72: How to Improve Indoor Air Quality With David Milburn of HypoAir

How to Improve Indoor Air Quality With David Milburn of HypoAir

Intro:

David Milburn: But yeah, we, we see some of the worst air quality situations where you've got a home, everything seems fine, but then due to pressurization, you're pulling air from this very dirty crawl space. 

Michael Kummer: But maybe some of the key aspects that you want to take into account when building new. And 

David Milburn: one of the questions we asked ourself a while back, and maybe it's might be helpful for you and is why hasn't something like mold taken over the world?

Michael Kummer: You cannot just Blindly trust that someone will make the right decisions for you or 

David Milburn: some people like architects care very little Well, I shouldn't say care. They have not prioritized air quality. Well The general contractors are not the HVAC contractors are certainly not 

Michael Kummer: what are ions and what is bipolar ionization?

And how does it work inside of a house? 

David Milburn: You know, you're going to Airbnb or something You can't control what, how they clean the place before you, the bedding, the paints, all that kind of stuff, so you have to mitigate it. 

Michael Kummer: Are you ready to revolutionize your health and reconnect to your primal self?

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Michael Kummer: All right, David, uh, welcome back to the show. We've talked, I think twice in the past already.

Um, definitely lots of times offline, lots of times offline. Um, and today again, you know, I want to chat about air quality and the implications on our overall health and in particular indoor air quality. Right. And. Over the years, ever since, you know, we started talking, I think at a, was it a paleo FX or something conference, uh, when I bumped into you guys and I've kind of come to the conclusion that the best thing you can do for your health is to not be at home.

Um, unless maybe you live in New York city and outdoor air pollution is even worse than, you know, indoor air. But even in our home, I noticed that we all feel so much better being outside rather than, you know, indoors. Inside. Would you generally say for the, for the majority of the population, spending less time indoors is better?

David Milburn: Yeah, I think for us, we see the indoor environments as so unnatural. And so that leads to all kinds of unintended consequences. And so in general, the indoor air is significantly worse than the outside air. And what we tend to try to ask is why, I mean, in a lot of ways, it's the same air, but that's different.

Um, but the problem that we see is that our homes are, Basically trapping contaminants inside. Um, we're making them out of materials that things like mold, water based bacteria like to grow in. And we keep the temperatures and ranges that those types of, um, you know, biomes thrive in as well. And then there's no counterbalance.

There's no natural predators, there's no natural processes. And so things that you're going to be breathing outside are then. magnified inside because they're growing, they're expanding, they're being trapped, and then that leads to all kinds of unintended consequences. And for, for us, we focus on air. Air is one piece of that puzzle, but if you spend all, all day inside looking at a screen in the dark, That's not going to be good for you either.

Um, and so there's noise, there's light, air is one piece of that puzzle, but there's lots of things inside that are very unnatural, including some of the kind of just, um, unnatural, um, you know, right angles of everything, like these little boxes that we live in. So there's all kinds of things that are more unnatural inside.

And so, yeah, we're big advocates for going outside. I'm blessed to be able to live in a place where I can just open the windows. I can go outside and it's great. Um, a lot of our clients. They live next to the train station. They live downtown. Uh, and I remember so vividly kind of to your point about the New York city back in kind of the height of the 2020 lockdowns, there's this photo from San Francisco where the sky is red from the wildfires.

And then there's people outside doing CrossFit during rush hour on the sidewalk. And so it's like, they're not allowed inside because of, you know, germs. They're outside in the pollution, in the wildfire, exercising. And it's like, well. There's a lot of bad here, but it's a challenge, right? So, um, you have to kind of be aware of that, but yeah, outside is in general a lot better.

And so that's why we make it kind of our mission. How do we make the inside air more like the outside air and using the same natural processes? Cause yeah, we see that all the time and the way our homes are made are just silly. I was just talking to a lady this morning, the home that she was in, it doesn't make any sense why they did it that way.

She's got a HVAC system where the return, is from this damp, dark basement. It's up in the attic. It's not sealed properly. There's a lot of humidity issues in the attic. Um, you know, there's leakage in the wrong spots and it's just, it's designed to fail, 

Michael Kummer: essentially. Right. So the, the goodness, I think a lot of, or more and more people have become aware of, you know, indoor air pollution, but do you believe that, um, the current regulations and standards for indoor air quality are adequate or are they fundamentally flawed and outdated, or should they even be regulations or, you know, should it be up to the individual to figure out what's right or wrong?

David Milburn: Uh, that's a big question. Um, honestly, we don't pay much attention to the. the regulations because our hopes for people is far beyond what they would be regulating anyways. And as far as I think we probably focus more on building codes. So the way homes are built, irregardless of air quality has consequences for air quality.

And that's the things that we're seeing having the biggest impact. Um, there's some regulations that are probably good. And we work with a lot of commercial clients. Things like OSHA and things are going to come into play when it comes to their, you know, eight hour exposures and things like that. And all that stuff is important to, I think, review.

Um, I don't think the government's great at a lot of that stuff to begin with. Um, but yeah, when it comes to air quality, the problems we see most are. the way the contractor installed XYZ or, um, they never put, um, you know, waterproofing paper in your walls or they didn't seal the connection between the wall and the roof.

So there's just water leaking down in your walls or, um, the return air vent for your HRV system was in the bathroom with no filter. So all the humidity, odors, everything from the bathroom is just going right back into your HVAC system. So there's, um, All kinds of weird things that are maybe to building code, but have very unintended consequences with air quality.

One that I lament about a lot because I've talked to so many people that it's really hurt is places like Florida, where they put the HVAC systems in the attic, uninsulated, with no mitigation for things like mold or humidity, and within a very, very short period of time, you have mold in that attic, even like a platinum lead.

Home, new construction. There's no insulation in the attic. There's no conditioning of the attic. There's no dehumidification, purification, nothing. And so the HVAC systems, the lungs of the home, they're in that space in this very hot, humid environment. And within a very short period of time, there's mold there.

And so, you know, I don't know if it's, the government's going to help change that, but I think it's for people as they're making decisions with where they're going to move, it could look like a really nice home, but kind of look behind the walls, kind of look behind like the systems in the home. And we can talk about kind of how we approach helping someone figure out their air quality, but it's very individualized because, you know, the issues you're going to deal with in Florida versus, you you know, someplace dry or a multifamily home versus single family, they can be very different.

And so air qualities, we've been doing this for about 15 years. One of the biggest things we've learned is it's not one size fits all, right? So many kind of factors that come into play that you need different tools that are appropriate for different situations. But yeah, I don't, I don't think the government's going to help us a whole lot here, honestly.

Yeah. But the way we, We kind of say we're kind of all part of this grand experiment of how we're building these homes in a very synthetic way and then controlling the temperature and it's leading to all these unintended consequences and there's a lot to discover but we think that's part of why it's so challenging as you're trying to navigate yourself because there's lots of opinions because a lot of this is very new like how how we currently make homes a lot of it if you look back at ancient building methods a lot of them had natural mitigations against things like mold or You know, things like VOCs, much more breathable homes, you know, not perfect at all, but our modern homes are certainly contributing to some very unusual concentrations of things that our bodies haven't been exposed to before.

Michael Kummer: Right. Now, we are in the process, we're actually right now designing a new house for our new homestead. Um, so I will follow up with you offline, you know, to get you into, loop you in, uh, to make sure we don't do anything that's stupid. Okay. Um, but maybe let's walk, well, one question, you know, when I first started, you know, thinking more about building science and how it affects our health, it's, you know, there is this modern trend to make the house as airtight as possible.

And then there was the camp that says a house needs to breathe. And then there are those that say, well, you know, a house needs to breathe, but not uncontrollably. You know, you want to control, you know, air infiltration and, and, uh, and exfiltration for that matter. And not just, you know, have random leakage points, you know, and then let it do whatever, you know, whatever.

Um, what's your take on this? Does a house need to, should we control, like have like, you know, certain air circulation systems, but everything else is airtight or as airtight as possible? Or should we just, you know, Keep it loose and, and, and kind of mimic what our, you know, ancestors might have done. You know, if they built something out of clay, there was nobody going around with a smokestick, probably making sure the house is airtight, right?

David Milburn: Right, right, right. Yeah. So we'd probably lean towards that third option if you have the choice, just because the outside air is not perfect either. And so if you could be intentional with when and how you're bringing it in. and purifying it, then I think you're setting yourself up for success. Now, if you live in a pristine place and you can build your house out of natural materials and you just leave the windows open and it's not super cold or super hot outside, that's probably the simplest and easiest way.

But for most people, that's not real practical. So if you're living anywhere near, um, roadways, um, or in the case of even you're in the most natural, beautiful place ever, And you've got a wildfire. Um, you want to try and make that house as sealed up as possible during that event, um, even if most of the year is fine, but for a lot of people, they're going to have seasons.

part of the year that you can keep the windows open. It's great. Um, and there's cultures that go back hundreds or thousands of years that every evening they open the windows. It's just kind of part of the culture. And there are a lot of reasons for that. Um, but for a lot of people you're going to live in more urban environments, even suburban environments in the air quality is going to be probably 50 times worse during rush hour.

on a Monday than it is in the afternoon on a Sunday. So it's going to be very dynamic. And so in those areas, you know, technology tools can better replicate what would happen more in the natural environment, and then filter that outside air, exhaust the bad indoor air, and then also purify it. But yeah, we, we see some of the worst air quality situations where you've got a home.

Everything seems fine, but then due to pressurization, you're pulling air from this very dirty crawlspace. And, and those types of things where maybe you put a, um, a whole home exhaust fan in the attic and it was like, um, good intentions, but it's actually sucking bad air up from the basement or something like that.

Right. You know, we see those things a lot. So having in just the people I talked to this morning, um, there was, there's leaks in the HVAC system, air leaks. in the attic. And so there's a significant increase of humidity when the HVAC system is on. It shouldn't be doing that, but, um, there's leaks there that are then contributing to problems inside.

So yeah, the way we, the materials we currently build our homes with and the way we kind of do air conditioning leads to those problems. Yeah, so I mean, if you look back at the old materials, the rocks, the clay, the brick, we've got an entire article or two on our site that kind of goes into some of those materials and even the, um, the germicidal properties going back to biblical levels, um, in Leviticus where, you know, the types of, you know, Um, processes that they're doing are actually germicidal to mold.

Um, and so a lot of these things that they did back then had ionization taking place. They had, you know, with lime, you know, other things, um, that were very effective at killing mold and then materials like rocks and stuff, um, various types that are resistant to the growth. And one of the questions we asked ourself a while back, and maybe it's might be helpful for you and is why hasn't something like mold taken over the world?

And it's, You know, you kind of explore it a little bit and it's, well, there's lots and lots and lots of reasons. Um, but inside our homes, there's not. And so something that's natural outside, isn't going to affect you most of the time outside, even in a place like Florida or Australia or Dubai, you take it inside.

And now it's suddenly this huge issue for so many of our clients and same as water based bacteria. And it's just because we've taken away a lot of those natural processes. And then that's, contributing to this very unusual new issue really that people are dealing with. But one thing I would say is that if you made it this far, you actually care that much to dive into this.

Um, it is very individualized. So hyper. com slash consult, we'll do a free one on one consultation. You can do it by email if you want, but we find that phone calls tend to work really well and that's just totally free. It's totally just education. We love to learn from you, you know, from people that are dealing with issues.

We. That's how we learn. That's how we develop, you know, new patents and things. Cause we find, Oh, Hey, you know, 10 people we talked to have this issue and how their home was made. And there's no good solution for this. Let's try to figure out one. So yeah, highborder. com slash consult, we'll do a free call.

And we just find that it works so well, because for some clients, you know, you've got a big home with an HVAC system for some clients, you have an apartment with no HVAC system. So, um, and your issue might be totally different and we don't even bring it up in this conversation at all. 

Michael Kummer: Right. Makes sense.

Now, let's maybe walk through two scenarios. One is, you know, you're like, you know, in our case, you know, we're planning a new house, you know, what are some of the key aspects? You already mentioned a few, you know, where the, you know, placement of the HVAC system, you know, et cetera. But maybe some of the key aspects that you want to take into account when building new homes.

And then, you know, but for most people, I guess they live in an existing home, the purchasing home that has already been built or that was built, I don't know, maybe 20, 30 years ago, what have you, what can you do to kind of mitigate your risk, to, to improve air quality, you know, in such a way? 

David Milburn: Yeah, I mean, the long term true answer is that you have to educate yourself about your home, how it works, and how error is changing a lot.

So, there's not a real simple answer to that question. When it comes to existing construction, we're going to try to help you come up with priorities. So, you're not going to fix everything. You're not going to undo some of the damage that was done with how the home was made, but you can have a huge impact on the positive air quality and then work towards getting a healthier, healthier home.

Now, if you own the home, we're going to say, let's try to mitigate issues that are 10, 20 years down the line. Maybe sooner. Um, and sometimes that can be simple things and just kind of being aware of stuff. But if you're renting a home for a year, we're going to say, just protect yourself. Um, if you're in an Airbnb for a weekend, just protect your bedroom, try to create a safer place there.

So we're going to have to kind of work through that. Um, the location is one of the first things we ask about. Um, that's the geography, the topography, the, the basically your zip code, um, that can have a big impact on, Hey, you live in a very, very cold environment. You're going to have to heat the house. How are you going to heat it?

And then what are the kind of things to look out for with that? How can, how can you mitigate that? But kind of knowing where the location is and then kind of figuring out, okay, how do you heat the house? How do you cool the house? Um, you know, what's kind of upstream from you when it comes to your air?

Because your proximity to a street, a farm, um, a railway, a port, you know, all those things are going to really impact what you're trying to mitigate for. So that location matters a lot. And if you look at the air quality indexes for a city, a lot of times those use a single point of data. So it's like a weather station on a hill or something.

but your air quality, your home is going to be very different than that. And you see that with schools where a school that's near a high traffic freeway or street has significantly increased rates of asthma. And so even though it's in the same city, um, just the geography of where you actually are can have a big impact on that.

So that kind of, kind of dictates a lot about how you're going to handling things, but we do look at a lot of the, when it comes to the structure of the home, so the structure of the materials, um, and then the systems in the house, you know, whether it's. You know, water is its own issue, but you want to look at those kinds of things, too.

But then when it comes to things like heating, cooling, exhaust systems, Even sewer exhausts in your pipes. A lot of this gets down to like you're kind of putting on your building inspector hat Right getting to know your house and trying to get away from you know These extra spaces which is very common in our homes where we've got crawl spaces, attics, basements You know closets try not to just ignore those But kind of getting into you know, how those systems work how they affect you and then We have over 300 free articles on our site that go into a lot of these kind of niche issues that are going to be relevant for some people and not, you know, if you have a basement, here's five articles that go into different aspects of that.

If you have an attic, you don't have an attic. Um, so we have lots and lots of free resources when it comes to those kinds of things. We can kind of dive into it. And then one of the things we haven't talked about is the individuals. So, we look at the location, the structure, kind of the externalities, what's around you, but then we also look at the individuals.

Because, um, it's the norm for us to hear of a client, they're in a home with four or five people and they're the only one that's reacting to X, Y, Z. And so that's very common. Um, sometimes with genetics you see family members that are, you know, somewhat similar, but if you have a peanut allergy and you're next to the peanut factory, you know, we're going to have to take the steps very differently.

You know, if you have a mold allergy and you live in a humid environment, then we're going to be a little bit more aggressive with certain things. Um, and so sometimes it's the individual, their experiences, um, you know, past history of toxic exposure can make them much more sensitive to certain types of fragrances, chemicals, ozone, all kinds of stuff.

And so we do want to dig into the individuals and then also. Not just the people, but the pets. So, you know, they have their own air quality challenges too. And then every person, every animal is also contributing to that air in the house. And so, you know, that's just the nature of living, you know, just the activity, you know, our actual bodies, you know, shedding skin, the whole thing.

Um, and so we just want to be aware of who's in the house and how all that contributes to, you know, if someone comes to us and they're like, Hey, my kid this type of diagnosis or these types of reactions, we're going to go really hardcore in their bedroom. We're going to say like, forget everything, just try to make that bedroom as safe a place as possible until you kind of get your head above water and then you can kind of expand from there.

But, you know, forget about the attic for now. Just try to make their, their bedroom as clean as possible. And sometimes it's things like. Ripping out the carpet, you know, in a safe way. Mm-Hmm. . Um, sometimes that's buying, you know, HEPA air purifiers and we can talk about HEPA versus some of our technologies.

Um, but you know, you just want to kind of zero in on sometimes where the need is the greatest Mm-Hmm. and expand from there. Um, 

Michael Kummer: right. 

David Milburn: Yeah. But then when it comes to new home con construction, we have a new home wishlist. We'd love to kind of brainstorm with anyone that's kind of going through that process of either shopping around or building their own home.

'cause there's a lot that you can do and there's a lot of innovation that's. it comes to air quality, um, you know, lights, pressurization, air exchanges. There's lots of stuff that you can do. 

Michael Kummer: Yeah. And one of the things I've noticed, I mean, it really applies to every aspect of, of life, but you cannot just blindly trust that someone will make the right decisions for you or someone, even someone else knows what the right decisions are.

Because if you go to a builder and say, Hey, I'd like to have a, you know, a greenhouse, let's say, because you assume green means healthy. You know, which is not necessarily the case, you know, you might end up with an expensive house that is, yeah, maybe very energy efficient, but still exposes you to pollutants that make you sick or, you know, lower the quality of your life.

And, and we've, you know, we started reading, you know, we started buying books and reading and reading and reading. I'm like, you know, this is, you almost have to become an expert on everything that remotely pertains to your health because outsourcing that to someone else is a recipe for disaster. Well, you're not being healthy.

Um, and it's a bummer on the one hand, because, you know, what do you pay experts for, if not for that, but unfortunately, you know, much in particular in the medical field, you know, those quote unquote experts, you know, they are anything but, um, and, 

David Milburn: and, and to your point with the building kind of, uh, specialties, people like architects care very low.

Well, I shouldn't say care. They have not prioritized air quality well. Um, The general contractors are not. The HVAC contractors are certainly not. Um, and so you have all these different specialties and air qualities is not really in the mix. Um, and so even if, um, you know, you've got someone that's, they've been an HVAC contractor for 40 years.

They might say mold is just dirt, um, or they might say use the cheapest possible easy flow filter in your HVAC system. Um, cause that's just what they default to. That's what they were taught. Um, they never really explored the other consequences of these things, even from an energy efficiency perspective, but it's sort of from air quality.

And so, yeah, it's tough because a lot of the current, um, norms and expertise. leading to what we see as very bad outcomes for your air and your natural environment. 

Michael Kummer: Right. 

David Milburn: So, yeah. And I, I, we often say like, we would make more money if we just sold a big bulky, like HVAC filter with like, fancy, a fancy app or something like that.

But, um, the reality is that, you know, it gets more complicated than that and you do have to educate yourself and, but you can be successful. Like you don't have to, um, we have people with very little money in apartments that. We're not built well, and they can still be successful mitigating those challenges and then work towards a better place.

So you don't just have to build a home from limestone out in the forest or something like that. Um, like there's ways that you can be successful in the midst of this. But yeah, that's a, that's definitely a challenge that we face is the norms of how our homes are made and kind of the current experts. And yeah, a lot of it is, you know, having been in the, This space for a while, a lot of people are just kind of parodying what everyone else said too.

And then when you actually kind of go beyond that first layer, you're like, where did they come up with this? Like, where did that come from? And, and there's not like a lot of evidence below the surface on that. 

Michael Kummer: Yeah. Um, you know, you mentioned, you mentioned HEPA filter before, because a lot of people think, well, you know, I'm just gonna get, you know, go to Costco, get a, you know, a purifier.

What are some of the different air purification technologies out there and what are the pros and cons? How do they compare, you know, And, and how is it different to maybe what you guys do, you know, because we use your technology, uh, we've used HEPA filters in the past, there might even be a case for having both, you alluded to that before, what's, what's your, can you, can you explain a little bit of, you know, how, how that all works?

David Milburn: Yeah, I just talked to a client, um, maybe Friday or something like that a couple of days ago. And I think her situation. illustrates it well because she had three products. I think they're probably good products. Each of them were a thousand dollars a piece and she runs them on the medium speed, so like the level two speed.

And we did some quick calculations for her cause she was curious and her old HVAC system was moving 20 times the amount of air that all three of these thousand dollar purifiers together. So 3, 000 worth of HEPA together, her old HVAC system was doing 20 times as much air. So with some of this stuff, it comes down to scale.

So is that a good thing? Yeah. But if it's only doing a couple percentage of your air compared to this old HVAC system with a, the cheapest possible Home Depot filter in that, and you're kind of losing that battle. And so with something like HEPA, HEPA is just a standardized system and it's become a really safe recommendation.

for a lot of experts because it's like, Oh yeah, it's a good thing. Um, but even if you run it on turbo speed, it's only getting a small percentage of your error. And then a lot of cases it's not actually dealing with the root cause of the problem. So it's eventually getting overwhelmed. Um, so it was a good thing.

Yeah. But is it the appropriate fit for a lot of people? We don't think so. Because, um, if you, if you were designing a home from scratch, And you had a sufficient space for a filter in your HVAC system, you could have a HEPA quality filter there, um, if it had enough surface area. But the problem that we see is a lot of times what you're buying with these HEPA purifiers is you're buying, uh, Facebook ads, you're buying plastic, you're buying a display, and you're buying a fan that's like this big, and then you're buying a little HEPA filter that's really expensive.

So the amount of actual purification that's taking place. you know, dollar per dollar, you know, is not that much compared to these bigger systems. And then even if you have that, that top of the line, best in the business in your bedroom, HEPA going full speed turbo mode, sounds like a jet engine. And then you have a humidity issue in the bathroom and you have mold growing in that bathroom.

The HEPA is having very little impact there. Hopefully it's mitigating your exposure to the airborne spores, but it's not helping. Um, deal with the issue actually in the place that's producing it. Right. We see that a lot. I don't mean to just talk about HVAC all the time, but we just see it as being such an unhealthy system in the home.

And yet it could be such a powerful tool, but a lot of times these HVAC systems are damp, dark environments and they're moving exponentially more air than, you know, your thousands of dollars worth of products. And so it's blowing out of the vents at a high velocity. And that's, what's hitting you. That's what, that's what you're breathing.

And if you look at how. And the air moves in a room like the dynamics around a ceiling fan or something. It doesn't all just like line up to go through a filter. It's kind of like water. It doesn't want to be forced to that filter. It doesn't want to. So you have to really push it through there. So a lot of times you're just kind of mixing a small amount of the air over and over again, and you're not getting the whole thing.

And so that's what we tend to focus on these larger systems. And then we, we, also use technologies like polarization that's going to replicate what happens outside to suppress growth on surfaces as well as in the air kind of throughout a space. But that's not the perfect solution for every situation either.

So we want to get different tools for different approaches. And the way we see HEPA is it's a great thing, but it's just a standardized system, kind of specifically dealing with the point, Like three microns, the most penetrating particle size and it's how efficient it is at that. But a lot of times we would actually prefer a lower quality filter with more airflow than a really, really high grade medical air filter.

That's not getting much air through it because the scale of benefit isn't there. And sometimes you don't need, you know, like a H14 or ULPA 15 or something filter in the home because it's actually purifying such a small amount of the air. But yeah, so essentially, so backing up a little bit. So what HEPA does is it's kind of like a chain link fence.

So it's going to trap the things that it can. Some things are going to penetrate it. Something like a chemical gas is going to go right through it. And so it's a good thing, but you have to force the air to go through it. And the denser it is, the more, more you have to force it. And in general, the smaller a fan is, the faster it has to spend, so the more RPMs in order to generate.

That suction or, you know, pushing motion and then the louder it is. And then in real life, you know, people don't like it on super loud. So they're going to turn it down. So a lot of people buy these filters on based off the specs of the turbo mode, and then they run it on silent mode and they're getting 1 percent of the benefits of what they were going to find in the first place.

And so, yeah, there's, there's just some, you know, real world. physics there that are challenged to overcome. Um, but then something like HEPA is not going to have any, um, germicidal effect in general. So you have to add another technology in there. And so something like UV light could be a good thing. You know, we like sunlight, um, but you can't shine UV light on a lot of things.

Um, you can't shine it in our eyes, obviously. Um, and so you have to have it inside of a container. And so UV light is going to have to have. Direct line of sight. Um, uh, proximity. So how close it is to the object and then contact time. So if something's moving quickly, it's not as effective. And so something like UV could be good.

Um, but it's inside the chamber and it's able to kill things. And then with something like a mold spore, you've only killed it, but then you broke it into pieces. 

Michael Kummer: Right. And then 

David Milburn: those pieces can carry the mycotoxins. We can talk about that, which are more like liquid chemicals. And then that can sometimes penetrate the air.

the HEPA filter. If you don't have the UV there, it's possible the spores are landing in the HEPA filter and then you're feeding it more organic material. You're cycling air through it. And so it's growing in the HEPA and then it's off gassing VOCs. So these tools are good, but you have to kind of look at, okay, how much is this going to cost me per year in filters?

How much of the errors it's helping? And then are there other bigger issues that are going to contribute to this? But yeah, if someone's got the money and their kid's sick, we're going to say, get the biggest thing, HEPA that you can buy. The bulkier, the better almost. And then running as high speed as you can until you can get relief and then you can put it in the closet until you need it.

Um, but a lot of times it's just simply not practical. Um, cause we know people that spend not just 3, 000, but 5, 000 plus thousands a year. and they still have kind of runaway issues in their home. And for a lot of people, you're not going to be able to drop 5, 000 on HEPA. You know, ongoing filters and still have your problem.

Um, so, you know, it's, it's us, it's kind of luxury. If we could snap our fingers, everybody has HEPA, great. But we would much rather have a larger filter system, like a V Bank filter or something in the HVAC to get a greater quality filter. 

Michael Kummer: What is a V Bank filter? 

David Milburn: Um, so if you think about, um. Most filters in the HVAC system, it's just like a, a single flat filter.

Right. And then all the air, let me see if I can do this. All the air is just going this way through it. Right. Um, a V bank, I'm not prepared for this analogy, but it's okay. Um, we're going to take two filters. in the same amount of space, same amount of duct. And yeah, you've doubled the surface area of the filtration.

And so you can do that multiple times. I'm not gonna waste all my sticky notes. You can, you can have multiple ranks to magnify the amount of surface area. And the analogy that works for me is if you try to suck a milkshake through a tiny straw, it's not going to work. So you, you actually need a larger straw.

And when it comes to filters, getting back to our previous conversations, it seems very arbitrary. the size of filter that a contractor puts into a home as well as the number of returns. And so sometimes they've got a 3000 square foot home and you've got a filter that's just like a 20 by 15 filter.

That's all the air has to go through that one filter. So if it's, if it's a dense filter, it doesn't work. And so you need to have more surface area in order to achieve a greater density of filtration, or you can damage your fans or reduce airflow, all kinds of stuff. Um, uh, VBanks filter is very common.

with our commercial clients. In the homes it's much less common, and there's companies out there that make very, very expensive versions of it. Um, one of my colleagues basically did it herself for about 50. Um, you're just creating more surface area, you know, adding a second return or something like that.

But if you could do something like that where you have more physical filter space, then you can have a much greater filter density without adding too much pressure for the fan. 

Michael Kummer: Right. Makes sense. Yeah. I think we use one of those. I don't know what there's like a MRF rating, I think, but it's like a thick V bank, uh, active charcoal kind of filter that we.

It's a great way to put it into our AC. It used to be like, you know, one of the small, you know, like thin, one layer kind of filters that you mentioned before. Okay. Gotcha. And 

David Milburn: so in general, if you, one inch filters are the most common. If you have a two inch filter, a lot of times it's not going to be really any different, but they're going to last longer.

That's essentially how they're going to do it. But there are lots of little filters. Right. And then we do recommend adding carbon to that. So we sell those, but we often say there's nothing inherently special about them because it's a standardized system. But for most residential people, um, carbon is never in the HVAC system.

And that's going to add you to the system. a little bit extra benefit when it comes to absorbing chemicals. It's not a silver bullet because once carbon is full, it's full and you know, but um, you know, there's one NASA study that actually showed if you had sufficient layers of carbon, you're actually able to filter out ultra fine particulates, which is way down below one micron just by having More carbon filters.

Um, but typically the carbon is not for the physical filters. It's for chemicals. Um, gotcha. But, um, yeah, so it's just something to look into, but statistically it's around 83 percent of Americans haven't changed the filter. right now when they were supposed to. So it's a huge amount of people that haven't even changed the filter, let alone looked into any of this other stuff.

And I know people that have spent literally six figures on like biohacking equipment, and they haven't changed their home's filter for five years. And so all the air is going through this potentially very, very dirty filter, spinning more on electricity, and they're not getting the benefits out of that system.

And yet they're spending a bunch of money elsewhere. And yet here's this like, really. Powerful system, right? That's kind of contributing to their problems. 

Michael Kummer: Yeah. And that's, you know, all of that goes really into, into the thinking and design of our, of our new house, because we bought actually just about a year ago.

Uh, 45 acres. So it kind of expand our food production and, and self sufficiency and, you know, reliance and, um, and obviously, you know, air quality is going to be a big part of that, you know, collecting water, um, and all of those things, you know, harvesting the sunlight, harvesting wind, you know, for electricity.

Um, and, and so again, we'll, we'll talk offline, but you know, the whole, You know, idea of making sure that whatever we build is going to be, it's going to be proper from a health perspective, you know, because all of us, we are at home all the time. You know, the kids are homeschooled, you know, my wife's at home, I'm at home.

Um, and so we spend a significant amount of time in the house. I mean, also outdoors, but yeah, you know, nature of the beast, you know, with work and everything is, you know, it's going to be inside, you know, a lot too, and so we really want to make sure that when we, Put in the, the HVAC system and, you know, air circulation stuff.

It's, it's really done to the best of our ability and whatever we can afford, you know, um, but you know, like you said, you know, adding a couple of extra returns and, you know, having filter stairs with, you know, kind of, it's, it's, it's distributed a little bit, you know, it's not like one filter that has to take care of everything, but maybe, you know, two, three or four, you know, and it doesn't cost significantly more to do that.

Um, you know, those are all things that, I think are very important for, for anyone, you know, considering, you know, building, but let me give you maybe an example, because I think that applies maybe to more people, you know, not everyone listening to this is gonna, in the process of building a house, most people live in a house and, you know, they have to mitigate what, what they're dealing with.

Our house was built in the eighties. Um, it has an unfinished, partially unfinished basement. We have a huge crawl space that is just, you I mean, you can smell that it's damp, right? And it's vented directly into the unfinished basement, which is directly. underneath my office. I'm actually sitting on top of that crawl space, right?

Right. So there is air from, you know, down there coming up into my office, right? Yeah. And 50 

David Milburn: percent of your air is from that. Right, 

Michael Kummer: exactly. And so there are a lot of things I'm like, okay, there is, we're not gonna, you know, redo the whole house considering it will be moving. But in our bathroom, you know, on the ceiling above the shower, you know, we've seen mold the other day.

I was just up there, you know, the other day with total clean, you know, spraying it, scrubbing it. We have the Um, and you, you'll tell more about the, you know, the, the Hypoair, the, you know, bipolar ionization technology. We have this, you know, the, the whole house system attached to our HVAC unit. We have the Air Angel in, no, the, the Snowflake in our bedroom.

We have a couple of the Germ Defenders, you know, one actually in our unfinished basement to kind of, you know, help mitigate there, but specifically in our bathroom, you know, It's, there is still, you know, mold growing, even though I just upgraded the fan to suck out more air. But you know, that air is coming from somewhere, you know, being pulled in.

Whenever air goes out, the air has to come in. Right. And it's probably going to come from downstairs, you know, I suspect. Um, and so what are some of the things that, you know, people in our, in our, in our case specifically, what can we do in our, what units, you know, what products, you know, would you recommend, um, to kind of help mitigate that and, and improve the situation?

David Milburn: Yeah, no, that's excellent. So yeah, when it comes to when you first get into this conversation, um, there are local professionals that are great and there's people that are going to charge a ton of money and you're not going to get anything out of it. So a lot of times we're going to say, if you can educate yourself and do some of this yourself, but one of the first steps is moisture management.

So kind of looking at pockets of humidity and you can get a little 4 humidity sensors. You know, on Amazon from us. And you want to look for where there's inadequate ventilation. or in the case like a bathroom where you have water that's standing longer because in some ways the humidity in the air is just an indication of the surfaces staying damp longer.

So when you're showering some of that moisture is getting up on the ceiling and then it's not drying out. And so basically every cubic meter of air ever sampled anywhere inside outside has mold spores. And these mold spores, you know, they're literally like the the whatever it's called, the curse of the mummies, you know, like it's, you know, they can last thousands of years and in an active state.

And then when they get into the materials and moisture, then they can basically germinate, they can take roots and grow. And so the first step is that moisture management kind of getting into the hothouse. And in some cases it's the moisture inside the home, but sometimes it's, the, the inadequate insulation.

And so a lot of times we see, um, mold growing around windows or things like that. And sometimes that's because they weren't insulated right. And so you have a dew point issue where the moisture is actually coming through the walls. And so that's really hard to, um, solve for without changing the window itself.

So a lot of times where we're going to focus on is the air that you're breathing. So kind of what you've already done where There's going to be more potentially in the walls, outside, in the basement, the crawl space, um, and you're not going to solve for all of that, but you want to mitigate the indoor air, where they're growing, where it's spreading, so that you're reducing the cross contamination, kind of the, the breeding of it.

Michael Kummer: And 

David Milburn: then the producing of more spores, more toxins, more off gassing BOCs in the spaces where you are. And then long term, you know, if you were going to be there for longer periods of time, we might vent that crawl space, not into the basement. Or, you know, further mitigate, um, either celiac, um, or, you know, mitigating the moisture.

But we have people in places like Australia and they can't make structural changes and their humidity in the house is well above 90. And so you have to just mitigate the air that you're breathing as much as possible, knowing that there's mold in the walls, you know, knowing that there's mold outside, you gotta just mitigate that air that you're breathing to cut concentration.

So it's not just the presence, but it's the concentration. So cut concentration and then try to help prevent the spread. And so I think you're taking a lot of those really good steps. And if you're going to be there longer, you could take more, but I think what you've already done is really excellent for where you are and it may or may not be worth taking more steps, um, in the current house, if you're going to be moving soon, um, but the way the homes are made, that crawl space is going to contributing to that bad air.

And like you said, whenever you're pushing air out, you're creating a suction to pull air in. And that's where we prefer to have that intentional you know, you, you, uh, you're exhausting her in the bathroom. Maybe you crack a window so that you're getting air from outside, maybe even filtered air. Um, and so you're kind of choosing where the air comes from versus sucking up from underneath.

We, we make recommendations like that a lot with multifamily where you have an apartment. Then you've got people above you, below you, just side to side. And if you're using your exhaust fans to get rid of humidity in the bathroom, it's a good thing. But if possible, crack open a window. We have filters that fit in the window.

We have nanofiber window screens that go in that window. Um, you can cut out, you can go to a pool supply store and cut out materials, do whatever you can, but try to filter some of that coming in. But if you don't choose where the air is going to come in from, it's going to come through cracks. It's going to come from your neighbors.

It's going to come from, uh, the laundry in the building, um, or in your case, it's going to come from that crawl space because already with the stacking effect, probably 50 percent of your air anyways is coming from that. And then as soon as you're exhausting more air, you're pulling more in. Um, but then, yeah, when it comes to the bathroom, though, other things you can do is you can run the exhaust fan longer, you can shower with the door open, you can dry your towels outside the bathroom, you can use physical fans to blow on surfaces, because that's going to have a drying effect on the surface, so sometimes the exhaust fan is not sufficient to move enough humidity out to dry the surfaces, so you can actually blow a fan on it.

Um, I've had clients that are like hyper sensitive to mold and very cautious. And then they have a teenage daughter that showers for like an hour. So like you have other people involved in this. And so sometimes you have to mitigate further that moisture and sometimes you can't shower with the door open or you can't dry your towels outside, but there's steps that you can take to further, further kind of mitigate that drying process or, you know, clean.

And then, um, we talk about mold a lot, but just because we see it's such a disproportionate, portion of impact. But when the other things we're seeing a lot is the, you know, water based bacteria, like actinobacteria, you know, even in the drains of the showers, those can sometimes contribute to some of the health issues we see more so even than the mold, but a lot of times it's coming back to that moisture management and then even with the exhaust fans, sometimes those go up into your attic or into your, a, um, space between the floors.

They're not actually exhausting. outside. And so sometimes, you know, you're just, it doesn't make sense, but that's how they build it. They put the exhaust fan in and it goes up and into the wall. Right. And so you're pumping the humidity into the wall too. Right. And so you could have a situation like that where the exhaust fans going up, it's pumping the humidity up and then the humidity is getting stuck up there.

And then the mold is kind of growing down from that other space into where you're visibly seeing it. Right. So it's a challenge, you know, certainly. Um, but 

Michael Kummer: yeah, 

David Milburn: For the crawl space, would you, 

Michael Kummer: would you, and we already have a dehumidifier down in the basement, but would you recommend putting one of your units maybe into that crawl space?

Is it going to make a difference? 

David Milburn: It, for long term, we do recommend things like that. Um, but in the short term, And just kind of on the list of priorities, that's going to be lower on the list because, um, if you can kind of manage the pressure and moisture and the purification and the ambient air, that's probably gonna have the biggest impact.

And then if you want, we're going to, um, mitigate that crawl space. We do have quite a few clients that have a fan system down in their crawl space and one or several of our units down there so that you're mitigating growth down there. And ideally, you could be exhausting the moisture outside of the house.

from that crawl space. Uh, we're even creating a negative pressure in that crawl space where you're pulling air from your home even down there. Right. Um, and so you're kind of flipping the script a little bit, um, where you're pushing air out of there instead of pulling air up through there. Um, so yeah, there's things like that, but it's lower on our priority list than The HVAC system, then your bedrooms, you know, then, then where you're spending your time.

But it's just not a good design when it comes to air quality. 

Michael Kummer: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. All right. Cool. Well, um, that was a lot of good information. Maybe tell a little bit because we mentioned it a couple of times, but we never really got into it. What is bipolar ionization? In other words, what do your products do, and how is that similar to what's happening in nature?

Because you mentioned it before, you know, there are ions in nature. What are ions and what is bipolar ionization and how does it work inside of a house? 

David Milburn: Yeah, so we've mentioned ions a few times here, but one of the issues that we've seen in the air quality space is that, I don't know, maybe 15, 20 years ago, They branded ionization as this giant thing, but only to mean negative oxygen ionization.

So, you know, a bunch of air purifiers came out producing negative oxygen ions. And there was lots of, um, kind of getting back to one of the other things we said. A lot of people were just saying, Hey, you go outside by rivers and stuff, you're going to measure negative oxygen. Um, and that's true. But that's not the only ions you're going to measure.

Michael Kummer: And ions are charged particles, right? So if you take an atom and remove an electron, it would be negatively charged. 

David Milburn: Yeah. And so then, um, but yeah, so if you go to that river outside with an ion meter, you're going to measure negative oxygen, but you're also going to measure positive hydrogen, um, things like copper producing ions, you know, they have this germicidal effect, that lime wash that we were talking about in the ancient buildings.

So there's lots of this ionization that's going to take place and some of it is going to have a different interaction depending on what type of contaminant or pollutant it's interacting with. But a lot of times it's wanting to kind of recombine into another state. And so it's wanting to pull things like hydrogen or carbon from that other thing.

And so when it comes to something like mold, that can actually disrupt the reproduction, that can kill it. Um, with something like a coronavirus. You know, our little mold guard was tested to basically break apart the protein, the protein spikes by stealing hydrogen from the protein spikes. So you're disabling the virus.

The virus isn't actually alive, but you're disabling it's in a, in a infectivity. And then you're also giving a charge. So it has a clustering effect to those particles. So, um, a lot of times what we're worried about is the fine particles that are going to be most penetrating to your lungs. And so we want to get them larger.

So that they're easier to filter, easier for your body to filter, but easier to filter in the house or they're heavier and less airborne. So it has a, an effect on particles as well. But yeah, when you go outside in nature, there's all kinds of things that are having a ionization and, you know, we have the entire ionosphere.

So there's lots of things in our atmosphere that are breaking down. Chemicals that are killing viruses, bacteria, mold, there's all kinds of natural processes. And so we've zeroed in on the polar ionization where we're splitting water into its molecules. two components, the positive hydrogen, the negative oxygen.

Um, the main two negatives that we've seen with the old style of ionization, if you're only producing the negative polarity, you're creating a bubble of static. So you're just producing a bunch of negative, it creates this bubble of static. And so that means you're not having an impact further away. And then in general, also, you can produce ozone.

So ozone, you're going to naturally find outside, but dosage is poison. So when you produce a very unnatural amount of ozone inside, that leads to a lot of unintended consequences too. So for a lot of those initial ion producers, they're producing just this one polarity, which is not natural, producing ozone, and then using that to make their claims of effectiveness.

So in the polar ionization, you're not creating static. You can actually reduce static, and you're not producing ozone. And so you're creating something that's more in a natural balance and so you're getting the benefits in the same way that you would outside. I was talking to someone earlier today where there was another product a few years ago, people were spraying in the air and we're like, well, they're making claims that it's natural.

Well, where is it natural? We kind of looked into it and the only time we could find it Um, in nature was in the parts per trillion deep in the ocean above, above the sea level. And it's like, well, it does occur, but it doesn't occur in these concentrations. And so, you know, the kind of, uh, old analogies, the cyanide and apple seeds, you know, the cyanide is not the problem.

It's just the unnatural concentration. So you eat an apple seed, there's no danger. You eat 10, 000 apple seeds in a day, there's a danger. So it's true with a lot of this other stuff too. So you take something like ozone, you're going to breathe it on a a mountain in Alaska that you take that ozone and you make a really high concentration inside.

And that's what leads to the problems. And so with all of our things, we want to replicate those processes and natural concentrations. So you get the active mitigation, you know, suppression on surfaces and the air particular removal without these unintended consequences of, um, these really high levels of something because you can have too much oxygen, you got too much CO2, you know, too much of things is where we find most of the problems come into place.

So polarization is one that we favor a lot these days because it's so effective against water based. The kind of biological material as well as the particulates and we haven't talked that much about the mycotoxins But if you killed all the mold in the house the mycotoxins, we describe them as the sweat of the mold You know, it's like this liquid.

Mm hmm, you know byproduct of the the mold and it's not really accurate, but it's close enough I think um, so this sweat is left over even years later and it hasn't evaporated. It's not alive It's just toxic. And so if the piece of mold Walkin on the carpet, there's a piece of mold that gets in the air, and it's small enough that it can stay airborne, and then you breathe it in.

That's generally how you're ingesting these toxins. And so, we wanna both suppress but then also help remove the fragments. So, and so the polarization specifically we found to be really effective and efficient. You don't have replacement parts, really low energy. So it's, it can have a big impact. And with HVAC, we want to put it in the HVAC system.

So you're getting that coverage throughout the house. Right now. When it comes to more complex chemicals, it's not the greatest technology for that. You know, we're going to supplement that technology with something like APCO, which is a version of photocatalytic oxidation. We can talk about that if you want.

But, um, so there's different tools for different types of issues. Like our, our clients that are casinos or a sewage plant, you know, we're not going to emphasize the polarization. We're going to use other technologies for that because of the high levels of chemicals. Um, generally in your home, you can have a big impact with source control on chemicals.

But the biological contaminants is really where we're seeing the issue because of the moisture management and the structure of the house. And so that's where you can have a big impact with some of the particulates. You know, you, you can kind of put two technologies together for a bigger impact. Right.

And with air quality, more redundancy is better. It doesn't mean it's beneficial. So, um, I was just talking to someone about that earlier where she's trying to make a decision about how much to use her HVAC system and some other things. And it's like, I don't Would it be beneficial to do it? Yes. Is it necessary?

Probably not. Um, you have to kind of juggle some of that too, where certain technologies could be beneficial. Something like germicidal UV light could be beneficial, but the cost versus benefit may not make it necessary for that application. So, yeah, and again, I just encourage people to reach out and we can help you walk through what might be the best fit for you, give you recommendations, because for some of our clients, it's that nanofiber window screen in the window that they need probably the most because they live in an apartment above a busy street, next to the port, and the only way they cool their house is opening the windows.

So like having a first line of defense there is going to be better than trying to purify it after it's in your air. Trying to keep it out of the house is going to be a better first step than trying to purify it once it's in your 

Michael Kummer: house. So that makes a lot of sense. Um, yeah. And actually I, you know, I, you mentioned that APCO and I never quite understood what, what that does because it's part of that germ defender.

I think it's called the product, right? 

David Milburn: Uh, the air angel has that, that, yeah, right. Yep. Yep. We've used it over the years for many things. Um, but so the PCO technology again is. Replicating a natural process, um, so photocatalytic oxidation, so photo, you know, the sunlight reacting with a mineral to create a reaction.

And so, in general, it's a titanium dioxide catalyst, and it's producing hydroxyl radicals. Hydroxyl radicals are considered the detergent of Earth's atmosphere. So they're highly, highly reactive. Um, generally they're going to be reacting in about a picosecond. So a millionth of a millionth of a second. So as things pass through a chamber with hydroxyl radicals, they can be very quickly ripped apart.

And so when it comes to chemicals, we found that to be the most effective. It was originally developed, um, by NASA. for deep space missions to deal with trace VOCs. So, you know, kind of get back to your kind of homestead issue. Um, it's possible you can go to the store and buy a bunch of bulky filters and bring it back to your house.

not so much in the spaceship. So, um, you can't just be using a bunch of carbon filters and then just throw them out into space. So how do we deal with these trace VOCs with minimal waste energy and physical space too? And so that's where they originally came up with PCO. Um, we add the AH PCO APCO to that just because we have a proprietary formula.

We don't just use titanium dioxide. We have multiple minerals in there, a different process. So it's just our own proprietary formula. But the, the, The goal is still the same. You want to produce a large amount of hydroxyl radicals inside the chamber so that as air passes through it, then you can break those down to CO2 and H2O.

Um, so we found that to be just another natural process to stop the fit for everything for most homes. We actually don't recommend it just because if you have a single family home and you don't have like a farm next to you, that's spraying specifics or something, and you're able to control. like the clean products that you use on the perfumes, the scented candles, you know, um, indoor pesticides, you know, if you can control those sources, you generally are going to be okay without needing a technology like that in your house.

But if you go to, you, you, you're just moving into a new apartment, they painted all the walls with like a high BOC paint. Right. Neighbors are, you know, smoking cigarettes. There's a laundry mat, you know, across the street from you. Um, that's where you can't control. Okay. source of the chemicals and then you need to mitigate it.

Carbon, the total clean, APCO, you have to mitigate those chemicals, get them out of your air. Um, you can also exhaust them. So sometimes exhausting air. So like if you're cooking on a gas stove, it's important to exhaust the air. But if you're in an apartment, a lot of times that exhausting air is also pulling your neighbor's cooking, you know, um, chemicals into your, your unit.

So, um, you have to kind of balance exhausting air. Getting fresh air from outside if you have that option and then mitigating it, purifying it inside. 

Michael Kummer: Right. And there's 

David Milburn: not, there's not great options for chemicals because like with carbon, carbon's good and we recommend it for the HVAC, but it's like a kitchen sponge.

So once the carbon is full, it's full and there's no way to know it's full. Once you start smelling the carbon off gassing, you're like too far gone because it's so full that it's actually leaking chemicals. Um, so we don't want people to really test their carbon by, you know, sniffing it. Um, especially with things like radon or something you've concentrating, you know, radioactive substance.

Um, but. Um, there's some, uh, companies that are trying to come up with a way for the carbon to change colors, but then, okay, what other chemicals have you added now? So there's not a great solution there, but carbon is probably the most time tested option that people have for chemicals. And so that's why we see something as APCO being so effective against reducing kind of the net VOCs and then giving you an ongoing long term solution.

And that would be true of say like a hotel room, you're going to hotel, you know, you're going to Airbnb or something. You can't control what, how they clean the place before you, the bedding, the paints, all that kind of stuff, so you have to mitigate it. 

Michael Kummer: Yeah, I was about to say, because I had one bad experience in the Airbnb that had like five scented candles turned on when I walked in, and I'm like, okay, from now on, going forward, I'm going to bring the Air Angel.

Yep. Whenever I travel, first thing I do when I get into a hotel room, you know, plug it in. And just let it run and know at least that, you know, for the night that I spend here or the two or three, you know, I'm in better shape than I would be otherwise. 

David Milburn: Exactly. Yeah. Your, your goal there is to reduce concentration, especially where you're sleeping.

And so you're, you're not going to fix the entire hotel or Airbnb, but you can cut concentration 

Michael Kummer: 80, 

David Milburn: 90 plus percent, ideally, um, you're going to be well, you know, well better off. Um, a couple of travel tips. Um, If you're going to a hotel, we've worked with a lot of really high end, world famous hotels that have a ton of money, but they only invest in our technologies for a couple of rooms.

And we've tried for well over 10 years to convince some hotel to do it for every room. And so far, we've been unsuccessful. Um, and so what they do is they put it in a couple of rooms and they leave that for the prom guests. So we always encourage our clients just to ask because sometimes the hotel has an option available.

Um, for people with sensitivities and they might have hardwood floors. They might use different clean products. They might have our technologies installed. They might have a Costco HEPA air purifier, but they're trying at least more in those rooms. So if you can get one of those rooms, that'd be a better start.

And then if you can open the windows, and this would be true of the Airbnb experience too. Weather permitting, geography permitting, if you can open the windows, exhaust the house, that's probably going to be a good idea. Same with the hotel room, it's got a balcony or something, try to exhaust that. Um, with the hotel room or even the Airbnb, you could ask for them to change the filter in their HVAC.

In the hotel room, they often will, and they often haven't for a very long time. And so sometimes you can just ask. You know, I don't like being annoying, you know, but sometimes you got to like ask a little bit. But then when it comes to Air Angel, yeah, you plug it in, go out to dinner, give it a chance to work because, you know, we have.

We've seen crazy things in hotels where people are cooking over an open fire in their hotel room where they're throwing like parties the whole weekend, smoking marijuana the whole weekend. And so there could be a huge degree of how contaminated a space is, but in general it's gonna be worse than your house and your nose, your body's gonna be on kind of a heightened sensitivity because these are all new smells and so you're gonna be typically more reactive, 

Michael Kummer: um, 

David Milburn: to what's there as well.

So 

Michael Kummer: yeah, it's a challenge. Makes a whole lot of sense. Yeah. All right. Cool. We're at the top of the hour, David. I appreciate it again. A lot of great information. Um, I will be following up offline, uh, to loop you in for the new construction. Definitely want to make sure we, we do as much as we can, right. You know, within the means of our budget and yeah.

With that, we're going to wrap this episode up, uh, uh, I'll ping you and when it, when it goes live, uh, add you guys as a contributor on Instagram and everything and. Sounds good. Let's hopefully get that in as many, many, as many eyeballs as possible on it. 

Extra: Sounds good. Well, thanks for your time and yeah, I appreciate it.

Michael Kummer: Yeah, same here. 

Extra: On the next episode of the Primal Shift podcast, we're diving into the science of aging and a molecule called NAD that might hold the key to slowing it down. After trying countless supplements with little success, we finally found something that made a real difference. doubling NAD levels, and delivering noticeable results for energy, metabolism, and more.

We'll share what worked, what didn't, and how you can make an informed decision about these cutting edge supplements. Plus, a sneak peek into our latest biological age test. Let's just say the results We're surprising. Tune in to the Primal Shift podcast and take another step toward optimizing your health.