1071: Mike Feldstein | The Hidden Crisis of Indoor Air Pollution

24:27Well, you are a rare breed, and that is you're doing good stuff on the air front. Yeah, that was an accident. I think we just didn't want to sleep with a room full of poopy diapers. you had the baby in your room with the baby in our room so you had that luckily you had that awareness yeah it stank a lot of folks you get the nursery you buy a diaper pail it's like first of all if the thing was airtight your room wouldn't smell like poop wouldn't stink i've tested the air in a number of nurseries the bacteria levels are like evacuate the building levels so fun story and then they leave their baby and they're like good night and they go in their clean clean room make sleep.

24:59Rachel is my wife's name. And when Aria, this was like four years ago, I was like, Rach, it smells like poo in here. Like, can you please take the diapers directly outside? Yeah. She's like, easy for you to say 20 diapers a day. This hallway is really long. I have all these things in my mind. Like this is just way more convenient. We put it out there for a while in the patio. So I was like, has a rite of passage tonight, Rachel, let's put the diaper pail in our bedroom and I'm sleeping on the couch tonight. And she's like, ew, no, I'm not sleeping with that diaper pail in our bedroom. But my infant will.

25:32So, but once she, once she had that realization for herself, it was done. And so an average adult breathes between 10 and 20 ,000 times per day. And they give you stats like I will breathe. I'm like, people don't all breathe the same amount. I'm sure I breathe more because I spend hours outside walking and talking on the phone. And my job is with my voice. I got to inhale way more than people normally do, I think. So an adult's breathing 10 to 20 ,000 times a day. Babies breathe 60 ,000 times a day. Their respiratory rate is way higher. Their lungs are tiny. Their immune systems aren't developed.

26:02Their filtration and their body's filtration systems aren't yet developed. So baby can't talk yet. Right. So we paint, brand new crib, close the door, shut the window, put the poop beside their head. Right. Good night. Good night. No wonder babies sleep in 18 hours a day. It's so gross. So that's why I bring everything here back to, I wish Jasper was the ultimate solution for everything I do. Yeah. Well, I don't. Air awareness is the actual solution. Because once you realize, and going back to the thing you were saying about the shark and our abilities to smell, if we put a poopy diaper pretty much anywhere in this house, and I blindfolded you, and I tied your hideband back, you would find it.

26:41I could find it, yeah. So you also can smell through air currents. Yeah. We have these crazy abilities that we just aren't really in tune with. and once you realize like if it smells like poop it is poo like when you smell a thing it's because that thing's going inside you via air that's the worst realization when you go to a public restroom and you're like there's just little bits of stranger's fecal matter just landing inside my nose and on my tongue or like driving down the road you're like smells like asphalt smells like rubber tires i'm like no no it's because you're you're you're not instead of drinking it right now you're breathing it yeah not that different still tasting it and then And if it smells like poo, it is poo.

27:15If it's poo, it's bacteria and E. coli and endobacter. So when you can kind of like trust your nose to navigate your health a little bit more and get more air aware and air sensitive, all of us, and like the more healthier choices that you start making. And I want to make sure we like, there's a lot of free stuff that people can do instantly in their home like today to get a lot of benefits. So I want to make sure we touch on it a little bit. We will. I know we're going a little bit out of the order that I had assumed, but you know, that's what conversations do. But I'm curious, you used to be in the disaster chasing business.

27:45So when there was a flood or a giant fire, you were on the scene. And I'm curious kind of what you were doing. You said remediation. I don't know if everybody knows what that means. But it sounds a little bit like a miserable scene because you're kind of going into like the ruins of people's lives. Like you're not in my house here enjoying my chairman company. You're in like the ruins of my home with my children's photos that are half burned and like water damage and all my belongings that I can no longer use are here. and you're like getting rid of them and trying to clean up my house so that maybe it's livable again.

28:16Like that's, it sounds like a rough thing to do for a living and bad for you. Cause you're, you're there. I'm gone. Cause it's an unhealthy place to live. And you're just like working in there for two months. Some people are running from the fire and others are running towards it. Right. Exactly. Yeah. So I was never in the army, so I never went to a war zone. I never had bullets flying my way, but that feels as close to anything that I could experience as wartime mode. So you go into a disaster zone. Also, another thing that people don't realize is often there's no power. That makes sense. When there's a citywide flood or fire, the power gets shut off.

28:53Yeah, of course. Hotels are basically all sold out or shut down. There's basically no rental vehicles. The infrastructure of the city is not really operationalized yet. So in addition to dealing with the rune, you're also kind of like on a camping trip. Like the first responders who are like getting infrastructure going again. We would get in and often it's like military blocks it off. You know, civilians aren't allowed in. Just showing my restoration business card was like your all access clearance. That's crazy. Like, oh, I'm going to go clean up some of this mess. And they're just like, whatever.

29:24Go ahead, bro. The first thing to restore is gas stations, post office, grocery store and hospital. Water treatment plant. I'm missing a few other things. Sure. Yeah. Like essential infrastructure. Sure. Then once those things are done, sometimes people are evacuated most of the time in the big disasters, but not all the time. So you have, you know, thousands of homes burned down. Every breath you take is just like ash piles kind of flying all over the place. And it's not like we were making a campfire and it was just wood and s'mores when thousands of homes burnt. Yeah. It's like WD-40 cans and paint in the garage every car you drive down a street and all you see is chimney stacks because that's the last thing standing in a home so all the tires from cars all the roof shingles which are made out of like tar gone every days have gone and they don't really like let the city breathe very long how can i mean what do you what can you even do i mean if you waited three months to re-enter the city yeah sure yeah like they're like we got to get everything going again yeah i get it so we'd go in.

30:22So you're usually like one of my first wildfires ever. There were seven of us in one hotel room. That sounds cozy. Seven of us. Cause we could only get one hotel room. We had like two pickup trucks. A thousand dollars a night hotel room with seven people in it. At least. And yeah, you're dealing with a situation where often people aren't there, but you're going in there and I can't tell you how many furnace filters I would pull out that were yellow, green, red, purple, like all of these crazy colors that were intaked and you get nose blind very quickly. So when you're in this disaster zone, normally you would smell it, but because the whole city is intoxicated by smoke, you lose your ability to smell things.

31:02So you can't trust your nose has something to navigate for you anymore. Are you wearing respirators the whole time? I mean, you can't wear a respirator for a month, can you? No, we put on P100 respirators. So not like the N95 masks, but like a, like a gas mask basically. Yeah. And that's what we'd be wearing into people's homes. But yeah, it's a difficult type of work. It was gratifying work. It was perfect for my twenties. Like leave your families. If you navigate things well, it can be a good business opportunity, but a lot of people also can go bankrupt because insurance companies don't tend to pay you till you're done.

31:33Oh, I see. You're like, so you're managing all those costs. You're imagining an emotional family with potentially sick children. You're managing insurance companies. Then you're trying to like hire a bunch of crews in a place with like very limit power water so we have to get generators we have to bring in bottled water we have to bring in like porta potties so yeah the the uh i'm grateful for the opportunity yeah because it taught me so much about like logistics and survival stuff that's something you want to do when you're 50 years old even 30 two kids yeah no way i can't do this type of work anymore yeah but so yeah it was difficult work but a lot of people who are in the restoration business so restoration means restore things back to their original state so if it's a flood and when there's of fire, it's also often a flood because water bombers bomb homes.

32:20Oh, I see. So you get water. Fire departments are blasting homes with hose. So often it's fire damage is also water damage. I saw homes in the Calgary flood. There's basements in Calgary. So the water would be the entire basement folded in half of the first floor as well. So when people had serious values, there's this company called Team Rubicon. They would come in and scuba dive into people's basements to retrieve the most valuable thing. That is really gross to think about doing. That's really, really gross. I was not Team Room Con. So, you know, with a flood, it's like, there was a hotel in Calvary called the - They were retrieving it for the residents, or were they just like - For the residents.

33:00Okay. That sounds illegal, potentially. No, it's like, let's say like the diamond ring or - Oh, I see. Insurance is like, this thing might not be recoverable in a month. We'll pay you guys five grand today to scuba dive to the basement go find the safe that's in the basement that's underwater yeah that's a very specific job that's a job crazy if you're wondering how to become a professional scuba diver same thing for us team rubicon also when a fire burns down and there's all the ash there they would go in with like full hazmat suits like a nuclear looking suit like way more than restoration yeah go into the ash pile to try to also retrieve valuables stuff you don't think about existed that's so interesting think about if your husband ever wanted to like one or two things you're like we really want these yeah like so there's whenever there's a demand there will be an industry so interesting i don't it makes me realize i don't own anything valuable i wouldn't there's nothing in here like obviously my wife and kids obviously aside that's not what i'm talking about i don't own anything where i'd be like you need to go in and get that i would just be like oh well i keep like super essentials in a fireproof bag of my house i'm trying to think what that would even be i think i have my will and testament like little like will you will little stuff like that but like also my lawyer has a copy of that and i can get another passport in like a month yeah if you're in your home country the stakes are lower yeah oh right you're a foreign you're an immigrant i'm working on it i am an immigrant so my passport is like i forgot about that my visa lives in the passport and they don't just replace it if you lose the passport they you but you lost your visa yikes man yeah yeah yeah i forgot you're here totally legally and above board visa yeah but to conclude there a lot of companies that do water damage or floods.

34:39They're used to like a kitchen fire or like your toilet leaked and there's a little bit of mold. I wasn't in that business at all. It was specifically like traveling around the country, going to the most devastated places possible. The fine products and services that support this show better than lung cancer. We'll be right back. If you're wondering how I managed to book all these great thinkers, creators every week, it is because of my network, the circle of people I know, like, and trust. And I'm teaching you how to build your network for free over at six minute networking.com. This is a non-cringy, down-to-earth, non-cheesy course that'll make you a better connector, a better colleague, a better friend, and a better peer, whether at work or in your personal life.

35:16Six minutes a day is really all it takes. I mean, honestly, it's like four, but four-minute networking, I don't know, not the same ring to it. Many of the guests on the show subscribe and contribute to the course. Come join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. The course is free. I don't sell anything there. You can find it at sixminutenetworking.com. Now, back to Mike Feldstein. so this is probably not related but i always wonder if the town next to you burns down like let's say that there's no fire here but there's a fire a couple towns away and i mean like a big one the whole town you know wildfire the smoke is burning and flying past me for a month isn't my home drenched in toxic crap that's stuck to the walls and stuff yeah that's what i thought it'd be like going to a bar where everybody's smoking and you're like but i don't smoke and then you're like why do my clothes and hair stink even though i've washed them three times exactly i remember those days in michigan and i'm like okay and that's way less a bar is way less than 300 single family homes burning down over the course of four days and the million acres of trees right and trees and because that smoke is also so when you have high heat there's still something called pah which is polycylic aromatic hydrocarbons so it's not like you're just breathing tree at those super high heats.

36:28Also, generally in a wildfire situation, there's going to be helicopters and planes dropping fire retardant. So even if homes themselves aren't burning, the things that they're using to suppress the forest fires get caught up in that smoke plume as well. So Jasper is normally going to be at a five. That's good air. Like you said, when there's smoke, it could be 50, 60, 80, 100. When Toronto and New York City last year were getting fires from British Columbia, their Jaspers were hitting 102. Oh, interesting. I did see crazy, horrible air quality in New York. So the fire wasn't in New York. It was, you know, a thousand miles away.

37:05The really crazy thing is if somebody tests their bed, their carpet, their furniture now in New York City, it's filled with toxic ash, smoke, pH, ice chrome. Oh, so you need to replace that stuff. If you're filtering your air, you filter stuff out of the air before it becomes a service problem. If you weren't servicing it, just because the smoky smell went away, the most harmful part of the air is the things you can't see and you can't smell. It's like raw chicken. We put it on the counter. It can give you salmonella. If you go to a pond and fill it up, like ocean water or pond water looks clean.

37:39Even if it's radioactive, it looks clear. But if you drink it, you'll get very sick. So the most harmful stuff is too small to see or smell. So anyone who had the smoke blow by, oh, the smoke's gone now. It's not gone. So we would test people's everything in your house, basically. So if you don't have something to deal with it while it's in the air, every single particle that was in your air absorbs into everything porous in your home. Yeah. I heard you say that before, like if it can absorb water and it can absorb air and the stuff that's in the air. And I always think about these fabric chairs that we have, which are great for having little kids that wipe boogers and food on everything because they're impossible to clean.

38:17I'm just like, what were we thinking? But how do you clean a lot of this disaster stuff? What do you do? Do you use some kind of air scrubber? But like, do you obviously have to rip out all the carpet and maybe even the walls? It's got to be like having a meth lab in a house. And insurance companies are so upside down and backwards. So they typically evaluate the performance of an insurance adjuster, not by how much money they spend, but by how well they justify the money that they do spend. So talk about misaligned incentives. Oh, I see. If we were restoring this house and I would say, hey, insurance company, we're throwing out the couch because it's clearly intoxicated with smoke.

38:55Right. They're likely going to say, nope, we need you to attempt to clean it first. Meanwhile, they determine the cleaning rates. It's all like they give you a rate sheet. So to clean this couch could be two grand, for example. Sure. You know, we might be able to clean it off site. We might have to take it off site to like an ultrasonic ozone tank. because even if we vacuum and wipe down the outside, it's everything inside. It makes it comfortable. Yeah, that's the absorbance stuff. So we're like, okay, we cleaned it now. It still stinks. So like, okay, now you can throw it out. Where if you throw it out, they're pissed because now they have to pay the customer back for a couch.

39:25Right. But they're like, clean it. And if it's not, but I'm like, it won't be perfect. They're like, just try first anyway. Yeah. So that's everything in the house. So often we have a vacuum. We're steam cleaning. We're doing everything. We're washing the clothes three times. Like now that you've tried multiple times, now throw it out. Right. it's a$600 later or$2 ,000 later, you're throwing it out and you're like, I told you that this was going to, so now instead of a$10 ,000 couch or whatever, I don't know what couches cost, obviously, but instead of it now it's a$12 ,000 couch and we wasted longer and the family hasn't moved back home.

39:56So they've been paying hotels. So it's totally backwards, but broadly also it's kind of, this is also another big thing. So typically when someone has a flood or a fire, they call their insurance company first and the insurance company sends you a guy. They go, we'll send out the contractor, or here's a couple. The problem is, if that contractor is consistently doing expensive claims, they get cut off. They don't want to bite the hand that feeds them. So when I was doing restoration, I was the people's choice, meaning I never worked for an insurance company once, because in your policy, you have the right to choose your own contractor.

40:32So a lot of people don't realize that they just call the insurance company first, they send someone over with totally misaligned incentives. So my whole thing was, I go, where are the people's choice? The more work I do in your home, the more we get paid. So our incentives are totally aligned. And we don't get paid until you get paid. So that was our whole thing. If you get screwed by the insurance company, we'll fight with them for you. So that was our very unique positioning. We went viral every time we went to a disaster zone. Then I also would do post-environmental checkups for$2.99. So it's like if the insurance company came, they cleaned, then we would go in to do an inspection and we would find ash and soot everywhere and ash in the attic and chemicals everywhere.

41:17We would do more comprehensive testing. Also, insurance companies will typically say, we won't pay for air quality testing. Yeah, because they don't want you to do it. But if you pay for it and it's positive, we will reimburse you. Oh, interesting. So I tell everybody, always do it because it will always be positive. Right. Oh, that's fascinating. And now that you got the positive result, and it's tough, a lot of people can't afford it. Yeah. And I can tell you, insurance companies, they profile everybody hardcore. So for example, if you have an insurance claim, you're going to be traded great.

41:48They're going to quickly Google you, be like, this guy has reach. Don't do him dirty, because if we do, he's going to talk about it, and we're going to lose a lot of customers. That's good news for me, but it's bad news for a third grade teacher who doesn't have a giant microphone. Teachers get treated great too. Do they? Thank God. Teachers get treated well because they're part of unions. I see. Okay. But like in Fort McMurray, Alberta, huge fire, like a lot, there was a lot of like Filipino immigrant families cleaning there. And instantly I knew that they were going to be raked over the coals.

42:17Right. So with them, I actually offered free testing because I'm like, once I get them testing, I'll be able to fight with their insurance company on merit, on science. And it was wild though. Like just by walking in and asking someone kind of like what they did, I instantly knew what their insurance company's response was going to be. So this, I didn't read a book about this. This was just like - they did for a living. What they did for a living. So if you find out that somebody's like a landscaper or owns like a driveway finishing company, they're just going to get... Denied, denied, denied, denied.

42:45Interesting. I did not know that. And especially if it's a low income, if he owns the company, he might be better because they maybe will think he could fund legal. But if you just have a job that's paying you under$30 an hour, the insurance company will deny you for sure because they know you're not going to be able to deal with the legal. Yeah, you can't deal with it. you're like, I got to get back in my house and start working. So they're very well designed to profile. And that's fascinating. I've only seen anecdotal evidence of this kind of stuff happening. Like I've got some friends who are just buddies that have similar hobbies as mine.

43:14And some of them are in their like twenties and thirties, younger dudes. And they'll be like, I got in a car crash. You're a lawyer. What can I do? I'm like, call your insurance company, calm down. It's fine. And they're like, my insurance company is denying the claim. I'm like, well, it's always BS. I'm like, so you need to tell me your car was parked. Someone smashed into it and they're not going to pay you? And they're like, no. And then meanwhile, I won't go into detail, but there's been other things where I'm like, ooh, this is definitely like my fault, my issue, or our fault, our issue. And the insurance company's like, sure, here's your check.

43:43Oh, if you're a lawyer, for example, especially a practicing one, insurance is going to treat you like gold. Because they're like, this guy's got free legal. I had my cat dump water all over my computer, totally not covered by anything. And they were just like, go to Apple and ask how much the repair is. And they were like 1800 bucks. And I was like, they said 1800 bucks. Here's the sheet. And they sent me a check. It was there in two days and they didn't ask for proof of anything. They're very good at this. Yeah. I mean, I get it from a big corporation standpoint. It makes sense, but it's horrible.

44:14It is horrible. So yeah, we would kind of deal with that all the time. And yeah, the fire flood stuff was very eyeopening. It gave you really good insights into people in big business, but by being the people's choice, which is something that I, if anybody can leave with a tip here, if they have a mold situation, like getting three quotes is a good idea. Yeah. I wanted to talk about mold. Cause I was, it's a buzzword now. Kind of it's in your coffee. It's in your HVAC. It's on my toenails or whatever the hell that is. Everything's moldy, moldy, moldy. Like, is this a really big deal or is it overblown?

44:48Cause it seems like a big deal, but I'm also like, maybe it's also a buzzword to get you to buy, I don't know, different coffee or whatever. Both. It's definitely was used by a certain brand to basically tell people mold will kill you. Yeah. All coffee has mold, not ours. Right. That's what, that's what I'm, that's what I'm referring to right now is like the person that we know. And I don't know if they're wrong about all coffee having mold, but also we're eating mold constantly because mold is on everything. But is it like, if it depends on the mold, man, right mildew or whatever i don't want to breathe it all day but if it's on an orange peel that i touch this is important this is important so going back to my previous career as a mold restoration guy there was two sayings in the industry and this was 2010 2011 way before it was a buzzword okay one was mold is gold right because it's expensive to get rid of yeah and it's also profitable for the get rid of it well that's i mean yeah and the mold rush was a term so corny dad jokes and looking back at them what they thought was the mold rush now yeah hails in comparison so when i was doing mold restoration once again the same thing they taught you the amount of times the word hollywood came up when i was becoming a certified mold remediation guy was crazy so they're like the restoration is very important but the optics are equally important so think about it if you're like a contractor who could do demolition or like like remove drywall and flooring for a bathroom.

46:21To like pull up two floorboards and a foot of drywall, you're going to get like 200 bucks, 300 bucks. If that drywall was moldy, that could potentially be$10 ,000. Why? Because now it's mold remediation. How much are you willing to remove a piece of wood? How much are you willing to safely remove harmful mold from your house? So because of the fear level, the budget is much greater. So what happens is if somebody gets three mold quotes, mark my words you will see uh 400 variance in the quotes you'll see quotes from two thousand dollars to potentially fifty thousand dollars and not always but often the thing that impacts the price is how good the person is at selling fear yeah like oh you're this can make your kids do poorly in school and their brains are developing versus somebody with no kids who doesn't spend very much time in their house and if they're like that mold is not just there it's actually behind all of your drywall.

47:18So we have to gut the place you have to move out. It honestly breaks my heart from a health standpoint, sustainability standpoint, financial standpoint, to see a family get told that they have to leave their home, go rent an apartment for six months. Yeah. Oh, six months. Which is way moldier likely than their house that they're moving out of. Right. And now they're in this like teeny little apartment or like a hotel or an Airbnb or something, which also insurance company doesn't cover mold. They'll cover mold as a result of a flood. I see. If you did your best to mitigate it. But if you just like find some mold, it's not covered.

47:50So that's typically a private expense for people. It's not covered at all. Now, what happens is a lot of times people are, they're concerned about their health. So they get their home tested for mold or they call a mold restoration guy. First of all, if you're calling a mold restoration guy, a little bit of a conflict. Right. Like his incentive is to find mold in every part of my house and rip out all my drywall, even if it's fine. Exactly. Right. And then And when the mold guy got trained, even in the training, they teach you to be scared of mold. Because the more the remediation guy is actually scared of mold, the better that he will be able to actually sell mold remediation services.

48:28That's interesting. Right, because he's really selling it if he shows up in a hazmat suit or whatever, right? He's like, I can't breathe this air. Oh, God, it's going to kill me. Yeah, and usually they don't bring the hazmat suit. I have seen it done before. and they'll use big words that will mycotoxins and stachybotrys and show you some pictures. And I don't want to push too far the other way and say mold's not dangerous and scary. Sure. Very much it is. I've heard a stat that says 70 % of homes have mold in them in America. It's 100%. Because when you go outside, mold is everywhere. It's everywhere, yeah.

49:02It's like saying pollen. Mold is everywhere. So when you test for a house properly for mold, this is what you do. We'd come here, we'd take six or seven mold samples inside of the air. We'd look around. We'd also take a test outside. Okay. And we are going to compare the levels of indoor mold. That makes sense. To the outdoor mold. Yeah, because aren't we evolved to be able to deal with some baseline level of mold? Absolutely. I mean, humans have breathing mold before. When it rains, the mold levels, after a rainy day. Sure. The mold levels are 100x what a house normally would be. Right. The thing is, outside, we got the sun.

49:35We have the most amazing UV light of all time. Yes, that kills. We have the wind, which creates natural, it's called hydroxyl radicals. Basically the wind and the sun and the trees are the most incredible air filter ever. But that, we left that shit outside. It's outside, yeah. Not inside. So mold is a problem. Same thing with dust. If you go outside, you won't find dust outside. Dust is an indoor problem. Dust only occurs in these artificial airtight boxes that we created. You won't find dust outdoor. It's not a naturally occurring thing. It happens inside. And dust is an air problem. If there's dust on your counter, do you think it, A, came from the counter?

50:12Or B, came from the air? How is there no dust outside? That part I don't understand. Because isn't dust just dead skin cells? Surely that's outside. Pet dander. We got wind. We got sun. We got filtration out there. And there's also airflow. So the CO2 is much lower. And there's adequate airflow, which is the filter. Trees are the most amazing air filter ever. But inside, and no, a few plants won't cut it. I was going to say, what if I just make my living room kind of a jungle? Plants want to live outside. Yeah. Yeah, they get pissed inside. So mold is kind of like that. And so of those homes that have mold, so often someone will tell you that they had a mold problem, they're moving out.

50:46They're like, oh, like what kind and how much? They're like, oh no, no, like it was airborne mold. So it's like playing whack-a-mold and ripping up drywall to like find every little leak. It's a house. Your roof's not perfectly sealed. Pipes leak a little bit. There's going to be a little moisture in your home. You can't hide from water. Yeah. So I always tell someone, if you're ever trying to break a lease, friends and family, give me a call. I'll come over. I'll find the mold. We'll get you out of that lease. That's smart. I feel like that's your real business niche right here. Breaking leases?

51:13Breaking leases. Like, oh my God, I got to move to Canada because my girlfriend lives there, but I have six months left on my lease. I've gotten out of five leases early. I feel like that's fine. All because of mold. Wow. Few of them were actually significant. Landlords hate this one trick. Yeah. You will find the mold. Don't make it though. That would not be cool. Don't make the mold. That's horrible. It's a renewable resource. So that's why it's also, it's better than gold from a business perspective. But what's happened now is a lot of naturopath and functional medicine doctors who are great at what they do.

51:47They're like, ah, all of a sudden I'm getting a call all the time. People want to check for mold and do mold detox. So what do they do? They like Google like mold certification. They take like a two day course. Two days. Sounds comprehensive. So flood fires, all the environmental certifications I did. Two days is like the longest. Like it's not like we went to mold university. That's sort of disturbing. I thought it would at least be a few weeks of like intensive. No, Fletcher Guy, FHRT, WRT, all of these IICRC accredited courses. They're typically like one to three days. Typically it's a weekend.

52:20And then you're a certified mold man. And yeah, so you don't learn anything in there. You actually learn everything what not to do. You learn it on the job and from other experienced people. Hopefully you have the privilege of working with experienced people. Yeah. Ethical experienced people. So now the naturopath is like, ah, I'm getting a huge inbound. If you type in mold or mold testing or mold sickness on Google, it's like a hockey stick, to your point about being trendy and buzzy. And it's because it really does make people sick. People are really, they get really sick from mold. If you have any respiratory stuff, it exasperates it.

52:55It can make autoimmune stuff much worse. It can make you sick. It can wreck havoc on your sleep. Did you ever get sick doing that? I mean, you're exposing yourself to mold and chemicals back in the day to all that stuff to get out of people's homes. Yeah, I did. I still have a little bit of psoriasis. Oh, yeah. Which is mostly under control. But this autoimmune condition popped up after flood, fire, mold situations. Jeez, that's interesting. So the naturopath is trying to do their best, right? They have a business to run. They have patients to see. It's a difficult career. And now there's all of a sudden this mold thing.

53:22So, you know, they learn about a couple of things. How do we test people's blood and bodies for mold? And mycotoxins are like the airborne mold spores that mold creates to like, grow and survive. So if you go and get tested, essentially everyone's going to have elevated levels of mold. If you're not filtering your air, drinking a lot of filtered water and saunaing regularly, like I walk outside and sweat a lot as I count. You got really clean air. Yeah, that's true. I got really clean. So you're going to be probably fairly good, but it's one of those things like if you test for heavy metals, if you test for stuff, you're going to find some of it in you.

53:53Yeah. And then someone goes and tests their house for mold. Ah, it's in the air. Yeah. They test their blood for mold. It's in me. Panic. Yeah, panic. They're in the perfect state to have someone come over and charge them 50 grand. A hundred percent. I would totally fall for that. And I don't fault at all the naturopaths. And there's typically, there's two types of mold tests almost universally. There's tests that skew towards false negatives and tests that skew towards false positives. So there's a type of test called ERMI, E-R-M-I. It skews towards a false positive. Not that it's a bad test.

54:24It's a great tool. They're all good tools. if they're used comprehensively together. So ERMI doesn't actually like test the air, it tests your dust. So we would take your furnace filter or some dust in the home. I think that's what we had done because they had to wipe stuff. Yeah. There's a lot of wiping. So of course there was mold there at some point. Yeah. And if you test just the air and the windows were just open or your air purifier is running, it can skew towards a false negative. So if you're the insurance company, you love false negatives tests. If you're the restoration guy who wants to be paid to come clean again, you love an ERMI.

54:54so there's various tools that are skewed particular ways or there's this little petri dish test that will always grow mold it will grow it outside it will grow it inside so to summarize this whole thing if you have visible physical black mold growing in your home if it smells musty and moldy it's like the poop thing if it smells like poo it is poo if it smells musty and moldy and you most likely have a problem if you look in your attic under your in your toilet bowls under your kitchen sink, your bathroom sinks, if there was water damage bulging something, that's a real problem. At that point, call, get a few restoration quotes.

55:28They have to seal off the area. They put commercial grid air purifiers in that room and in your house. They use an antibacterial, antimicrobial to clean the mold, double bag the drywall. So you like, it's like a surgical, you know, you're moving it. And then they come back and they test your air and it's all good. That's because usually the air purifiers are still running. If they came back a week later to get tested. It's moldy again because mold is everywhere. Right. That's interesting. It's like your water. If you have bad water, do you like dig a new well or like run a new main line to the city or do you just filter your water?

56:00So you kind of just need to filter it at the end point, right? And mold, how do things get in our bodies? There's four ways. We eat it, we drink it, it absorbs in through our skin or we breathe it. Mold is only getting in through inhalation. The same way allergens and pollen are making you sick, it's all a breathing issue. so that's the only way allergies impact people so if you get the pollen and you get the mold out of the air you're going to be doing great so yeah if you have real mold in your house you see it you feel it definitely get it removed. But most of the time, if it's just like airborne mold, make sure they tested the outside and you're not supposed to test for air, mold and air, unless it hasn't rained for two or three days.

56:39You're not supposed to because you'll just get a false positive. It's going to skew your results if it just rained or a false negative because it's very moldy outside that day. Oh, I see. But what a horrible business mold testing would be like, ah, it rained. We have to cancel our jobs for days. No one actually does that. No one cancels it. To conclude, mold does make people very sick, but you do have to be careful that it's a nuanced thing. If you're removing it, get a few quotes. I believe people should filter it from their air, especially if they're in a humid environment. But yeah, proceed cautiously.

57:10Yeah, that makes sense. I will say filtering the air has been quite incredible. These things, the little sensor detector on the Jasper is pretty awesome. I don't smell anything, right? I'll see that thing go on full blast. First of all, I have to make sure we're not cooking in the house. I'll get to that in a second. But there's been a few times where that thing has just gone crazy. And then I think, oh, something's wrong. But then the other one goes crazy or the one in the bedroom goes crazy. I don't know if my window's open or anything. And then like three minutes later, fire trucks. And then five minutes later, my brother-in-law is like, I'm flying my drone.

57:42There's a house fire three blocks away. Let's go check it out. And I'm like, we'll check out the drone footage. And it's a house fire that I didn't smell. My windows are shut. The Jasper senses something toxic in the air, starts working overtime. And meanwhile, there's a house burning down three blocks away and it just started, like really just started. It's really, it's really incredible. I kind of wonder how that's possible. My, I probably shouldn't give this example, but my son in the bedroom, he likes to fart and then wait for it to turn on. And it almost always does. It's almost instant too, which is incredible.

58:13Methane is a VOC. Yeah. It's actually quite amazing. Cause I thought you farted under a blanket and you're, you're five, like there's not that much. And then this thing will go for like 30 seconds. Similar to like if you cook bacon here, even if you had a 10 ,000 square foot house, the entire home would smell like bacon. Yeah, yeah. So if you think about a bathtub, if you filled a bathtub with water and you put like three drops of red food coloring in it, it doesn't like swim around. Within seconds, all of the water is equally distributed. It's incredible. Air works the same. So with that fire that happened over there, I like to think about Jasper kind of as an air security system.

58:48It is helpful all of the time, but air is not linear. it spikes and it valleys so when you're cooking when you're cleaning my mom was varnishing a picnic table 200 feet from their cabin at the lake in canada doors and windows all shut and her jasper went crazy red and then so because you know it's like if you see someone at the beach spraying their sunscreen i hate that 100 feet away i hate you smell it so think about the coating my lungs the radius that that sunscreen is is covering yeah guys do not use aerosolized sunscreens especially not indoors yeah not anywhere people spray it goes in my kids face i lose my mind i lost my mind at these people at the beach i felt kind of bad dude you're spraying my two-year-old daughter in the face with this nonsense uh jason go crazy jason and candace gaynard jason was in bed and jasper went red and he trusts jasper so he's like i'm to go walk around my house.

59:46They left the stove on and a protein fire was about to get started. Someone named Megan, similar situation, lying in bed. Jasper went red. Her dryer vent was just ambering about to fire. So in two situations - Prevented a house fire. They dealt with it and prevented a house fire. So it's not like something that I thought we would be really monitoring for. And if you barbecue outside a hundred feet away, just in that moment that you open and close your door, it's going to go crazy. If you see it goes red sometimes, if you look outside, you might find someone 12 homes down is their contractors in the front cutting like two by fours or like tiles.

1:00:24Allow me to take a break from shilling air purifiers to shill the fine products and services that support this show. Basically, it's shillception right now. We'll be right back. If you like this episode of the show, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment and support our amazing sponsors, those who make the show possible. All of the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show are searchable and clickable over at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. If that's too overwhelming for you, go and use the AI chatbot over at jordanharbinger.com slash AI.

1:00:53And last but not least, if you can't find something or you're not sure the code exists, email me. I am happy to dig that stuff up for you because it is that important that you support those who support the show. Now for the rest of my conversation with Mike Feldstein. It happens. There's construction. When leaf blowers go off, they turn up. And I don't open my windows or doors that often. It's just seeping in. And you have a good HVAC system in a brand new home. Yeah. It's just seeping in through whatever. It's actually incredible. I thought the range hood would take care of it, but the fact is it just, in mine vents outside, which I know a lot of range hoods actually don't, which is shocking.

1:01:25It just blows it around your house. But it doesn't really do 100%. I mean, as you would expect it can't get 100 % of the smoke, especially from like, if we overcook something like Brussels sprouts, these things, jaspers are just going nuts for the next 10 minutes. Cooking is a big deal. Yeah. So I tell everybody, do your range hood test. Take a tissue, hold it up to the range hood, and make sure it's pulling it. If it's like flapping there, I've seen range hoods that are blowing, not pulling. Literally. How is that useful in any way at all? It's the opposite of useful. Yeah. And then, so number one, make sure it's pulling.

1:02:02Okay. Number two, make sure it's venting outside. Yeah. So a lot of time it's like venting in the cabinet above or like down below or attic in between your drywall. Oh my God. This is not uncommon. We have this giant metal box out there that I first was like, are you kidding me? This is annoying. Cause it's like a foot out from the wall and you can't park that close to it. But when my wife's cooking, I can smell it a block away because it's blowing, it's blasting, you know, chicken air out into my driveway. There's indoor pollution and outdoor pollution. Outdoor pollution is, you know, the pollen, the mold, the rubber tires, the wildfire smoke.

1:02:36And then there's indoor pollution, which is your cleaning products, your cooking products, your pets, your dander. Yeah. But someone else's indoor pollution can become your outdoor pollution. So like if someone's using like bounce sheets in their dryer and then venting it outside, outside their house and right into your house. Yeah, it goes into our house. Yeah. man also most people you know you have a down drafting range hood looks like a gen air i think so what what this this thing comes out comes up of the kitchen island and then it sucks in air at a crazy clip an absolutely insane it has to be crazy or it wouldn't work yeah but like i'll just most people have an above range hood i see so we don't have that another pro tip is if you're cooking it's going to be a little annoying if you're like using a pan or a wok but especially if you're boiling stuff, use the back burners because they're more directly under the range hood.

1:03:22I see. It captures a lot more of the air. That's interesting. This is an induction stove. You can put the pan wherever you want. It's actually like a miracle of modern science, in my opinion. But yeah, I didn't think about putting things closer to the range hood. Speaking of moving a ton of air, we replaced our other name brand air purifiers with Jasper because we did the test and we realized that they weren't working. I used to have one plugged in right next, like the other one plugged in right near the Jasper. And the Jasper would turn on when she was cooking. And the other one, it was like kind of a coin flip as to whether it would detect the pollution and do its thing.

1:03:56And I always thought that was kind of interesting. The other thing is this thing, it moves so much air that my kids play with it. They put these little scarves on top and they go up like a tornado and they swirl around in one place. And the other one would just sort of like gradually puff the scarf off and put it on the floor. because the fan just couldn't move nearly the amount of air. It breaks my heart. If you go on Amazon or Walmart, everybody wants to think in Amazon filter boxes these days. So they go on, they set the price low, and then they say extra large room. And they're like, like often the richest people have the cheapest air purifiers.

1:04:28It wasn't like a conscious decision. They thought they were just like checking the box. And that's not the case at all. So what brands do is they talk about square foot coverage. Square foot coverage, air doesn't care about square feet. It cares about cubic volume. That's what I wondered myself. Because like, so what if I have a, let's say I have a 1500 square foot house, but I got a frigging 12 foot ceiling in here. So like, how is that the same as where I lived before, where I could jump up and touch the ceiling with my hand if I was not the same? So how is that the same? It's not. Air cares about cubic volume.

1:04:59Yeah. It cares about also the layout of your home. Is there lots of different doors and rooms and windows? Is your HVAC system a central air system? So everybody wants to just think in this like simple little linear way. I don't know. Did I send you a video yesterday? I was at Target. I don't know what I did. I don't think so. They had an air purifier at Target. I posted it online. It was this big. It was called the never change filter. First problem with that. And then they said covers 1400 square feet. It's a multi room air purifier. So they're like, oh, what's the CFM? What are the specs? Not on the box.

1:05:30I go to the website, not on there. Their specs are 1400 square foot. If that thing does 1400 square foot, we do 10 ,000, but we don't. It doesn't talk about ceiling height. It doesn't talk about anything. And then in little tiny baby fine print, it's like based on one air change per hour. What's one air? What does that even mean? That means in one hour, all of the air in the room has been circulated through the purifier one time. You want that to be like four or five. Oh, I see. So that 1 ,400 square foot is more like two and change, not 1 ,400. Right. So it's all like, you know, how statistics lie type stuff.

1:06:03So it's very sneaky. And yeah, people just think they're like checking a box. So when you cook, you might see Jasper go crazy. And then maybe half an hour-ish later, maybe 10 minutes, depends on what you're cooking. Yeah. And it's back down to baseline. If we turn off all your Jaspers, we can even put a few little small, cheap air purifiers in the room. And then we put an air quality detector in here. The air will be bad up to 48 hours later. So it's not like we went from like 20 minutes to like three hours. We would go from like 20 minutes to like days. And then where do you think it went? Right.

1:06:36It's now embedded in all of your surfaces. Right. And it's not just like you're like, oh, but I'm eating healthy. I used avocado oil. Right. I had organic grass-fed, grass-finished beef. Certainly, that would be fine to breathe. Well, here's the thing. When you take high temperature and protein, it creates byproducts and other chemical compounds like the PAH, like sulfur dioxide. It creates other things that it puts into the air that it's not just like the food and the oil itself. And then on top of that, just because you can eat something, it doesn't mean you can put it in your nose. Well, that's, yeah, I was going to say just because grass-fed, I'm not going to try and take a steak intravenously either.

1:07:13No, no, you wouldn't. No. I wouldn't even try. If you eat... Don't think it would be a good idea. It's going to end up in your digestive system, which is like a big acid soup that breaks things down, pulls out nutrients, filters out the rest. If you breathe it in, it goes into your respiratory system, which doesn't not have that process. So it irritates it, it causes inflammation. so just because you can eat something it doesn't mean you can yeah i'm surprised that anybody thinks that just because you can eat something and it's healthy like vegetables that you could also breed it but i guess this it is 2024 what's a good number to see on the jasper because mine always says like four almost all the time unless we're cooking it goes up to like 80 and then it goes back down to four and if i open up the windows or whatever it'll go to like maybe six or even eight but that's only because we have really good outside air here it's also because you're filtering it, let's say you had no air filters, but we had an air sensor, that eight might be like an 18 or 25.

1:08:07Well, when we first got them, it was 24 for like one or two days. And it slowly went down to four and it's been at four for a year. So most people, when they buy it, it will be between a four and a 10. Now, just because that number is called PM 2.5. Yeah. What I was going to ask about that. What does that mean? So there's two sensors on board. Okay. The one that you see on the screen, which is called PM2.5. And there's another sensor that's called a VOC sensor. All the chemicals. Okay. So you might sometimes notice it. It's designed to be subtle, but you'll see it on fan speed too, but it'll still be green.

1:08:41And that's because it's detecting a chemical. PM2.5 is particulate matter under 2.5 microns in size. This means particles small enough to enter your lungs and your bloodstream. So these are, if you see outside, that's like the most. There's AQI, but generally when they talk about particles and pollution, we're talking about PM 2.5, which is like the really harmful stuff that our body doesn't filter out very good. So that is the best thing that we can use to control the fan speed and give you a general indication. Just like when you get your blood tested, it doesn't test for everything, or you get your water tested, it doesn't test for everything.

1:09:16That can't detect mold. It can't detect asbestos. It's detecting particulate because that's the best thing that's going to go up and down on cooking, on smoke, on dust, on pollen, on allergens. So an excellent number is in that three to 10 range. Four is very common for a really good clean home. What I've noticed is it's funny. When my parents come in, my PM 2.5 goes up briefly. And I used to think, oh, it's because they opened the door. But now I'm like, are my parents off gassing? Like what's going on? Because when I come in, I know I come in, it doesn't go up. My parents come in, it goes up.

1:09:50how weird is that well there's a few things that might be contributing to this so one thing is if i've put on and i'm actually trying to like find something more natural but if i use like a regular deodorant brand oh yeah and i go any if i use like even a regular like a hotel body wash or a shampoo like a more mainstream toxic-y soap shampoo conditioners and i go near it it will it will jump. And if it doesn't jump, the VOC sensor will likely spike. Hair sprays are one of the craziest. That makes sense though. It's like smokers. We have a smoker outside. When that thing's on, even with all the windows and doors shut, these things turn up to, they go up to like 30.

1:10:31So yeah, if somebody had smoked or, I mean, there's a bunch of other facts. It could be the stuff that they clean their clothing. My parents live in a dirty house. It's not that their house is dirty because of them it's just an old ass house and you smell the dust when you go in and it has a fireplace that's unused but they didn't they didn't clean it or seal it or yeah they didn't seal it so you it smells kind of like dusty and smoky fireplace is backdraft so when it's like windy out yeah that chimney smoke soot ash actually blows back inside so yeah maybe we got to get mom and dad a little jasper we do we we we yeah recently recently because i was like it's fun to see if it doesn't go up as much anymore i'm very curious i actually want to put it in their bedrooms because their bedrooms that's where they need it their bedrooms are the worst the number one place to have clean air is the bedroom yeah by far incense you know i this goes without saying incense makes it go crazy i stopped lighting it even the good stuff i feel like is bad for you because it's you're just inhaling that's like campfire like it's maybe it's not horrible for you but you're still inhaling like ashes and it's not great and then the cheap stuff though is gross because I'm like this is maybe not supposed to be lit on fire there's like fragrance or soap or whatever they're using the non-natural stuff there's all kinds of stuff I stopped using another thing that it used to that tripped me up a little bit was I would close doors to bedrooms and things like that when we were cooking and I thought that that would help I thought well the bedroom Jasper won't go up because I shut the door but obviously the HVAC system's job is to circulate the air.

1:12:04So it was completely pointless to keep the doors shut because what would happen is the air return would just blow in here and then blow the air in there, which is great when you're trying to get the AC to spread, but bad when you're trying to get the chicken, bacon, whatever, out of your indoor air pollution. You can't escape the indoor air pollution. You really just have to clean it up. A lot of people had a big moment of awareness when they have a Jasper in their kid's room and then they're cooking something that they didn't even realize was off-gassing. Yeah. And they go to wake up their baby from the nap and the Jasper's red in the baby's room.

1:12:36Yeah. Your whole home is one system. And literally, like you said, the HVAC, which is basically just your furnace and your air conditioner, is designed to mix the air in the home efficiently. So yeah, the plus side of that though is whenever someone's like, where's the best place? If I can only afford like one Jasper, where should I put it? The first place would be in your bedroom by far. The second place would be in your kitchen living room area to pick up cooking particulate. But even if it's in your bedroom, so let's say that's making the air in your bedroom like 99 % cleaner. It's making the air in your whole house like 20 % cleaner.

1:13:09Because of the HVAC system, it's almost like it's a part of your furnace. That's interesting. If you had two, let's say in two bedrooms, no matter where in the home it's positioned, it's contributing to the air being cleaner in the whole house. I like to give the analogy of Sonos. Yeah, we have that too. Back in the day, you would have a giant speaker. It'd be way too loud. And like the bass would be crazy. And then like in every other room, you couldn't hear the speaker anymore. So it's like you'd have to get like, the only way to change volume was like the volume button or your proximity to the speaker.

1:13:39And then along came like Sonos and you could have the perfect amount of volume in every room. So that's why we actually, I spent years trying to develop an HVAC style air filter, but it didn't work. Because when your furnace is off, it doesn't work. It's kind of like having that one big speaker in the middle of the house. Yeah. You really want something that's decentralized and sporadically placed out. That makes perfect sense, I suppose. Okay. So to open the windows or not to open the windows, right? If you have, if my outdoor air is relatively clean, like it is most of the time in California, like it's literally like the HUI is eight or something or even better.

1:14:13Okay, fine. If there's wildfires, you keep the windows closed. But what if, okay, if you live on a major road or just regular suburban living, and what about like people who live in New York and an apartment? I mean, are we opening the windows or are we closing the windows? And it's not just urban because folks in a rural environment often are surrounded by farms that spray. Oh, I didn't think about that. So they have more pesticides often than even an urban environment. Interesting. So to open the window or close the window, that is a wonderful question. And it does depend on the outdoor air.

1:14:44So, you know, has that air awareness goes up. Like I don't just Google and I will say air awareness is going up because Teslas now have AQI in the car. They do? Yeah. How do I find that? It's a new update on like the top right. No kidding. Apple weather, Google weather. Is that indoor AQI? No, it's what the car is detecting. That's pretty cool. I don't think the car is detecting it, but it's connected to the weather network. Yeah, yeah. So cities, just the way that they're monitoring, people just think about air. Well, they don't even think about it. When you think about the weather, you think about, is it hot out, cold out, sunny, and will it rain?

1:15:16Right. That's the extent of how you think about outside. Not really. think those are all air things you don't think about the particulate or the pollution at all i'm really happy to see a lot of these big weather companies are starting to add more air quality stuff they're not like putting it in your face yet but i if i was going to go for a run i'll usually check the air quality that day i check the air quality every day anyway there's some really good air apps there if you just google like air quality i have it i have it literally you'll be i might be the first person that has this it's literally well yeah of course it's an airplane mode.

1:15:46So it's not showing up the one time I want to show it off, but yeah, I've got AQI, UV index, weather unavailable because I'm on airplane mode and a podcast app. That's it. But yeah, I hit, I'd look at that like every single day. Hopefully it updated now. Yeah. No, thanks. Thanks for blowing my demo iPhone. Yeah. If the air quality is good that day and it's not really hot or really cold out, great day for it. Also, if you're cooking and you don't have air filtration, that's a no brainer time to open. And definitely open the windows. I never thought about because of letting things out only about letting things in, but yeah, that's a good point.

1:16:21No, no, it's more about letting things out. Yeah, sure. That makes sense. So two windows is better than one and ideally on opposite sides of the house. Yeah, of course. I have noticed that I'll open this and I, a little bit of a temperature change, but then if I open that and then I open like a window in this room over here with the door open, it's like the subway's coming. You feel that rush of air every time there's a breeze and it really flushes out the house. It's not like open it all the way or close it all the way i would crack the window like even if you're just cracking two windows that way you're getting the benefit of ventilation without opening all the way like in the winter or the summer it's especially if it's really hot or cold it's going to kill your energy bill yeah we don't have that problem here no you're just like temperate always spring slash summer that's crazy we get charged for it then you get a sunshine tax i do have a question about the sustainability of this because jasper's made out of metal and all the other air purifiers and I bought like every other brand that I could find that wasn't just a Chinese knockoff with a fake name.

1:17:14They're all plastic. So Jasper's heavier and it uses metal. The carbon footprint of metal is higher. So what about people who are like super into sustainability? Is that going to be a problem for them? No, it's the opposite. How's that? So when you manufacture one ton of plastic, it creates about three tons of carbon. So the big, big, big difference is Jasper's is designed to last about 30 years. 30 years? That thing's going to last 30 years? Should, yeah. Holy smokes. And that's why we can do a lifetime warranty. A plastic air purifier typically only lasts three years, four years at most. Oh yeah.

1:17:49So it's commercial in its nature. I see. So Jasper used to be a$2 ,000 product that we only sold to doctors and dentists. Why doctors and dentists? Air purifiers were like$2 ,000 to$7 ,000. Well, at the beginning of COVID, every dentist in Ontario was mandated to put an air purifier in every room. Really? And dentists were already one of the biggest, dentists were already the biggest air purifier purchasing industry. Because of the mandates only? No, no, before COVID. Really? The Department of Labor ranks dental and dental hygienists as two of the top five most dangerous jobs in America. Because of drilling teeth?

1:18:24I mean, what's in there? What's in the air in a dentist's office? It's called bioaerosols. And it's ranked more dangerous than coal miners, cops, firefighters, power plant workers. What's in the air though? I don't get it. Well, the two dirtiest parts of us are our mouth and our butt. I bring both of those to the dentist, yeah. When they take a high velocity air and water and shoot it into your gums. Yeah, well, the point is they're getting all the disgusting crap out of my teeth. So when you test the air in a dental office, including in the lobby and the waiting area, it's off the charts. No kidding.

1:18:57The bacterias, the viruses. And dentists are very aware of this. there's tons of companies that only make air purifiers specifically for dentists. And some of them are like three, four, five, six,$7 ,000. Wow. So when we launched, we used to be the discount medical air purifier. I see. And then patients started to buy it. And then we're like, I want to help families breathe better at home. Right. I don't like this whole medical side of the business. Okay. So yeah, the dentists and the hygienists wear masks when they're treating the patient, but your mouth is wide open. Yeah. So I will never go to a dentist that doesn't have high quality air filters in every single room.

1:19:31Some of them use an extractor that is designed to like be like a range hood. Most don't. And even if they do, it doesn't capture most of it. Yeah, my dentist doesn't have that. Here's the crazy thing. The reason we have the lifetime warranty, the reason we have one day shipping for replacement units is because when we launched during COVID, we would get calls from dentists. But their hygienist would refuse to work if the Jasper wasn't running. Right, okay. Because it orange between every single patient. In fact, turbo mode, that was created for dentists. Because when they're done treating a patient, I always ask the dentist, I'm like, by the way, once upon a time, dentists didn't use masks or gloves.

1:20:10I remember those days, man. Very clearly. This is called the 80s and the 90s, man. They were just, my dentist would be like, oh, I guess I should use gloves when I'm poking around in your mouth. There's a new log for this. But he, I mean, he washed his hands. Not long ago. Yeah. This is like not that long ago. And now that seems insane. Absolutely insane. Yes. Like get your dirty. AIDS is when they were like, oh, I should probably wear gloves. And also what was the other? Yeah. Like a surgical mask. And now they have like face shields and everything. It was the same mouth. It was just as dirty back then.

1:20:38So yeah, they're blasting all this stuff around. It's in the air. And then your mouth is wide open. So we created turbo mode because I would ask them to say, go, do you wash your hands between patients? Yeah. Duh. Of course. I go, do you clean all of the instruments between your patients? they're like yeah we disinfected i go do you clean your air between patients uh no so the percentage of dentists who do filter the air is going up dramatically yeah once you kind of realize that people won't go to a dentist that doesn't clean the air anymore uh yeah and it goes orange it's always orange because it's actually working wow the dentist and the hygienist they learn about bioaerosols in school and training but it never was visualized for them and then they realize like why are they getting sick all the time?

1:21:22Dentists have one of the highest percentages of any industry of adult onset asthma. That's so interesting. So you're breathing tooth particulate, blood, saliva, and then any other viruses that are in the air. So that turbo mode was designed because right when the hygienist is done with the patient, they can hit the turbo mode. It will run on full speed for like 10 minutes and then go back to smart mode. And then we kept it. So now people use that mode when they leave the front door, they like hit it to do a little deep clean. But yeah, that machine was a set. It was originally for wildfire smoke.

1:21:53And then when COVID happened, it was a medical and dental thing. And then the hygienist would, they would use it as a sales tool of why you should come to our dental office. That's a good idea. And then the patient's like, uh, my kid has asthma. Will it help? Allergies will help. They're like, probably. Do they sell it for families? I don't know. Call Jasper. We had no e-commerce. The only way you could buy one was to call me. That's funny. And I like two people working for me. We would talk to every single person on the phone or like email with them and then we'd send them an invoice. So the ability to buy these things online was only February, 2023.

1:22:21Jeez. I feel like I got mine shortly thereafter, probably. Cause I think, didn't we get in touch originally? Because I had my air tested and then someone was like, send it to this guy. And I was like, Oh, this I'll send it to this Mike Feldstein guy. And then you were like, Oh, hi Jordan. And I was like, Oh, you're that same person. Cause it's not, you know, you got some mold testing done. Yeah. And then you were like, let me decode this for you. And then you're like, Hey, let me send you this thing. And I saw that it was just like fire right after. Yes. Yeah, exactly. And then it was like far superior to anything that we had in every room in the house.

1:22:49So we ended up putting those in other like Airbnbs that my brother-in-law owns and like got rid of them and replaced them with Jasper. Once you start noticing, oh, the dentist. Oh wait, the salon, the barbershop, the restaurant. As you start noticing like your home air, like clean air should be like outside in an area with good air. Generally doesn't smell like much. And if it does, it's nature. But when you go to like, dude i can't go to shopping malls anymore well they already smell like the perfume from their department the lush and the bath and body yes oh you knew wash when you walk by that store lush i did it triggers my gag reflex and it makes my eyes water and my wife will go in there and she's like i want to look around and i'm like i can't even wait for you like anywhere near this store i have to go literal anywhere else yeah the once there is a price to be paid for being an air snob yeah yeah it's true well thanks uh for coming all the way to my house to do the show i'm glad we were able to show off the Jaspers.

1:23:41You know, we don't run Facebook ads. We don't do Google ads. The whole mission is go teach people about air. And you know, we can't help you with CO2. You got to open your doors and windows. And there are other products that clean the air just as good. No doubt. The downside typically, if they're half the price, it's usually because they're louder and uglier and made from plastic. I see. So where our kind of unique value proposition is, is if you want it to be beautiful and quiet and smart and have good service, but I would rather people get something rather than nothing, so I believe this episode is going to drop October 28th yeah so we set up code Jordan for anyone who's listening it'll be$400 off it'll be literally the biggest offer we've ever had and it's going to only last one week so between October 28th for seven days after it'll be$400 off and then after that it will be$100 off for eternity we'll just leave that code for anyone okay but any of your loyal listeners who heard and they were like whoa I want to invest in clean air yeah and And this sounds like something I want to do.

1:24:41Code Jordan, October 28th for one week will be$400 off. And hopefully I should buy some more for my own house with my own code. So sushi time? Is that legit? Yeah. Thank you. Yes. Pay those bills. And I will have to use some of that to get some delicious food because I'm starving. Thank you, man. you're about to hear a preview of the jordan harbinger show with the one and only dr drew pinsky of loveline fame always love that guy it's like a movie script this person was saying a bunch of crap didn't make any sense and then you said something along the lines of is there someone else in there i can talk to and then they were like sure yeah i could tell it was multiple yeah that's pretty easy thing for me to tell you listen with your whole body okay you don't listen with your ears.

1:25:23And that really started happening with dealing with drug addicts out in the clinic because they pull you into a vortex. If I hear the sound, you know, the little cartoon with these guys, I know I'm with a drug addict. When I hear that yuggety, yuggety sound in my head, I go, somebody's doing drugs. I just know. I'm just going to be sitting here listening to somebody going, huh, huh, huh. And all of a sudden I go, yuggety, yuggety. I go, oh, okay, I got it. I can stop listening now and just start asking what they're taking, how much they're on. that kind of stuff. I'm thinking right now of this guy that called us and wanted to know.

1:25:53Women always freak out when they find out what I was in jail for. And all of a sudden Adam goes, wait a minute, find out that you were in jail or find out what you were in jail for? He goes, what I was in jail for? And we go, oh, well, what were you in jail for? I broke into a mausoleum and I twisted off the head of an old lady and boiled it to a skull because I needed it for my little brother's snake's aquarium. And I thought, wow. And if you don't understand that might be a little disturbing to people, why? Okay, so he was... Psychopath. Psychopath, yeah. Self-esteem obviously doesn't care if you're successful.

1:26:29Right. Self-esteem is something established, I think, by age five. I mean, you can enhance it and you can move it a little bit, but most of it is set early. And mine was bad. Yeah, that's okay. That's all right. You know, it's just if it gives you trouble, if it makes you feel bad, if it gives you symptoms, if it impairs your functioning, that's therapy time. Okay. Did you ever try therapy for that? 11 years. Oh my God. Not for that per se. I was having overwhelming anxiety. That was my main reason. At least that's my wife's reason for sending me. For more with Dr. Drew, including what experiencing imposter syndrome usually reveals about you and how we can spot the behaviors of addiction in others as well as in ourselves, check out episode 72 right here on the Jordan Harbinger Show.

1:27:12All right, so this air quality thing is real, folks. As a parent of small children, we put foam on stuff. we put tape on sharp things, we cover up the electrical outlets, but then I just never thought of cleaning the air where they sleep and spend all of their time. So that was kind of a wake-up call for me, especially when we had crappy air quality and fires around here. And look, again, I apologize at least a little if this episode seems more salesy than usual. That wasn't really my intention, but honestly, the more I've researched this, the more I really care about the air quality in my home, the more I feel really good about recommending something like this.

1:27:45I had him fly out here to do the show at his expense. This is really a sponsor that I can really get behind. I went for them to sponsor the show. They didn't pitch me on this or anything. It's always good when I like a product and then I can reach out to the company, have them sponsor the show instead of it having it come through like a sales pipeline and I got to figure out what I like about it. This is really, in my opinion, the most authentic way to recommend something. And again, these things are beautiful. They work really well, but they're also beautiful. It's like something you'd find at the Apple store.

1:28:13They're super attractive. They're clean looking. And like I said, most importantly, they actually work. So if you want to get one of these things, jasper, J-A-S-P-R dot C-O, and use code Jordan this week for 400 bucks off, that is a pretty amazing discount. Honestly, I'm actually going to be using my own code, J-A-S-P-R, jasper dot C-O, using code Jordan. I'm going to be using that myself to get more for my own house, for my parents and my in-laws. And if you're interested, if you're on the market for an air filter, this is the one I encourage you to use this code ASAP and do the same thing. and I hope this was helpful.

1:28:45I know I kind of nerded out here, so thanks for bearing with me. All things Mike Feldstein and Jasper will be in the show notes at jordanharbinger.com. Advertisers, deals, discounts, and ways to support the show, all at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support this podcast. Also, our newsletter, WeebitWiser. A lot of you love this. I really, I'm so grateful that you do. You hit reply when I send it out and you can always do that to reach me. I just really enjoy sending this out and writing it. The idea is to give you something specific, something practical, something that'll have an immediate impact on your decisions, psychology, and relationships in under two minutes.

1:29:19I don't want to make long stuff. I mean, this show's long enough. And if you haven't signed up yet, I invite you to come check it out. It's a great companion to the show. JordanHarbinger.com slash news is where you can find it. Don't forget 6MinuteNetworking over at 6MinuteNetworking.com. I'm at JordanHarbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn and pretend we know each other professionally. This show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogerty, Ian Baird, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others.

1:29:49The fee for the show is you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. The greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about. If you know somebody who's interested in air quality or should be interested in air quality, definitely share this episode with them. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn. And we'll see you next time.

1:30:12Thank you.