Your Safe and Healthy Home, LLC

05/16/2026

I had a very interesting experience in Total Volatile Organic Compound measurement in a home this week. I do this in just about every inspection I do.

In this particular home the longer I was in the home, the higher the TVOC levels reached. And they reached levels I'd never seen before. I took my meter outside to check if it was a meter issues, and it was completely normal outside.

As we went through the house from top to bottom the levels kept reaching new highs. At the point where the meter showed over 11000 ppb I saw the HVAC guy finishing up the installation of the water heater. I was relieved. I may have felt a little like when Pedro Paez, James Bruce, or John Hanning Speke discovered the sources of the Nile!

But this isn't about my adventures in TVOC measurement.

This is about how mundane things that every homeowner will experience can have dramatic impacts on the indoor air quality in the home. Every homeowner will eventually have their water heater replaced. Probably will paint or hire someone to paint. May stain or polish hardwood floors or furniture. And all of those activities will bring a LOT of chemicals into your home. The tighter your home is, the longer those chemicals will stay.

If you want to avoid this, and you should, because even if no one in your home has reacted yet, there is a certain point where someone may....and in the meantime huffing chemicals isn't a desirable activity for healthy minded people.

Demand the work areas are contained. Demand negative air ventilation is the areas where deep cleaning, or chemical containing materials will be used. Don't wait for symptoms! Also demand to see the Safety Data sheets for any materials brought into your home. Do that before you sign a contract, and have that in your contract.

05/02/2026

2 of the things I love most about my job are:
1. Helping people make their homes or workplaces healthier and safer, and
2. Learning new things while I am doing #1!

This week I had plenty of both!

I thought I knew everything there was o know about Aspergillus and Aspergillosis...and this week I learned something new about both.

Aspergillus is a mold found in most buildings and we find it in outdoor samples too.

Aspergillosis is when the mold infects/grows inside our bodies. Usually this happens for people with weakened immune systems.

This week I learned about Tonsillar Aspergillosis...that is when Aspergillus grows on the Tonsils! There is even s diagnostic code for it!

ICD-10: B44.2. Symptoms, treatment, cases. Tonsillar Aspergillosis: Causes, Symptoms, and Diagnosis Tonsillar aspergillosis is a rare fungal infection t...

04/23/2026

Spring has sprung! As I let my dog out when it was still dark the birds were performing their songs, and waiting for me to put out the food. I love Spring.

This is what I thought about as I saw the task I set for myself to post something on my company page:

The Importance of Controlling Humidity

I had a couple of lengthy discussions with people about how important it is for their particular home to control humidity this week. If you do nothing else, and just control humidity, you still have done something very important. A month ago we weren't thinking much about humidity/Relative Humidity...it was cold, our homes were perhaps TOO dry. Still, I have been in homes and particularly basements in the dead of Winter that had humidity too high. Some were humidifying, and humidified a room, or their whole home too much.

So what is the right level? 35-45% is the Sweet Spot! Mold and Dust mites don't do well below 50%. Most people are comfortable in that range (think Mama Bear in that old story).

How do you know what the humidity is? AcuRite has inexpensive meters you can put on each level and move around. AirThings measures it, and if you read my posts you know how I feel about AirThings.