Ep 628 – Mold, Mycotoxins & Your Home: How to Find Hidden Problems and Remediate Them with Jason Richards

Could your home be making you sick?

In this episode of the Health Fix Podcast, Dr. Jannine Krause sits down with Jason Richards, founder and owner of Pure Health Mold Inspections, to talk about one of the most frustrating and overlooked contributors to chronic health issues: mold exposure in the home.

Dr. Jannine knows this topic personally. After dealing with mold issues in two different homes and helping clients navigate suspected mold exposure, she understands how difficult it can be to get clear answers.

Many people experience symptoms that seem impossible to explain, only to be told that their home is fine after standard air testing comes back negative. But according to Jason, air testing alone may not tell the whole story.

Together, Dr. Jannine and Jason dive into what comprehensive mold testing should look like, why surface testing can be so important, how mold and mycotoxins can remain in the home even after visible mold is gone, and why simply killing mold isn’t enough.

They also discuss the structural and environmental issues that can contribute to recurring mold problems, including humidity, poor ventilation, crawl spaces, attics, HVAC systems, water drainage, and tightly sealed homes.

If you’ve been dealing with unexplained symptoms, suspect your home may have a mold problem, or have been told your testing is negative despite ongoing concerns, this episode will help you better understand what to look for and what questions to ask.

https://youtu.be/1XU4Q0GrmyQ

Connect with Jason Richards

Jason Richards is the founder and owner of Pure Health Mold Inspections. His work focuses on helping people identify potential mold and environmental issues in their homes through comprehensive inspection and testing strategies.

Jason has worked closely with functional medicine practitioners and understands the connection between environmental exposure and the health concerns many patients experience. His approach focuses on evaluating the home as a complete system and helping clients better understand potential sources of moisture, mold, and environmental contamination.

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Connect with Dr. Jannine Krause

Check out Dr. Krause’s Website for more resources and subscribe for more conversations on functional medicine, longevity, brain health, hormones, nutrition, and natural strategies to optimize your health.

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This episode of Health Fix Podcast is sponsored by Chemical Free Body – home of Dr. Krause’s favorite green juice – Organic Energy Juice – enter “thehealthfix” for 15% off your 1st order. 

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Podcast Transcript

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to mold detection challenges
80:33:11 The origin of mold inspection innovations
808:19:51 The significance of testing entire home systems
1402:46:33 Structural issues influencing mold growth
2036:06:33 HVAC systems as reservoirs of mold
2722:13:15 What to look for when buying a home for mold risk
3733:19:56 Mycotoxins, neutralization, and remediation products
4622:13:16 Understanding outdoor vs indoor mold levels
5002:46:36 Air quality and ventilation solutions
5836:06:36 The inspection process from start to finish
6691:39:56 Remediation planning and post-remediation verification
7638:53:16 Resources and how to connect with experts

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Jannine Krause (00:01.72)
Jason Richards, welcome to the Health Fix Podcast. Well, I have been excited to talk with you because you have kind of filled a lot of the problems that I’ve had when it comes to looking at mold in a home. I’m guessing you have had multiple interactions with functional medicine doctors since you have mentioned that’s like the problem you solve. How did you hook up with functional medicine docs and like how did how did this whole idea come to fruition? Please tell us.

Jason Richards (00:04.957)
Well, thank you.

Jason Richards (00:16.989)
Absolutely.

Jason Richards (00:30.653)
Great I love the question. so basically it started with the conversation. I just happened to be fortunate enough that a good friend of mine was in the functional medicine space. He was a he’s a leading still is, still is a practicing leading physician in the field of mold and lime. That’s kind of his specialty. And he just on a casual conversation with actually my current business partner here, we’re on a call together, and he was bringing up the fact that he could diagnose it in the patient, he could do a nasal swab and culture it on an agar plate.

he could find it in their urine via mycotoxin analysis, but he couldn’t get an inspector to actually go in and find it in the environment. And so he felt like there’s this huge missing piece where he could literally prove it in the clinic, but nobody was proving it in the home. And so we kind of spent the next year after that cultivating and learning about every kind of piece of technology that we could find. What are best practices, what’s stuff on the fringe, what works, what doesn’t. We tested it on our own homes and just

Yeah, I popped probably way too many holes in my house that my for my wife to be thrilled about it. But at least we know what we know now. and so we we we cultivated that process and really found that it’s a layered systems of redundancies that that are required so that we can fully understand exactly what’s going on in a house. And it’s been an incredible journey, but I think we’ve got our method really honed in and

Don’t get me wrong, just because it’s good right now doesn’t mean we’re not always learning and growing and trying other more advanced techniques because honestly, it’s almost impossible with AI now to keep even keep up with technology. So we’re just going to try to do the best we can because my goal is to always be at the very top of this kind of this world of mold inspecting and to figure out what’s the latest and greatest, fastest, most efficient way that I can tell you what’s going on in your home.

Jannine Krause (02:18.465)
That’s huge because as a functional medicine doc, I have literally, as I as I told before I hit record, went to someone’s house armed with an ERMI test and did the testing for them because prior to that they had done an airborne type of test with with a box and s you know, sat out and then they had another guy come in with a wand and test.

The air and they’re like, Yeah, there’s nothing here, everything’s fine. And they’re like, Your doc’s crazy. Those those organic acid tests that say you have mold. You these are BS. None of this stuff’s true. Like your home, you know, is not your problem. There’s something else. And I’m like, We have done all the things. Like this keeps coming up. And so I’m guessing that this is exactly what you heard, too, from your functional medicine friend.

Jason Richards (03:03.068)
Absolutely.

Jannine Krause (03:09.281)
That the testing is is ridiculous.

Jason Richards (03:12.802)
It is. It’s it’s just minimal at at best. It’s it’s misleading and I think it’s one of the main reasons that people stay sick and just keep they keep going back, they keep doing intensive, they keep buying supplements, and they just have this like endless loop of and I I think ruling out the environment. Again, it if nothing else, we want to either figure out what’s going on there or rule it out so that you can move forward and start understanding more.

Areas. And again, a full comprehensive diagnostic of the home is so imperative. Just even honestly, if you’re only checking the living spaces, you are missing the point effectively. Because with the air exchange that happens in our home, crawl spaces, for example, huge part of a lot of the homes, especially in the south. not probably many up in your way in Wisconsin. but in the south, they’re probably like every other home basically has a crawl space.

The air exchange between the crawl space and your main living floor, on average, scientifically, is around 50 to 60 percent. So you have a lot of these little micro penetrations. So whether or not you want to, you are sitting in the middle of your crawl space every day. And so I think it’s really important to check an entire home as an entire system. And I think that’s another point that a lot of people miss. But to your point on the ERMI evaluation,

Understanding those microscopic fragments and what they are and breaking them down to the DNA based level is honestly one of the most accurate techniques we have to identify mold in your space and whittle it down to the species so we can see is this a species that is producing mycotoxins that are riding on fragments and thus ligating in your body. so it’s yeah, there’s always much, much more to learn, that’s for sure.

Jannine Krause (04:53.111)
Let’s talk about the writing on fragments, because I know we had talked about PCR testing and looking at, you know, because everyone’s talking mycotoxin, mycotoxin, but and then we’re looking at spores as testing. But a lot of folks aren’t realizing how is all this getting into the system and how we can narrow this down even more, looking at more honed in testing here. Because, you know, I I’ve done the ERMI, and for those of you guys who like, what the heck’s this ERMI testing? It is literally like a little swiffer.

you you go around the house and you wipe down surfaces and it’ll come back, you send it in, it comes back. You get you get all these species that are in there and what kind of amounts. But but we get species. You know, then it’s like, which one’s the problem? What what’s in the system? And so tell us a little bit more about PCR before I start randling.

Jason Richards (05:39.001)
Yeah, I mean that was a no that was a that was a great analysis. PCR-based testing, basically, yeah, exactly like you said, it breaks them down to the species level. We use it in our testing philosophy again when when when we can reasonably, because it is a very expensive form way of testing. So we use it in conjunction with our traditional testing methodologies. A lot of times most of our clients have done an ERMI-based evaluation, but I I and I think it’s

It’s a really imperative test because again, it can really lead you down the road of understanding which species are the most harmful in your environment and understanding, you know, these the ones that are on that army test, it’s 36 of some of the worst offenders on in the mold space, like Stachybatris chartardum. Perfect example of an extremely toxigenic, neurotoxic mycotoxin producing. And on the mycotoxin front, too,

It’s really interesting how they develop. They’re a secondary metabolite of mold itself. And I mean, from my research on them, they can crystallize on the outside of a mold colony. They can actually be built into the cell wall itself. And so again, it I think it what it speaks to, what the ERME speaks to is not only identification, but how important like true removal is. A lot of remediators that we talk to, they’re really big on killing the mold. I use a biocide, I use a fungicide.

I kill the mold, and so it stops hurting you. It’s just again, that’s another it’s misinformed. It’s not wrong. It’s just they don’t have the full picture of it. It’s it because you have to stop the source in its tracks, getting stopping the moisture, stopping the mold colony from continuing its expansion. But you’ve got to remove it. And and because all of those fragments are they now that we’ve we know they’re embedded with if they are toxigenic, they’re embedded with mycotoxins. It’s on their surfaces.

Those are so those fragments break down to small enough portions that they can breeze right by even a HEPA filter. HEPA filters HEPA filtration goes down to 0.3 microns. Fragments can get down to 0.1 microns or under. I mean, and and so we’re just talking these incredibly small things that just can breeze right by the blood brain barrier and and can make it so that they just get into our systems very easily. And again, if your focus is killing the mold, all you’re doing is

Jason Richards (08:01.04)
You’re doing a half you’re doing a you’re doing it halfway. And I’d I love to really preach, especially to our clients on the remediation side, especially, is removal is paramount. And a subsequent small particle cleaning of the rest of your adjacent spaces is also equally as important.

Jannine Krause (08:17.963)
I absolutely agree. And part of it part of what I’m thinking about when you say that, I’m like, okay. So we do we do need to talk about structure of the home and areas that need to get fixed and optimized.

Jason Richards (08:25.414)
Mm-hmm.

Jannine Krause (08:28.459)
Because what I’ve also seen is you clean it up, and guess what? It’s back six months later. Or as I’ve heard in in LA, when the rainy season comes, same with Washington. You know, between November and and and February, boom, stuff comes right back. Here in here in Wisconsin, we’re talking the summer sun rainy times and when the the the snow melts. And so

Jason Richards (08:34.363)
Yes.

Jason Richards (08:39.26)
Absolutely.

Jason Richards (08:50.214)
Mm-hmm.

Jannine Krause (08:51.057)
these are the type of things structurally we need to look at. So let’s go there first and then I’m gonna go back to the conversation of companies that I have recommended to help neutralize mycotoxins. And I wanna get your take on some of those those types of products because it is one of the things that I have seen some success with and it’s part of like my protocol for telling people how to clean up their own house. And I’ll I’ll get into that in a second. So

Jason Richards (09:16.988)
Perfect.

Jannine Krause (09:17.119)
What about structural stuff? Let’s talk about like where are structural issues in the house? Where are things that are repetitive issues that we need to optimize in terms of how our house functions, circulates air.

Jason Richards (09:27.206)
Whew. Number one biggest culprit is humidity. And you can be in a place that’s not very humid, and you still might need dehumidification. For example, like I think every person across at least America and maybe beyond needs a small dehumidifier in their shower. The exhaust fan isn’t is simply typically not enough. You know, usually pulling about you know 150 cubic feet per minute, and it’s

Jannine Krause (09:31.788)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Richards (09:54.905)
It’s usually not enough to kind of tamp it down. That’s one of the biggest issues. But honestly, if you could advance to, you know, multiple stages of dehumidification across your space, you know, a couple of units maybe off of Amazon, or a whole home dehumidifier would be an excellent addition. but as far as like structural issues that I find are the most commonplace problems, crawl spaces on jumps to my top of mind because crawling around in there, we usually find issues where there’s no vapor barrier. You just literally have earth, saturated earth.

That is just literally evaporating and then just causing issues on on all of the wood compounds downstairs because or in the in the crawl space itself. attics are a huge issue structurally speaking. A lot of people don’t have adequate ventilation in their attic spaces. when you have blown in like the white fluffy stuff that’s in your attic space, a lot of times those guys get a little overzealous when they’re putting it in and they start to pack it in the the little ridge vents on the side of the little

The soffit vents on the side. So you don’t get this nice airflow that you need for an attic to breathe. And it it again, it’s naturally aspirated with the outdoor environment, but it can get contaminants in and can and supposed to exhaust them just as fast. a lot of times, I mean, of course, leaks are huge. Anything you’ve got associated with drainage, plumbing fixtures, those are a lot of times hot beds, micro leaks can cause all kinds of problems. But even more so than the structure itself, one of the biggest ticket items that we’re

Where we find mold, and it’s really, it’s not necessarily the generation point, but most of the time it’s acting as a reservoir. The HVAC system. It is one of the most, I think, overlooked from a mold standpoint. And I think people, especially on the inspection side, try to justify, like, it’s just normal settled dust. I mean, for example, I’ve surface tested inside of HVACs and the blower and the evaporator coil, the plenums and all kinds, been able to prove there’s documented lab-verified mold growing.

Not just here, mold growing on this surface. And you can have your HVAC contractor come in and say, Well, it looks clean to me. It looks like every system I see. I’m not really sure what the problem is here. And again, I just that that advice just drives me mad. Because it’s nobody understands and nobody’s looking at it. They’re looking through the lens of average when the clients that are coming to them are anything but they are on the fringes. They are the

Jason Richards (12:17.136)
The rare folks who are the canaries in the coal mine that are incredibly sensitive to mold and they spend a lot of their life just not being listened to. And so we again we like to not only listen to what’s going on, but I want to be able to verify what you’re talking about with laboratory analysis. And it’s so easily possible today. I just I don’t know why say people don’t take the time, genuinely. And I’m not talking about clients there, I’m talking about other people who are supposed to be representing them as their inspector.

Jannine Krause (12:47.597)
Yeah. No, it’s it’s frustrating. It’s incredibly frustrating because I don’t know how many people I’ve had do an ERMI test s swabbing their HVAC system. A lot of people in in apartments going through like the the multi level huge apartments and they pull the the screen down to, you know, the common screen where things come through and they wipe it and they’re like, What is this? You know, they test the ERMI, they bring it back, and and the building manager’s like, Well, that’s dust. There’s always dust in those things, you know? It’s like, okay. And, you know,

It it’s incredibly, it’s incredibly frustrating. one of the places is is now after after this, I’m like, can we get somebody in the legal department that can like team up with you to help people with this situation? Because boy, when you’re in a landlord, you know, when you’ve got a landlord or you’ve got a big apartment situation, this is almost a hopeless situation.

Jason Richards (13:37.98)
Yeah it

I don’t like I don’t I I I don’t like that you’re right with that statement, but you are. I talked to we we’ve done inspections a lot of times incognito. we had one client ask us to show and like, can you show up in an unmarked vehicle, please? and just kind of gently bring your things in the home. We don’t want to cause a stir. So we’re happy to accommodate because honestly, our our goal is to help the client. I’m not it in indebted to the landlord or anybody else. I’m indebted to you. I because that’s who I want to serve. And

Yeah, it’s it’s a shame. There’s sadly, once you have that, once you find an issue, really the only answer is move. I I find that I often end up talking people out of doing an inspection with us when they’re in a rental situation, because it’s like if you’re feeling this way and you feel and you’ve been able to document I feel better when I go other places, sadly the

The reality is you you might just not this might just not be a fit. Not to say that there’s not a good place for you, because there definitely is. but this one might not be it. So I I don’t like taking people’s money in that instance. But I’m happy to also prove if they need the data to prove what they want to prove, we can definitely do a search and try to figure it out. so no, it’s it’s a it’s a dreadful situation when it comes to rentals. You’re absolutely right.

I do know of a couple attorneys, however. one particular I was at conference down in Dallas, a mold summit. and I think her name is Christina Baer, if my name, if my memory serves me correctly. She does advocate, she does a lot of she goes to to trial a lot apparently in this for this exact thing. So there are there are advocates, there are legal advocates out there that can definitely help if that’s the avenue that your that your clients want to take.

Jannine Krause (15:23.245)
Yeah, if they they need to. I mean, obviously the the easiest situation is just move and and find a place. Now, of course, here’s the other situation and this is something that I find for a lot of folks, and I know I still need to get to my myconoc mycotoxins neutralization question, guys. I will get there. but here’s another thing that’s just popping in my head, is a lot of folks will have, you know, a situation which they don’t feel good. They wanna be sure that they’re moving into a a a new situation that is good. And a lot of folks that I’ve worked with one

Jason Richards (15:27.161)
Exactly.

Jannine Krause (15:52.672)
you know, in particular is a very dear friend of mine, she has had to go to new complexes and find out that unfortunately when she walks in there, she can feel it, she can tell right away. She’s like the mold detector just in and of her hu human being. Right. Right. And so then it’s like, okay, if someone’s thinking about moving to an apartment, someone’s thinking about building a home, buying a home.

Jason Richards (16:05.83)
Have met a lot of

Jannine Krause (16:17.611)
What kind of things would you recommend to them? Because I know that the traditional inspector that you hire before you buy a house is not gonna be going to this extent. What kind of things would you look at for someone looking to change location or buy a home? What what would you recommend to them? Or would you guys be a good source to do that?

Jason Richards (16:25.742)
No, they’re looking

Jason Richards (16:30.714)
Yeah.

I mean, well, of course, I’m biased, so of course I would love to do your inspection for you. However, if you’ve got to do a DIY, a couple of the top things that I would look for. Well, I’ll talk about like an orental complex first. Look around for indications that water is somewhere that it shouldn’t be. Look for those stains, check the vents and the registers. A lot of times condensation will build up and you start to have mold develop on the on the registers, the the supplies from your HVAC. you you really just want to see and and again use trust your senses.

Does this place smell right? Does this place feel right? Do I feel better or the same as when I walked in? and and really just trust yourself on that. If you want to get into the weeds a little bit more, like you said earlier, doing a personalized ERMI test of the home where you just take that Swiffer and you wipe every baseboard on every level of the home that you’re checking out, it gets you a good average. It’s not gospel. I can’t say it’s gonna point you to say the mold’s here, this is what you need to fix.

But it’s a really good average and it can help you understand. Do I have some concentrations of some of the more toxigenic subspecies that are that are really impactful and going to eventually hurt me if I stay here long enough? or you could downsize to the hurts me if you just wanted like the top five like nasty contenders. you could even save a little bit of money and go that route. And of course, you could get a full-fledged inspection to to complement that. On the on the building yourself side, some of the best advice I can possibly give is.

Don’t let the contractor put your HVAC in the attic or the crawl space. It is the most commonplace that I find them in new builds because square footage is a premium and you know they don’t want to waste that they could give you an extra couple of square feet on your walk in closet to have your HVAC in a proper inside of the envelope of the home, the the air conditioned space of the home, and which is exactly where you want your HVAC because it’s just it’s such a vulnerability point and it’s and it’s such a it’s it’s the distributor.

Jason Richards (18:28.792)
of of everything in your house. All air is running over that system at some point in time. and honestly, for the for the most sensitive out there, I would get a reasonably sized slab based home that has excellent drainage across the entire thing. and make it so easy to access that you could walk up to the attic space on a Tuesday if you wanted to and go check things out. Because again, maintenance is the key. You can’t really

There’s no perfect magic bullet for what home you’re going to make to build because you’re kind of at the mercy of the contractors, but you want a home that’s easy to maintain. I think sometimes the one some of the most stressful situations that I see are people that have a home that’s far too large for what they can adequately clean and take care of because again, maintenance is paramount in those situations. So find something that’s reasonable for you. Make sure that it’s low maintenance and less problems. Again, slab eliminates the crawl space, it eliminates basements.

I would not encourage people to do a spray foamed attic if they’re thinking about that upgrade. it can cause more problems, not only from the VOC off-gassing of the actual spray foams themselves, but foam is so darn impenetrable that a lot of times it can mask problems. And so you’ve got this spray foam in the attic, your roof sheeting is literally rotting away, but you don’t even know it because you’ve just got this spray foam blocking it. so that’s a couple of things off the top of my head where I’d

Point people to.

Jannine Krause (19:57.784)
Wow, I can see how the roof could be rotting with behind the spray foam. I lived in a house in in Tacoma, Washington, where we had to to do some remediation. We had the spray foam, but it was older, like the the first version of whatever the heck they sprayed. and the mold was kind of like in between it. I could see it coming in between it in the attic.

Jason Richards (20:04.88)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Richards (20:19.994)
Yep. It’s not not everybody can install it properly. It’s it’s kind of like an art. I see spray foam the same way I see like tile contractors. It is very it has to be so meticulous, you know. And if they miss, like in your saying, so you’ve basically got this now, you’ve got this sealed attic space that’s holding everything in, but you in your case, it sounds like you still had air penetration coming through, which is the the I mean that’s how you just you div it it makes that attic hit the dew point incredibly fast.

And it can just cause all kinds of issues. I mean, the the amount of moisture that’s in the air is obscene. it is honestly the biggest mover in all of in all the ways that we can get moisture to our environment, the air is the number one way. And so I don’t I don’t think humidity gets enough love and and and it it doesn’t get enough prevention attributed to it. I think that again, circling back to what I said earlier, dehumidification is so paramount in all of your spaces.

Jannine Krause (21:16.777)
thought about having a separate dehumidifier in the shower like shower and bath spaces. That that was something I never thought about. but that makes sense, especially just watching in the summer when it’s incredibly humid here in in Wisconsin, and then you take a shower on top of that and the walls are like wet on top of it. And you’re like, that can’t be

Jason Richards (21:28.891)
Yeah.

Jason Richards (21:35.107)
Exactly. On the ceiling we get condensation buildup all the time. I mean, and I know, and it’s and it’s just so easy. I I you know, I love dehumidification. They make it very easy, it’s very inexpensive. Heck, you could even put one like in and it doesn’t have to be running all the time, so it’s not gonna drain your electric bill. You just set it to a certain percentage, when it increases past that percentage, voila, it kicks on. You could even set it by the sink and run a little tube into your sink so you never have to drain it, because that’s I’d say that’s the biggest complaint folks have is

I’ve got to remember to empty the bucket. so there’s ways around that too. We can figure it all out.

Jannine Krause (22:10.365)
my gosh. Yeah, we ended up running ours into the sump pump, but we had no like we have noticed that like, yeah, if you don’t drain it, then sitting there. Now you’ve got stagnant water and you’re like, my god, I’m just making the problem worse. Just making the problem worse. Yeah. yeah. So let’s talk about mycotoxins for a second. So

Jason Richards (22:22.81)
Yeah, getting those endotoxins rather than mycotoxins. yeah.

Jason Richards (22:30.63)
Please.

Jannine Krause (22:31.455)
I had mentioned that I had used a product where they neutralized them. And I had the folks on the podcast like probably a couple years ago. It’s Superstratum is is the company. And I think they call it their professional coding or something. Some it that’s not that’s not exactly it. Have you used that and and what’s your take on

Jason Richards (22:37.114)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Richards (22:47.142)
Yeah.

Jannine Krause (22:52.461)
products that neutralize mycotoxins. Cause I’ve had some people do the remediation themselves, then do the the mycotoxin, you know, neutralization. And I’m curious.

Jason Richards (23:04.208)
Yeah, so I there’s so superstratum and other products similar to it have their place. So what I will never encourage people to do is use that in lieu of. So anybody who’s using a product even like superstratum for like remediation, it’s just an improper usage because again, the first goal is stop the source of the moisture. What is causing this problem? Second goal is we need to remove

Jannine Krause (23:09.325)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jason Richards (23:31.161)
Everything that cannot be salvaged, we need to remove like drywall and insulation and anything that is porous and effectively uncleanable. And then the stuff that’s left over, we need to effectively do incredibly thorough abrasion techniques to almost strip off like this a sixteenth or an eighth of the top layer of that because just like you talked about earlier, you’ve got this mold, it keeps coming back. I think about mold like a dandelion in my backyard. I can go pull up all the dandelions I want, and I can pull all the flowers, and I can go, I did a really good job.

All these dandelions are gone. I weeded my whole yard. Tomorrow when it rains, all of them are back. It’s yellow again. And that’s because I didn’t get to the roots. And so these this mold that grows on these structural materials, it just embeds itself in the semi porous surface. That is I mean, ninety percent of homes are built out of just lumber. I mean, that’s what we use. We use cellulose. It’s their favorite substrate to grow on, just about. and so these yeah, it’s it’s it’s just imperative that these techniques but

on on super on superstratum and one similar to it, I think they’re excellent small particle cleaning compounds. If you’re using superstratum after you after you’ve remediated to effectively wipe down your entire environment, I think that’s the best use case for it, personally speaking. Because I’ve read studies that say that it absolutely neutralizes it. I believe hyp my memory serves superstratum’s hypochlorous acid, if I’m saying that right. so it does.

decompose, it it it neutralizes. So again, I have seen success with it. I just I’m it always is I’m always so fearful when my clients go, yeah, I, you know, got some super stratum bombs and I’m pretty sure it took care of my problem. It’s like it masked it temporarily. And so you just got to take it a little bit step further and use it in an appropriate context. I personally, one of my recommendations on my small particle cleaning guide that we include with our remediation protocols,

It lifts super stratum building cleaner in particular as a small particle cleaning compound combined with microfiber wiping is an excellent technique for it. I also like it as a fogging compound, but not for air neutralization. I like it for the fact that it binds to particles, drops them, and then you can mop them up. And you just have that additional layer of protection. so I’ve seen it be really successful for people in that context. I’ve also checked out a couple of other

Jason Richards (25:54.749)
products in that same vein, like EC3 from Micro Balance. I don’t know if you’ve ever come across that one, that kind of grapefruit seed blend. Again, same thing. If you’re using it for remediation, you’re just using it wrong. Not to say it’s a bad product, but I I like it when people use it for that small particle cleaning as that little extra boost. Plus their laundry added it was really awesome for getting it off of your clothes. I actually use it quite frequently. because I’m inundated with mold quite often. I’m in some of the nastiest places. So I like to keep take care of

Jannine Krause (26:19.639)
Yeah.

Jason Richards (26:24.518)
Take care of myself too. but if you’re if you can’t get your hands on any of that stuff, honestly, good old-fashioned a little bit of soap and water is better than nothing because it creates a little surfactant action. So you can just wipe up particles easier. but all that to say, my my the thing that I preach to my clients the most that I possibly can is it has to be physical removal. There is no replacement for that elbow grease. So if you’re looking for a silver bullet to remove the mold from your home.

Sadly it’s just not there yet. I can’t say it won’t ever exist, but it’s not there yet. So we really have to physically remove, physically wipe down and it’s just gotta be a little work.

Jannine Krause (27:04.545)
Yeah. Yeah. You gotta fix the problem and you’ve gotta get into the drywall and you’ve gotta get in the walls and wherever else you need to. Yeah, it’s it’s unfortunate, but it but I agree. It’s it’s definitely what you gotta do. Now, one of the other things that comes up and I and I know you even mentioned this on on your website, I think with one of your mini courses, I’d seen something like what’s in and around your home. Now, one of the other big things that I will get as a let’s call it objection.

to working on someone’s mold is they’ll be like, well, there’s mold all over in the air and it’s all over in in my soil. I’m a gardener. How do I even know if the mold that’s affecting me is just outside and there’s nothing I can do about it. So help us, help us come up with a a a statement to to explain that one because I’ve had that come up from certain patients who are like, there’s an there’s no mold in my house. There might be outside, I know there is, but

Jason Richards (27:50.822)
Yeah.

yeah.

Jason Richards (27:58.653)
By far one of my favorite. I love it when I usually get this question from husbands. I’ll be honest, as one, I can speak to us. and the answer is absolutely, you are 100% correct. There is mold absolutely everywhere. If you open your front door right now and go outside, you’re gonna be inundated with a combination of

Jannine Krause (28:03.809)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Richards (28:17.996)
Ascospores and Basidiospores and Clatosporium and even Aspergillus penicillium is just naturally fluttering in the air. I mean, heck, I even find honestly in outdoor air samples we take to do some comparative analysis to the indoors, we find ketomium and stagibotris and fusarium. It’s out there. It really is. The differentiating factor is: is your home the amplifier? If we can prove that there’s elevations inside of

A central wall cavity inside the home, and we’ve got moisture to boot, and we’ve got a ridiculous amount of stachybatris and ketomium growing in this wall, and we can prove it on a lab sample. And by comparison to the outside, it’s zeros across the board, or maybe let’s say it’s even a couple. We’ve got an elevation issue that is being caused by your home. There is no justification, even in and and the the beauty you have of outside for that person who’s the gardener worried about it, you have the magic of dilution.

You’re in the outdoors. You have trillions of gallons of air probably around you that are just waiting to be inhaled by you. Whereas in your house, that concentrates and super concentrates. And so while mold is everywhere, not there’s there there aren’t super pockets of concentrated toxogenic molds everywhere. That’s just not the case. Those are driven by moisture events in your home that cause them to grow, that cause them to amplify.

And so that’s really what we’re looking for. I’m not looking to tell you in your home, you should rip out that wall because you’ve got one spore of cladosporium on it. That’s normal. But when you’ve got thousands of stachybatris, that’s not normal. And that should never be okay. So yes, molds everywhere, but the toxic ones just aren’t. Not in not in elevations in your home, at least.

Jannine Krause (29:57.838)
At the end of the day, like you’re outside, like you said, there’s more air, there’s air passage, there’s air flow. Whereas in homes, I think a lot of people these days don’t even open their windows, for for multiple reasons.

Jason Richards (30:07.908)
And they’re built so tight. No, that’s that’s a great thing. On one issue that we find, so one of the devices we use when we’re inspecting is called an instoscope, and it captures a lot of really good particle data. But one thing I like about it is it captures CO2. and I find a lot of homes that we’re in have above at least most of them are above a thousand parts per million CO2. And that’s kind of the threshold where you start to have a little bit of cognitive decline. About every 200 parts per million, you increase past that thousand.

You just start to have these semi noticeable effects. I’ve read a a couple of studies on it now because I I wanted to understand it better too and how I could advise my clients. but so not only are you inundated with mold and you have this brain fog, but your house isn’t breathing, it’s sealed up so tight that you have these CO2 concentrations. So now you have brain fogged coupled with I’m now inundated and I think asphyxiating, basically. I mean, you just aren’t getting enough CO2.

Or you’re not getting enough oxygen and you’re replacing it with CO2. so yeah, open your windows on nice days. I would highly encourage it. Dilution is king. That is one of the best, easiest, freest ways that we can start to kind of take back a little bit of control over our environment or at least temp have provide temporary relief. but as far as a solution to that, one of the things I recommend to people is an ERV system. A lot of times can be really helpful. it brings in a little bit of air from the outside.

filters it, dehumidifies it, and then blends it with the HVAC air. So you have this kind of nice cycle of fresh air into the system. I’ve seen it tamped down and lower CO two levels for a lot of folks.

Jannine Krause (31:45.485)
What does ERV stand for?

Jason Richards (31:47.647)
energy recovery ventilator. and yeah it’s somebody it’s something that your HVAC c your local HVAC company should be able to install relatively easily. It’s a small box, about the size of an old desktop. and they usually mount it to the wall next to the system. And again, they run some tubing outside, they run some tubing to the actual unit, and again it just brings in and cycles out more fresh air because

Again, you when you’re when your your H V C really isn’t tied to the outside in any way, shape or form. It’s just constantly cycling the air in your living environment. And so yeah, it’s it’s just adds a little bit of just a little more oxygen into the mix, which is always a good thing.

Jannine Krause (32:25.719)
That’s huge. I think a lot of homes might need that. you know, I live in a home now. When we bought it, I was hesitant because I found out it was wrapped with plastic. And it’s like a typical nineties home. That was the energy efficiency of the nineties. And I was like, my god, the house is wrapped in plastic. You like we’re boring holes in the walls. You know, like we’ve got to do something coming off of a home in Washington that already had mold, and it was nineteen fourteen. We had tons of

Jason Richards (32:34.342)
Gotcha.

Jason Richards (32:38.62)
Course.

Jannine Krause (32:50.967)
holes. There was lots of things going on in that house. But the thing is, is like you’re like, what? my gosh. You know, the these wrapped homes. And now that’s energy efficiency of the nineties. Energy efficiency of the 2020s is putting the the HVAC systems in the at the putting the air conditioners and not H air conditioning air vac I can’t talk. Those things that the the house needs for the things in the attic.

Jason Richards (32:52.39)
Yeah. Of course.

Jason Richards (33:15.281)
That’s okay.

Jannine Krause (33:19.595)
So you had already mentioned. Yes.

Jason Richards (33:19.942)
Yeah, the HVAC. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, and they they do it more for spatial efficiency. but you’re right. I mean, these homes are incredibly energy efficient these days, which is why they air seal them so tight. A lot of times they’ll do like to pass in some jurisdictions, they need to have blower door testing where they literally tape this giant fan over your front door and start to suck in the air and start to see kind of are you bringing in air from the outside? So, from an efficiency standpoint, I understand why they do it.

But from a health standpoint, it’s kind of the exact opposite direction of where you should be going. Not that penetrations of air penetrations into your home is necessarily a good thing from a mold perspective either, because if you’re like bringing in naturally humid air through small cracks and fissures, that can start to grow mold behind your walls. Because you’ve got that cold air on the inside, kind of like a glass on a summer day. You’ve got that condensation, that sweat. That’s the exact thing that can happen inside of your home with those air penetrations.

So that’s why it’s often I like to do a little blend of it because again, I want them to have as much fresh air as possible, but I also don’t want them inundated with the natural humidity of somebody that lives in like Atlanta, Georgia. you know, you’ve just got to take different precautions when you can’t open your windows every single day. So it’s no, there’s there’s no there’s no one way for everybody. There’s just kind of the one way for your home and trying to figure out what what makes the most sense.

Jannine Krause (34:44.173)
So of course I’m sure people are thinking, like, all right, Jason, well well, how do you guys do it? What’s what’s going on with you guys? And I know that you had said you guys are all over the US trying to get into Europe here and figure some things out. Tell us how the process is, what’s it like when you show up at someone’s house? What are you doing? What you know, what is the whole from beginning to end look like and then hand off back to the the functional medicine provider?

Jason Richards (35:08.548)
Awesome. That’s a great question. so the very first thing we do is I want to understand your journey up to this point. What have you done? Have you done an ERMI test? Have you done a HertzMe? Have you done some mycotoxin analysis? Are you seeing a functional doctor? Have you noticed problems in your home? Is there a broom that smells mustier to your nose than than other spaces? I want to know everything you know. and once I have that data, then I can better inform my inspector that goes on site.

And so the very first thing that we do when we get to a home, so we basically go through it three separate times because we find that the more you traverse a home, the more you can find. You need kind of that layered approach to get it as much as humanly possible. So one of the very first things that we do when we enter is we run a device called an instoscope. And it’s a biofluorescent particle scanner that effectively it kind of di differentiates different particles in the air for us. So it tells us what’s fungal fragments.

What’s what’s what’s pollen? So your molds, your polls, your bacteria, and your viruses, CO2 concentrations like we talked about just a second ago, volatile organic compounds, and everything in between temperature, humidity. So it’s a nice environmental diagnostic device. It has its limitations, just like everything does. And so that’s why we use it in conjunction. So what it does really well though, it

Highlights anomalies for us. So I can see all of the rooms. Once I’m done scanning, I can see all of the rooms side by side and can start to say, well, why is the master bedroom showing us like 50,000 on the particles per meter cubed of fungal fragments versus the just adjacent bedroom is at 5,000? It’s an obvious anomaly. We’ve got to investigate further. So it doesn’t answer the question, it just highlights where we should go next. And so our next pass through the entire home is our visual evaluation.

And so what we do is we spend a meticulous amount of time going and combing over the entirety of every single room and trying to understand how the relationships of those rooms work into the next ones. So if we know we have like a leak above, maybe they’ve identified a previous leak from a toilet, well then we need to and the second floor, well, we need to be in the kitchen underneath it so we can start to understand what’s going on in those dynamics and those relationships. We’re looking for any moisture penetration. Again, we’re looking for moisture where it should not be.

Jason Richards (37:25.222)
and looking at the telltale signs, because not everything, we rarely get lucky enough to find things that are actively damp. It’s just not the case. Usually it’s gotten wet at one point, it’s dried out. and so we’re just looking for those really subtle clues across your entire environment. And we’re using tools like really well-calibrated moisture meters to really fine-tune per substrate type, because moisture meters sadly can be fooled by different materials. Like if you’re using a moisture meter for wood on some tile.

you’re gonna have a really bad time. And you you really can’t diagnose those those issues with it. And we also use we do thermal scans of every single square inch of your space to see if there’s any anomalies that we can verify. Again, thermal you shouldn’t trust it 100%. It’s only sensing hot and cold. So you still have to investigate behind it, but again, it can highlight things for you that you you just can’t see with the naked eye. We’re always using really again really finely tuned hygrometers and psychrometers because I want to know what that dew point is.

Like for example, if you’re a if your home’s 70 degrees and you’re at 90% humidity, let’s just say it gets away from you, your delta point at which water starts condensing on the walls is 67 degrees. So if you have a minor fluctuation in temperature, you’re gonna start to get condensation on surfaces. Think like the windows, why you see mold on like the window corners, that’s exactly the reason. so after we’ve gotten all of that diagnostically relevant data, we shove it together.

We think about it for we take a we take a little minute and we look at all of the pieces of the puzzle and we go, what are the most diagnostically relevant places that I can sample for our clients so we can understand exactly what’s going on in this space? And so sometimes that’s a laundry list of 20 defects. Sometimes that can get up into the 70 range. It I just I never know until we until we kind of go through. And so then we go back behind and we try to.

We sample whatever we found in the best way we possibly can. So we do spore traps of, like, for example, cavity samples. A spore trap cavity sample is an excellent way to identify concentrations in a very economical way, too. if I can, though, the best way to do it is direct surface analysis so that you can actually do a tape test or a swab and get exactly what you’re curious about on that swab, send it off to the lab and figure out what it is. And in instances where

Jason Richards (39:46.941)
Cost is not as prohibitive. We can do PCR-based testing to kind of complement that data and understand it. and so after we’ve got all of that relevant information, I I put all the pieces together. I’ve got the visual evaluation, the instoscope, and the lab data. And I shove those three pieces together, put together a nice summary of what we found and where, what we think the sources are, how we think the best fixes are for them. And most importantly, I think one of the things that people appreciate about our our

report that you get at the end of the day is it comes with an incredibly comprehensive remediation plan that is fine-tuned from what materials we think you should use, what PPE you should probably use for this job, what each assembly, because I don’t look at things as location specific. I look at things as assemblies. For example, that example we were talking about with the master bathroom, the assembly now is I don’t need to remediate the master bathroom. I actually need to remediate the master bathroom and the ceiling of the kitchen underneath it.

Because it has to be one cohesive thing. Like, think about water, water damage isn’t localized. Think about it in three dimensions. And so that’s that’s a really big concept I’ve tried to work on with a lot of our remediation teams who like to just stop at the like the visual cues. It’s like, well, this water theoretically could have leaked down into it or, you know, onto the sill plate or wherever it may have gone. and so we give these thorough remediation plans. So you’ve got the entire scope.

Jannine Krause (41:00.033)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Richards (41:10.904)
of work that needs to be done and exactly how to do it step by step by step by step. It’s actually seven comprehensive steps that we’ve lead people through. And then kind of the final finishing touch on our process is usually we do an hour-long consultation with our clients where we just chat with them. I want to hear your questions. I want to know what you’re curious about on this report. Because as much as I try to summarize it for folks and synthesize it into something that’s easily digestible.

There’s a lot of information there. A lot of times it’s overwhelming. So I find that take a couple of days with it. Let’s hop on a phone about 48 hours after. And I’m gonna walk you through everything that you’re curious about so that you can feel good about what the next steps are. and then yeah, and then you know, ideally you remediate. you get a great team in there, they do it very thoroughly. And then the most kind of one of the often overlooked parts of the process is a post-remediation verification by a third party.

Doesn’t even necessarily have to be the original inspector, though they are the ones most familiar with it. but that is so paramount because these remediation companies, time is of the essence, and I can appreciate that. I understand it. It’s business, right? but a lot of times they just miss the details and they’re not getting into those surfaces. I mean, I can’t tell you how many instances I’ve had for remediators where they failed surface testing on the post-remediation verification where

They’ve removed the materials, they cleaned up the water damage. Yes, yes, yes. They’ve checked a lot of those boxes, but I can surface test the studs that are still standing there and they still have ketomium on them, for example. That’s not passing in my book. That’s not passing by anyone’s definition, by the way. So if your remediator ever tries to tell you that’s just normal, that’s just wood, that’s just the way it is, they’re not even following their own standards. Because the IICRC outlines these conditions, conditions one, condition two, condition three.

Condition three is the worst, active fungal growth on a surface. Condition two, settled contamination. Background spores here out of convenience. Think that door opening example, aspergillus settles on a surface. It’s not growing, but it’s hanging out there. It’s just a spore or two that could grow if needed. Condition one’s the goal. That’s the I’ve reset the environment. It’s completely clean. There is no fungal growth. We are back to a normal fungal ecology of this home. And so for them to tell you ever that fungal growth.

Jason Richards (43:30.37)
is a condition one standard doesn’t even meet the definition of the folks who wrote the book on this. And so it’s just I know I just went off on a complete tangent there, but I just think it’s really important for people to know that language so that they can speak to the remediator basically eye to eye instead of acting you know trusting them for for every answer that you might come across.

Jannine Krause (43:51.34)
Makes sense. Makes sense. And it sounds like you guys have like remediators that you recommend in certain areas that you’ve vetted. Probably can’t speak to every state maybe yet, but you know

Jason Richards (43:57.477)
We do.

No, not every state. We we definitely we’re trying. We’re trying to build our connection points to remediation teams because not not all of them are created equal, sadly. but there are some really good ones doing some amazing stuff, and there’s some ones that really care. Like that’s it’s such a it’s such a weird metric because it’s hard to quantify. But but a remediator that cares, that understands that

You’re coming at this from a health component. You need this done at a standard that’s well above and beyond just, you know, the average Joe that’s got a leak under the sink that needs it fixed. those are some of my favorite people to work with because they listen, they listen to the client, they listen to our recommendations, they fix and they do the job well. And at the end of the day, it can actually get to that standard that sometimes remediators push back and say, no, there’s no way I can get to that level of detail. You can. It’s doable. And the only way I know is I’ve seen it.

I’ve seen remediators do it. I’ve seen the ones that care. I’ve seen the ones that take the time. And to me, I will forever be indebted to them because they are a part of our business that we just can’t touch. You know, I don’t we choose to not do remediation ourselves because I don’t ever want our team to be incentivized to find more mold. I just want to find the data that is there as accurate as possible and never say, well, if I find a little bit more here, I can add a couple of thousand dollars to our bottom line. so it is important to separate those two. I never

encourage people to use that inspector that’s also a remediator and vice versa. but no, it’s it’s so imperative. Cause again, since we can’t do it, I really like to make sure that these people do a do an excellent job. Cause we follow along the whole process. When they’ve got questions about remediation that’s happening, they contact us and we we are happy to help and we’re happy to answer questions. Cause it’s a it’s a scary it’s a scary time. When remediat when your house is ripped open and you’re you’ve got, you know, six mil plastic between you and the problem.

Jason Richards (45:48.516)
And you still have to maybe even live in your home, it can be an incredibly scary time. So we just like to bring as much clarity as we can.

Jannine Krause (45:56.653)
Appreciate it. I appreciate it. Okay, so we gotta tell folks where to find you. I know pureho health mold dot com is one wet the website. What about social medias and and other things?

Jason Richards (46:05.788)
Absolutely. Yeah. you can check us out. Facebook, Instagram, I believe Twitter. Heck, I I think we even got a TikTok started just a little bit ago. So really, wherever you are, I am sure we will be there to boot. but the website is honestly if you want to talk to one of us and we can walk and again we can understand your journey and what’s going on, give us a call. our main line on the on the website, purehealthmold.com. Excellent resource. You can contact us anytime.

we’ll be happy to understand and and see how we can help.

Jannine Krause (46:38.231)
Jason, it’s so good to see that we’ve got folks out there really that care and and really want to take care of the folks that are suffering with mold because it is getting more and more common and folks are getting more sensitive and and our environment isn’t getting any better. So this is incredibly helpful. Thanks so much for coming on and sharing all your information.

Jason Richards (46:48.476)
It is.