think we had a mold problem at Old Trenton Road? And he laughed at me. He’s like Jason, we had mushrooms growing in the basement, and of course, we had mold. And he just dismissed it. And I said, but don’t you think?
Do you think that may have had something to do with my respiratory issues? And he’s like, well, it certainly didn’t help. He was just so flippant about it, which is just that’s the way that generation was, there was no awareness of it. My father and my parents both smoked even in the house and also in the car with the windows up with an asthmatic kid. And it’s not for lack of love, it’s for lack of awareness. And it was also lack of, you know, they didn’t have their peer group wasn’t exactly like raising the bar, you know.
Therese Forton-Barnes 01:37
Right.
Jason Earle 02:02
So anyway, you look back at that now, parents would be brought up on charges for that kind of stuff. You know, but that was the status quo. So anyway, I immediately at that moment, became fascinated with the idea that buildings impact our health. It wasn’t so much the mold, although the mold is fascinating because it’s a function of nature. It’s one of these things that it’s up there with gravity with death and taxes, you’re not going to avoid it. But it’s how you navigate it. That makes all the difference, right? So I became fascinated by how buildings impact our health, I was raised in a family where it was health care and construction family.
So it was kind of a natural thing to start looking at this interaction, which is something that we just don’t notice, we overlook it. So anyway, I came back to New Jersey armed with a lot of curiosity and took a job working for a mold remediation company, actually, they weren’t really mold remediation. It was a basement waterproofing company. And I saw quickly that they were a bunch of thugs, and they were really doing more harm to people than they were helping because they were going into instead of doing remediation, they’re basically spraying chemicals, mold killers.
And I will tell you that for anybody listening to this that has a mold issue, the first rule of mold remediation is that there are no chemicals needed. Unless there’s concern about sewage or bacterial issues, there is no place for chemicals. And in fact, many of the ones that are considered to be more benign, that are made with like thyme oil and stuff like that have incredible fragrances and sometimes linger and cause more discomfort than the mold did. So chemicals are… there’s no place in mold remediation for chemicals.
And I saw quickly that that was being used widespread this is 20 years ago. Keep in mind also, so this was no… there was no industry standard. And even with that industry standard. Now people still don’t follow it, they still don’t recognize that there’s no need for these things. But it was, in addition to the fact that people were being harmed was being caused by the contractors, I also recognized that there would be an opportunity to get in there and really understand what was going on because it was such a new industry.
So I actually created an inspection company at night and heard about a guy who trained mold-sniffing dogs, which was just crazy enough to be brilliant and then ended up getting one of the first in the world. Her name is Oreo, and we built an inspection company around a dog. The success that we had in finding hidden mold growth helped and we ended up networking with some local doctors. Those stories of success in terms of healing needed to come, took us on to Good Morning America and Extreme Makeover Home Edition and 1000s of newspapers and magazines never had to advertise. The company was called lab results. Labrador retrievers and laboratory testing.
Therese Forton-Barnes 08:33
Wow.
Jason Earle 08:34
And then that became 1-800-GOT-MOLD?. And 1-800-GOT-MOLD? our mold inspection business is completely non-conflict. We only do assessments and remediation, consulting. So we don’t do any remediation or repairs. We don’t have relationships with contracts. That’s very important. Also, if anybody’s looking to get an inspection done, it’s very important that they’re completely independent, and that there’s no financial relationship between the inspector and the contractors who they may work with or recommend. And then more recently, our mold inspection business has always been wonderful, but we serve a very affluent clientele.
And we’ve had to say, you know, unfortunately, most of the people who meet us can’t afford us. And so we began, a number of years ago, putting together a do-it-yourself test kit that would democratize access to air testing. Average inspections that cost 1000 bucks or more by a qualified professional and the test kits there on the market are just such, such garbage. So we created a do-it-yourself test kit that uses the same devices that professionals use, but for a fraction of the cost. And so we just launched that through gotmold.com, which is really exciting.
So the best part is that 1-800-GOT-MOLD?, is a company I created to help parents and families avoid what my family went through, but my parents couldn’t afford it. They could not have afforded to hire my company. And so the do-it-yourself test kit, that mold test kit allows me to bring this full circle and to put the power of awareness about what’s in your air in the hands of anybody, including renters and people that are on a budget, single moms and things like that. So that’s what brought me here
Therese Forton-Barnes 09:49
That is so interesting, so much in there that we can pull out and talk about because the mold is of course just one thing that’s polluting our indoor air I love that you are focusing on the indoor air quality, as I mentioned before, and you touched on chemicals and the connection between chemical sensitivities and mold. Let’s talk about that a little bit.
Jason Earle 10:13
Sure, it was one of the first things I actually noticed when we began working with doctors, they had patients that weren’t responding to typical treatments, they tended to be on the bell curve, and they were all the way over here, right? You know, hypersensitive to chemicals and environmental toxins. And so doctors would often refer those patients, so say here, take, you know, and that was kind of trial by fire for us. And what we would do is go in and look at the entire building as a system of systems and look for anything that would potentially cause discomfort or harm, but we’re focused on mold issues primarily.
And what we found consistently was that we reduced the chemical load, people tended to be less sensitive to the mold, which is one thing, we also found that people who are chronically exposed to mold tended to develop chemical sensitivities. And there’s also this interesting thing with people who have Lyme, though, who have had a lot of antibiotics… I had Lyme disease as a kid, and I had a lot of antibiotics and so the antibiotics, when I would eat simple carbs, would create this fermentation, and they create these out-of-body experiences.
And subsequent to that developed chemical sensitivities, molds produce these musty odors when they’re growing in your basement or on building materials in your home. There’s enough evidence to show that the chemicals that molds produce are very similar to industrial solvents that you would find at a factory, but its producing consistently in indoor air quality is unique to outdoor air quality.
Because you’re being exposed to indoor air repeatedly, and constantly, you’re rebreathing the same air. So you might have low-level pollutants in the house, much love below even the odor threshold, which means you can’t really smell it, but you’re being exposed to it repeatedly. I want to highlight some stuff that people forget or don’t know. Did you know that you breathe 21,000 times a day?
Therese Forton-Barnes 11:58
No! 21,000! Wow.
Jason Earle 12:02
Yeah. And how many of those are conscious? How many of those are you aware of and if you think about 21,000 times a day, is there anything that you’re doing that you’re exposing yourself to that much? I mean, you eat three times a day, and everyone’s worried about food. You’re getting exposed, you’re your food in tranches, and they pass through, but your house, the buildings where you live in work, you don’t have the luxury of choosing when you get exposed and when you don’t, or to what so as a result, you have to become aware of these things and begin to consciously remove all potential pollutants.
Because the exposure issue is so great. We’re working on some research to take a bunch of other studies to look at indoor air quality and the actual public health costs of indoor air quality. And it’s really remarkable if you start looking at you know, asthma, allergies, sinus problems, those are pretty well known. They have also affected a huge number of people.
But you start getting into the other studies that show that there’s a direct correlation between mold and dampness indoors and depression. Brown University did a really interesting study. I think it was 2007, Edmond Shenassa, and he found a direct correlation between mold dampness indoors and depression my friend Joan Bennett, Rutgers, as a fungal geneticist, took her experience with having her house get flooded down in New Orleans.
And her experience of getting sick from the mold turned it into a study where she used fruit flies that were specially genetically engineered to fluoresce when they produce dopamine, she exposed them to this musty odor and they stopped producing dopamine, they begin flying down, they stop reproducing, they become depressed, they develop Parkinsonian like symptoms. So the exposure to mold chemicals has the ability to impact it’s well known you know, cognitive impairment and fatigue and all these other things.
And some of those compounds that are emitted from it musty odor for you know, mycotoxins, which everyone talks about. I’m talking about the musty smell. There are studies that show that the musty smell doubles the likelihood of asthma in childhood. Also, it’s the number one or number two predictor of childhood asthma behind maternal smoking, just exposure to the musty odor. So it’s remarkable that manmade VOCs, just VOCs are poorly understood in terms of their impact on people’s health. I mean, you could even… I just read a fascinating series of books about healthy buildings.
Therese Forton-Barnes 14:14
Oh, yes. by Harvard, Joseph.
Jason Earle 14:17
Joe Allen.
Therese Forton-Barnes 14:18
Yeah, I love him. Yeah.
Jason Earle 14:19
Yeah. And he points out that we’re living in this sort of chemical soup. But the book I read right after that, which is called Breathtaking, which is written by a pulmonologist, I can’t remember his name right now. But he goes into this great length showing all the need that we have become aware of the lungs and exposure to these toxins, all these things, and shows that you know, smoking is down dramatically in the last 50 years, right smoking is down dramatically, and our health care supposedly improved dramatically. And our ability to treat these things has improved dramatically, but somehow from 1965 to today, our morbidity associated with respiratory illness is up 30%.
Now, what is going on there? You have to ask yourself What are we doing so wrong? And I have concluded based upon my experience doing environmental health assessments for the last 20 years, and looking at this really as, as a laboratory for us to understand what’s going on. And all the people I speak with about this on a daily basis is that we are dying from VOCs in our homes more so probably than anything else. There was just a statement last week that she talks about the exposure to VOCs, from your personal care products, you’re getting this huge plume right in front of your face, your face is off-gassing.
So I mean, there are some obvious ones like that, that are hiding right under the tip of your nose. But then there’s also the more subtle ones, like when you go get a carpet from Pottery Barn, or Crate and Barrel, or any of these places where the sourcing stuff internationally, you know, you’re bringing stuff in, it’s gonna sit there, and it’s gonna off the gas in your home. And we just love our fast, cheap stuff. And what we’re doing is bringing into super tight buildings, we’re re-breathing the same air over and over again.
And even if you don’t have a mold problem, you still should be vigilant about these things and remove them whenever possible, avoid them whenever possible. And also put mechanical interventions in a place like air purifiers that have you know, activated carbon that will take these VOCs out, open your window. So beyond mold, which is our specialty, where they help the home business. And it just so happens that mold is the first thing people call us for.
Therese Forton-Barnes 16:10
Interesting the points that you make about our house is so airtight, and the air quality, I stress that so much with people because anything you bring in your house, using your house, spray in your house, cleaning supplies, laundry detergent, all of that has out gas somewhere, and it’s outgassing into your body and into your lungs. So air purifier, I love that you brought that up too because that’s a huge factor that I always try to get people to get them, especially in their bedrooms MADE IT a world of a difference in our house.
And yeah, Yep, absolutely. So there’s a lot of information here, mold is still confusing to people mold is I think it still scares people, and they might see it or smell it and they don’t know what to do, or is it mold? Is it bad mold? As I hear it all the time. How do you know if it’s black mold? So what are some of the misconceptions or myths or anything? Any little tips that you can help people identify mold? Or what should they do?
Jason Earle 17:11
Well, I’ll say mold is loaded with more misunderstanding, myths, and misconceptions than probably any other subject matter that I’m aware of. It’s really, you know, maybe politics might be a bit this is there’s so much confusion, so much misunderstanding about it. For example, let’s start with the big one, which is toxic mold, black mold, or even mycotoxins. And this can be controversial. So I’m sure people will probably have some things to say about this. But I’ve been doing this for 20 years. And so I can tell you what the reality of it is. So mold growth in your home of any significance is a problem, regardless of the color or its name, if you got a mold problem, you have a moisture problem. And if you have a moisture problem, that by itself is the issue.
Mold is not the issue. And this is the one that you have to zoom out on this. So mold is actually doing its thing a mold takes things that were at one time living and turns them back into dirt, that’s molds job, it’s doing its job and you’re living in your lawn when it’s doing that the leafs not doing its job if it’s doing that you’re living or to your house. Right, right. So you recognizing the enemy here is not mo it’s not a bad rap mold is doing its thing. And in fact, if it didn’t do its thing, we would have dead stuff piled up everywhere, it would be a disaster. In fact, it did happen millions of years ago.
And that’s why we have a cold that all the trees piled up. And that’s how coal was created seriously, for those microbes came in and figured out how to, you know, make nutrients out of those things. So anyway, where we are now is that we have you know, mold growing in the home mold is supposed to be outside not supposed to be inside. So everyone’s worried about, you know, do I have black mold or toxic mold?
And if I had this kind I’ll take action, and if I don’t I won’t. The problem is again if you have a moisture issue, that moisture issue will generally continue to get worse. Kingdom fungi are fascinating. It actually accounts for 30% of the Earth’s biomass, which is really incredible. And actually, almost every mushroom has medicinal qualities.
And so if you look at fungi Paul Stamets, the famed mushroom proselytizer argues that mushrooms or fungi are actually the Earth’s immune system, and also the earth’s communication network neural network. But I do believe that there’s a benevolence to these organisms, and I look at mold in a building not as an enemy, but rather as a messenger. It’s telling you that something’s wrong in your house, it’s telling you there’s an imbalance in your house. Those spores are everywhere.
You’re never going to avoid that, spores are ubiquitous. In fact, check this out. Every year fungi produce 50 Mega tons of spores, which is equivalent to 500,000 Blue Whales every year, and that is the largest source of biological particulate in the world. So you’re not going to get away from spores. What we can do to control whether it’s growing indoors is really controlling moisture.
If you keep it clean and dry, you have no mold. So what I encourage people to do is consider this, okay? And this is sort of a nice way to bring our philosophy back around buildings that we live and work in, people perceive them as places. This box is basically the status box. And I would argue that that’s actually an extension of your immune system, I would argue that your buildings are your exoskin, your exoskeleton, it’s a filter.
It protects you from… it’s actually one of the basic for human needs, right? Air, water, food, shelter. Yeah, and we forget about this is basically… And I mean, you know, we’re a lot like hermit crabs, we wouldn’t do too well without one, right? And so we’re completely dependent upon this, but we take it for granted.
And so this extension of your immune system, looking at it this way, realizes that the building also has a lifespan. It also you could argue a building as an organism, it has a birthday, potentially a death day. The longevity is contingent upon how well you care for it. And your relationship with that building is dynamic, it also contains you, and it’s an extension of your immune system. But I would argue that you are the building’s immune system.
And so when you’re not doing your job of monitoring the aches and pains, which show up as moisture problems, then you end up with chronic issues. It’s a lot like inflammation in the body, I use the building as a body metaphor, you know, if you got inflammation, that’s not the enemy. Aspirin isn’t the problem, you know, the aspirin deficiency, you have inflammation, because there’s something wrong you deal with the underlying cause, right?
The same thing goes with mold problems if you have mold growth, it is basically inflammation for the building, if you allow it to continue, chronic inflammation in the body is its own disease, and it leads to other diseases, chronic dampness in the building, it’s the same thing. So this black mold, toxic mold thing is a farce. Don’t worry about that. Don’t worry about what kind of mold you have, yes, that black mold toxic molds are indicative of chronic dampness that is, the chronic that is a VOC disease, and the underlying cause of it is chronic dampness. And that’s the focus. That has to be the focus at all times.
Therese Forton-Barnes 21:39
The root cause, right?
Jason Earle 21:41
The root cause, and so clean and dry is the healthy home mantra, clean and dry. You know, what we always say is if you’re concerned about a mold problem, we want you to engage your senses, which is you know, if you see something, smell something, or see something, do something and trust your intuition. Look around, people generally know where there’s a problem. But then we say get the facts test, don’t guess, get yourself a humidity gauge, get yourself a Mold Test Kit, we’re a big fan of ours.
And there really aren’t any other high-quality test kits out there. That’s why we created ours. But get yourself either home air check actually makes a nice VOC test as well, homeaircheck.com. Our test is for spores. So it’s a spore trap test kit. But you know, at the end of the day, this is building science, not build superstition. This is a pretty straightforward path. And my other advice for your listeners is, if you want advice on mold, don’t go to Facebook.
Therese Forton-Barnes 22:25
Boy, and I want to go back to your test kit. Because how does that work? Give us a little description. You said it tests for spores.
Jason Earle 22:32
Yes. So if you want to have your house tested for mold, right now, you could go get one of these Petri dishes that they sell at Home Depot, which are scientifically invalid, you can basically duplicate that experiment with a piece of damp white bread, right? So mold grows. On the other side of the spectrum, you hire a professional that’s going to come in for 1000 or $1,500. And they’re going to collect air samples in most cases using something called a spore trap. These are cassettes that are designed to have air drawn through them. And then inside that cassette is a small adhesive slide that captures the airborne particulate matter.
And usually, the samples are run for about five minutes. So they’re just a slice in time, a moment in time, or they call it a grab sample in some cases. And so there’s an outdoor air sample that’s collected according to best practices as a comparator or as a reference sample. Because mold spores are a normal part of our environment, what we do is basically deduct what we find outside, from what we find inside it, the indoor samples are collected in areas of concern. In other words, you’d want to do a brief inspection which is articulated in our instruction of your house sample in the areas where you’re concerned.
And then also sample adjacent areas, but in many cases, those samples are collected using our air sampling pump. And then they’re sent back to in a prepaid return mailer to our laboratory partner where they are analyzed and the data is processed or software. And then they get a very simple report with a green, yellow, orange or red reading. And then from there, there are also some additional follow-up recommendations that we provide in the report as well in terms of where you can find a qualified inspector and where you can find a qualified remediator. We also have a link to our ebook, which is How to Find Mold. So all in all, our tests start at $149 up to $249 for up to three rooms. And yeah, we’re very… we just launched the test kit about three weeks ago.
Therese Forton-Barnes 24:14
Wow! Awesome!
Jason Earle 24:15
Yeah. So we’ve been working on this for a very long time. So it’s very exciting.
Therese Forton-Barnes 24:17
That is very exciting because I know how expensive mold remediators are. So this is a great option for people that are worried about any kind of mold you have in their house. So one other area I want to touch on because our indoor air quality and with COVID right now, and COVID is not going away anytime soon. How do you feel about indoor air quality and dealing with COVID? But what can people do or what do they need to know?
Jason Earle 24:45
Well, I think COVID has been a gift to the people that are in the indoor air quality industry. So the thing about indoor air quality that’s interesting is that we have very little control over most things in our life. If you’re honest with yourself. You’re free really honestly yourself, you have very little control over most things in your life. And with indoor air quality, you have an incredible amount of control. And yet we exert so much energy in trying to control things we can’t control and, not enough areas where we do have an actual locus of control. And so I feel like it’s our adult human responsibility to become aware of those things and to stop wasting energy. In places where there’s no impact indoor air quality behind food is the number two source of chronic illness and source of inflammation, it definitely is really an illness.
According to most of the studies that you look at. If you combine them all together. And you look at this, it’s very clear that food causes most diseases and air quality is a close second, it may even be parallel. And the indoor air quality is the issue not outdoor air quality or not, yes, outdoor air, by the way, it goes down and talks about this, outdoor air permeates gets in, and then we re-breed that. So yes, if you guys were outdoor air quality, that’s a real problem. But the indoor air quality is really just an exacerbation of all that.
Therese Forton-Barnes 26:04
I have these indoor air quality monitors that I use in our house, but I specifically have them to take the people’s homes. And I encourage people that question their indoor air quality and I have changed so many people’s minds when it comes to what they’re using in their house. And with them, we detect where those VOCs are formaldehyde, which is very common. So an indoor air quality monitor is also an option for people to, and of course, an air purifier is a great way. I mean there’s… I’d get the HEPA grade, I promote Austin Air, but there are other ones out there that a lot of other people stand behind. So do you have a certain air purifiers that you love or I know it’s made a change in so much many people’s lives that I put it into their homes with their indoor air quality.
Jason Earle 26:54
Yeah, so let me let me wrap up the COVID piece and then….
Therese Forton-Barnes 26:57
Oh yeah, sorry, sorry!
Jason Earle 26:59
Yeah, no, no, it’s okay. No…
Therese Forton-Barnes 27:01
I was jumping out because yeah, I was jumping on that too because during COVID Everybody wanted clean air in their house so it was like a big what you the mad rush to get these air purifiers to so it was…
Jason Earle 27:13
The whole thing is so I think COVID has been a big benefit is brought a lot of awareness to it but I think the thing that people are realizing is that your indoor air quality can make you more susceptible to other infections and so in other words, if you got poor indoor air quality, you know you’re not only you’re going to experience all the fatigue and difficulties that we talked about earlier but also you become more susceptible to other infections and so things like COVID and so investing in these things is preventive on so many different levels.
And you know, I always say any air filter is better than no air filter, you know, but at the same time, they’re not all created equal. So in terms of HEPA filters, you know, IQ air is a brand that I’ve always recommended. However, I’m not a huge fan of that company these days for various different reasons. I still think it’s a gold standard in terms of the the the equipment, so you know what you’re looking for is something that you’re looking for true HEPA, okay and what that means is the sealing unit is sealed so the filter doesn’t allow air to bypass it.
Very common with HEPA filter vacuum cleaners as well as HEPA filter air cleaners, but they’re not sealed and you’ll see the difference in the same product lines we’ll see HEPA and true HEPA. So with that a fake HEPA you know I just always laugh at these things they positioning you know, really makes you wonder what that first one is if it doesn’t have the true next to it but when it comes down to air purifiers, don’t buy the gizmos, the gadgets don’t buy the the UV light does not do anything. Okay. Do yourself your favorite don’t buy an all-in-one humidifier, dehumidifier, copier, fax machine, or toaster.
You get yourself a great air purifier. the brand I love is Medify, m e d i f y, I love them because they’re very high quality. They’re true HEPA. They also have activated carbon and filters but they are very inexpensive for what they do. You can get a really good unit for under 100 bucks. Which is just unheard of. And I just recently started working with the company and I really like what I see…
I constantly buying air purifiers and test them and this is the one that has really stood out almost peerless at this point, I mean at half the price for what they’re selling. But COVID, yes, COVID has brought a lot of gadgets and gizmos have been sold schools are now putting UVs and stuff like that there’s there’s a lot of waste being experienced in these markets. But all in all, I do think that we’re at a point where our culture has risen through you know, this sort of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs where we’re now able to focus on things like air, you know, toilets first than water than food than air, and air is elusive because you don’t get the touch or taste or feel unless there’s really bad and so it’s something you forget about. Remember 21,000 times a day you breathe. How many of those are you aware of?
Therese Forton-Barnes 29:01
Oh wow. Right, very eye-opening to me to everybody that you need to focus on your air I think And more so than anything, because as you said, I mean, you can’t live without air and our indoor air, everybody thinks that there indoor air is okay. So many people have this misconception that the outdoor air is more polluted. But it’s not. I mean, it depends on if you’re living your Thruway or something. But this all great information. Now, how can people get in touch with you? And we’ll also put that in the show notes as well.
Jason Earle 30:24
Yes, so gotmold.com. Easy. Right there. At the bottom of the homepage, you can find a contact field there, you can ask us any questions you want. You can also send emails to questions@gotmold.com. We have people there ready to answer those kinds of questions. We just recently started a Facebook, we’re facebook.com/gotmold, and there are some interesting conversations starting to happen there. And if you go to gotmold.com, our Learning Center is where we’re investing a lot, we’re putting a lot more content up a lot more about building common building defects and what to do about them.
Air Purifiers compared the middle of their various different products for testing and sharing the results of so yeah, gotmold.com is where we are and love to hear from your audience. And also, by the way, I almost forgot for your listeners, we have set up a special welcome page at gotmold.com. And it’s slashed tees organic at that link. That’s t e e s organics, plural, we have a coupon code Tees10, which will give your listeners 10% off any of our test kits, as well as a link to our ebook that I mentioned earlier, which is 45 pages of inspection checklists and FAQs. It’s a great resource. people rave about it. So…
Therese Forton-Barnes 31:36
Awesome.
Jason Earle 31:38
Gotmold.com/teesorganics
Therese Forton-Barnes 31:40
Well, Jason, we could probably sit here and talk forever, because you and I both love talking about indoor air quality. And there’s so much that we could share this subject. So maybe we’ll have to do something down the road again. But I would love that. Thank you for all that you are doing because it takes all of us all over the world to really share the information that we all know that we need to be our own watchdog.
And we need to look at everything that we are bringing in our house, whether it’s food, clothing, laundry detergent, shampoo, deodorant, or hairspray, these all can affect your breathing, and mold is just one of the things that you need to be aware of too. So thank you so much for everything, and I greatly appreciate what you are doing.
Jason Earle 32:29
Thank you for the work you do.
Therese Forton-Barnes 32:30
Thank you, Jason. Thank you for tuning in and spending your time with us and for being a big part of the green living gurus movement. Remember to like, comment, and share this episode with your friends and check out all that we have to offer at greenlivinggurus.com. And lastly, remember to read your labels and know your ingredients. Namaste.
