Mold, Mycotoxins, and Why the Magic Paint Never Works

Hello, everyone. Once again, it's time for the Wise Home Energy Show with our buddy, Jeff

Flaherty. Hey, Bob. Great to be- How's it' going? Great to be- back here. Thank you, sir. Absolutely. And here. we go, headlong into summer. Hey, we're getting some energy radiating from the sun. It's creating a lot of, uh, heat, which, hey, I love to get outdoors and enjoy the sun. Well, Rochester, Buffalo, don't get used to it. Well, yeah. You, know what I'm saying. It' comes and goes. Yeah. But it's, it's, it's, a nice treat. It' is. It' is. It's, uh, it's, uh, been beautiful, hot and, uh, all over the place, right?

And, uh, we got a great show today. Uh, I'm excited. We do have a, uh, a mold expert, uh, from Western New York in the, uh, studio. We're gonna get to him shortly. But I wanna recap for our, uh, for our listeners of the Wise Home Energy Show a little bit about what we do. 'Cause we get some people call in from, uh, uh, listening to the show and, they say, "I wanna fix my attic, and, I' wanna make my home more energy efficient, and I wanna do a home assessment." And great, we love that. That's in our, wheelhouse.

Uh, but recently we had a listener, uh, email in and said, "And what happens when the electric goes out like it does four or five times a year at my house? Uh, but the gas never goes out." So I thought that was an interesting, uh, email, so

I called him and, uh, he seemed to think that we were trying to force everybody to go all electric, and we don't do. that. We are agnostic to what you would like to do in your home. Uh, so we offer, uh, a host of services to improve your home. If you would like a gas furnace and it is legal and safe to install, Wise Home Energy can install that for you. If you would like an electric air source heat pump, uh, and it is safe and legal to install, we can install that for you. And I guess sometimes I must focus so much on the, uh, energy efficiency that some of the listeners aren't understanding the true services that we offer. We...

Uh, it's interesting. We are a, a premium service, uh, and we like to do that home assessment, but if you'd just like to call and have us replace your furnace, we can do that also. And we-- as we talked about so many times, our process, uh, is that assessment." Uh, New York State offers that. no-cost home assessment, and we focus on health and safety, building durability, and energy efficiency. And when we focus on all those three things in that' order, we're gonna get a comfortable, energy-efficient home, and that's really what we love to do. And, and one of the things when we walk into homes, we see, uh, things in homes that we don't wanna see. Uh, we will see mold. And, and so we're not a mold assessor, but we can sometimes say, "Hey, that kinda looks not normal." Uh, so a typical spot we'll find that is we'll climb up into an attic and we will see the roof deck, uh, discolored. It does not look, uh, like the original wood that was put up there, and, and it'll be spotty sometimes, uh, ironically, right over a bathroom where, uh, there was a fan unvented.

Uh, sometimes it's uniform over the whole roof, and it's starting to delaminate the wood. And, and sometimes we'll go in and we'll see this ma- I call it magic paint. They'll paint this mold, uh, paint on there, and they never solve the moisture problem. So

I've always been frustrated, uh, and never been able to really confidently recommend somebody, uh, until the past year when I, I met a gentleman from Western New York, uh, who happens to be in studio here, and his name is John Pusateri, and he is the founder of

Green Genie. And welcome, John. Good afternoon, Jeff. It's nice to see you today. Yeah. I appreciate you coming down and, uh, got to know John and, and we talked, uh... We love talking business of, uh, homes, and suddenly

I realized John and I were cut from the same mold. That we don't go there to sell something to somebody. We listen to what's going on with their concerns, and we offer them solutions to solve the problem long term, right? And so what, uh, what's your background, John? How did you get into the mold field? You know, it's funny, I started in the family business in the, uh, furniture world, and in 2008 the economy crashed, and I still had to put a roof over my kids' heads, feed them, and surprisingly they wanted to go to college. So I had to come up with something new.

And I always leaned more of an all-natural lifestyle, and so I started an all-natural carpet cleaning business to support my own customer base at that furniture store. Um, because it's all natural and dry in an hour, we were getting a lot of phone calls with people with COPD and asthma. So I'm in the houses nights and weekends, uh, uh, clean- carpet cleaning, and I'm getting itchy skin and teary-eyed. I'm thinking, "They gotta have mold in their houses." So I started researching mold, and I found a way to clean mold out of a house. that uses enzyme-based solutions, and it's better than most things that are on, on the market. Then I moved forward. And, you know, if you want to do something well, become an expert in it, and I study this stuff day and night.

Excellent. Excellent. And that's, uh, that's what intrigues me so much, Bob, is when I go into these homes, I have the heartache of telling people, "What, what happened to your roof?"

"Uh, oh, you know, during the real estate transaction, you know, we, they found it and they took care of this." I'm like, "Well, it's four years and it's starting to come back. They didn't solve the moisture problem." And, um, that's what I... You know, John and I started talking and we were like, "Hey, you know, why, why is that the case?" And, and that's where John told me that he really, uh, does things quite differently. And John brings up a great point too. If you, if you have a problem, what you wanna do is you want to immediately gravitate towards an expert, and John has taken the time to become expert in this field. Uh, if you're trying to close on a house? and, you notice a problem and the realtor says, "Ah- Ah, don't worry about it. I'll f- I'll fix it all up for you. Uh, the realtor's not in the mold business. The realtor's in the b- in the closing business. Right. And getting you in that house and bye-bye.

Right. Right. Yeah. And I, and I... Kudos to the realtors that, um, you know, follow John and, and, uh, refer people to John because they recognize he's doing it differently than some of these other folks that are just trying to help the transaction pass. So, uh, total respect for John in that regards and the realtors that, that choose him. In fact, John, you, um, you work with realtors, uh, uh, out in Western New York. Is that correct?

Yes. As a matter of fact, uh, I now teach the continuing education classes for the Buffalo Niagara Area Realtors Association, the hidden dangers of the home, which would include mold, also VOCs, radon, carbon monoxide.

Uh, as we've entered into this new world with the energy audits and everything like that, that energy audit n- is a health and safety, uh, feature as well, and many times we'll see high levels of carbon monoxide in people's homes. They think they have mold toxicity issues, and turns out that their oven is, uh, um, b- has incomplete combustion. And they're standing over it when they turn it on, they don't have the exhaust fan going, and they're breathing in thousands of parts per million of carbon monoxide, and that is wickedly dangerous for them. So as

I c- uh, did the research for the presentation I was teaching, I jumped into that rabbit hole and, uh, you know, scared myself a little bit, so- Yeah ... I don't wanna scare anyone here today, but I wanna give you some, uh, information so you can make wise choices. Right. Absolutely. Um, so when it, when it comes to mold, people in their home... I, I was just talking to somebody before I left my office and, uh, they ta- they talked about, "You know, I had a home. and I, I was sick all, the time. Every... But then when I'd go on vacation or travel for work, I wasn't."

And so what are some of the, uh, you. know, adverse effects of mold in a home and, and people react differently, I presume, to, to mold exposure?

Everybody's immune system is different, so you can't categorically say, "This mold is dangerous. This isn't dangerous," et cetera. Um, and it's always an about an abundance of it over time. Uh, just same thing with VOCs. One exposure to a VOC isn't going to get you sick, but the, abundance of it' over time will, uh, uh, make your symptoms get worse. Mold affects us in two different ways. First, there's the mold spore. So. as a child, you remember running around the lawn and picking up those white dandelions and blowing on it? Uh, all those white little seedlings of the dandelion, that's called hyphae, and that's the same thing that mold has. So when it goes through sporulation, its process, of having babies, uh, it sends all these spores into the air. So two square centimeters of Aspergillus, when disturbed or at the moment of sporulation, can put out 400 million spores that will affect us. So we have a, uh, a histamine response to that, so we get runny eyes, itchy skin, et cetera. When m- uh, it's above 60% relative humidity in the house, mold is in active growth duplicating. It's inhaling and exhaling, and when it does that, it releases mycotoxins, and those mycotoxins can affect our, uh, DNA and our organs and, uh, and stuff like that. So as the body gets constantly bombarded with these things, we can go into an autoimmune response. We can have, uh, all sorts of symptoms down the road. Excellent. I mean, that is a, that's a great description of it. It's, uh, it's... People always call and, and we do indoor air quality testing, and we say it, it's not gonna tell us the source of things and, and our IAQ test won't even tell, um, you know, if there's mold, but it'll tell us as part of the energy assessment. is there conditions ripe for mold and that's, that's where we come at it, but we have to defer, um, to an expert like

John. So, uh, let's take a break for a moment. We're on the Wise Home Energy Show and, uh, we have John Pusateri here with Green, uh, Genie. John, what's the contact information for our listeners if they need to get ahold of you? Well, you can find our website at greengeniewny.com and our phone number is 716-466-6653.

Let me just toss a, a question out here. John, you, you mentioned, you mentioned, uh, VOCs, volatile organic compounds. What's the source of those things in the home? Anytime somebody puts chemicals together, it is natural for them to want to break apart. It's the law of thermodynamics. Uh, so, uh, y- if you buy bleach, uh, it loses 50% of its power within the first three months, and it leaches right straight through the plastic. So those, when the, uh, chemicals are put together, they start breaking apart. So all those cleaning chemicals that you put in your house, uh, paint cans that you have in, uh, in the basement also, uh, give off VOCs. You should only buy enough paint to do the room and then discard the rest. Same thing if you have, uh, um, cosmetics have VOCs.

Uh, you have, uh, paint strippers, stuff like that. Also, uh, a lot of stuff that you put in your garage. If you don't have a vapor barrier between the garage and the house, the suction effect of the chimney effect of air going up through the house, which, uh, Jeff can help fix for you, but that will actually draw any, uh, benzene, formaldehyde, which is an off gas from combustion. So if you start the, uh, car in the garage, even with the door open, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, and benzene will come into the house. Wow. I've learned something today,

Jeff, I'm telling you. Yeah. Never, never knew. Yeah. It's, it's amazing and it's, it's, you know, from our angle, uh, we're coming in a home and people are thinking, "Oh, I just wanna lower my energy bills." And we, um, really from a Building Performance, uh, Institute certification, it's very similar to a doctor. First do no- harm. Um, and that's why, uh,

Wise Home Energy, uh, comes in and does the assessment, and we offer a no-cost 30-minute, uh, IAQ test. Uh, I think pretty certain that's something different. I haven't seen anybody do that in, uh, Western New York, and that's just something we believe in. If there's a problem in the home, let's not start tightening up the home. Let's figure out what the problem is. Let's, uh, let's take care of it. And we're currently on a project right now where- A client who, uh, has a, a child who's got some, uh, disabilities and, and started to see those disabilities get worse and just started calling up people and people came in and said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Swap the box. Swap the box. Swap..." And she said, "You were, you were the only ones who actually listened to me, listened to my concerns, and came up with a solution." She had really done a lot of research and really wanted to focus on her IAQ.

And it, it's not something that costs you a lot more. It's just taking the time, uh, listening. Uh, that's part of the diagnosis. It's... We think of the home as, um, just, uh, the pieces and parts, but one of the pieces and parts is the humans. So the humans, as John said, will bring in things in their home, paints and gas cans and, uh, cosmetics and cleaning, caustic cleaning, uh, agents that aren't good for you. So, um, you know, kind of taking that holistic approach, uh, it, it leads to a much better product. Uh, the goal isn't a sale. The... For us, the goal is a solution. We want a solution for the client, uh, to make them l-live a, live a healthier life inside their home, and that's gonna be energy efficient, comfort. It's gonna add all those things when we do it properly like that.

So as I said before, New York State does offer that no-cost assessment. It seems to be like the, uh, the world's, uh, best-kept secret. So you could call Wise Home Energy at 585-270-5836 or visit us on the web and, uh, uh, it just takes a few minutes. We can get you signed up. And, and it's something that really we hear a lot of like, "Oh, I had that done 10 years ago, and I had that, uh, you know... Oh, I had my attic insulated, or I had that done and it was great." And, and I think of it in terms of a physical. Like, you wouldn't say, "I went to the doctor

10 years ago." Um, the house changes. The technology changes. We have testing equipment that seven years ago we didn't have. We, you know, just keep adding to our re-repertoire of skills so we can offer, uh, a different insight into the home and, and that's by testing, right? We do a blood test

10 years ago, we wouldn't wanna say that our blood is great today. We'd wanna retest. So, um, that's the important thing and, and really do your research and, and make sure that you're, you're choosing not the quickest, uh, fix, but the longest term fix if you're gonna stay in that home. And that's, um, you know, that's what

John offers. Um, so John, when we, um, when we talk about h-mold in the home, there's some urgent, uh, blowout quick causing mold issues as we were talking, uh, before the show, right? We can have hotter, hot water tanks, uh, leak. But what are, what are some of the sources of mold that you see?

Or what are some of the common conditions you see in homes? So please understand mold is in the environment 24 hours a day. It's a very important part of the ecosystem. Part... One of the purposes of fungus is decay that tree that falls in the forest, so every breath of wind has mold spores blowing in on it. Typically, on the first floor and the second floor, we practice hygiene where we're cleaning the house and everything. Plus, with good HVAC controls, we have practiced humidity control. The two biggest concerns for me are the attic and the basement because they're sort of an unconditioned part of the house. So what happens in the attic is you have all this moisture coming up from the outside, and it sits on... and mold spores blowing in through the soffits, and they sit on the wood. If conditions are above 60% relative humidity, mold will start to colonize and grow. Now, a lot of times people look at the black discoloration that you see on a, an attic and think, "Oh my God. Black mold." That's usually not the case. Uh, black mold requires 88% humidity or greater for, uh, your regular molds to evolve in them. So I find that more in foreclosures or where, say, people have gone away on vacation. They go down to Florida for the winter and a pipe breaks in the house and the basement's flooded, and that is usually a sign where the black mold, known as Stachybotrys, can start to evolve. Stachybotrys gives off the most dangerous of the mycotoxins, but all mold does give off mycotoxins.

Um, typically though in the attic you don't have those issues unless you've had a significant roof leak. Mm-hmm. Um, but again, it's so important. You know, ladies and gentlemen, that home energy audit is free. Take advantage of it. It's so important. I want you to recognize the fact the single most important thing we do every single day is breathe. You can go days without food. You can go days without water. You can't go minutes without a breath.

Mm-hmm. The very first thing when we're, we're born, we go We take a deep breath because it's necessary for human life, and the air that we breathe has to be clean. Indoor air is usually 7 to 10 times more polluted than outdoor air, not just mold, but from VOCs, radon, et cetera. And you wanna breathe the healthiest air as possible, and that energy auditor is gonna help you create that atmosphere. Uh, they do a, a g-walk around the house with a micrometer and a blower door, and we look for air exchanges in the house.

Anytime moisture builds up in a house, mold can grow because mold's in the atmosphere. We wanna minimize that. Um, you know, basements are actually cold by nature, so cold air holds less moisture than warm air, so you think the house... the, the basement's dry.

Well, if it's 50% relative humidity upstairs in the first floor and then it migrates downstairs and hits the cold walls and the cold floors, it lowers the air temperature. Relative humidity goes up. That mold spore can start to colonize in the joists above your head. I know a lot of people look at the concrete, uh, as evidence of mold. You see that black discoloration sometimes, but it's usually mineral deposits that are coming through. Uh, but that is indicative that moisture is leaching in from the, uh, the walls. I look at the joist above your head. Mold is attracted to wood just like I'm attracted to pizza and big donuts.

Uh, that's excellent, John. And, and, and I think that that's an interesting point. I mean, I always think of basements. It's, uh... They, they say a boat is a hole in the water, uh, that you throw money into, and that's kinda similar with a basement. It's a hole in the ground. So it's-- there's a lot of forces on it. There's a lot of water trying to get in. And we talk about relative humidity, and then really relative humidity kinda i-it, it's a single point data point that almost can't tell us that much because we need to know temperature and dew point, and we bring those together. And as it starts getting colder, which happens in a basement, as John said, the conditions start getting real good for mold and, and the proliferation of mold.

Um, so that's, uh, that's r- an excellent point of, um, you know, how the attic and the, the basement seem to be the big spots we have seen it. And, you know, occasionally you'll get it, uh, in the bathrooms in, in, in these, these bath fan vents.

Um, they sell 'em on the shelves, or they used to at, uh, the big box stores, and they, they might be rated at 50 CFM by the time they get installed, which CFM is cubic foot per minute or roughly about the size of a basketball.

Uh, but that's the rated, uh, uh, flow of it. When you, uh, measure it, it probably gets down to 15 to 30. So it's very small, uh, flow out, so it doesn't get rid of the moisture after a shower. Then that condenses on those cold surfaces, and you start the process of, uh, the mold. And so just measuring a bath fan and using a bath fan can help us spot a moisture area like a bathroom or a kitchen, get rid of that, that moisture source. So, um, so on the Wise Home Energy Show here, uh, contact

Wise Home Energy, 585-270-5836, uh, for that energy assessment, or all your home, energy needs. And contact

John, uh, if you wanna know anything about mold. or, uh, as you've heard, if you wanna have him, uh, you know, come out and, speak. He's certainly the expert in Western New York. John, what's the contact information again?

Uh, you can find us at, uh, www.greengeniewny.com and our phone number is 716-466-6653.

Our secret sauce is we' don't use any toxic chemicals to do the work. So a lot of times people use an industrial bleach, and we've all used shower... you know, bleach on our shower grout, right? And then it comes back three weeks later. And the reason why is the bleach can only kill the surface mold. But mold's growing inside the bleach or, inside the, uh, the grout. It's also growing inside the wood, let's say, in your attic or in your basement. Uh, the surface tension of bleach doesn't allow it to penetrate in. What it does, it just takes the color out of it.

So if you actually look at the stuff in the big box stores, it actually says on the label in fine print, "Mold stain remover." It just takes the color out of it. It doesn't get rid of mold. And then a lot of people- Mold stain remover. Right. In case, in case you missed that. Yeah. So, uh, and that's what happens a lot of time, and then people try to paint over the top of it. And the EPA suggests that you never paint over the top of mold. You please understand, on every piece of wood, there are six sides. If it's built into your house, you only have access to one side of that piece of wood.

So air and moisture's still getting in there, and that mold's gonna continue to grow, and it'll grow right through, straight through any primer that you put on top of it. And then what do you do? You have to use a chemical stripper to try to get the paint off. Yeah. That's not the solution.

Yeah. We- So we' can remove the mold from the wood using enzyme-based solutions without having to paint over the top of it. I love it. I love it. We, uh, w-we, like I said, we' go to these homes, and we usually get these calls about four years after.

Uh, so we're at the, uh, the, the mold treatment has been done, as they, they call it, in the attic. And we went to this one recently and, uh, we had been to the home like four years ago, right after they had, um, moved in.

Uh, there, was the, the magic paint, as I call it. Uh, it's kind of, a, um, a euphemism for I don't think that did much. And it-- the ceiling's painted brown, and we' give the, the proposal to properly treat this air s- uh, the attic. Air seal it, insulate it, baffle it, ventilate it.

And we' don't hear from him and, and he calls us again four years later and, and we don't catch the same address. And we go out there, and we redo our energy assessment. As we said, you can get 'em done, uh, you know, uh, you can get 'em done once a year if you want through New York State at no cost. And he had had the attic treated and insulated, and they hadn't, they hadn't air sealed. So he still had the same problem.

He had made it worse. He'd added more insulation. The company that came and charged him money, they, they've gone off and taken their, their profit. They didn't solve any problem. And w- they were like, "Well, they said they air sealed." I'm like, "Well, we take pictures.

We can show you that we air sealed. Um, we can show you that the blower door... We didn't do a blower door the first time." I think it was around the COVID era. Uh, "We can show you if we do a pre and post blower door whether the air leakage worked.

Um, we pretty s- you know, from what we can see, they didn't air seal the attic." So now he's four years down the road. Somebody, already paid for this mold remediation. Somebody's paid for this attic to be insulated. And I said, "It really needs to all come, out. We need to vacuum it' out." And, he said, "Yeah, yeah, I don't think so. Maybe I should have the roof looked at." Okay.

You know, I can, I can- Oh my gosh ... I can lead the horse to water, but I c- it's illegal for me to hold his head under. Um, so i-it's sad. I don't like to see people waste money. Um, all we can do is counsel 'em on, uh, the right approach that Wise Home Energy takes and, the right approach that, uh, Green Genie takes. And we just give 'em the information. We hope that they make the best decision.

Um- Uh, I'm not a flashy guy, so maybe I'm, I... maybe I'm not, uh, doing a dog and pony show on' the home good enough. But, uh, it, it, it saddens me when we see this kind of constantly. 'Cause what's gonna happen now is that, that plywood's... not only the health and safety of the mold, but the plywood's gonna delaminate, and you're gonna need a new roof, and you're gonna need all new, uh, plywood. Or you know, a lot of new plywood replaced.

It's, it's a, it's a, it's a crazy game to me to, to not do it right? the first time, so. When you... When... I was gonna say, when you, when you check the, the number of ways, the different avenues by which you can waste massive amounts of money and time- Yeah ... uh, I gotta believe that both of you guys have got great, you know, stories, uh, uh, um, you know, success stories. People who are just so gratified at, the difference you've made- Yeah ... i- in their homes. Yeah. I love it. I'm sure John? has got some phenomenal ones where people just tell him, um, you know, that the, the, the work he's done has just made a huge difference. You know, it's, uh, what we do is ugly work. Mm. You know, a flood restoration. You have sewage in a basement or you have mold in a house. It's not fun work. We have to put the hazmat suit on. Imagine working in, in an attic in the summertime in a hazmat suit. It' is brutally hot, it's miserable. But the gratification we get from helping people, and I'll never forget our very first call. Uh, we went to a person's house, and I remember there was a little girl s- uh, crying upstairs because she couldn't be in the, uh, uh, Columbus Day parade, and she was a little cheerleader, probably six years old or something like that, and she was chronically sick apparently.

We did a mold remediation in her basement, and my business partner, uh, had gone back out just a, a week later just to make sure everything was perfect, and she comes running across the room, jumps in his arms, and thanked him. She hadn't felt that good in probably four years.

Um, there's a purpose for what we do- Yeah ... and it's w- it is to help people. Yeah. In my research, uh, that I've been doing all these presentations, I've learned that asthma rates have gone up 40% since 1997. Amazing. Part of one of the reasons is imagine old insulation in an attic has all sorts of critters running through them. They die in there. They have urine, feces, and, and stuff like that, and all that stuff crystallizes. When you have a pressure differential, all that stuff can then come into the house making people more and more sick. So it's so important to get that energy audit in there. If they discover a moisture issue, they can refer to Green Genie or whomever, uh, for, uh, a proper mold remediation.

I do... Are we going to break now? Yeah. We're actually, we're wrapping the show up. Oh, okay. Uh, so give them, some contact information once again. Again, John with Green Genie. Uh, uh, our website's www.greengeniewny.com,

716-466-6653. Take advantage of that free energy audit. If there's any health and safety issues, Jeff can refer to me. Jeff, phone number for you. 585-270-5836. It's the Home Energy Show, Wise Home Energy

Show on the WYSL station. Thanks a lot for listening.