Essential Ventilation Tips For Your Bathroom With Michael Rubino

hey I'm so glad you guys joined me today I am here with Michael Rabino and he is an expert in indoor air quality and this is a topic we have exercised for many many years we've had lots of questions we've had lots of conversations about this oneon-one but we've never done a show like this today so Michael has written a book called the mold medic and one of the interesting things about it it's coming out they're doing a revision of the book right now it's going to be out in a couple of months one of the most interesting things is many of us have indoor air quality that we are suffering from it's causing health problems in our lives and we don't necessarily know that it's caused from Air so we're going to unpack that today and we're going to find out some of the things that we need to be aware of because remember when we are aware we have choices right so please help me welcome Michael Rabino how are you today I'm good thank you so much for having me here what would you say to the person that lives inside a home that doesn't have let's say a bathroom window that opens and so let's say there's stink or whatever in the bathroom and so they just add a spray to spray down that smell well most likely you're adding some sort of chemical to add some fuel to the fire here that you're going to be consistently breathing in really the best thing to do if you don't have a bathroom window get a bathroom fan I know you have to hire somebody and put it in and there's a cost to that but that cost is a massive investment for you because every time you shower or bathe every time you use the facilities you know you're creating a bunch of bacteria a bunch of moisture Etc that you want to get out of the environment so you're not living with that and breathing it in or creating an environment where molden bacteria begin to thrive so would you say that if the bathroom already has a fan that every time you go in there to take a shower or use the facilities that you turn that fan on and let the air start circulating that would be an amazing thing to do you know we have these fans we want to use them for a reason that reason is to get the moisture out to get any bacteria or any particles that are accumulating out through the bath fan it typically is going to be routed outside which is what you want sometimes they route into the Attic by the way and if yours routes into the attic please check that and have that properly routed outside because you don't want to add that moisture that bacteria Etc into the attic okay so tell us about the ventilation fan that's inside the bathroom how does that work it routes somewhere and then what happens does that circulate through your house when you flip on the air conditioning or the heater system or does that just like Escape into a funnel somewhere is it trapped through your air filters like tell us as if we have no idea what happens when we turn that fan on okay so it's essentially a box that mounts into the ceiling and it's got a fan on it and that fan actually blows the air away from the bathroom there'll be a duct that's connected to it that duct will run typically outside the only time you don't see it run outside is if it runs into the attic if it doesn't have a duct at all that's a bigger issue that just means it wasn't installed properly but that duck then runs outside and what it does it takes the moisture the air any particles along with it from inside your bathroom to the outside of the home essentially it's like a vacuum it's pushing all that stuff outside and that's what you want and so I know that in the house there are air filters we can change but I don't think there's one you can change in that vent fan so is that a problem or are other vents going to remove particles from the air like how does it work in tandem with the whole HVAC system so it is not part of the traditional Central HVAC system as we know it like the thermostat that we go over to and change the temperature it's a standalone component the only thing you really need to worry about is cleaning it you know probably once or twice a year just like you would your drier vent as I'm saying this if you're like what are you talking about I have never cleaned my dryer vent please clean your dryer vent this is another mechanical ventilation system but it's separate and apart from what we traditionally know as HVAC HVAC typically has filters this bath fan does not have a filter so it's pulling the particles and pushing it outside but that does mean that over time the fan blades of the motor will get Caked Up the duck work itself can get some dust uh residues stuck inside of it and so just like when you clean your HVAC machine or your HVAC Ducks you'll want to also look at cleaning your bath fans your bath fan duck work your dryer vents Etc now is that something that a homeowner is expected to do or is that something that the HVAC company does that is something that a homeowner is expected to do I can't tell you how many homeowners I've talked to that when you start telling them all the different things that they're supposed to be doing the first question they ask is my HVAC guy doing that I bet you he is not because you know they come over and they'll do this tuneup and they'll change some filters but most of them aren't even cleaning the coils they're not cleaning the duck work unless you specifically asked them to and of course there'll be you know some fee associated with that but you want to definitely find out what your HVAC guy does do when he comes over and make a list of those things because odds are this is probably not part of that list so you mentioned cleaning the duct work tell me more about that all right so as we just mentioned right over time we have dust that gets sucked up into this duck work and that's true for the bath fans it's true for the HVAC itself it's true for drier vents etc etc we want to actually clean and remove the dust that accumulates in this duck work reason being is because if it doesn't anytime that fan shuts off it could blow back into the house anytime the hbac shuts off it can blow back into the house so you want to really be mindful of that and we're trying to have a dust free environment and the reason being is because within our dust we're going to have mold we're going to have bacteria we're going to have all these different toxins and particles that we don't want to be breathing inconsistently that's why we want to try to really make uh dust and everything else kind of Public Enemy Number One here and get rid of it thank you Michael for your time today please tell our listeners where they can go to find you thank you so much uh for having me here today if you are looking to understand a little bit more about air quality and the different services and products to get you the best air quality you can get please go to home cleanse.com if you want more information about me or upcoming podcasts books Etc please go to the Michael reno.com and if you're inspired by anything I talked to you about today I do have a 501c3 nonprofit called change theair foundation.org which you can check out as well about what we're trying to do to change the systemic issues in our society that allow us to get sick in our own homes and we will leave links to all of that in the notes below thank you so much today Michael for joining us thanks everybody that tuned in today and for all of your questions and we'll see you guys again same time same place next week take care