Mold, Indoor Air Quality, and Building a Healthy Home with Michael Rubino Dr. Ben Weitz introduces the Rational Wellness Podcast and interviews mold remediation and indoor air quality expert Michael Rubino of Home Cleanse and the Change the Air Foundation about mold, indoor air quality, and creating a healthy home. Rubino describes entering the field after Hurricane Sandy, observing people remaining ill despite cosmetic restorations driven by insurance limits and cost-cutting, and notes an EPA statistic that people spend about 90% of their time indoors. They discuss widespread water damage in homes, mold and bacteria as linked problems, and how new construction can develop mold from poor material handling and inadequate moisture control. Rubino addresses wildfire-related indoor contamination (heavy metals, VOCs, ash), recommends dust and VOC testing, critiques fogging and bleach-based approaches, emphasizes HVAC maintenance and filtration, and outlines the foundation’s education, research, and policy goals.
00:59 Meet Michael Rubino
01:50 Why Indoor Air Matters
03:26 Hurricane Sandy Wakeup
05:40 Insurance Drives Remediation
06:45 Mold Coverage Caps
08:57 Denied Claim Story
11:13 How Common Is Water Damage
12:14 Mold In New Builds
17:49 Dried In Explained
19:09 Fire Smoke Toxins Indoors
22:35 Testing After Fires
27:15 Drywall And Safer Walls
29:14 Mold Inspection Dust Test
30:10 ERMI Confusion Solved
32:48 Ordering And Next Steps
32:57 Mold Plus Bacteria
34:02 Mold vs Bacteria Basics
34:54 Next Wave Testing
35:41 Bleach Fogging Myths
37:00 Porous vs Nonporous Cleanup
40:42 What to Toss or Keep
42:26 Tape Testing Belongings
45:12 Laundry and Air Purifiers
46:37 Filters MERV and Ozone
50:30 Ventilation Fires Humidity
53:02 Change the Air Mission
57:01 HVAC Lungs of Home
01:01:20 Clinician Takeaways Wrap
01:03:21 Where to Find More
Michael Rubino is one of the country’s leading experts on mold remediation and indoor air quality. He’s the founder of HomeCleanse, Chairman of the Change the Air Foundation, and he is also a council-certified Mold Remediator by IICRC and ACAC and a contributing member, sponsor, and speaker for the Indoor Air Quality Association. He is also the host of the Never Been Sicker podcast.
Dr. Ben Weitz is available for Functional Nutrition consultations specializing in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders like IBS/SIBO and Reflux and also Cardiometabolic Risk Factors like elevated lipids, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure. Dr. Weitz has also successfully helped many patients with managing their weight and improving their athletic performance, as well as sports chiropractic work by calling his Santa Monica office 310-395-3111.
rwp 473
Dr. Weitz: [00:00:00] If you’re looking for clinically useful insights, not wellness hype, then this is the place for you. Welcome to the Rational Wellness Podcast, the podcast for functional and integrative practitioners who wanna practice with greater clarity and precision. I’m Dr. Ben Weitz, and each week, I sit down with the leading clinicians, researchers, and lab innovators to explore the science, lab testing, and clinical reasoning behind modern root cause medicine.
This is a show focused on practical, evidence-informed insights that you can actually use in patient care. Please subscribe to the Rational Wellness Podcast on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube. Please tell your friends and colleagues, and if you could give us a ratings and review on Apple or Spotify, we would certainly appreciate it.
Finally, to access the show notes and the full transcript, please go to my website, drweitz.com. [00:01:00] Today, I’m excited to be having a conversation with Michael Rubino about mold, indoor air quality, and how to create a healthy home. Michael Rubino is one of the country’s leading experts on mold remediation and indoor air quality.
He’s the founder of Home Cleanse. He’s the chairman of the Change the Air Foundation, and he’s also a council-certified mold remediator by LLCRC and ACAC, and a contributing member, sponsor, and speaker for the Indoor Air Quality Association. He’s also the host of the Never Been Sicker podcast. Michael, thank you so much for joining us today.
Michael Rubino: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate that.
Dr. Weitz: I’m really excited to be diving into a super important topic. It’s a, we’re increasingly seeing more and more cases of mold, um, playing a factor in chronic illness, um, and most of us spend [00:02:00] more and more of our times indoors as people are working from home, et cetera, et cetera.
And, um, especially growing, i- living in Los Angeles with all these fires that we’ve had- Oh, yeah … uh, we become even more aware of some of the problems with indoor air and all the incredible stuff you can end up getting inside your home and end up getting inside your body.
Michael Rubino: Oh, yeah. Yeah, it’s a big problem, unfortunately, between the mold factor, uh, as you mentioned, we spend about 90% of our time indoors.
That’s an EPA statistic. Uh, so we are breathing these things in more than ever before because we also have tighter buildings, uh, today than we did, you know, 50 to 100 years ago. And so when you start to comb- And, and
Dr. Weitz: the, and the tighter buildings are because we’re trying to hold in the heat and the air, right?
Michael Rubino: That’s right. Uh, due to energy efficiency, right? Right. That’s the whole game is like we wanna make these homes as efficient as possible, and there’s a, unfortunately, a not so great side effect for that.
Dr. Weitz: Meaning, meaning if air was [00:03:00] coming in and out, uh, through the walls, et cetera, it’d be less likely that mold would start to grow.
Michael Rubino: Well, you have that, and then also there’s this little saying called the solution to pollution is dilution, right? And so the more air exchange you have, the more you’re exchanging these particles with fresh air from outside, so you would actually be breathing in less particles than if you were in a tight home because you’re not exchanging any air.
Dr. Weitz: Right. Um, so tell us about your personal journey into mold remediation, and I know you grew up in the construction industry.
Michael Rubino: Yeah. Yeah, so I- I’m about 37 years old today, and, uh, I got into this industry in my mid-20s, and what ended up happening was Hurricane Sandy hit the Northeast where I’m originally from, and, uh, that was right around the time where I moved back home from college, was working for my dad’s company.
My dad had a company called JMC Contracting Corp., and, uh, his bread and butter was actually fire restoration, and [00:04:00] naturally because of the storm and how many homes that it impacted, a lot of people were calling about just general restoration from the water damage. Um, what I had saw though, which actually opened my eyes to this whole topic and really, uh, made me decide that I wanted to be a part of this and, and help with solutions, was I started seeing this pattern of people getting sick inside their homes.
Um, and all different ages. You know, it was affecting kids, it was affecting elderly, it was affecting, you know, middle age. I mean, pretty much all, all ages of life this was creating an impact, and the worst part about it for me was a lot of these homes were restored, right? Like, they hired these big box chain companies and, you know, had their homes restored, but yet they were still getting sick.
And what I had uncovered during this was that, you know, the entire restoration industry, unfortunately the way in which they do, you know, water mitigation and mold remediation, it is very cosmetic. It is not scientific. And with that being said, [00:05:00] unfortunately they had repaired the house, made it look like it didn’t, you know, didn’t happen or didn’t have this storm, but yet there was mold behind the wall still or bacteria behind the wall still, or it was in the HVAC circulating around the house, right?
And so these things really opened my eyes to the fact that, one, indoor air quality is important. If people can get sick from poor air quality, well, then this is something that we need to know about. And two, the industry that everyone thinks, you know, is, is bound to protect them… You know, they call their insurance company when they have a flood or something, and this company comes out and fixes it.
Well, they’re operating off of more of a cosmetic principle than a scientific one, and so herein lies the problem.
Dr. Weitz: And I’ve heard you say that on other podcasts that a lot of this is driven by insurance companies, and unfortunately that’s one of the shortcomings of the American healthcare system too, is that a lot of mainstream medicine is driven by what insurance companies wanna cover, and [00:06:00] it sounds like the same thing is the case with, um, with home reconstruction, remediation
Michael Rubino: Yeah.
That’s exactly right. Yeah. It, it’s driven by insurance companies, you know, unless you’re paying out of pocket, right? And obviously that happens in the healthcare system as well. People are paying out of pocket to get- Right … the, the healthcare that they need. Um, but not everybody can afford to pay out of pocket, right?
And so you- Right … can get into that situation
Dr. Weitz: And so the insurance companies just want the quickest solution possible.
Michael Rubino: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, much like you see in the medical institutions, right? They want the quickest solution possible, the cheapest one. They wanna control everything to mitigate their costs instead of actually following the science of what’s really necessary.
Dr. Weitz: And I, I also heard you say that the insurance companies, unbeknownst to most homeowners, because most of us don’t read these long contracts like our insurance, homeowners insurance, that they put caps on what they pay for [00:07:00] mold remediation.
Michael Rubino: Oh, yeah. So if you go back, like 1980s, there was no caps on anything.
You know, if your house had a, had damage, whatever your policy limit was, you know, for most people, let’s say it was, you know, 500,000 to rebuild their house or whatever their policy limit was, they would be completely covered up to policy limit. But what happened was in the ’90s, you know, we started to realize that, um, you know, water damage was a problem, and, uh, the claims started to go up for that category.
And people started calling when they had water damage because they started to become aware that this is not something that, you know, just is unsightly, but it also can be, uh, can affect their health. And, uh, you know, you started to see major lawsuits happen. You started to see, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars in liabilities.
And how did their insurance companies respond? Well, they just started putting limits on it, right? And, uh, you know, I think it w- it, it, it’s, the way I see it, it’s, it was a two-part problem. You had companies out there that were taking advantage of people and [00:08:00] driving up the claims, right? Um, we have that actually going on right now in the state of Florida, where roofing companies are driving up insurance costs, uh, from, from these storms.
And so you had that issue, and then you had the other issue of just unfortunately the liability started going up and, you know, the mitigation costs started going up. And so, you know, the insurance companies, they take this hard line stance on let’s cap it. And so you used to have up the policy limit.
Today, if you get an insurance policy, you either have zero coverage for water damage and mold, or you have something like a $10,000 cap, which I’ll tell you is not enough for any situation.
Dr. Weitz: And not only that, but we’re seeing insurance premiums skyrocket. And in places like Southern California and Florida, as you mentioned, uh, they’re pulling out completely.
People are not even able to get insurance because of, in California, the fire risk, and in Florida, it’s the hurricane risk.
Michael Rubino: I mean, you know, I’ll, I’ll tell you a story. I had a… We had a [00:09:00] hurricane roll through here a couple years ago. I live in, uh, the Tampa Bay area of Florida. And, you know, two years ago, we had those back-to-back hurricanes.
You might have heard of them. Milton and, uh, Ian, I think it was.
Dr. Weitz: Right.
Michael Rubino: And, uh, I actually had some damage in my house. And I called up my insurance company. I say, “Hey, look, you know, some water came in, and it was in my kids’ playroom, so I wanted to, you know, really properly address this.” And, uh, they, they asked me two questions.
One, “Okay, did, did a, did a projectile make a hole in the side of the building?” I was like, “No. I think it just the wind-driven rains, you know, came in through around…” It was really around a window. Wind-driven rains came in from around a window. There was, uh, the house is stucco. There was certainly some issues with the, one of the expansion joints with the stucco.
So I was like, “Look, wind-driven rain is what caused this. Any other rainstorm, it, we wouldn’t have had water damage, ’cause I’ve been here for, for two years and I’ve had no issues,” right? And, uh, they just flat out denied the claim. They said, “Unless a tree fell on the [00:10:00] house and made a hole in the house,” or, you know, like some ridiculous thing, right?
Like, unless you… It was a Tuesday and you were doing a handstand at that exact moment or whatever nonsense they came up with, they wouldn’t cover the claim. Um, and so I had to basically take it upon myself to open up all the stucco, fix the expansion joints, fix the, the vapor barrier, uh, you know, make sure the window was properly flashed, and then remediate the inside and restore it.
And, um, you know, uh, being who I am, I was obviously able to handle some of this stuff myself and save a little bit of money, but it still cost me I think, like, 10 grand, right? And so-
Dr. Weitz: Right …
Michael Rubino: you can kind of see that all these things are always unexpected. You know? When, when we have a storm and we have a hurricane or a water event, it’s unexpected.
Y- it’s not like you have this sitting in your bank account just waiting, you know, to, to happen. And so I could see how this puts a strain on us financially, not to mention, as you, as you just shared, the premiums are sky-high. I mean, we’re giving these companies more money. [00:11:00] They’re posting record profits in the billions, yet when we actually need them, they’re nowhere to be found, right?
They’re, they find every loophole they can to say the claim is not covered, and it’s a big problem.
Dr. Weitz: Right. S- and the reality is, is a huge number of homes have mold and other issues with indoor air.
Michael Rubino: I mean, so the, the largest home survey that was ever done in 1997, John Spengler and company, it was a EPA and HUD joint study, uh, it was 47% of the homes that they surveyed in 1,000 homes had a history of water damage.
Not even talking about mold, just a history of water damage. And we know if we have water damage, the likelihood of having mold, you know, it really goes through the roof, right? Because that’s what causes the mold to be able to grow in the first place. So when you put that in perspective and you see 47% of homes, that’s a pretty big number, right?
This is a pretty big problem. And then we talked earlier about how 90% of the people are inside these [00:12:00] homes. You know, you start going out into your neighborhood right now, and you’re looking at, okay, every other home has a problem. I mean, the odds are not in our favor when we’re buying homes and, you know, and living in homes that, that we probably have some impacts.
Dr. Weitz: And even newly constructed homes can have mold
Michael Rubino: Hate to say it, but yeah, most people think, “Okay, if I have mold it has to be because I have an older home,” and that’s just not true. I actually was building a house here in Florida myself, and, uh, the, the home, we tested the home throughout the process, and the home had catastrophic levels of mold growth, and I’ll tell you why, Ben.
It’s because, one, these guys left the trusses in the soil. For those that don’t know, mold is abundant in the soil. Bacteria is abundant in the soil. If you’re gonna leave construction materials in the soil with rains, ’cause it’s gonna rain, you’re gonna get the transference of mold onto the lumber. You’re gonna get the transference of bacteria onto the lumber.
So wait a minute.
Dr. Weitz: So you’re saying the, the wood was built into the soil, or [00:13:00] they, when they delivered it they just dropped it on-
Michael Rubino: When they- Uh- When they delivered it, they just dropped it, plopped it- Right … right down onto the soil. Right? Okay. And it, it, you know, and, and actually it was funny because I went to the job site one day, just passed through, and I saw the trusses in the soil, and I’m like, “This is a problem.”
I went over with them beforehand, by the way, “Hey, you’re following the Structural Building Components Association’s guide, right? You’re not gonna leave the lumber in the soil ’cause I, I might, I might know a thing or two about this, right?” So they assured me, “Yes, yes, of course. We don’t do anything like that.”
Lo and behold, I’m driving through the neighborhood, and it’s not just my house that the lumber’s sitting in the soil. It’s every house, 4,000 homes. There’s actually a class action lawsuit going on right now with, with that whole development because of the amount of mold issues that they had. W- what did they do?
Well, lumber was in the soil, so that was problem number one. I had videos, right, showing and detailing all the lumber that had mold growing all over it, and this is from day one. Wow. Here was the other [00:14:00] issue. When they were doing the vapor barrier before they poured the slab, the vapor barrier had tears, gaps, protrusions, and so it’s not a va- it’s not a barrier of vapor if we’re allowing water to pass into it.
Dr. Weitz: So what is a vapor barrier?
Michael Rubino: So a vapor barrier is typically, uh, a piece of Visqueen or plastic that they put underneath the slab. Okay. And so in a new construction home you wanna have a vapor barrier, and then you wanna pour a slab down. And what that vapor barrier does, it prevents moisture from the soil getting into the concrete where- Okay
that your floor sits on. So I’m gonna tell you why this is a problem, because this specific house that I was building They were gonna put these, like, very, you know, high-end luxury, uh, floors in on the ground level. Now, if I have vapor protruding from the soil into the concrete, we’re gonna trap the moisture beli- beneath that finished floor surface, and we’re gonna grow mold beneath that finished floor surface in [00:15:00] between the wood and the concrete because it could feed off of the wood.
It’s semi-porous. And so now we’re, we’re gonna run into an issue, and it’s, it’s no reas- it’s, it’s no wonder why when I would walk into some of these homes, I would smell, you know, like, a musty smell when I would walk in the front door. And I specifically sat with this builder and said, “Listen, I wanna make sure that this doesn’t happen.
I wanna upgrade my vapor barrier,” right? And they flat out denied me ’cause they’re a production builder, weren’t a custom builder. And I said, “Okay, if you’re gonna flat out deny me, then it’s really important that we have all of the penetration sealed up really well. You’re using the proper sealing tape to seal in this vapor barrier.”
Because the, the, what was gonna happen was all of that was gonna come in in- into the concrete. And just to give you the full story here, basically when we went there, we saw these gaps and protrusions and tears, and the company gaslit me and told me that, yeah, they were gonna handle that and fix it, and it’s no problem.
But literally, as I [00:16:00] was passing through one day, their concrete trucks were backing up, and I still saw that they hadn’t fixed anything, and I documented everything. And lo and behold, about two weeks later Right? They started putting up the frame and everything else, and they got the roof on, and basically it was the concrete and it was the, you know, the house framing itself.
And there was water stains all over the concrete, and they were like, “Well, uh, you know, this, this is, this is because, you know, b- it rained a few times before we had the house up.” And I was like, “No, that’s not the case, because these locations are exactly where I showed you that there were tears, gaps, and protrusions.”
I mean, there were literally plumbing pipes coming out of the ground, and there were just water stains traveling all around that pipe, because that’s… It was coming it- from around that pipe and then traveling out. So I said, “Listen, we’re not gonna be able to do this floor anymore. We’re gonna have to probably tile the whole first floor,” which wasn’t really what I wanted, just to pr- [00:17:00] prevent this mold growth from happening.
Because if I’m bonding tile to the slab, right, and I have the grout lines, that moisture will have a way to evaporate instead of trapping the moisture so that mold grows. I mean, you know, the- these types of things happen in new construction homes all over the country. This isn’t just an isolated incident.
You know, we are rushing the building process. It used to take, you know, 18 months to two years to build a house. They’re slapping these things up in six months, and a lot of these preventative measures have just been rushed in the process, and lo and behold, unfortunately, people think they’re buying a brand-new home and it’s gonna be, you know, clean as a whistle, and it’s just not the case.
Dr. Weitz: And I’ve driven past a bunch of these houses that were under construction, and it rains, and then couple days later they continue with the construction.
Michael Rubino: Yeah. You ever hear of a term called dried in?
Dr. Weitz: No.
Michael Rubino: Okay. So there’s a term in construction that’s called dried in, and essentially what it means is you have the entire [00:18:00] envelope done, right?
So you’ve got the, the house is built, the, it’s on the, the foundation, and all the waterproofing’s done, right? And, um, what’s supposed to happen in this dried in phase is you’re supposed to make sure all the moisture levels in the wood are, are about, you know, below 15% at this point, before you start bringing in insulation and drywall.
So how you would do that, if you still have openings to the outside, you would essentially plastic them off, and you would bring in dehumidifiers to just dry out the house. That was what it was called dried in. They don’t do that anymore. Now they think dried in is just as long as the roof’s on and the vapor barrier’s on, the house is dried in.
They’re not actually checking the wood levels anymore to make sure that they’re, uh, that they’re not trapping moisture before they start bringing in insulation and drywall. So these are, these are sort of the systemic issues that we’re dealing with because we’re rushing the building process to try to make more profits.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah, unfortunately, profit driven system [00:19:00] is what leads to lots and lots of problems.
Michael Rubino: Yes.
Dr. Weitz: The same thing with the healthcare industry, unfortunately. Um-
Michael Rubino: Yes …
Dr. Weitz: so when it comes to problems with indoor air, mold is a huge problem, but there’s other things, too. Um, uh, I understand that bacteria and then when you get exposed to, say, like the Palisades fires that we had here in LA, there’s a whole swath of chemicals that can end up in your indoor air.
Michael Rubino: Yeah, so we’re dealing with, uh, some of the fire cleanup in the Palisades as well as an organization, and, you know, we’re seeing high levels of arsenic, high levels of lead and mercury, um, different VOCs, obviously the ash as well that can be toxic.
Dr. Weitz: Right.
Michael Rubino: Some of the chemical off-gassing, right, that occurs from burning some of these materials.
It is very difficult and intricate to clean up these houses, and what no one’s really saying is actually the amount of demolition [00:20:00] that’s really required to open up these walls so that you could fully access and clean specifically the exterior walls where a lot of this was blowing in from. Um, it, it’s a big issue, and I suspect that we’re dealing with another Hurricane Sandy level of illness that’s going to, uh, come out of this because
Dr. Weitz: people just don’t know.
And you’re talking about homes that weren’t burned down, that are still there.
Michael Rubino: I’m talking about the homes that are still there, that, right, but due to the wind conditions blowing these chemicals and metals and byproducts around, they’re impacting homes. Like I’m dealing with a home in LA, right, on the border of Palisades.
The house didn’t experience any fire damage.
Dr. Weitz: Right.
Michael Rubino: But it experienced a lot of heavy metal damage, uh, a lot, lot of arsenic, a lot of mercury, lead, um, ash, and all kinds of other chemical
Dr. Weitz: compounds. So what’s the right way to deal with that, and how are most of these homes being dealt with?
Michael Rubino: So the right way to deal with it then is to [00:21:00] actually open up the exterior walls, which is the typical pathway that these compounds are coming in from, so that you could actually remove these compounds from the insulation, from inside the wall cavities that they’re, they’re in.
You’re gonna have the same issue in an attic space, ’cause we have those, those attic vents, right? Um, the HVAC system needs to be thoroughly, thoroughly cleaned, ’cause if there were, if the HVAC system was running and pulling this stuff in, that’s a pretty big problem. Um, pretty much every square inch of that property is gonna need a, a very thorough cleaning, um, with a pretty heavy-duty degreaser and surfactant to pull these particles out of the environment.
Um, and so I would tell you that unfortunately, a lot of these projects are not being cleaned up this way. I mean,
Dr. Weitz: there’s a lot of- No, I’ve, I’ve t- I’ve talked to, uh, patients of mine who have homes that were, you know, right on the edge of the fire, had fire burn the house down next door, et cetera, and some crew comes in, just doesn’t open up any [00:22:00] walls, just cleans it out and says everything’s fine
Michael Rubino: Yeah.
Uh, unfortunately that is the great scam that’s happening similar to Hurricane Sandy, where everybody came in and did the bare minimum and said it’s fine, right? And as long as it looks like it’s fine, as long as, uh, people walk in and they smell this chemical clean smell, right, they think it is fine. But there’s actually, there’s testing you can do.
There’s dust testing methods to look at arsenic levels, heavy metal levels, lead levels, et cetera. Um, there’s VOC testing that can be done to see the, the VOC content. Like, there is testing methodologies. But it-
Dr. Weitz: So what would be the, what would be the proper testing for a home like that?
Michael Rubino: Well, probably one of the best tests to do would be several dust testing looking at heavy metals, lead, mercury, arsenic.
I would start there.
Dr. Weitz: So there’s a separate test just for heavy metals in the dust?
Michael Rubino: Yeah. Now, you wanna know the cost of these tests? Like, it’s like a $7,500 testing fee essentially to have labs [00:23:00] analyze these. These tests are very expensive. So we talked about insurance. You think insurance companies are shelling out for these tests?
No, they’re not. Right? So you have to be an educated homeowner and take it upon yourself to fire, find a good investigator who’s gonna do these tests, and then actually look at what, what is required and write a full scope of work. Like, we’re working with professionals who are very high-end, very educated in their field that are helping us put together protocols to, to deal with this properly.
And, um, you know, it’s not easy. It’s not necessarily cost-effective. You know, in some cases it’s cost-prohibitive. And, and there’s typically a fight with the insurance companies, ’cause these insurance companies, they’re not scientists. They have no idea w- what, what they’re looking at. You have to explain to them what’s actually occurring and how, what’s the pathway for these products to come in.
And in many cases, it’s not just a problem on the inside, it’s a problem on the outside. I’ll give you an example. This one client, they had, like, an AstroTurf down. Well, the AstroTurf was full of this [00:24:00] stuff, right? And so it’s not good enough to clean the house and then let the wind blow this stuff back in, right?
Dr. Weitz: We’ve gotta m- clean up the exterior and do power washing and, you know, get this stuff out of the, the yard, or it’s gonna continue to blow inside the house. And so this all needs to be something that gets addressed with the insurance company. How do you get it, how do you get it out of the yard?
Michael Rubino: Well, I mean, you have to…
All the hardscaping has to be thoroughly power washed and cleaned, right? The, the AstroTurf I was telling you about, that’s, that’s getting rolled up and thrown away. Right. And the new, new turf needs to be installed. Uh, I mean, even the, the lawn, right? Like, you- you’ve gotta… Y- you, you’re gonna have to, like, literally clean the lawn and get the particles to go down into the soil and not sit on the grass blades where they can blow, you know, from the wind.
I mean, it’s, it’s complicated. It’s not, it’s not a quick fix, easy process. You have to utilize science to actually address these things and then test everything and make sure that the levels are subsiding so that they’re safe [00:25:00] again. Um-
Dr. Weitz: And there’s probably more chemicals than heavy metals, right? There could be asbestos, there could be all sorts of things.
Yeah. ‘Cause everything that’s in a home that’s burning is all potentially, uh, you know, in the air.
Michael Rubino: Es- especially if the house had been built at a certain age where asbestos was used, where lead-based paints were used. Yes. I mean, absolutely, right? And so you have to really do, diagnose the home and understand all the different particles that are disposed inside the house.
So you,
Dr. Weitz: so you test a house for heavy metals. What else do you test for?
Michael Rubino: Well, you’re gonna test for VOCs, right? These are some of the chemical compounds that off gas from the fires from materials being burnt. You’re gonna look at, uh, you know, your heavy metals. Um, you’re also, depending on, like, if your house was actually burnt, right, you’d probably wanna also test for mold and bacteria, because obviously the firefighter, you know, the fire department’s gonna put it out with water, and we’re gonna have some of that.
So it becomes this, um, fire restoration. In some cases it’s a mold remediation and fire [00:26:00] restoration combined. And frankly, there’s just not that many companies out there that do this to this level, right? When you’re doing this for health reasons, you wanna actually look and do a whole smorgasbord of testing and see exactly what you’re being exposed to, and then figuring out a plan to remove it all.
And it’s-
Dr. Weitz: So you test the dust samples. Yeah. Do you test the air as well?
Michael Rubino: You do, yeah. Like, a- and for the VOCs, those are typically air tests, so you’d wanna do a VOC air test to see what’s, what’s being pulled off in off gas into the environment.
Dr. Weitz: And how do you know what might be behind the walls?
Michael Rubino: Well, uh, the best way to do that is to do exploratory cuts in the exterior wall and do sampling from, you know, the sill plate where the bottom plate meets the concrete, uh, so you can kinda see where it’s, what’s coming in.
Um, and yeah, I mean, through that process we have been able to show that, you know, almost every exterior wall in this house has a problem and needs to be opened up properly to [00:27:00] remove all that insulation that’s gonna harbor this stuff like a sponge.
Dr. Weitz: And- And you need to open it up from the outside or the inside or both?
Michael Rubino: From the inside. Okay. Because the house ha- all the porous materials are gonna be on the inside, the drywall- Okay … the insulation.
Dr. Weitz: Right. Drywall is really a problem, isn’t it?
Michael Rubino: You know, it’s, uh, it, it’s, it’s one thing that made the housing, uh, you know, prices come down, obviously. It’s just cheap to manufacture and produce.
But it, it sure is an issue. I mean, the thing gets wet, and forget it. Like, if you don’t cut out that wet drywall, you’re gonna have mold and bacteria growing in it in short order.
Dr. Weitz: Is there a safer drywall product?
Michael Rubino: You know, they’ve been trying for many years to develop these. Like, there was a product called magnesium oxide board that was, you know, pretty popular over the last decade or so, and, uh, it, it, it’s unfortunately hard to work with.
And if your house isn’t built properly, it could also trap moisture because it does, uh, it, it is a vapor [00:28:00] barrier as well, which it could be a gift and a curse depending on the construction of the house. Um, you’ve got obviously your plaster, right, that we used to use that it’s hard to find an artisan these days that still does plaster work, but they do exist.
Um, you know, going back to plaster would probably be a smart idea and getting rid of the drywall. And
Dr. Weitz: plaster just goes on top of, uh, um, wood paneling or something?
Michael Rubino: Yeah. So if you remember the, the old way we did it was we put lath up, right? You had these wood strips up, and then you would sort of plaster over that.
And, uh, you know, the woods, the, the wood would be secured into the wall structure, and that, yeah, plaster would kind of attach to that. Today, we have wire mesh alt- alternatives, right? So instead of using the, the laths, you can put wire mesh up and then plaster over the wire mesh. So there you, you have different options.
To save on some money, some people are using, like, fiberglass products first as, like, the base coat, and then doing a top coat of, uh, plaster on top of that, where the [00:29:00] fiberglass is, uh, you know, has, is less prone to mold growth as well. So that can give you, like, a, you know, sort of that protection and finish quality without, you know, having to do the whole mesh and cost that comes associated with that.
Dr. Weitz: So when we have a patient with mold, what would be the complete inspection for the mold?
Michael Rubino: Well, I wanna say if you suspect you have mold, probably the best thing to do would be to get a product called the Dust Test, because this is gonna give you… It’s a screening tool, so it’s gonna give you an average of what you’re being exposed to across your house.
It’s like, it’s, it’s very simple. It’s a consumer product. You order it, it gets delivered to your door. You, you put the gloves on that come in the packaging. The best way to describe it is like a Swiffer cloth, right? So you take the Swiffer cloth- Right … and you go and collect dust from across your house.
Dr. Weitz: Right.
Michael Rubino: And it, it
Dr. Weitz: uses- Well, we’ve, we’ve currently been using… What, what I’ve typically told patients is, is, is get the little Petri dishes, put [00:30:00] those around, and then get the ERMI test. And- Yeah … essentially, the mold test is something you developed that’s similar to the ERMI test, but better?
Michael Rubino: Correct. Yeah. I would say it’s better in this, it’s better for two reasons.
One, um, the, the main reason I wanted to develop this test is because the ERMI can cause a lot of confusion if you don’t know how to interpret it.
Dr. Weitz: Okay.
Michael Rubino: Um, the ERMI itself stands for the Environmental Relative Moldiness Index, and that’s essentially the score in that bottom right-hand corner of the test And for many years, you know, you’d have doctors that would say, “Hey, you need an ERMI below a two to be healthy,” right?
The problem with that scoring algorithm is it really just takes group one molds and subtracts it from group two molds, the sum of logs, and that’s what gives you that score. But essentially, you could have very unhealthy homes that have a lower score, and the, the reason being is because they have a lot of outdoor molds inside their environment as well.
Maybe they open the windows a lot or they’ve got a [00:31:00] lot of ventilation, et cetera, but they’re letting a lot of outdoor molds come in, and that skews the score. So they might have very high levels of indoor molds, but because they have equally as high levels of outdoor molds, boom, it gives them a low score, right?
Dr. Weitz: I
Michael Rubino: see. And so the sc- the scoring methodology caused a lot of confusion in people because, you know, sometimes they would say unhealthy homes are healthy, so they wouldn’t worry about it, or vice versa. They had, you know, pretty decently healthy homes that were looking as unhealthy just because there weren’t a lot of outdoor molds present, and all of a sudden it’s kinda skews that result, right?
So the dust test helped solve that problem by getting rid of the ERMI score and focusing on the data and what the data means, right? Now, we can look at different individual molds and then understand is that 10 times higher, 100 times higher, or 1,000 times higher. But if you wanna know the real secret as to why this test, uh, I believe is better and why I wanted to create this test is because you could upload your mycotoxin results from Mosaic or Realtime [00:32:00] Labs or, or any of the labs out there, Vibrant, right?
And it’ll help you correlate the molds that are elevated in your home with the toxins that are elevated in your body. Now you have-
Dr. Weitz: Well, that, that’s great …
Michael Rubino: some oc- actionable data, right? And so, um, we really wanted to make a product that consumers can use and understand without necessarily needing to have expert consultative ad- you know, advice on what to do next.
And of course, um, if you’ve ever done a test through a lab and you call up that lab as a customer and you ask them questions, I mean, these, these guys are lab techs, they really don’t under… They, they know what the results mean on the lab result, but what to do about it, that’s just out of their, their- Right
their… So with us, we train all of our employees on what to actually do with the data so that it can be actionable so people can take action.
Dr. Weitz: And where do they order this dust test?
Michael Rubino: So they go to thedusttest.com- Okay … and they can order it. Super simple.
Dr. Weitz: Okay. And with mold, I’ve heard you say [00:33:00] there’s also often bacteria, and I’m not sure that that’s on everybody’s radar.
Michael Rubino: That’s right. So mold, if you have mold, it’s a symptom that your house has water damage, right? I mean, you can’t have mold without having some sort of issue with the home, um, with water coming in or moisture management or condensation, humidity, et cetera, right? There has to be a driving factor. Well, one of the other things, if you have mold, you almost certainly have bacteria, right?
And, um, there, there are some tests out there that can help test for the bacteria presence, uh, in the dust, which gives you an understanding. It’s a bit tricky because humans also produce bacteria and shed bacteria, so you have to be careful, like, is this coming from the house or is it coming from me? Um, specifically if you’re, you know, dealing with chronic illness, you’re probably gonna be shedding a lot more bacteria than someone who’s otherwise healthy, right?
And so usually what you wanna do is you wanna test the house and also do a skin test to see, like, what you’re [00:34:00] shedding versus what the house is shedding. You can get a- Wow … kind of an understanding, is it a me problem or a house problem? But, you know, y- y- if you have mold, you have bacteria. That’s why I always say, you know, it, it, the cleanup is the same, right?
You wanna cl- if you clean up the sources of mold, you’re gonna be cleaning up the sources of bacteria. Um, if you’re dealing with the byproducts of mold, you’re gonna be dealing with the byproducts of bacteria. So it’s not necessarily something that you need to, like, focus on, right, in terms of one thing or the other.
Right. But you should be able to test for them and make sure that the cleaning that you’re doing or the resolutions that you’re doing inside the home are addressing all of the problems, and I think that’s why it’s so important to be comprehensive, especially if you’re looking at optimizing your health or you’re dealing with chronic illness.
You really wanna make sure that the 20,000 breaths you’re breathing each day inside the home that you spend 90% of your day in are healthy ones.
Dr. Weitz: It’s interesting. I wonder, uh, if the companies that offer the mycotoxin [00:35:00] urine test should be also including bacteria in those tests.
Michael Rubino: Oh, I think, I think you’re gonna see an evolution of testing.
You know, I, I definitely see that coming. I mean, um, I, I, I’ve been hearing through the grapevine there, you know, there are some limited microplastics tests available, and that’s sort of, you know, coming out, and they’re looking at how do we test for PFAS and bacterial toxins- Right … and all these other things.
So I think that there’s a whole new wave of environmental text, testing that’s gonna be coming specifically for the purpose of, look, if we have environmental factors, we need to address them. Otherwise, we could be living inside the problem where nothing’s gonna solve that if we don’t fix the, the issue.
Dr. Weitz: Now, a lot of the ways they try to remediate are not effective. And can you just talk a little more about that, that sometimes they say that just using bleach or just spraying certain things is enough? Yeah, I think- And then there’s something called, uh, fogging. Yeah.[00:36:00]
Michael Rubino: Yeah, so, um, you know, I think it was in the early ’90s where we started to realize that bleach wasn’t actually effective, uh, against mold remediation, which was interesting because, um-
Dr. Weitz: Everybody still is convinced that it is …
Michael Rubino: everybody’s still convinced that it is. Well, it does bleach it, so it makes it look like it, it, it’s, you know- It, it makes it lighter in color and harder to see, right?
So it does give you this visual illusion that it’s gone. Um, but yeah, I mean, basically the EPA- Is it
Dr. Weitz: the same for hydrogen peroxide?
Michael Rubino: Hydrogen peroxide is… You know, look, any solution that you use is only gonna be as effective as the effort that you’re putting into cleaning it. Like I’ll give you an example.
If I’ve got hydrogen peroxide and I’m using it on grout, now it’s an oxidizer, right? So that bubbling and pulling particles to the surface is gonna be helpful at deeply penetrating the grout and helping as you agitate it to remove it, right? Um, and it’s gonna be more effective with a surfactant than without [00:37:00] one.
However, if I’ve got, let’s say, mold in drywall, I mean, no amount of bleach or hydrogen peroxide or anything that might be otherwise effective is gonna help me. Because if that mold, if the roots of mold called hyphae grow into those porous materials, I have to cut them out, right? There’s no way to salvage them.
And so, you know, there’s… It would, just like anything else, context matters. If I’m dealing with a porous material, I have to cut the porous material out ’cause I won’t be able to get, pull the roots out of it. If I’ve got a semi-porous mater- material, I’m gonna be in better shape because now I can, you know, penetrate deeper into this wood or concrete surface and agitate it with cleaning and scrubbing and pull it away, right?
Dr. Weitz: So semi-porous is like the two-by-fours and the concrete- Yeah … and the porous is, is the drywall.
Michael Rubino: Yeah. And then you have non-porous, like glass and plastic, right, where mold can’t grow into it. It just grows on top of it. Well, that’s easy. You could wipe it away with almost anything: vinegar, soap and water, [00:38:00] whatever you want, it doesn’t matter.
‘Cause as long as you’re removing the actual microbial growth from typically the dust on top of the glass or on top of the plastic, it’s a quick wipe down, right, and you, you fully got it all. So the context of the material I think matters. Um, but you know, in any material, bleach has been found to not be effective.
And, um, we’re trying to get the EPA and the CDC on the same page, ’cause the EPA now, uh, I think, yeah, just a few years ago published that you shouldn’t use bleach anymore. Um, and the CDC still has it on its list of recommendations. So this is where you could see where one department isn’t communicating with another.
Dr. Weitz: Right.
Michael Rubino: There are many different solutions you can use. Botanical solutions work ve- quite well, and I think the main thing is you wanna mechanically remove these things from the surfaces that they’re growing on. By the way, is
Dr. Weitz: there happened to be a, a favorite botanical, uh, product?
Michael Rubino: I personally love Benefect, uh, Decon 30, ’cause it’s a, uh, scentless [00:39:00] version.
Um, the only scent that is produced is by the thyme oil that’s naturally in the product. Um, and so, you know, for me, botanical products work quite well. Mm-hmm. There’s no reason to use harsh chemicals. Harsh chemicals create VOCs, which are another health risk. So y- Right … you know, you gotta really be careful about these trade-offs.
Um, when it comes to fogging, that is probably, you know, one of the biggest scams out there right now that unfortunately gets people quite easily, because financially it sounds like a, like a great thing, right? You know, a couple grand, and I fog your whole house, and the solution’s gonna penetrate into every nook and cranny and eliminate everything.
It just, the, the world doesn’t work that way. I mean, even if I go and spray Roundup on my, you know, on my yard right now, I’m gonna have a bunch of dead particles sitting there in my lawn, right? I’m gonna have to re- still remove them. Well, if you wanna think about it from this perspective, let’s just say I kill everything in my environment.
Okay, I’m gonna have a crap [00:40:00] ton of dead particles that are in my environment that I’m still gonna be breathing in, right? That are gonna impact my body. N- not just that, but we have to remember that mold is just a symptom. So if my roof is leaking and I’m fogging it, and I’m not addressing my roof leak and opening this up and actually taking care of the problem appropriately, it’s just gonna continue to come back.
So I look at fogging as the next great subscription model, um, where people just come in with a lower cost solution and fog, but they’re gonna have to do it every few months to get you some relief. And if you think about what you spend over the course of a year, it’d be cheaper if you just handled the problem the, the right way in the first place.
Dr. Weitz: So a patient, uh, who I’d say a person has, uh, mold in their home, and they’re sick. They have mycotoxins in their body. Apart from the doing the things you’re talking about as well as, uh, treating them for mold from my perspective, from a functional medicine perspective, um, what do they need [00:41:00] to get rid of?
It should all the furniture go? Can some furniture stay? Can they wash their clothes? I’ve even heard people worry about it getting into their computers. What, what things-
Michael Rubino: Yeah …
Dr. Weitz: products in their home do they likely need to get rid of? Books, et cetera.
Michael Rubino: Well, this is one of those things where testing and not guessing probably provides a lot of value, right?
Okay. And, uh, when it comes to your belongings, like, there’s a infinite amount of variables, right? Um, in the old days, we just told people, “Throw everything away.” You know, especially if, if you had anything porous, just throw it away- Right … because it’s not worth it. You know? And that becomes easy if you don’t have a lot of stuff.
But if you- But if you
Dr. Weitz: do have a lot of stuff and everything costs thousands of dollars…
Michael Rubino: Yeah. If you’ve collected 100 grand worth of stuff, you know, throughout your house, um, you know, it’s gonna be a pretty daunting task to wanna throw everything away and buy everything new, right? That- Right … [00:42:00] that’s a, that’s a pretty hefty price tag.
And so, you know, w- what we started to realize in this journey is, like, look, you know, if your house floods, yes, you have to throw everything away. There’s… You just can’t. But the context matters. If I’ve got an, an isolated issue on one wing of my house, yeah, I’m probably gonna wanna be a little bit more diligent around discarding anything porous, et cetera, within that wing of the house.
Uh, but if I have, let’s say, rooms on the other side of the house or on the other side of the floor that’s been impacted, well, I might wanna test those things with a $15 tape test to see, what am I looking at here? Because if it’s not heavily contaminated, then you might have a pretty easy time cleaning it and salvaging it, as opposed to- So what’s the tape test?
throwing it away. So it’s a microscopy test. It’s a tape test. You basically… I mean, there are many labs across the country that sell these It’s, um, you know, you’d wanna look at like a mold microscopy tape test. You’d [00:43:00] put that into Google and put in your zip code. You’ll probably find a lab near you that, that offers this.
And, uh, you know, like if you look at the couch I’m sitting on here, I would take a piece of tape and I would, you know, kinda touch the couch with it and touch a couple different spaces with it, um, and just get an overall screen of this couch. And then I would label that test couch, and I would send it into the lab.
And so what I would be doing is, first off, all my porous contents, I would be looking at testing those first because those are the most difficult to clean, if not impossible to clean, especially if they’re heavily contaminated, right? And I would send those tape tests in for some of those higher ticket, you know, items.
And then I have, you know, there’s a metal table that I’m banging on right now that’s, that it… this computer’s sitting on. Well, it’s metal, right? It’s non-porous. So I know that I’m gonna be able to clean this effectively and not have to worry about it. Oh, now I’ve got an area rug underneath this metal table, okay?
So I would tape test [00:44:00] couple different spots around this area rug and send that into the lab to be analyzed. And what that’s gonna tell me is that’s gonna tell me what’s the contamination level of the items in this room specifically. And I would look at it almost room by room or even wing by wing, ’cause if this room comes back clean, well, then the rooms adjacent to it are probably likely gonna be clean unless the room adjacent to it is where the problem is, right?
And so, you know, you, you hear this common theme that I say is context matters. You know, we have to have enough context to be able to make the right decisions, otherwise we’re gonna waste money on solutions that don’t work, or we’re gonna waste money on things that didn’t need to be thrown away or didn’t need to be remediated.
And I think that’s the biggest problem that we’re dealing with is, you know, we’ve got this mold craze, if you will, where people are more aware that they have issues. And they need to, they need to understand that this, with this, what you wanna do is you wanna make data-driven decisions, otherwise you’re gonna spend money and get not a [00:45:00] lot of value, or you’re gonna y- you know, just go way above what you need to and spend more than you need to, and neither of those situations are good to be in
Dr. Weitz: Right.
What about clothing? Can you wash mold off of clothing?
Michael Rubino: Yeah, so today there are some great products out there. EC3 Laundry Additive, uh, it’s like a $13 product that you put into your laundry machine, and it’s 99% effective at removing mold and mycotoxins from your clothes. Oh. So, you know, you have some of these different products that are coming out that can help you with that, and I think that’s provided us some really great value.
Dr. Weitz: Are air purifiers helpful, and how do you know when you have a good air purifier?
Michael Rubino: Yeah, so air purifiers I think are helpful because they are essentially pulling dust out of the air, and within that dust you’re gonna have, you know, microbes like mold and bacteria and microplastics and other things that you’d rather the air [00:46:00] purifier capture than your lungs capture.
Um, how to find a good one, it really just comes down to the filter. You know, it could have all the bells and whistles, it can connect to your phone with an app and do all these great things, but to be honest, the only value that that thing has is the type of filtration that it has and its ability to remove as small of a particle as possible.
And that’s it. What air purifiers essentially are, they’re vacuums with a filter on them, and the air gets drawn into that filter and traps the particles into the filter, and then out, out of the top typically comes clean air. So the better the filter, the better the product.
Dr. Weitz: What about air purifiers that don’t have filters, that claim somehow they magically filter the air out through some process?
Michael Rubino: I would stay far away from those- Okay … because none of, none of those have any sort of, you know, um… None of those have been tested-
Dr. Weitz: Right …
Michael Rubino: to have any degree of scientific certainty- Right … on how effective they are, right? Right. And I would caution that those [00:47:00] products, typically they produce something. So they, they don’t take something away, they produce something.
Sometimes they’re hydrogen peroxide molecules, right? Um, sometimes they’re producing ozone. Uh, sometimes they’re producing, you know, um- Negative ions, right? That cluster- Right … particles together. The problems with those things, what they’re not telling you in those marketing terms, is that, okay, any time I produce something into the environment, I still have to remove it or I’m gonna be breathing this in as well.
Dr. Weitz: Right.
Michael Rubino: And so you, you want solutions that remove things, not add them.
Dr. Weitz: And how do you know it ha- wh- what is the right filter to have? How do you know if it just says it has a HEPA filter, most people have no clue what that means or w- are there different kinds of HEPA filters? What’s the best kind?
Michael Rubino: So HEPA filter, HEPA filtration is actually a 1940s technology.
It’s nothing new. It’s been around forever. Um, you know, we can do better than HEPA. HEPA basically is a standard for filtration. [00:48:00] That’s really all it is. It just means that your filter at at least 99.97% efficacy can remove as, a particle as small as three microns in particle size. That’s it. And so, um, the better thing to look for is what the MERV rating is- Okay
which is essentially the efficiency rating of the filter. The, the trick of the, the trick of the story here is the higher the MERV rating, the smaller the particle it can remove. And so, you know, the smaller particles are typically the ones that cause the greatest human health risk ’cause they bypass our self-defense mechanisms entering our bloodstream.
Dr. Weitz: So the smaller the particle we can remove from our environment, the more clean our air is going to be.
Um, we, we have a Jasper filter at, uh, um, purifier at our house, and it measures the minus 2.5 particles, and my wife loves burning incense. And when she burns incense, it goes [00:49:00] crazy, and I keep telling her, “That’s not good.”
And she goes, “No, no, it’s really good.”
Michael Rubino: Yeah. I mean, you know, it’s… Unfortunately when you’re burning anything, there… It’s gonna- you’re gonna produce particles, right? Whether it’s a candle or incense, you know, you’re gonna, you’re gonna produce particles. Now, obviously some of the things that you’re burning, right, um, have been studied- And even when you
Dr. Weitz: do essential oils, it also sets it
Michael Rubino: off
Even when you do… Yeah, yeah, definitely. So some of those things that you’re burning or, you know, heating up, like an essential oil that’s producing these particles, yeah, I… You know, they’ve all been studied, right, to be negligible in terms of human health impact.
Dr. Weitz: Right. Okay.
Michael Rubino: However, you know, back into context for a second, the quantity matters, right?
So if I’m going crazy overboard and I’m burning essential oils 24/7, right, that’s a lot of particles I’m gonna be breathing in. Right. And so even though they might be considered safer alternatives, you still wanna think about how much are you breathing in, how much is your body having to filter out, right?
And I think, [00:50:00] you know, you start thinking about essential oils on the lungs and things of that nature over extended periods of time, you know, that, that might cause some irritation and some issues. So you just wanna be careful not to go overboard. I mean, you know, the, uh, nothing against candles, essential oils, and incense.
Dr. Weitz: Um, you know, we burn candles here every once in a while too just to make the house smell, you know, nice and different, you know, especially around the holidays or something. You know, just, you just wanna be mindful. Don’t, don’t do it 24/7
You know, I was just thinking about the Palisades, and there is issues not only with what’s in your house, but with all this construction going on there, there is gonna be a lot of stuff flying around.
And anybody who’s living there now, unfortunately, is gonna get exposed to all this stuff being thrown into the air by all these construction crews.
Michael Rubino: Yeah, I mean, this is one of those situations where obviously having, you know, ventilated [00:51:00] homes, um, can cause quite the issue. And so, you know, when you have, if you have construction going on in your neighborhood, you know, no matter where you are, you’re gonna wanna keep your windows and doors closed.
Um, you’re probably gonna wanna have some air purifiers running to just capture any- Right … particles that naturally migrate in. You know, there are things you can do. Right. Um, especially with fires. California has fires all the time, right? So-
Dr. Weitz: Unfortunately …
Michael Rubino: when you have a fire, unfortunately, you need to close your windows and doors and run air purifiers to- Right
just keep you guys as safe as possible. So there’s something you can do about it.
Dr. Weitz: Right. Yeah. And otherwise, if there’s not a fire, there’s not a construction going on around you, it’s better to have your windows open, right?
Michael Rubino: Yeah. I mean, there’s a nice little tool on pretty much most of our phones here where you can look at the air quality index, um, and see how the air quality is outside, make that decision on when you’re opening doors and windows.
Obviously, days where the air quality outside’s not great, you might wanna keep things tighter in and run air [00:52:00] purifiers. Um, when you’re, you know, day’s air quality’s really great, you definitely wanna take advantage of that and get some airflow moving. Um, there’s a couple things with air, with opening doors and windows that people need to know about.
Number one, when you have doors and windows open, you cannot run your HVAC, okay? Because you will create condensation. A lot of people don’t know that unfortunately, and we’ve seen things the hard way where, you know, the, everything’s sweating, walls are sweating and, you know, they start to get some mold growth after just a few days.
If you’re gonna have doors and windows open, turn your HVAC off, right? Because otherwise you’re gonna mix your hot and cold temperatures, which is gonna create condensation. Um, the other thing to think about is, you know, looking at the air quality index and then humidity, right? So if it’s super humid outside, you know, just think about that, uh, that, that impact on the indoor environment, right?
You know, if you have a lot of moisture se- seeping into the walls because it’s 99% humidity, might not be the best day to open up the windows. So, you know, just look at those couple things and if you kinda understand that, you’ll be able to master when you open [00:53:00] doors and windows in no time.
Dr. Weitz: Um, you have this Change the Air, uh, Foundation to try to advance things on a society-wide level.
What are some of the things you’re hoping to accomplish?
Michael Rubino: Yeah. So education, obviously one of the most important pillars of the foundation. Um, research, obviously another important pillar. Uh, we have done some great research projects that have really helped open people’s eyes. Uh, we did one for the military last year, um, which really showed the Pentagon and some of the military organizations that, you know, there, there, there are some issues, right, in military housing with indoor air quality.
Um, and we also did a, a huge economic impact study. Um, unfortunately we’re limited, we’re limited by the data that we have, but we were able to show, like if we just look at asthma alone, you know, uh, and we look at the mold cause, the, the mold aspect that causes asthma, which is actually, uh, 22% of all asthma cases are caused by mold exposure, that’s a $44 billion economic impact-
Dr. Weitz: 22% of [00:54:00] all asthma is caused by mold?
Michael Rubino: Correct.
Dr. Weitz: Wow. That’s incredible.
Michael Rubino: Yeah. So when we were able to show that, so if you go on Change the Air Foundation, you can see some of the research products we’ve done, and they’ll, they’ll likely blow your mind because unfortunately it’s y- you know, there’s not a lot of people doing this research ’cause they don’t understand the impacts.
And believe me, I wouldn’t have understood the impacts myself if I didn’t see people sick firsthand. Um, and th- this is something that I see every single day. But the, the, the last thing that we do that’s really important is changing laws. Uh, you know, we’ve been able to pass some laws which have been really, really great.
Um, and the laws really are meant to protect people from shoddy inspections, shoddy remediations, um, and really trying to put some accountability, uh, because a lot of states don’t have any laws around it. And so, you know, a company that could be a pest control company that has zero experience in the science of mold remediation can go ahead and start, you know, deciding [00:55:00] they’re gonna do mold remediation and not do it well, and that puts people at risk, right?
So we’re trying to help clamp down on, on some of the nefarious actions of companies out there that take advantage of consumers. And, uh, you know, I would say last but not least, um, as part of this overall plan is, you know, at some point we have to get the insurance companies to the table and fig- you know, and, and really start to discuss how are we gonna solve this problem, because, you know, all we’re doing is shifting money from fixing homes- properly.
And obviously we’re allowing the insurance companies to put that money into the- into their pockets, but we’re just shifting it onto the healthcare costs. I mean, the healthcare costs in this country alone have been going up and up and up. And, uh, you know, we believe that a large portion, I’m not gonna say all of it, but we believe that a large portion, um, is environmental.
And if we can clamp down on these environmental issues and have insurance companies really, uh, you know, insure these homes properly to be able to pay their fair share, [00:56:00] that would do the w- the world a wonder. I mean, you know, I, I think it was Chubb, uh, looking at Chubb’s numbers. I mean, they’re, they’re posting $4 billion a quarter in profits, you know?
And look, I, I, I, I’m a business owner myself, right? I consider myself a capitalist. However, what I would say is those types of numbers need to be reinvested back into the communities because truthfully, if we don’t, we’re gonna continue to see this health decline that we have here in this country. Um, and I, and I, and I don’t know how we’re gonna dig our way out of it if we continue up with this trajectory because we’re already at a 47% deficit.
Dr. Weitz: Well, we’re working on it, which is making sure nobody’s covered so nobody can go to the doctor so they don’t know about it, so then we don’t have to worry about it. Just keep- Right. Well, that’s- … people sick and dying and, and- And that’s
Michael Rubino: been
Dr. Weitz: the
Michael Rubino: strategy … pretty
Dr. Weitz: much that’s where we’re at.
Michael Rubino: And the pharmaceutical companies are the ones gaining and benefiting off of that,
Dr. Weitz: right?
Oh, absolutely.
Michael Rubino: Yeah. [00:57:00]
Dr. Weitz: We, you know, one thing we didn’t cover was the HVAC system, and I know that you talk about that- Yeah … a lot as being really important.
Michael Rubino: Yeah, the reason it’s so important is you have to look at it as the lungs of the home, right? It draws air in, conditions it, and supplies it back out, right?
So it’s constantly taking air in and recirculating across the house. What a lot of people don’t realize is the HVAC system has a piece inside of it called an evaporative coil. Uh, sometimes the, the HVAC professionals will call it an A-coil ’cause it kinda is shaped like an A. Um, but essentially it’s, it’s something, it’s, it’s the piece of i- of equipment that has to do with the air conditioning, and it constantly is pulling moisture out of the air.
And, uh, because y- you may not know this, but temperature differentials create condensation, bringing us all back to, like, third grade science class, right? So if I have 55-degree air blowing out, which is what does blow out off the coil, by the way, and I’ve got, you know, an 80-degree house that I’m trying to cool down to, let’s say, [00:58:00] 73 or 74, you know, I’m gonna have 55-degree air and 80-degree air mixing and meeting, and then what’s that gonna do?
It’s gonna create condensation that’s gonna ge- get into that coil. Well, the coil ends up being the perfect spot for mold and bacteria to grow. And, uh, that’s why we, it’s really important to have filters in our HVAC systems. But, you know, the filters have to have a high enough MERV rating. The MERV rating can present a challenge ’cause too high of a MERV rating can restrict the airflow, so you need to have something that’s designed well.
Um, then the other part of this, this puzzle here is, you know, y- let’s just say you have a MERV 13 filter, right? Um, that’s not gonna be good enough to get all mold and all bacteria, so we’re gonna still allow some of it. It’s a wet environment. If bacteria and mold bypasses and, and lands on that coil, it’s gonna grow.
And if you look at time, right, time is not gonna be on our side ’cause it’s just gonna continue to grow and grow over time unless it’s dealt with. Well, uh, Ben, when is the [00:59:00] last time do you think a lot of your patients have had their HVACs really thoroughly cleaned? And when I say cleaned, I mean you pull the coil out, which means you gotta pump down the Freon and really pull that thing apart and clean it and power wash it on the driveway.
Dr. Weitz: How many times do you think people are doing that?
Michael Rubino: Never.
Dr. Weitz: Never. I could tell you never because I- I,
Michael Rubino: I tell you a lot of these HVAC units are outside, too.
Yeah. Some of them c- yeah, well, you have the compressor that’s typically outside, but sometimes you have these packaged units where the whole thing’s outside, which is a disaster, but they do that to save space on the interior, right?
Dr. Weitz: So, you know, we have a lot of problems- Now,
Michael Rubino: do all HVAC systems even have filters?
Dr. Weitz: Uh, I, you know, look, I, I toured a school the other day And they had filters, but
Michael Rubino: their maintenance team- By
Dr. Weitz: the
Michael Rubino: way, where are the filters? Are the filters where the screens are, where the air’s coming in, or where?
No. The… Well, they can be.
If you have a filter grill there, they could be there, but typically they’re by the unit. You know that big metal box that’s in a [01:00:00] closet somewhere or in an attic somewhere, right? They’re typically there. So I go to this school. This, you know, there was co- complains of musty smells. They wanted to get down to the bottom of it, and, uh, you know, I looked in their HVAC system.
They… I always go there first. Like I said, it’s the lungs of the home. We know it’s, it’s, if it’s not maintained well, it’s gonna be a huge problem. I go there first, I take a look at it, and I’m like, “Guys, uh, when’s the last time you changed these filters?” “Oh, there’s filters there? I didn’t know there’s filters there.”
“Uh, the maintenance team’s supposed to do that.” I asked the maintenance team, “When’s the last time you changed these filters?” “Oh, you know, I forgot about it. It’s pro- been probably a year.” Well, they’re supposed to be changed every three months, right? It was probably 10 years. Of course,
Dr. Weitz: like- It’s probably
Michael Rubino: never
it was black. Yeah, it was black as could be, right? And that’s, all that, once it’s that, you know, black and degraded, it’s not a filter anymore. It’s, everything can bypass it. It has no efficiency at that point. And so the filter’s black, and you’ve just got mold coming off the filter. You’ve got mold growing in all the coils, right?
Dr. Weitz: No wonder why this place was so [01:01:00] musty. There were some other issues, too, but, you know, like, this was one of the main ones, and it, this impacts all the air in all the rooms. It’s a pathway for air to travel. And so, you know, I think HVACs are often underlooked. They’re not tested properly, you know, and, uh, that’s, I think that’s a big issue
Great.
Michael Rubino: Um, since a lot of, uh, healthcare people listen to this podcast, what’s one thing that every physician should know about, uh, environmental illness related to air problems?
I think number one, uh, people should realize that, you know, mold is a, is an issue. Um, certainly it, it, it could be allergenic, pathogenic, and toxigenic.
You could have different molds inside the home that can be producing different toxins and different effects on the human body, and it’s often o- it’s often overlooked. So I think more physicians should be aware of that and should be making sure that it’s part of the puzzle, especially [01:02:00] when everything seems to be normal, but the person’s just not getting better.
It’s usually a, a good telltale sign. Let’s look at the environment, right? Um, you have tests like the dust tests that are very consumer-friendly that you can recommend to your patients. That’s a no-brainer, right? Um, I would say that the other thing is if you, you know, if you ever heard somebody was in a fire, near a fire, et cetera, yeah, have them do heavy metal tests, have them do VOC tests, and, and look at the environment.
I think the, the, the one takeaway I hope everyone has is, you know, I personally believe that environmental issues are a big part of our health issues, and I think that if we do better to advise people to take a look at their environment, it’s gonna make us more successful as healthcare providers because we’re gonna start to see people having health wins.
Um, you know, I can’t tell you how many stories where people had miraculous recoveries by fixing their environment and working with amazing people like [01:03:00] yourself, and if, if we can do more of that, I guarantee you we will have a lot of successes over the next couple decades, and we’ll be looking back one day saying, “Man, I can’t believe how much the environment was such a big part of this.”
Um, and, and you know, and it wasn’t, uh, very well known in mainstream medicine.
Dr. Weitz: That’s great. This has been an awesome discussion. How can listeners and viewers, um, get in touch with you, find out what if they, i- if they need their home remediated or they just want more information?
Michael Rubino: Yeah, I think, you know, if, if you wanna check your home or, you know, are curious about your home and, and indoor air quality, go to homecleanse.com.
Um, and, uh, you, you also, when you go there, you scroll down to the bottom, you’ll find me, and you can look at all my social media. Um, we do YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, so you’ll be able to pretty much find us anywhere. Um, and we provide a lot of free information and tips, ’cause we just genuinely wanna see people get better.
Dr. Weitz: That’s great. And you also have a weekly [01:04:00] podcast, right?
Michael Rubino: Yeah, I do. It’s called Never Been Sicker, and, um, you know, we interview amazing people like yourself. I’m sure that we’re gonna have you on in short order as well. Um, you know, and the, and the goal is to give people different perspectives around how there’s this big intersection between in the environment people live in and the, the health that we have.
I mean, you know, we’ve seen how it interplays with cognitive impairment, um, and neurodegenerative disease, right? The longevity community and how it’s impacting them. And, you know, everywhere you look, it, it touches upon it at some point. And so, um, it’s great. And I think if you’re, if you’re concerned about health and indoor air quality and you wanna get it under control, you know, take a, check out that podcast and see if there’s something that relates to you.
Dr. Weitz: That’s great. Thank you so much, Michael.
Michael Rubino: Thank you so much for having me.
Dr. Weitz: Thank you for making it all the way through this episode of the Rational Wellness Podcast. For those of you who enjoy listening to the Rational Wellness Podcast, I would very much appreciate it if you could go to Apple Podcasts or Spotify and give us a five-star ratings and review. As you may know, I continue to accept a limited number of new patients per month for functional medicine. If you would like help overcoming a gut or other chronic health condition, and wanna prevent chronic problems, and want to promote longevity, please call my Santa Monica White Sports Chiropractic and Nutrition office at 310-395-3111, and we can set you up for a consultation for functional medicine. And I will talk to everybody next week
And get a free ebook: "How to Reduce Digestive Distress"
