Standing Out in Ohio Podcast
Listen and learn how some stand out from competition and gain market share. Information helpful to agents and buyers. Conversations with professionals and entrepreneurs regarding their stories and what makes their companies and themselves stand out and gain competitive advantages. Listen to stories from Ohio real estate agents and related businesses to help you know how to improve and who to consider using for yourself or friends. Created by the owners of a highly rated home inspection company in Ohio and the Winners of Best Home Inspection Company in the Midwest https://homeinspectionsinohio.com/
Standing Out in Ohio Podcast
Clean Air, Healthy Home
Your home should be a sanctuary, but what if the air you're breathing is silently making you sick? In this eye-opening episode, Jim and Laura ("the office goddess") dive deep into the invisible threats lurking in your indoor air and provide practical solutions for creating a healthier home environment.
Did you know we spend roughly 90% of our time indoors? That makes the quality of the air we breathe at home critically important. Those mysterious headaches, unexplained fatigue, and respiratory issues might not be stress or aging – they could be direct responses to chemical contaminants from everyday household items. The hosts reveal how those pleasant-smelling air fresheners, scented candles, and cleaning products contain undisclosed chemicals that manufacturers aren't legally required to reveal.
"A clean should not have an odor," Jim emphasizes, challenging our cultural association between artificial fragrances and cleanliness. The conversation takes a fascinating turn when exploring natural alternatives – from the simple joy of baking cinnamon rolls (which both freshens your air and feeds your family) to simmering spices like cinnamon and cloves on the stove. These practical, budget-friendly solutions protect your family while still creating a welcoming atmosphere.
The discussion also addresses how new construction materials "off-gas" chemicals like formaldehyde, particularly dangerous in tightly-sealed modern homes with insufficient ventilation. Jim and Laura share real cases where families experienced serious health issues traced back to their indoor air quality, including a particularly concerning story about a new bed causing seizures in a child due to high formaldehyde levels.
Whether you're dealing with unexplained health issues, planning a new home purchase, or simply want to create the healthiest possible environment for your family, this episode delivers actionable advice on ventilation, humidity control, natural cleaning alternatives, and professional testing options. Your journey to healthier indoor air starts here – because what you can't see can hurt you.
Subscribe now and breathe easier knowing you're taking control of your home's invisible ecosystem. Have questions about your indoor ai
To learn more about Habitation Investigation, the Three-time Winner of the Best Home Inspection Company in the Midwest Plus the Winner of Consumer Choice Award for Columbus Ohio visit Home Inspection Columbus Ohio - Habitation Investigation (homeinspectionsinohio.com)
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Welcome to the Standing Out in Ohio podcast, where we discuss topics, upcoming events, news and predictions with real estate professionals and entrepreneurs. Listen and learn what makes their companies and themselves stand out and gain advantages over the competition and gain market share. Subscribe for the latest news and discussion on what it takes to stand out from the crowd. Now here's your host, jim.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, welcome to the Standing Powerhouse Podcast. This is Jim and with me Maura, the office, goddess.
Speaker 3:Hello everyone.
Speaker 2:All right. So the other day we taught a CV class. What was that CV class about? Mold. I can't remember what that CV class was about. Mold. It was about mold Okay so, which makes sense. But then somebody who's taking the class and we always have to ask questions, which is good. They learn, they may want to focus on a certain area and the questions make sense, spoken on a certain area, and their questions or some exceptions when they ask them about cleaning your air in your house or how to make it. I think it generally make it better, healthy, healthy air. So that's what we're going to talk about today Tips that we have to help make sure your air is clean, because there's a lot of chemicals that are out and about and invading everything, everywhere in our lives.
Speaker 2:Yes, so that's what this is going to be about, but first let's listen to this.
Speaker 4:Habitation investigation is the way to go for a home inspection in Ohio. Trusted licensed home inspectors for your needs. From radon to mold to warranties For a great home inspection, you really can't go wrong. Visit homeinspectionsinohiocom.
Speaker 2:All right. So, laura, air quality very important.
Speaker 3:I think it's way more important than people actually realize.
Speaker 2:What is it? We spend like 90% of our time indoors nowadays, which makes it even more important that we make sure the air quality in the house is safe and healthy for everybody.
Speaker 3:It's amazing how much air quality can impact your health and people don't realize. You know, if all of a sudden they start getting headaches or they start getting dizzy, or you know they're just really tired, it could be because of air quality.
Speaker 2:Well, it used to be. When people I'll say within the last, within the last 10 years, people asked us for testing for air, it was 100%, it was mold. Maybe allergies popped up every now and then, but it was almost always just mold. But there's man, there's paints, furniture, cleaning products, there's air fresheners, plug-in type things, there's all kinds of things that are in there Scented candles Because they smell good, they're going to be healthy, old bullshit. Because a lot of people don't realize that the companies that make cleaning products, air fresheners, companies that make cleaning products, air freshers, they do not have to tell you what chemicals or substances they use to give it that odor, that flavor they don't have to tell you that, which is really sad, because there are some nasty scents out there, like some of the stuff that makes the lemon scent.
Speaker 3:It's a t-word, that stuff is nasty.
Speaker 2:No, it's not that.
Speaker 3:I can't think of what it's called, but it's got that.
Speaker 2:Oh, the terpenes, yeah, the terpenes yeah.
Speaker 2:So you have to be careful what you use. It's really and I have a saying, I came up with it a few weeks ago A clean should not have an odor. Right, and some Pine trees. If you go out in the woods and you have pine trees, you're going to smell pine trees. That's clean, that's natural. That's a clean. It's some kind of chemical that the trees produce, but it's a natural chemical. Yeah, it's not something that's going to be deadly to you or make you sick and get too much of it. So it's going to be deadly to you or make you sick and get too much of it. So what do we do to help make certain that our indoor air quality is going to be good? When we went to the house the other day and the new build the person was sick.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and they haven't been living in it for four months, five months at this point something like that.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and you, yeah, they're feeling broke after that. Your sense of chemicals like that. So what are some things that people can do to help make certain, like I say, makes the house smells good, but it's clean or safe?
Speaker 3:Open your windows, Let fresh air in and out that air exchange.
Speaker 2:Ventilation. You're supposed to have a certain amount of ventilation outside of the air already. The air quality is the last 70% of those ages. It's about the cubic volume of the space in your house. The square footed person same height. About third of that should be exchanged for fresh outside air every hour.
Speaker 3:That doesn't happen in your house.
Speaker 2:They build them go really tight likely. That's why you see more mold issues. Right where somebody's newer house, there's a little leak going on, there's a moldish because there's not enough air exchange to dry it out. Right one issue. So ventilation is very important. What about air fear? Fine, what do you think about those at the filters?
Speaker 3:at the filters. They're not going to pull out VOCs or things like that. But over-the-counter ones aren't massively good because they're not going to pull out from all the hide. They're not going to do some of that stuff.
Speaker 2:Typically not. Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 3:But for just catching dander and dust and stuff like that in the air, it's not a bad thing.
Speaker 2:Maybe get a HEPA filter. Maybe get a HEPA filter. I don't know what HEPA stands for, but I guess it's smaller yeah.
Speaker 3:What is it down to? Like 0.03 microns or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, something like that. So what do you think about those? Because there's still some air fresheners that have ozone generators built into I think a little bit of ozone. Thoughts on that.
Speaker 3:No, heck, no heck, no, no or heck, no, heck, no okay.
Speaker 2:So what's wrong with ozone?
Speaker 3:well, if you have mold ozone can actually break the moon down into smaller particles which will not ever get out of your house then because they they're going to be too small for a HEPA pill or they're going to be too small for anything- so if you have mold and someone comes and says hey, we'll do an ozone generator kill the mold.
Speaker 2:No, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it Because it breaks the mold in some small particle. Even a HEPA pill can't get that can't catch it. Yep, but they're still there. If you're allergic to molds, it'll still screw you up. Yeah, it'll still screw you up, and it's even harder to get rid of them.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 2:Okay, good.
Speaker 3:So no to ozone, no to ozone, okay, in addition, ozone is also not good for humans or anything living to breathe in. So if you're not doing it right, or if you don't know how to do things and you try to do ozone, you could actually make the situation worse and make yourself sick. That's absolutely we've actually gotten calls from people that have tried to do ozone themselves and realized that they didn't do it right.
Speaker 2:So there's a we could do a podcast just on ozone, but there's very specific. If you're doing a high enough concentrations, that you do. I guess what you wanted to do.
Speaker 3:Like to get rid of the odors and stuff.
Speaker 2:like that, you cannot be in that house, no, in that area, when that's going on.
Speaker 3:Nothing alive can no plants, no animals, no fish can. New plants, new animals, new fish, new people nothing.
Speaker 2:Ozone is three oxygen molecules together and that will irritate the crap out of your lung and kill plants, kill your animals, the pets that are in the house.
Speaker 3:Ozone finds some circumstances but you never have an air filter that generally makes ozone for you Not good and if your house like, let's say, you, you know you had an old pet or something like that and you've got a smell that you have to get out and you're you're looking to sell ozone, would be fine for that, you move everything out, you get the house ozone and it does do a good job of taking care of others, but if you've ever had a mold issue, don't use it.
Speaker 3:Good in some circumstances, in certain circumstances, and it should also be done by professionals. You should not do it on your own. Because there are differences and restraints and times, and it's all this specific formula thing that they know and they can figure out and laymen shouldn't now cleaning things vinegar, baking soda like this plain unscented soap good things to clean with nothing wrong with those things.
Speaker 2:Now I was getting my hair cut yesterday and the girl I was talking to who got my hair was talking about. I told her what we did, okay, and then she's like it's about those plug-in type things, how the bad or the chemicals. And I told her what are the pylates in there?
Speaker 3:Those are like endocrine disruptors, so they're not good for hormones, so you mess with hormones.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:So if you're wanting to get pregnant, don't use them at all.
Speaker 2:So the phylates are more effective in women's hormones more estrogen, I mean guys have estrogen also, but women have more estrogen than guys do, so is it going to be more effective in women?
Speaker 3:that also, but women have more extra guys too, so is it going to more affect women? I think it probably would, just because our hormone balance is so variable yeah, variable probably good and if you've got something that's messing with it and it gets out of whack, even a little bit, it can impact so much of your life and it's a little bit easier, I think, for guys. So, yeah, so they have finally.
Speaker 2:Once again, they don't label what the fragrance is.
Speaker 3:No, to make it smell good do you remember the one test that we did for the family whose little girl kept getting sick? She had respiratory issues no, this was another one. This, this was a little girl, constant having respiratory issues. Her sister was starting to have problems with it. They were pretty young kids and we go start downstairs in the basement, work our way up. We get upstairs in the hall and we just looked at each other Because you could smell the air fresheners plugged in.
Speaker 3:I remember they had them in every freaking outlet in the hall and in the kids' rooms and I'm like just unplug them.
Speaker 2:It's scary.
Speaker 3:So we never did hear back, so I'm assuming they unplugged them and stopped using them, things got better. But yeah, something that simple. Those plugins made the kids sick, where they were constantly having respiratory problems and having issues.
Speaker 2:Yeah, those are the full VOCs.
Speaker 3:Oh, they're horrible. Like I can't walk into a room without getting a headache almost instantly.
Speaker 2:You have trouble walking down that grocery aisle of the aisle that has all the cleaning products, cleaning and the air fresheners.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I have to swerve around that I can't get around it.
Speaker 2:Bacon soda is a good thing to clean with all bacon soda, that's fine. Now so I've come up with a girl who cut my hair. She was disappointed that she couldn't use a can. It's like generally, no, this is like and that's all. I'm out for the fragrances. They don't tell you what's in the fragrance, what they use to make that fragrance, and there's a lot of things inside there. So then her next question well, what do I do to make the house of milk? And my answer was make cinnamon rolls.
Speaker 3:I know what your answer was it was make cinnamon rolls, cinnamon rolls.
Speaker 2:And she looked at me and was like what'd you say? It didn't flow with her. She was thinking make cinnamon rolls, Make a pie, Make a pie, yes, Because cinnamon. There's nothing wrong with cinnamon First, you'll get fed, Awesome. And the cinnamon smells really good and it's not a weird chemical. And the candles she liked the candles.
Speaker 3:I'm like well, candles are paraffin, that's a petroleum product, unless it's like beeswax or soy. Those are better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're better, they're better, they're better. So I said just make cinnamon rolls. She was like oh okay, so I don't know if she's actually going to do that, but if you're baking stuff, you're a good cook, but if you're a bad cook, you're a bad cook, burn it All right now.
Speaker 2:You put particles in there, okay, and they're going to be little particles, but they're not particles of burnt food. You'll see, yeah, yeah, so you can do that as well, but if you have a range of it, you'll get rid of some stuff. So my main thing to make it smell good is first, don't use any chemicals that have fragrances in them or cleaners that have fragrances in them. And then take cinnamon.
Speaker 3:I've actually just put cinnamon in a pot of water and tossed it on the stove and heated it up yeah, that does smell good.
Speaker 2:You toss in a little bit of orange peel with that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, some cloves and it smells really nice. Cloves are also really good to like um ward off insects and things like that. So if you have clothes cooking on the stove and cinnamon, that would help get rid of insects okay, we should do a podcast on insects, so that's that's what we call that.
Speaker 2:So all right, off gassing, let's switch a little bit. So where are all these chemicals coming in the household? That makes people sick, anything they need basically. Okay.
Speaker 3:When they do construction on particle doors, on couches, on mattresses, on any of that, they are using chemicals to combine things to make that product. Using chemicals to combine things to make that product. And we've done clearance testing for formaldehyde for a little girl who was having seizures at night brand new bed really, really, really insanely high formaldehyde.
Speaker 2:And formaldehyde is big in new construction.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:Because they actually use formaldehyde in their big fiberglass insulation. Somehow it's mixed in with some binder. It kind of keeps that, those fibers, those fibers together, but they all fall apart.
Speaker 3:Right, because there's nothing better to use at this point.
Speaker 2:I guess not. I guess well, nothing cheaper, cost-effective for them because the mail finds them. I'll get some more natural, that does not do it, but probably more cost effective. And this one all the equipment is designed now. I have part of that binder that you or glue, but when you go into a house can even go back from the other, but when you go into a house there's that smell, that new house smell. Yeah, actually listen, if you go down like 24 lows down the insulation pile, okay, you always have that weird smell there that typically the majority of that is going from ala, that's off gas. I believe the majority of that is going to be formaldehyde, that's off-gas. And when you smell that in a house, that's formaldehyde.
Speaker 3:That's time to air out your house.
Speaker 2:The house we tested the other day. It was built during the winter. They moved in in December. They moved in in December, so they put the drywall well, insulation drywall in November, october, November, which means the house was not. It was not during the normal month when the windows were open or anything. The insulation got put in. The house was already closed up because of the weather temperatures, so it never really outgassed that amount of light. Where then it would break down? Right gas that's not alive, yeah. Where then it will break down? Right on the clinician new installation. It's like late fall or weather you're you're more likely to have about high traffic in your house, your time of the house, and you can have this impact. So you gotta make sure when you use it.
Speaker 3:More natural products so you gotta make sure when you use it. More natural products hard to do well with mattresses. They're bamboo, so like you can buy natural type products like mattresses, which I would definitely, are they still spongy? I don't know that that might be our next one, that's the build-up, the bathroom store.
Speaker 2:Just lay down here we are live on the mattress. They're like wait, I've got them off. They're listening. They're wrong podcast here, so you use more natural. We can. Uh, do you see they? They face out extra the dlc. They're just chemical that evaporates easy. Strategy of seas that are just chemical that evaporate easier. Greater room temperature you don't need a boil that will get them crazy hot, evaporating like greater temperature. We enjoy being around.
Speaker 3:They won't evaporate so when we were building our house we like unrolled all the insulation and left it sitting out so that it would kind of off-gas a bit yeah it did. Yeah, so we did that. We left the house open when we moved into our house. It really didn't have that new house smell because we had been continually letting it air out, and so we never had any problems.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, ours was a little easier because we almost every single window of the whole house was underneath the porch. You know, up the porch, the bathroom, the porch.
Speaker 3:The two in our bedroom were the only ones that aren't in the porch.
Speaker 2:Correct, so we opened it. Almost every single window of the house was going to get aired out in the rain, didn't matter, nothing's coming in, so that was.
Speaker 3:It made it easy for us it made it easier.
Speaker 2:Plus we just literally got put in what August they need to be repointed. It's literally outpouring what August.
Speaker 3:July, august? Probably no, maybe a little bit earlier, maybe a little bit earlier.
Speaker 2:So they have plenty of time to outgas. We have a lot of ventilation, so that don't help. So, yeah, there's anything synthetic and they can terminate the outpouring. If there's anything synthetic in there, you can add a little bit of propylene. Anything else you can think of?
Speaker 3:I use vinegar water to mop the floor, clean the windows. If I want to put a nice smell in the house, I'll take an essential oil and I have a mop that is a steam mop, so I'll put the essential oil in with the steam mop to clean and it'll put off peppermint or whatever. And I have to be careful because I have cats so I don't want some of the stuff that's going to make them sick, so I'm careful what I put in there. But if you don't, you can pretty much use whatever you want.
Speaker 2:All right, so this is a motion. Okay, you get these insane. Wow, that's what's motion. Yeah, you gotta be careful they don't put so much motion. The air that is the great environment or mold in some of your I go. So they avoid the moisture I can't remember what it is, but there's. There's the amount of moisture and humidity that can affect how much VOCs come out of things as well.
Speaker 2:I think the higher humidity, the more it pulls out the VOCs so you need to keep your moisture level in your house and we have a humidity level on our phone. Wow, on the thermostat. I got it set right on top of the thermostat so we know the humidity level. So you only want to keep it below 60% humidity 40 to 50.
Speaker 3:If you're going to get much lower than that, you're going to start getting nosebleeds and it's going to be too dry.
Speaker 2:This house got down like 20. That was wintertime, when everything was really dry.
Speaker 3:My nose. Yeah, it was not pleasant.
Speaker 2:We added some humidity in the air. It's going to help with that, you and your sunnies. Yep, you're good, so keep. Keep the house between 30 50 percent humidity level. Below 30, yeah, that means it's too dry, but above around 60 percent, I understand that the rain or some loads light, so you'll keep below that. So yeah, keep things dry, keep things aired out everybody knows don't use, don't move anything. That's still like this yeah, that's a.
Speaker 2:That's a huge red flag right there and when I say natural, I'm kind of like weird about it. I think that's the pregnancy. Just tell me when you're back for the third and what science is referring also against that one? Yeah, like ice cream, milk cream, milk cream, sugar and then vanilla, that's a four drink that's all that's for ice.
Speaker 2:That's pretty much it anyway I think it's about this one keep your air quality good with that air ventilation. With that air ventilation On the third every hour, you're able to escape slowly with simple practice Natural doors, windows, practice and access to the air they're all escape-able. Maybe you got air extinguished. You can find a big amount of pressure from outside and it's gone. It's now different. I think during the summer it's a little less likely to have air exchange, like without burning the plate number, and that's the best thing, not changing outside experience. That's all there. Exhausting summer probably. I think we're presenting forest time for air quality. With the summer you might be out there doing things, but if you are in your elderly person you're not going out. You're not going out with your guard. You're not going out for anything with your friends. You're not out doing things in France, you're trapped in the house and it's warmer.
Speaker 3:If you've got weird health things going on or just all of a sudden you're not feeling right, you've got headaches or weird stuff going on, it may be time to look at your doctor. Don't just listen to the doctor. It's not just stress. You're not just crazy A doctor.
Speaker 2:I talked to a client yesterday their he was a doctor and he was like we want to test his life, he won't expose it. Doctor had no clue. If he was a doctor, he was like what the doctor means? He wanted to have people like him. He won't expose them. The doctor had no clue. The doctor really had no clue and that's not the fault of the doctor. The school is built to teach. In fact I was in the staff the other day. 70% of medical schools do not teach nutrition. That's the foundation of health, really Nutrition.
Speaker 3:That's a huge rabbit hole.
Speaker 2:That's a rabbit hole but if you're concerned you may have indoor air quality or you're healthy and you want to stay healthy give us a call. We can do indoor air test for you to find out what's going on with that house. I think the best test we do is the phc test. God is working for the chemicals and it tells you the most actively growing in the house, so you kind of get both type tests at once yeah and then we can do a formaldehyde test and look for that formaldehyde that is the most common thing, you'll see in a house, especially when you build.
Speaker 2:When a house gets older it's less likely to have that, but we have seen a house a year or two old still have crazy eye problems because it did not have that patient and that person was really sick yeah, yeah that's a whole separate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think I said for this one um in your quality. If you want to be there, ventilation, get, get rid of your fabric. If you want to make your air freshener save the fragrance on it, you don't know what chemical that's going to be in there. No, take four cinnamon rolls that smells good. Or pie, or pie that works. Razzleberry bread Bread yes, you need natural ingredients, a little bit of anything, you don't need a whole lot. Or pie Razzleberry bread Bread yes, you need natural vinegar, a little bit of vinegar. Central oil you don't need a whole lot of vinegar in the water, just about your mouth and that's it. Keep the place fairly dry, below air humidity, below 6%. 13 to 15 degrees is the kind of speed, right? I think the thing is cushion. Yeah, all right, that's it everybody. 13, 15 weeks it'll be kind of speed, right, I think the thing is, of course, we did that since. Yeah, all right, that's it everybody. Take care. Thank you, all right bye-bye.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to the Standing Out in Ohio podcast. Be sure to subscribe on Spotify or Google Podcasts to get new, fresh episodes. For more, please follow us on Instagram, twitter and Facebook, or visit the website of the best Ohio home inspection company at homeinspectionsinohiocom or jimtroffcom. That's J-I-M-T-R-O-T-H. And click on podcast. Until next time, learn and go do stuff.