This is just not another healthy home conversation. We take a dive with Andrew Guido, a building biologist. Andrew has a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) degree from the Schulich School of Business from York University in Toronto, Ontario and is a Certified Building Biologist from the Building Biology Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

When you are building a new home, or even remodeling there are a LOT of things that you should take into account to make your house heathier to live in. We tackle many of those things that can keep dust down, help with those seasonal allergies and even those chemicals that can make you sick that are standard in building construction today. Did you know even those light choices can effect how you sleep at night. You dont want to miss this special episode of Around the House with Eric Goranson and Caroline Blazovsky.

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Mentioned in this episode:

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Baldwin Hardware

[00:00:16] Caroline Blazovsky : Hi. Hi everyone. Good morning. How are you?

[00:00:30] Andrew Guido: Thank you very much, Eric and Caroline, I'm just so delighted and excited and a little bit scared to be on this call, but this has been fantastic. I have been, I've been catching up on around the house and listening to you guys and just getting a feel. And it's incredible that the subjects that you cover, uh, not to mention the rock stuff.

[00:01:02] Andrew Guido: Hey, I hear you got some great pizza places in New Jersey.

[00:01:06] Caroline Blazovsky : Eric

[00:01:20] Caroline Blazovsky : I don't believe that that that was like somebody paid off somebody Portland over New York and New Jersey for pizza. No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that doesn't happen.

[00:01:52] Eric Goranson : And it was funny. I just got into a debate here early on this week on one of the social media pages that I'm on. And [00:02:00] it's one of the old house kind of pages. And there was this grand debate going on, including that they they're like, well, I'd rather have my 1910 home filled with asbestos and lead and, and mold than have a new house.

[00:02:30] Andrew Guido: No, I think, uh, for sure, for sure. And we've seen like such a slow evolution of homes over the last century. Uh, you know, the greatest, greatest amount of change happened after world war II, when we discovered chemistry to such an extreme, um, and unfortunately the laws and regulations haven't kept up with how smart the chemists are and with what they're able to do.

[00:03:06] Caroline Blazovsky : Absolutely.

[00:03:29] Eric Goranson : You're fine. And so we've got, you know, in Colorado, there's one code in Oregon. There's one in New Jersey. There's another, and it's really hard to keep people on the same page.

[00:04:17] Andrew Guido: Uh, and those requirements, you've got some municipalities where we are, where radon is evident. And there's no question about it, but there's some work there. You find the hard rock, um, is even more evident where they insist on having complete radon solutions where others, uh, you Can get away with it. you don't have to have it unless there's a proof of.

[00:04:53] Andrew Guido: Thanks. So I'm a little bit nuts. Um, and you know, I follow my passions. Uh, and so, [00:05:00]

[00:05:02] Andrew Guido: So we're, we're, we're where the audience can't really see, uh, my, uh, gray hair. I believe that's what you promised me. Uh,

[00:05:12] Caroline Blazovsky : we say 20. What do you mean? I say 27. I see muscles. I see. I mean, come on.

[00:05:23] Andrew Guido: So where I should be winding down, I wound up and then 2017, I wanted to really understand what was inside the air that I'm breathing inside my house. Um, my daughter's got asthma. Um, my son has severe allergies. Seasonal allergies is what we think it is. And, you know, we've had other challenges, uh, around us.

[00:06:04] Andrew Guido: Um, And, and I then went and spent another two years to get all of my credits to become a licensed builder in my province. Um, writing the dreaded Ontario building code exam, uh, and, and not, not, not easy, but I got, I got through it. And really what I wanted to do was really just try and understand. And in the end I saw so many deficiencies and, um, realized very, very late in the process.

[00:06:57] Andrew Guido: That, you know, we don't really understand them. We've got [00:07:00] led lights that all of a sudden replaced lights in the blink of a flash. And now we're finding out that we've got a potential photo toxins that are happening because of the blue light, not firing in the right, uh, spectrum. Uh, and so as I got deeper into this, I kind of like backed my way into saying, you know what, I'm going to create a concept.

[00:07:37] Eric Goranson : Nice. Nice. It's funny. You know, just comparing Canada and the United States, even building codes and how things are done there. There's a huge difference. You think in north America that we'd be on the same page, but, uh, I've learned a lot. My buddy Damon Bennett, who was on homes on homes up there, uh, he's a really good friend of mine and every time him and I sit there and have a pint, or we go for long walks on these [00:08:00] trips where we go hike a city for the morning, before we get together, I learned about the things and go really.

[00:08:27] Eric Goranson : You spend about a thousand dollars and now you're a contractor and you know, every.

[00:08:34] Eric Goranson : it's wild. It's really wild.

[00:09:01] Andrew Guido: I look at it and you know, I'm pretty much, I, I G I get it. You know, this is a good day. This is a bad day. This is, hi, Paula. This is going to be high particulates. We don't have anything like that for indoor, where we spend 90% or maybe a hundred percent of our time, uh, which is kind of crazy.

[00:09:35] Caroline Blazovsky : Let's take the duct work. Let's analyze the filter. And ha oh, you've got carcinogen all over this supposedly healthy home. And the industry has gotten to a point where it is so vast as to what I have to look for now. You know, it used to be, I looked for mold. I looked for allergens. Now it's like, I'm looking at the chemical compounds.

[00:10:24] Andrew Guido: yeah. And you know, and you know, with the time I spent in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I couldn't believe the number of naturally built homes. The homes built with Adobe homes that I, you know, I went and saw, um, an ancient Indian reserve. Um, I think the house may have been a thousand years old. Something of that was what I was

[00:10:46] Andrew Guido: no, it wasn't a cliff dwelling, but it was a, it was a long drive to get to it.

[00:11:05] Andrew Guido: You know, we strayed so far from what we, uh, created a century ago. Um, and you know, and then unfortunately along with it, when the scales and the craftsmanship and the care, uh, and so, you know, we're, we're caught now because, you know, population in both countries are exploding. Uh, we've got people that are coming in.

[00:11:59] Andrew Guido: And you [00:12:00] know, it was still, you know, a tough, a tough time, uh, for doing it. So we've got to figure this out and we got to, you know, the more that we can and there is some great science, um, you know, there's some stuff that can tell us now what's in the air. Uh, we've got, you know, we, we can make visible what was invisible, you know, uh, you know, a radon test is over here.

[00:12:34] Caroline Blazovsky : Yeah.

[00:12:59] Eric Goranson : But, uh, [00:13:00] I'm in a very high radon area. And the bad part here is, is that we also have earthquakes. And so what's happened. I've seen is that we'll have a radon test to be perfect. Somebody will sell the house though. We'll have some earthquake activity, small stuff. And then all of a sudden they've got high radon in the house because they passed two years ago.

[00:13:28] Andrew Guido: Yeah, it's the same reason why your neighbor might have high radon and you have low radon, you know, depending on the path and the soil, uh, um, with what, you know, w what you expect.

[00:14:04] Caroline Blazovsky : Uh, to canister test. You always want to do a two canister, not a one and make sure you're testing. Um, usually it's a three-day minimum and you can just pick it up. It costs about 50 bucks and you can do it yourself. DIY do your radon test, put it in the lowest level of your home and make sure it's easy to do so you can actually do it now yourself.

[00:14:43] Andrew Guido: Yeah. And in Canada, we, we use a different, uh, measurement system, which is. Uh, Becker Rawls. And so you're four equals are roughly one 50, but our standard is too high. We're at 200 Becker walls. So we'd be over four, [00:15:00] um, in doing it. And I don't understand it, you know, who, um, standard is, that's who, uh, is 100, um, Bakker, which would be less than four.

[00:15:15] Caroline Blazovsky : Exactly. You want zero?

[00:15:18] Andrew Guido: you want zero. You don't want to live next to a next to an x-ray machine, you know? And, uh, this is the challenge when I did it on my side. Cause I live on the fanatical side of, uh, almost everything. Um, uh, I, I did the, I did the, um, the puck test, uh, that was given by a lab. Um, I put a $2,000 instrument for three months in, in my home and I put a $300 instrument from the same company. Um, in my home, the $300 instrument was unreliable. Uh, the $2,000 instrument was almost dead on like, you know, there was differences in doing it.

[00:16:05] Caroline Blazovsky : I love that description though. Andrew, I love that description. I can see the earth breathing. How cool is that? I really like

[00:16:19] Eric Goranson : Well, wait a minute that tells us one thing you haven't listened to enough of the shows yet

[00:16:27] Andrew Guido: yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so, and, and, and, you know, it has a lot to do also with what's going on outside, um, and the pressure That's created, um, inside, and it has a lot to do with like, you know, if your home's positively or negatively charged, and are you keeping your exhaust fans on too long and you know, is your exhaust over the kitchen hood on is it's very strong.

[00:16:54] Caroline Blazovsky : Eric,

[00:16:56] Eric Goranson : it's only 1200 CFM. What are you talking about?

[00:17:00] Andrew Guido: yeah. So for, for all, all those reasons, you know, um, but now I can see it. And I, it no longer feels like an invisible, uh, uh, alien

[00:17:17] Eric Goranson : Yeah, I would love in my house in a perfect world to have an app that is no different than my heating and cooling system that I can look on. And it just tells me real time what's going on in my house. Do I have negative pressure? Do I have positive pressure? What is the mold? What is the radon? What is, I would just love to have something like that down the road where I can, I can just look at my phone and go, we're looking good today. All systems are working and one day maybe we'll have that, but we still, today we can send people to Mars almost, but we still haven't been able to figure out how to tell us how healthy our home is. Right this second, inside our own homes.

[00:18:20] Andrew Guido: If that hits a thousand PPM, I'm going to start drifting and I'm going to start sounding a little bit more stupid. And so,

[00:18:28] Eric Goranson : not me. It's the CO2. It's the CO2 in the room. It's not me sounding stupid.

[00:18:33] Andrew Guido: but it's, it's crude and I know Caroline has a long list of offenders and toxins, but it can give you a very, a least an idea of what's going on. It's not going to tell you if you got a in the room, but it'll give you an idea. And if you can get that air exchange going on, um, and keeping things in place, at least it's a start, um, that you can do, whether it, whether it's a new home, which you badly need, um, to, uh, help the [00:19:00] offgassing get out or an existing home where, you know, you can monitor it and maybe be a little bit more intermittent.

[00:19:08] Eric Goranson : Go ahead.

[00:19:24] Caroline Blazovsky : Andrew and as well, Eric, to educate people on why they need to monitor their homes.

[00:19:49] Andrew Guido: Um, and I've got a production home with a major home builder that we've, uh, come to an agreement to do a home that will, we will test, um, [00:20:00] Both cases are different kinds of manufacturers, different kinds of, uh, materials, but in every case, most of the common manufacturers have things that they don't tell you about that you can get that you can get these sealants and you can get these, um, uh, paints, um, that have low VOC content.

[00:20:38] Andrew Guido: I got paid to, um, tour pastry shops in Europe. Um,

[00:20:44] Andrew Guido: bit, uh, I know, I

[00:20:49] Caroline Blazovsky : Here comes the

[00:21:00] Caroline Blazovsky : poor baby.

[00:21:27] Andrew Guido: Um, and you know, it.

[00:21:49] Andrew Guido: And you know, my trip also took me into Paris, um, and, uh, to tour the cafes, uh, there and how they created, it's the ambiance it's, you know, the [00:22:00] feeling, uh, I don't know, my French is not that great, but the there's the Vive I think, is what it is. And it's, you know, you want to experience and feel, um, the food is part of a lifestyle.

[00:22:31] Andrew Guido: They think I'm insane that I'm adding costs, I'm adding procedures and I'm adding, uh, process changes. Um, and they don't think a customer would care and you know what I, and I, and I believe they're so wrong. Um,

[00:22:46] Andrew Guido: what, like, like an, every, almost new, um, generational shift, there's a lead. Um, user and then there's the mass market.

[00:23:17] Andrew Guido: Um, and what we've learned with technology in less than five years, you can change an entire industry as we've learned, you know, with the mobile phone, um, and who was dominant before. And who's dominant now.

[00:23:35] Andrew Guido: Yeah.

[00:23:49] Eric Goranson : So we hit my favorite little bakery there, which Tom Douglas owns. And he's, you know, God, I think two or three James Beard award winning. And I got, you know, so he's, [00:24:00] he knows his stuff and it's this little bakery. And I go in there and I get two of his croissants cause he used to work across the street from it.

[00:24:24] Eric Goranson : And Julie looks over to me and goes. Oh, God, that's a real croissant. Cause it explodes, know, and there's flakes just all over me and she goes, at first, she didn't want it. She goes, can I have a bite of that? And she said that that was the right, you know, real European style croissant. And uh, are they in north America now?

[00:24:54] Andrew Guido: But, but we can get there, like, look at the average person, knows what Ram is [00:25:00] on your computer, you know, knows what the hard drive is supposed to do, you know, knows a little bit about the processor and whether the processors is right. Knows whether it windows 10 versus dos, you know, the average, the average person's got there.

[00:25:47] Andrew Guido: Or something of that nature and you know, there's too many of this, you know, we've, we, we track almost the same. I don't know your, your numbers completely, but 10% of Canadians suffer from asthma. I don't know if that's the same [00:26:00] number in the United States. I think you're pretty close to that.

[00:26:03] Caroline Blazovsky : it's a it's I think

[00:26:22] Eric Goranson : If, if they had even something as simple as one of the new Velux skylights, it would sit there and read the CO2 level in the house and it would open up. They would realize that, oh, wait a minute. I just have way too much stuff in the air. And if we ventilated the house at this moment, we would have a healthier indoor air quality, even something like that.

[00:26:53] Caroline Blazovsky : Yeah.

[00:27:14] Andrew Guido: And this of course was the pre pre COVID world.

[00:27:43] Caroline Blazovsky : Now we look at, okay, let's put 30% windows in, let's put 40%. The more we can include natural light into the room, we're going to kill bacteria and viruses naturally. So to me, you know, COVID is sort of that springboard that has caused us, or at least in my part of the world to look at lighting and how [00:28:00] essential natural lighting is.

[00:28:03] Andrew Guido: Yeah. And as I mentioned earlier in, uh, our talk, um, we've got these led lights that have now dominated almost all

[00:28:16] Eric Goranson : And I have them everywhere in my

[00:28:23] Eric Goranson : The education for Eric. Let's hear it.

[00:28:46] Andrew Guido: And then during the afternoons to the evening, um, we have to shift that blue light. That's great. You're in a day, um, into, uh, Lord, if you can get it to zero and there's, you know, a handful of manufacturers that can get down to zero now, [00:29:00] there's not a thousand manufacturers that can get down to zero and doing it the better off we're going to be the problem with led lights.

[00:29:24] Andrew Guido: To get this much light as you can, as you can get, if you're not getting that, that light. And you're only, um, depending on the interior artificial blue light, you're going to have problems with the other end of the day, the day. And then if you're not dimming your light or you don't have a color tuning capabilities for doing it, you're not going to get the lower level of blue light.

[00:29:50] Eric Goranson : So Andrew, let's talk about my house for a second, since it's the education of Erica and the, our listening audience at the moment. So my house is probably over 40% glass. [00:30:00] Um, I mean, we have got, it's a 1977 contemporary, but I'm in the woods. So I have lots of, lots of windows with no blinds technically on them.

[00:30:29] Eric Goranson : Is that a little bit healthier than if I went to a 3000 or 4,000 Kelvin where it's just that bright? Wow. I'm in a hospital or a office complex.

[00:30:49] Caroline Blazovsky : I could think of some other animals he resembles, but yeah. Okay. We'll go with score.

[00:30:58] Andrew Guido: Yeah. So, so, so [00:31:00] you're, you're probably hitting all the right numbers and getting the right blue light. And then, you know, I'm Not sure what happens to the waves because there's part of our brain where we need that infrared light to come in. And that actually hits, um, a central part of our brain that, so you know, we're, we're, uh, getting something other than the visibility side.

[00:31:39] Andrew Guido: Uh, on it, it's half the size of a cigarette pack. Um, and, and, and, um, it's about $2,000. Um, I just opened up, I, I just, I just

[00:31:51] Andrew Guido: up the receptor. You can see the receptor receptor there. And so I'm taking pictures everywhere within a fraction of a second. I get what natural daylight [00:32:00] is and I get, uh, what the room light is, uh, in doing it.

[00:32:06] Andrew Guido: uh, this is the, the, a sense tech, um, or if you put, I think it's lighting passport, um, that's on it. Um, it gives you the spectrum that you're in and that gives you. 50 other things that I don't understand, um, that I'm because I, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm learning, learning about it, you know, and, um, try and understand it.

[00:32:43] Andrew Guido: Is it changing things where I'm sitting as a change thing? So, you know, this is the best way to learn, uh, and, and doing it. So the key that I would tell you though, is make sure that your dark at night, um, and, um, recently my wife got me to do something and hopefully it doesn't [00:33:00] sound too bad, but I wear a mask now at night over my eyes.

[00:33:25] Caroline Blazovsky : No more howling at the moon, Eric, Eric howls at the moon. He tells me he's like, oh, I leave my windows open. I can see the moon RA.

[00:33:57] Andrew Guido: Yeah. I read a study a long time [00:34:00] ago about chickens and how they put light in a corner. Um, and you know, when the chickens went to sleep, Um, their eyeballs went towards the light in the corner and they ended up being distorted. And so even though your eyes are closed, um, we could have the same biological effect, uh, with what's happening.

[00:34:44] Andrew Guido: About five years later, I now got friends I'm old enough to have friends coming over and going through it and they're going, what's that terrible noise? I go, what. You know, and you don't know, your brain is now canceled it out. Uh, but it's actually, you're, you're actually hearing it, uh, [00:35:00] subconsciously and it's stressing you out.

[00:35:03] Caroline Blazovsky : And that's the same with olfactory fatigue, right? With our noses. So people start bringing in the air, fresheners, the pod detergent, whatever you want to bring in as a smell and your body goes nose blind to it and you stop smelling it. And then the carcinogens get higher and higher. So it's the same principle.

[00:35:24] Eric Goranson : Well, I've walked into so many homes that had mold cause I'm allergic to mold and I am like the Canary in the coal mine. I can walk into a place and be two steps inside of a front door and take a brief couple of breaths in and my chest tightens up. And so I can walk in and go, where's your moisture problem at? And they go, how'd, you know, we've been fighting mold. I could smell it. It's no different to me than walking in somebody that has cats that are out of control that are been peeing on carpets and furniture in that or rats where you smell that ammonia [00:36:00] smell and all those different things. To me, when I go in, I can be that Canary in the coal mine going, I can tell you have a problem before you even brought it up, but to them they don't notice a single thing about it.

[00:36:13] Andrew Guido: Yeah, my wife is like yours, but she uses it a different way. So if I've gone to a function and you know, you're hugging somebody and I come home, I get the smell test. I'm going okay. Who you with?

[00:36:49] Caroline Blazovsky : I'm excited foodie.

[00:37:23] Andrew Guido: Um, and you're creating actually enzymes that are really good for your belly. Um, they're really, really good for you in terms of, you know, as a, as a, I think it's a prebiotic, um, Uh, with what, with what it has. So I played around mess around eventually because I'm, again, as I said, I'm a self-confessed fanatic, um, started reading as much as possible.

[00:37:58] Caroline Blazovsky : Oh my God. And he [00:38:00] sent me these pictures, Eric. Oh my God. His breads. And I'm, I'm lucky I have a farm stand that's right up the road from my office. And this woman bakes the same as you fresh sourdough bread every day. And she makes all of loaf and she makes a cheddar loaf. And oh my God, Andrew. It's like, I could literally gain 10 pounds just everyday.

[00:38:28] Eric Goranson : So Andrew will give your addresses right now. So as you continue baking into the fall, you can just send those in a box and

[00:39:18] Andrew Guido: Um, comparison in nature, uh, walls that look exactly the same that have got no comparison in nature. And so, you know, we're, we are very, um, big fractal seeking, um, humans. We'd love things that are irregular. Um, and I think our brain goes kind of wonky when we got repeated patterns and there's no mystery, um, around it.

[00:40:14] Andrew Guido: Um, and so, you know, it connects to. Everything being different and, you know, baking every loaf is different. I wish I could make a couple of lobes I made before and going, you know, I had one loaf that was so symmetrical with all my lines ago. How's this possible, and I'll never see this loaf again.

[00:40:49] Caroline Blazovsky : And you don't want me bake. You don't want me baking for you at all. Unless you want a cake. That's like inverted upside down. It's oozing out of the pan. The range isn't set at the appropriate [00:41:00] temperature. No, no, I'm not a baker. Forget it. So I'm going to rely on Andrew to send me stuff.

[00:41:28] Eric Goranson : all right. I'm going to go get some bread. I'll be back Caroline. You finished the show.

[00:41:34] Eric Goranson : my gosh. Yeah, I'm a sourdough junkie. It has been something since I was a little kid that my mom likes sourdough. I have always loved it. And, uh, you know, my, my gauge of sourdough is always against, as a kid was against San Francisco.

[00:41:53] Andrew Guido: Boudin.

[00:41:55] Andrew Guido: Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, there, I understand they may be the [00:42:00] oldest, uh, and maybe the, the inventor of sourdough during the gold rush. Um, and so I've had the pleasure of being the Dean and in San Francisco and in Chicago. I don't know if it's still there. Uh, but I visited when I was in there and also in New York, like, you know, you crazy, crazy places in New York that you can go if you're a, a, a foodie.

[00:42:21] Eric Goranson : Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yep.

[00:42:24] Eric Goranson : I got to get out that way too, but, so what are some of the things that you would like to see Andrew change in the industry right now is we kind of work towards the education process of homeowners because a lot of times that's what ends up driving. You know, the market saying, Hey, we want to have something because you always, it seems that the building community will push back against the environmental scientists because they're, they, they have their arguments of, they want to crank houses out and kick them out.

[00:43:04] Caroline Blazovsky : Yeah. And I want to say that one, you're speaking to, um, the person who educates at the building show show. Eric does what? 19, 19 education sessions at the international building show. So he's the person to get that message out. So that's the first thing. And then the second thing we were talking about is, um, uh, what were, uh, I lost my train of thought we were talking about.

[00:43:28] Eric Goranson : versus builder.

[00:43:46] Caroline Blazovsky : And this is the first, I think, year after COVID that we've seen this, like all the companies are on board, energy efficiency, I think, is being pushed to the side. And wouldn't you agree, Eric, every time we talk to someone it's a healthy home agenda. So

[00:44:13] Andrew Guido: Yeah.

[00:44:29] Andrew Guido: I'm meeting some great builders. Um, and so they're just getting their courage up. Uh, and I think with a little bit more evidence they'll, they'll, they'll come around, but I honestly believe this is going to be a consumer driven thing. I think they're going to cut out the middleman. Um, and they're going to push an ask, tough questions of their builder.

[00:45:32] Andrew Guido: And they'll say, Hey, buy the car now. And then when we get the radio, we'll, we'll install it. Uh,

[00:45:38] Andrew Guido: might take a year and a half.

[00:45:40] Eric Goranson : Ford has a hundred and something thousand. F-150 sitting in a, in a, in a racetrack parking lot that don't have the computer chips that they can ship out. So,

[00:46:18] Andrew Guido: And I know several people like that, but they know immediately they shouldn't be in that house or they know immediately they shouldn't be wearing that coat. They know immediately that something's not right. I don't, um, I I'm I'm inside there and it could be terrible toxic level and I can't seem to detect it, um, uh, with it.

[00:46:55] Andrew Guido: And formaldehyde's a bugger because it takes longer.

[00:47:16] Caroline Blazovsky : Half of those were aldehyde, uh, measures. We're looking at, you know, nanograms per leader were 40, 50, 60, 80, a new built house, 120 nanograms per liter of formaldehyde. We can never touch that European standard or even come close. So when people see the results and they say, oh my gosh, my house is laid.

[00:47:52] Caroline Blazovsky : You cannot just say, okay, we're going to put an ERV on an HRV. And we're changing that formaldehyde level. We actually have to change product [00:48:00] manufacturing and how we're doing it.

[00:48:02] Andrew Guido: And then, you know, possibly for another conversation is Eric. I know you're into kitchens. Uh, you know, we're, we're designing kitchen cabinets right now for this home that we're doing and the amount of work to try and change the solvent lines to water baselines and the hit the we're taking, Um,

[00:48:26] Andrew Guido: Then I gotta go bleed it out from the water, um, and put back the solvent

[00:48:39] Andrew Guido: Uh, that that's great. And we have one plant in, uh, in Ontario that went all water-based and they went that extreme cost. And, uh, you know, they raised something like, uh, you know, uh, $10 million or something of that nature, uh, to create this, uh, this, this plant. And unfortunately there isn't enough and, you know, our cabinets are deliberate, completely exposed.

[00:49:03] Andrew Guido: toxins are inside, It's coming out. Um, and you know, there's, there's no protection.

[00:49:38] Eric Goranson : 'cause my eyes were watering and I couldn't see to drive from the off gassing of the parts. It was like I was standing in a paint room when I grabbed those parts because they were dried, they were wrapped up in plastic. They were shrink-wrapped, they were packaged for shipment and I'm driving. And I can't even see because my eyes are watering so much from the [00:50:00] fumes and chemicals coming off of that.

[00:50:10] Andrew Guido: Yeah, no for sure. And I think just like, you know, when some of the companies that, that could make a difference, there is no large company doesn't have an HR department. There's no large company that doesn't have a sales or marketing department. And so why in the large building companies, isn't there a chief wellness or health officer, someone that can, uh, guide the business guide, the decisions that are made that affects so many people in terms of dealing with it.

[00:50:57] Caroline Blazovsky : And we know

[00:51:19] Eric Goranson : And 90% of my clients that I would talk to about it would say no. And you know, the, the, the continued price pushed down and that just came down to be honest, the lack of education. With the homeowner, they didn't, I, if I tried to talk him into it, it sounded like a sales pitch, but they should have paid a little more attention in hindsight to those numbers.

[00:52:04] Andrew Guido: And so you take, uh, one that is commonly used. It might be $8, a sausage or a cartridge or whatever tube, whatever way you want to put it. And you get the one that's got the lower VOC, but substantially lower VOC. It's $12. So on a mathematical scale, that's 50% more, but you're only using two 20 of those tubes.

[00:52:36] Eric Goranson : Ooh.

[00:52:50] Andrew Guido: And the one that's $12 is great at minus 17, not past it, but who's building a minus 17. And so, you know, the, you know, the more vodka that they put [00:53:00] into, um, the, um, uh, the sealant, of course, it's going to perform better in the colder weather

[00:53:09] Andrew Guido: that by the, by the way, he was a metaphor,

[00:53:12] Andrew Guido: case someone's going to, I don't want anybody out there draining.

[00:53:18] Caroline Blazovsky : well, if you mentioned,

[00:53:22] Caroline Blazovsky : if you mentioned booze on this show, Andrew, you get to come on again. Erica Ericsson you'll be on next week.

[00:53:32] Eric Goranson : So we're going to have to, we're going to have to wrap this up in a minute, but I had a couple of questions, one just, what is your favorite type of sealant for that? Do you have a, a certain style that you, that you like since to kind of wrap that thought up versus, you know, you've got your late tax, you have your different types of silicone out there.

[00:53:53] Andrew Guido: Yeah, So, so right now, am I allowed to mention the names of the companies?

[00:53:58] Andrew Guido: Yeah. Okay. So right now I've, [00:54:00] I'm a big fan of . Um, I think they've got a great product and they're into the hybrid category, which where I think sealants are going to go. So, you know, you're going to have the best of silicone and the best of poly.

[00:54:33] Andrew Guido: I got away with it because I changed the, uh, the vapor barrier into something that's a nylon bay, a vapor barrier. That's actually smart and breeds. And so as a result of it, I can use the sealant that I found. That's got an extremely low level of VLCs otherwise, because of a poly. I understand. You have to have the solvent.

[00:55:17] Andrew Guido: And that's the only reason I can get away with it. The only reason I can get away with it, uh, and, and dealing with it, AFM is a pretty Good. company and they've done a lot of stuff in this area. Um, and so a lot of their sealants and a lot of, uh, the products that they have, um, are generally well-performing, uh, overall.

[00:55:54] Andrew Guido: And it changes when you go to the SDS, which is where the. World is shifting too. [00:56:00] Um, I also find the manufacturers don't keep their sheets current. Um, it costs money to keep them current. Um, and so they don't always do it. And if you got something that's, GreenGuard certified as an example, um, that same product you might find is no longer GreenGuard certified.

[00:56:38] Andrew Guido: Um, and it's because I think they expire every five years. And if you've got thousands of products, um, this becomes a problem. Just the management of it.

[00:57:10] Eric Goranson : I'd love to talk to you a little bit more about that down the road. And I know Caroline has got her stuff as well. Right.

[00:57:22] Andrew Guido: Yeah, but

[00:57:24] Andrew Guido: didn't get into a pizza and focaccia and you know, by the time, if you, if, if, if we do do this again, I'm going to do a search of, Uh, both your places and see what, uh, the, uh, the world says.

[00:57:49] Andrew Guido: Um, earth.com. Uh, and that's spelled E R T H cause the other one was taken. so, uh, and incidentally earth stands for [00:58:00] every revolution, transforms humanity, um, and it stuck in my head and just, I couldn't get it out of my head. Uh, and so that became the co that became the company, uh, in doing it. Um, we, we started social media in April.

[00:58:24] Caroline Blazovsky : And that's E R T H everyone not earth, like E R T a. So it's E R T h.com. And if you want to learn how to build a healthy home, understand healthier homes, get wellness at home, this is a place to start educate yourself and just start learning about how important it is to your health. We, you know, we watch what we eat.

[00:58:48] Andrew Guido: Yeah. Yeah. And it's, uh, professor Joseph Allen and Harvard has said, uh, builders, contractors, designers have more impact on your health. [00:59:00] Then doctors and, you know, not exactly those words, but I'm pretty sure that paraphrase them. And the other thing I'll just put a plug in for our.com is under the knowledge tab, you will find all kinds of articles.

[00:59:32] Andrew Guido: So you'll find it under, uh, the way that.

[00:59:57] Eric Goranson : Awesome. Awesome. Well, thanks for coming on today, [01:00:00] man. And, uh, this has been absolutely epic. I learned a lot and uh, can't wait to have you back on again.

[01:00:10] Eric Goranson : All right. Well, I'm Eric G

[01:00:14] Eric Goranson : and you've been listening to around the

[01:00:19] Andrew Guido: Thank you.