We are live now um, so, but we'll just we'll call you uh so co-owner is that the uh yeah we had a good time. You know i i was vice president, but a guy bumped me up, so he called me director. I heard that was actually under vice president, so he messed with me a little bit but uh yeah, i'm one of the one of the founders of the company, fair enough cool, so um we're going to talk specifically starting with uv, and then we can maybe talk About some of the other products, but i want to focus on uv to begin with, because that's one that a lot of people are familiar with, there's a lot of confusion about it, um again for anybody who's in chat. Thank you so much for joining us um.

You can ask questions in chat or if you have something that you want to specifically ask when the time comes, you can raise your hand and then i will bring you on and unmute you and then you can actually talk to to ron and i about specific Questions now i i told you this beforehand ron um, our audience is a a lot of technicians and a lot of them who do have questions and they like to ask them. So i'm sure we'll get to that that point here. We will not go over an hour um, we may even be shorter than that, but um, but just to start with, i guess um describe a little bit about fresh air uv. What you all are just so that everybody knows kind of you know the scope of of your business.

Yeah fresh area v was uh founded by myself and chris willett uh. Chris willett worked for uh rgf environmental. He was their director of engineering for almost eight years. Um he actually studied physics and mechanical engineering in college and focused on ozone and uv light technology, so believe it or not.

There was a focus on that back in the early 90s, i'm a degree in engineer as well. Um mechanical based, but i've always been in the sales side of the business, but fresh air uv was founded a little over 18 years ago. We purchased a company named triatomic used to make ozone generators, so we know a lot about ozone. We sold ozone for about 10 years under the tri-atomic brand, but freshgear uv has been involved in uv light, disinfection in air conditioning systems and we've evolved into making carbon based technologies and purity uh filters, as well as led lights, so but residential commercial uh ice machines.

Um well, a lot of these product products have come about from contractors that are with us today, um in the chat room because of their needs and desires and what was requested from the field. So we're we're actually the largest in our sector right now, um with again probably double triple growth over the last eight days. So so it's been a challenge, but um, it's all proven uv based technology is what we're working with. We try not to exaggerate the claims.

Uh as best as we can and try to uh quell some of the uh, the claims made by our our contractor and distributor friends, just don't know enough about the technology. So most of my life is training and educating which um. I appreciate the opportunity to do today with you guys, brian yeah and that's big um, so i uh i met ron at hardy um. We got to talking about uh some shared uh passion, uh, uh topics and uh, and it was a good conversation and that made me turn to you when the time came to have this conversation, which i'm always very careful about these sorts of um conversations, especially publicly And who i have them with, because there is a lot of nuance, there is a lot of salesmanship that goes on to all this and there's nothing wrong with a little marketing.

I mean we all we all market, we all sell to some degree. But what's really important is especially in times like these, that we are completely transparent about what we do and what we don't do and what works and what doesn't work and all that sort of thing. So i want to start with, because you talked about the triatomic part. I want to jump right to the to the ugly here, because you mentioned ozone and ozone is a good example of a um ozone generators.

I guess i'd say is a good example of a product that had utility, but maybe was misapplied or maybe had some challenges associated with it so and that also kind of ties in dovetails into uv a little bit later. So would you mind talking a little bit about that yeah? You know ozone has been around for a long time, especially in air purification, and we got away with it for years, because what it did it would mask other odors so who really loved these products was smokers because it masked the smell of smoke, uh ozone generators In um in flood and fire restoration are a thousand times more ozone than you get out of a portable low joint generator uh that you'd see on a desktop those portable ozone generators. You have to leave the house, they will actually melt the paint on your paintings. They'll screw up your drywall, they will kill every plant in the house.

So when you have toxic amounts of ozone, they're really good for flood and fire restoration. Where you have that that leftover lingering smell, where you can hit it with toxic toxic amounts of uv or ozone, i'm sorry but uh ozone generators, as we see today, are being um, are, are being shunned by different states. California's banned them, uh, new york, spanned them. Canada's banned them you're, seeing a uh, no ozone stamp from ul.

That's now available to a lot of products, because um people have deemed ozone generators as harmful to your health and a lung irritant um, and so that's why companies like ourselves used to make ozone generating uv lights and we've gone away from it to use carbon-based products. But there's still a lot of ozone out in the market and uh it's being sold as as other technology, but in the end, if you put it under an ozone meter, it's a whole lot of ozone yeah and that's the okay. So let's talk a little bit about the challenge with oxidizers in general, so ozone is a um uh, it's an oxidizer, so it does it it it bonds with other matter and that's what makes it so good at reducing odors and all those sorts of things. But studies have shown and the epa's come out and addressed this and there's been, you know, studies you know like the lawrence berkeley study, i think, is what it's called.

I've talked about oxidizers and how they can also impact um the tissues inside your lungs and inside your body, and that sort of thing which it really depends on the oxidizer right i mean different oxidizers behave in different ways, and so what? What would your state? What would your personal stance be, or the stance of your of your company be um as it stands right now, as it relates to specifically ozone? Does it have some role uh? Does it have no role? How does it, how does it fit in the marketplace today? I call people that, like ozone, ozone junkies, they literally want ozone. They want that smell that clean smell they put it in a homeowner's house and that homeowner senses that fresh is a thunderstorm smell um. It's not bothersome to about 20 to 30 percent of the population, but the rest of us really don't care for it um and it gives you headaches and and problems in your lungs etc. So i we have moved away from ozone, generating products um completely and we are using only carbon-based systems for air pollutants.

So um. You know, i don't think ozone's ever going to go away, but the more states that have these requirements of no ozone and now that ul has actually stood up and said, i'm going to be the one to determine. If you have ozone or not, it's not going to be self-tested like it has been for years now that ul stood up. I think you're going to see a lot of states and a lot of distributors and contractors not offering ozone or oxidizer based technologies in the future fair enough.

So let's talk about your shift in in uv, so there is there's a type of uv that produces ozone. There's a type that doesn't talk a little bit about that yeah, the light spectrum is really cool and i really recommend just go on any website. Look up the light spectrum light spectrum uh is anywhere from infrared to ultraviolet and visible spectrums microwave. You can do so much cool stuff with with the uv spectrum we're focused actually on the germicidal uvc spectrum, now the uvc spectrum peaks at 254 nanometers of light, which is a very small frequency, so um when we peak at 185 nanometers of light, we actually get To ozo the ozone spectrum now you'll actually smell ozone coming off of a light source, so it's pretty cool.

We can generate that, but you know that's why, when you see a lamp that they say is a uvc lamp it'll be 254.. If it's an ultraviolet lamp, then it can be anywhere from 185 to 400 because that's where the uv spectrum rolls from um and even lower, but we don't really mess with anything lower than that. But yeah you'll see that the uv spectrum, just beyond the violet light, the violet color and a rainbow, is where we're playing around with these lamps got it yeah and i've put up. I need to give nate adams credit, because i put up one of his slides from his recent presentation that he did with retrotech um.

That shows this exact thing that you're talking about the uh, these spectrums um, so i'll kind of reference. Some of these i'll just show them on screen as you're talking if it applies um. So so we are looking in that uvc spectrum um it's a little bit a little bit shorter wave in order to make sure that we're not producing uv um. Now, let's talk a little bit about where uv does really good and maybe where it has some limitations yeah.

You know when we first started this uh gig in 2002, really the biggest player was honeywell and honeywell advertised 87 airstream kill. Well. If you look at the study, which is what i tell people to do all the time you look at the study, what they did is they tested the weakest bacterium on the planet and they did it at one cubic feet per minute. So literally, they had a boatload of time to disinfect this very weak microbial so um when people started to say, what's your airstream kill, what's your airstream kill, i wanted to punch every honeywell guy in the face um.

I didn't so sorry ron's a big guy, so that would hurt - and i didn't and actually weirdly enough - we actually make the honeywell airbright for them now so uh easy, easy, easy, yeah, easy easy, but uh yeah, but um yeah. That 87 airstream kill was something that i constantly had to battle and that's when you have to educate people that uvc light takes time or intensity and actually, if you have more time, he needs less intensity. If you have less time, you need more intensity. So um, that's why you know if you take a regular stick light as we call them and stick it into a coil and drain pan.

It has unlimited time to keep those two things clean and disinfected. So that's the perfect um that that's the perfect means for that product. But if you're looking for airstream kill like i want to kill everything in the air and you're a homeowner, you may have to stick in 50 of those lights at the same time. So um.

That's the struggle uh with with uvs, is to have everyone understand the technology and um and how it works. So yeah proximity is also big, so you talk about how much time does it have and then what what proximity does it have to the thing that you're irradiating and so do you um? You know i've read your i've read your literature. It seems like you're, pretty careful with the claims which i do appreciate, um as it relates to specifically uv, so we're not getting into um. You know pco style products right now, just just as it relates to uv.

Do you see it as being more about uh irradiating surfaces, uh versus airstream, or do you still look at it as as being both you know, it really depends on your application. So when people say i'd like to kill everything in the air, we actually have them fill out a um, a form online, and it asks for the duck size that asks for the flow rates. It also asks for the critical microbial that they're trying to sterilize, because that is all over the map. You can get a weak microbial like maricenz, like what honeywell did at just a couple thousand microwatts per centimeter squared per second up to.

Instead of a couple thousand, you get up to 330 000 for aspergillus , uh black mold in the air. So um talk about 2, 000 up to 330 000. You imagine if you're able to kill one well, you're, not able to kill the other. Unless you have another, you know couple couple hundred lamps, so um we do ask people to uh, give us their requirements.

People ask for 90 airstream kill versus 99 airstream kill, so they want to kill it 90 of the time it goes by and again 90 is. Is a lot of lamps 99 is probably another double or triple lamps. So if we're talking about commercial lamps, we can actually grow the output of a commercial light substantially make it a high output put in a highly reflective chamber or in in the duct to make that highly reflective and run those lights parallel to the airstream. Well now i can start to achieve uh close to a 90 kill rate of a specific microbial, probably not black mold, because again, that's the hardest one to kill at 330 000 microwatts.

But if you're talking about influenza or like the topic of the day, um uh sars covid uh 19, then yeah. Those are easier microbials to radiate. If they're in the plenum, if they're in the airstream, we can size it to sterilize them, and i think it's important, you know when you're talking in terms of viruses, i'm in the midst of writing this sort of like soup, to nuts guide for contractors about what We know about covid, and a lot of it has to just do with practices practical practices to keep uh technicians safe, but one thing that i think people often get confused is that some of the things we're talking about some of the microbes are really alive. You know fungus bacteria.

Everybody would agree that those are alive or viruses, they're really just kind of a packet, and that contains some genetic material and so you're, really just neutralizing them more than you are killing them because they weren't really alive to begin with, which doesn't matter a lot. Probably for this discussion, but i think it is pertinent uh in in terms of what terms we use and it's also pertinent in terms of how we think about viruses versus the other two. And so i wonder if you would comment on that, because i think one of the really big things that relates to uv - and you know - and maybe your answer to this - won't be so great for business. But i think you've got plenty of business as it is already right now is you know, viruses don't grow on the coil uh in the way, especially that fungus does uh molds.

Do that sort of thing, and so is it really going to be helpful for us to use kind of our traditional residential style, uv light to a radiate, an evaporator coil? If really are we gon na have uh many viruses in there to begin with anyway? What are your thoughts on that yeah? No, i agree a thousand percent, what you said and um. You know i really combat some of the other players in the market that claim that they're killing this virus, because in the end, um we're not going to see this virus in the airstream. At least that's what everyone's telling us at this point that this is uh spread. You know human to human contact and uh.

You know on surfaces which is in no way in the airstream. Now, if you look online, is covet 19 airstream you're going to get some people saying it is some people saying it isn't, but you know no one. The cdc has not said it is so, therefore we will not affect it in the airstream in the central air system of your home, where you know we promote our technology. As for the day-to-day usage of your home, whether we have a pandemic or not that we're creating a healthier environment because, like you said, mold and bacteria, can grow on the coil and that's what we're really combating.

We want to create the healthy lungs of your home by keeping those uv lights, irradiating that coil and drain pan 24 7. yeah, and i'm glad that you, it's really important to me that you engage with that question, because that is a really big thing. Right now is this idea of people saying that um we're preventing the virus from growing on your coil using a uv light and that sort of conversation is happening, and i think that's just patently incorrect and in the first place it's unlikely based on what we know About kovid, 19 or sars that it's likely going to make it to the evaporator coil anyway, but if it does and it could in certain circumstances - certainly it's not like it's gon na get in there and then propagate as it as it sits on that evaporative coil. So i just want to say that again to everybody um, it's good to have these conversations because we're talking about generally good practices covering you know, soup to nuts the whole thing here, but i think we uh - we don't want to oversell products to customers, giving them False hope, even though in some cases the placebo effects may actually help them a little bit and that's always i'm always kind of conflicted on that um.

We want to be really careful that we tell people the truth about what these products can and can't do. Yeah. I'm conflicted as well, sometimes because i i don't suffer from asthma and allergies. I like the product in my home because my coil and drain pans staying clean, say, stay clean here in florida and i don't have to worry about a build-up of growth and it runs more efficiently and my drain pan doesn't get clogged, but you know i have Many many family and friends and customers that have said you know, i know exactly when the lights, starting to lose its effectiveness.

And then i want another one. So um you're absolutely right. It's basically just trying to create a healthier environment, and you know, if you guys, as as contractors and distributors and all of our hvac friends um, just just don't exaggerate. The claims of these products just say: hey we're going to create a healthier environment within your air conditioning system and um.

Does this kill mold and bacteria and viruses? Yes, but again it has to enter the central air unit, got it um, so so vince uh had raised his hand, and he specifically asked that question. He he asked it in this way. He says: does fresh air offer a light that will kill covid19 at a high rate in a residential system and and the face of it? We already kind of answered um that question, but i want. I want to ask it again because a consumer asks that to a technician.

How would you answer that question in maybe a holistic way yeah, you know we are actually running around a little portable device, a whole bunch of uv lights on a push, cart and we are radiating each room in the building every other day, because we do want To keep our employees healthy and you know we are an essential business like you guys so we're having to keep our staff working but um. The only way to effectively kill microbials on surfaces with uv is to roll a uv light into the room. Yep. Absolutely all right, so i've got some people uh raising their hands.

Now i'm gon na allow some of them to uh, come in and ask their questions um, so uh i've on i've. Uh, let's see joel, did you have a question? I'm gon na go ahead and unmute you you there joel, that's the problem with this hand, raising thing i don't know who actually is still ready to ask a question: vince, i'm gon na go ahead and unmute a few of you here. If any of you have questions, just go ahead and unmute yourselves, and you can ask your question anyway. So the next question that i wanted to ask you um is relating to that intensity of the bulb, because i think a lot of people um and i used to say this.

I said this for years. I said if the if the bulb has, if the light is on um, is it working and it seems like the more i learn about this? They actually do. Drop in intensity become less effective, even though they are still lit. Yeah uvc lights are actually very similar to fluorescent light fixtures.

Above you know your heads in some of your buildings. They start to lose their intensity and all of a sudden you see they start to kind of go black or brown on the ends, and then you realize hey, i don't have as much light. Then you replace it and you go wow. I didn't really.

I didn't remember i left my you know my stapler over there in the corner, because i couldn't see it so um uvc lights are just like fluorescents, where, after a year or two or even three in some models, you start to lose 60 percent of your effectiveness Of uv, and then it starts to drop off to nothing. So within an extra year you've got zero output. Then you just have a blue light, which god, god decided. It was blue um.

When we illuminated our lights with uvc, we get a visible light. Spectrum of blue as a byproduct got it okay, so the visible light spectrum doesn't necessarily tell you anything about the intensity of the of the lamp as far as irradiating correct. So it's kind of like an oil change. I tell people on contractors to inform their homeowners.

You don't test your oil every time you get it changed. You just change it based on the manufacturer's recommendation and i say the same thing with uv. If we tell you that it's a two year light or a three year light or a one year light just let your homeowner know that yeah their intensity is going to drop off and it's time to replace it. Absolutely um, let's see here so juan said, um uh - has the cdc, given any iaq manufacturer, coveted 19 samples to test against um.

I heard that earlier today and that cracked me up and uh. I don't know if i'm allowed to swear so i won't okay, good call, um. That is complete and total. You know um, it's there's no chance that a a company like ours is going to get a sample of a pandemic virus anytime soon um.

The government is obviously taking extreme precautions. It's almost like getting a sample of ebola back when um they're not going to just be spreading this around saying here, here's a cup of ebola. Why don't you test it out? So anyone telling you this please laugh in their face. Um they're not too closely in their face, though, because you might give them covid right, be six feet away, yeah right exactly, but uh yeah, there's no chance um! You know uh! That made me laugh and chuckle, but uh that i'll leave it at that got it right, we're getting a lot of uh we're getting a lot of questions in here now um.

So one question that i liked was how far away from the coil can a uv light be effective and i guess we're just gon na say kind of your basic standard, uh residential uv, light um. You know the blue uh. The blue stick type uv light that you guys uh offer generally. How far away do you recommend that yeah you so when we um when we provide a stick light, our actual light and all the manufacturers are between about 50 and 150 microwatts of energy on their lights? You only actually need two microwatts to kill anything.

If you have unlimited time so again, intensity and time are your critical factors. So, if you've got a limited time, you only need two microwatts so based on some of our lamps, whether they're 40 or 100. Um, though, that amount of microwatt at three at three feet away or basically a meter away, is you have that much intensity? So if i've got even as low as 45 microwatts at one meter and again, i only need two um. You can be a meter away.

Now, when you go through a coil every time, uvc light you lose about refracts off of a surface, you lose about 50 percent of its intensity. So if you can imagine bouncing through a coil, uh you're going to lose intensity, so we tell people be within 12 inches of the ac coil and you'll get through to the other side. Now, if they're real tall, five ton units where the coils up to my you know above my hip uh from the floor, we recommend likely two lights because you've got a bigger surface area to sterilize so but um, no sorry, dick, worse who's. Actually, a one of my good friends and an author of a really great book about air conditioning refrigeration asks would mirrors and the ductwork slash plenum increase effectiveness of the uv light as it regards the airstream.

And actually the answer is yes, but you don't have to worry about putting mirrors in there and breakage. So you can use really any highly polished surface, so aluminum stainless steel for a while a lot of manufacturers off offered that dimpled dimpled look just so you'd have more more refraction off the surface. All of those are great ideas, even coil, uh or i'm sorry, foil, backed insulation is really good uh if you're in a air handler so yeah. Anything that just makes it bounce is is great.

So one question is uh: will the uv light damage a plastic drain? Pan or an ac coil, and i will add, um what about wiring things like that inside an air handler. What are your suggestions there? Um? You know we always have told contractors if we ever destroy a drain, pan we'll pay for it and uh i've never had anyone. Uh come back to us now there are higher microwatt uv lights where they say. Don't put this in the coil.

Put this in the plenum um, the problem with those is you're actually not getting that much more microwatt per centimeter squared, so you've actually um. You know you've ruined the opportunity by buying those products of actually treating the coil and drain pan now you're, just after airstream, disinfection and again, if you're only 150 microwatts versus 50. You can't be in the coil and drain pan now you're in the plenum, but at 150 microwatts you're still not able to track down really any microbial on a flyby kill so again, um yeah. I i recommend anybody who shows their lights in a coil and drain pan.

Those are the lights you want to use, ideally in that application. So one um shannon has asked a couple times here, um to confirm what you explained, because kovid is not airborne. Is it not right or accurate to market products right now claiming it will kill covet 19.? And i want to answer that first, which is that um? I don't think anybody's saying it's not airborne, it is carried by air and it can be. Uh can become an aerosol when you sneeze or cough, or that sort of thing it's.

So it's not that it's impossible that it would get on a coil. It's just less likely that it's going to be in an airstream um based on some testing. That's been done and all of the testing by the way is very preliminary. There's there's really not any peer-reviewed tests on this, because it's just so new and i've been doing a lot of research on that, but i'll.

Let you answer that question as well ron. No i've researched it as well, and i have not found any authority saying that this will enter into your central air system and duct work. So the question i guess is um: is it ethical or is it unethical then to say that it does kill covid19 um? I would say that yes, uh, saying uv uvc lights in your ductwork kill, covered 19 is uh, is making a false claim, got it and a lot of that and a lot of that is because we just haven't tested things on kovid 19 right now correct. Well, it's it's even more that it's not in your air system and on your coil and drain pan, like you said um, you know if i had a uv light in a room for sure, i'm these this little pushcart uv system that we put together that there Are there are brands on the market already that are in hospital rooms all the time getting pushed around from hospital room to hospital? Those absolutely will kill.

Covet 19 they'll kill every microbial in a hospital room and they're very, very effective. So you know we can here in our office, kill covid19 on surfaces with our uv light, but again it's because it's on a push cart, not in our air conditioning system, so you're controlling the intensity of the uv and the velocity of the air stream. Correct um. For our uh push cart one we're actually doing it at night.

The guy plugs the unit in he pushes the cart into a room and he walks away for 30 seconds. He irradiates the whole room with high output uv for 30 seconds, and he knows that that room is sterilized on wherever the light shined without shadows. That's the other trick to it so um. But those are those are products we do not make, but we understand them.

Um and again, we we've made our own for this present situation, but it really has to do more with the reason why uv-c lights with uh air conditioning contractors, uh that that that are offered will not be effective against covet 19 is because kovid 19 has not Been proven to be in your central air system, got it got it right, so it's more about. Is it even there? In the first place, got it um, your audio just went kind of quiet um. Let's see one of the questions was about led led uv. We were always told that you couldn't do it and now people are doing it, and so what's up with that and does it work yeah so led is really cool um and i think you're going to see more and more led technologies coming coming across your desk And new products coming out we've been working with led manufacturers.

Our whole industry has been working with led guys for probably the last 10 years, but until recently they haven't been very interested because their business was really really really good in just lighting applications. So but they've started to develop, led lights at a uva violet spectrum, so now you're not seeing a blue light you're seeing a purple violet light coming off of these lights. Now it's a different spectrum of light. It's closer to the 400 nanometer spectrum, which is uva and right on the visible light spectrum.

It actually gives microbials too much nutrients, so they can't survive. So it's kind of like way too much pepperoni pizza and all of a sudden you're dead. So i don't know if that's possible, but it's a bad analogy, but uh it was a rough analogy. I'm i'm not gon na lie.

Yeah it was it was. I haven't, come up with a better one, but um all right, fair enough. I can use some help if the group wants to make any suggestions, i can see them, but um yeah, so uh it. It gives it basically over over nutrients.

These microbials, the great application that we've been able to use utilize it effectively, is in mini splits because um just to keep that blower wheel clean because it's constantly getting uh dirty uh with with mold and bacteria slime. That's a great application. It only works out to a few inches at this point, so you're not getting that three feet of uv disinfection: you get with uvc lights, so we're applying them in ice machines and in p-tacks and a couple other places. Those are great because they'll last you know five to seven years for those lights so but right now they don't have enough intensity for central air, so we're not applying them yet.

I know some people are applying them with carbon um. We're not utilizing that technology at this point we just haven't, found it to be effective, yet got it yeah. So i'm gon na allow um, nathan, rothenberg and michael house both of you, i'm gon na unmute you and allow you to talk if uh. These are two guys i know, have a lot of a lot of good questions.

So nathan, it looks like your mic is live. You have a question hi brian, thank you. So i um. I have a friend that has a big company up here, not in florida and he's giving out all his workers, these handheld uvc lamps and he's telling them.

When you go to a customer's house, you should, like you know, shine it on everything before you touch it, and you should clean all your tools before and after you go in the house with this handheld uv. So you start to talk about the timing and the intensity. I'm just uh, i'm trying to get as smart as brian we're, not we're not even close. So if you could fill me in a little bit, is that a total waste of time? Is it a theory? You know you know: they've been using uv lights for in dental applications for a long time and radiating the tools that they use before they take your before.

They perform a root canal. They've been using uv for in barber shops for years to irradiate the combs and brushes that go on your hair. So there is a great application for handheld uv. You know the problem with it is you can disinfect this surface that surface the next surface, but then, as soon as you touch something else, it's not irradiated or the underside of a chair, rail um.

Now you know you've gotten all the microbials that are under there. That have not been affected with uv, so um there's definitely limitations to it. But you know the skymall directory on the airplane that they used to have. It seems like they went away, but there were four or five uv applications.

One was a little ladies handheld. Our little ladies compact mirror, i thought it was for ugly and disgusting guys at the bar, but really what it was for was for keyboards and door handles and such like that. So if you give those enough a radiance time, you know, i think it was either 30 to 60 seconds. You will disinfect um that particular surface.

So are they good yeah? But you know they're, not a hundred percent and chances are you're going to touch something that you didn't irradiate properly. Well, what might think in the service industry we got to go do service if you could get the calls these days and we're trying to stay alive, and i just thought for tools it got me really excited. I mean. How do you sit there, wiping down every single tool you bring into the house if you could kind of the way this guy was saying just like you know, you know slowly wave this wand of uvc over your tools.

Um. Is there any credit to that or like you're, i mean you're concerned about missing something. Let's say we don't miss it, i'm more concerned about how long you have to hold it, then. Is it the right intensity? Yeah, i'm not, i'm not comfortable.

I mean again. I could do it once a day, but i'm not gon na do it before and after every service call. I got a whole bag of tools. You know we want right, i'm in new jersey, we're highly infested and yeah.

Is it another level that if, if take the layman, the layman technician he's a great technician he's going to the house, he's suiting up he's messed up, but now he wants to another layer. Does that at all make any sense to you? No, it does and you know, they've been uh. We've even made our own here uh over the years, little uv chambers. You know you put your tools in a uv chamber, you close the door like a microwave and you run it for 10.

You know 10 seconds or a minute, depending on the size of the chamber, and you're absolutely kill everything on those tools. So could you give us so for the layman that doesn't understand anything? If i want to build a chamber - and i want to what do i have to know to make sure i'm using the right technology, always as long as it's uvc - i'm good yeah as long as it's uvc, you're good, so any uvc product will work for that Application - and you know just put it in a chamber - that's metal uh, because uvc will break down some cheap white plastics, which is what we don't use in a drain pan anymore. That's why i made that comment earlier, but um so yeah, just put it in a highly polished, metal box and uh. Probably 60 seconds is plenty, but it might be a lot less than that.

It all depends on the on the output of the light cool. All right well, thank you so much, i'm really enjoying it brian catch you later, thanks, hey thanks! Thanks nathan, appreciate you buddy um michael. Did you have a question yeah? I wanted to ask uh what applications would uv lights be useful for where what we call the holy trinity, which is filtration, controlling humidity and ventilation, would not be the first suggestions. I i like all those first three, a lot so uv, just added to that will will go after the microbials uh that the filters can't handle because of pressure, drop issues and other issues with filtration so um.

You know i love, i love to add uv for disinfection. I love to add carbon for odor neutralization, but um. You know your holy trinity is is still intact would uh. So i guess to follow that up.

If um a lot of times, we deal with customers who likely don't have fresh air um, they have poor, filtration and possibly humidity control issues. Would it be fair to say that um they should likely focus their budget on some of those first before uv or not? The reason why i'm in business is because they're not focusing on those first three, so if they have those first three, they probably don't have mold and bacteria in their coils. They probably don't have odors that are just keep lingering in their home that never never exit. So i agree with you: a thousand percent.

We are a band-aid because there's a problem and it's because um they haven't satisfied the holy trinity. I think that's an answer that most people um who listen to what we do like yeah, we're having some connectivity issues. I don't know how much of it is me and how much of it is others. I told my kids do not go on disney plus, while i'm doing this live stream, but they don't listen.

You know they just don't. Listen they're, kids, this shelter in place stuff is bullcrap. Let me tell you right now, um, so yeah, that's great! The one question that's getting asked that i haven't asked yet, and this is where it starts to we'll see how this goes. Um.

Somebody asked the question about hydroxyls um. Obviously you have a product that does uh produce hydroxyls. It also uses carbon. So talk a little bit about what your relationship is with hydroxyl pco uh type products yeah.

You know my my partner's background goes back to way in time back in the 90s when he was using oxidizers and ozone to actually for food products to help with the shelf life of shellfish is where a lot of these products came up that i see on The ticker tape over here people are talking about that's the background. Um. A lot of the studies that were done on those products were by food, guys, um. The kansas state study that was is referred to all the time by a lot of different manufacturers was for food.

It used ozone, uh, ozone, ozone, ozone, ozone and again, no humans were in that space, so it was uh. It was effective at extending the shelf life. A lot of guys don't use it anymore in that technology, because it uh actually ruined the taste, so um yeah, the ozone uh had had more of an effect than than they needed. You know with hydroxyl radicals like that gets misplaced with ozone a lot.

In a conversation, hydroxyl radicals, don't they last milliseconds you'll, never smell a hydroxyl radical um. When we generate hydroxyl radicals with the titanium dioxide and the uvc light that we use those last milliseconds, they are highly radical. That's why they call them radicals and what they do is they bond to chemicals primarily and when they bond to chemicals they neutralize them and they transform them into microscopic water, vapor and co2. So when you talk about hydro, hydroxyl radicals you're, some something that lasts a very short time and ha can have a a really, not good effect.

If it has enough time with that specific chemical, if it doesn't have enough time with that chemical, it actually can make it into a worse chemical and there's studies on that as well too, and i'm you know, hey, i'm, i'm a sales guy for a indoor air Quality company, so i encourage everyone to look this stuff up and find their own studies to refer to, but um yeah hydroxyl radicals are very, very effective and we use them in our apco technology, all right so um. One of the guys here uh is a is actually several are really not a fan of uh any sort of pco being used, and i think you answered one of the questions which is is good to get out there, which is that it is highly unstable and So it's not like uh o3 or even maybe some of the peroxides, where it's going to end up in the space. It's really going to just stay where it is mostly um. But then the couple questions that i have is: what do you do to prevent incomplete degradation, because that's the term that gets thrown a lot around a lot? We don't want to create um these other nasty chemicals uh when we, when it reacts with vocs that maybe we didn't expect - or maybe we didn't test for um.

I i don't know if you're familiar with the um, the studies that richard corsi did with the homechem study, he's a big um he's, not a fan of hydroxyl radicals because of some of some of what they can create. So what are some of your thoughts on that as it relates to the products that you all make yeah, and i think that study is a good explanation of where ozone crosses into hydroxyl radicals and the ones labeled as the other, because you know no one cannot Be a fan of hydroxyl radicals just because they last such a short time and i'm keeping them away from human. It's the ozone based technology, that's used in conjunction with it in some applications that becomes the real problem, so um so yeah. I we utilize carbon to absorb chemicals and odors, so i can hold on to it long enough for it to have the proper neutralization from the process.

If i don't hold on to it long enough, then that's when i get incomplete, uh degradation and then i potentially get worse aldehydes, which are more harmful than the ones that came into the system. So the activated carbon is key and that's my little commercial, i guess is we've been doing it for you know, 12 years now we just came out with the 10-year model. That's uh has more carbon in it, but really the key to that technology is the carbon. I hold it long enough for those very short-lived hydroxyl radicals to do their business all over that carbon cell 24 7, but it doesn't leave that carbon cell.

We don't have anything coming off of the system. Okay, so the i'm going to ask you a battery of questions that are the unfun ones, and this is - and here they come so the first one is um. Why is there i'll just ask it this way? Why is there so little independent testing um as it relates to specifically uh pco technology, because that's what we're that's, what we're talking about versions of photocatalytic oxidation and i would even throw some people in there who say they're creating other ions. This is one of my.

This is sort of like one of my pet peeves. Pco is photocatalytic oxidation, so you're using light with a catalyst in order to create oxidizers, which essentially everybody's doing some version, not everybody but doing some version of that, and it's become a dirty word that people stay away from. I don't think it is a dirty word, but there is this challenge where the epa doesn't have any test standard and nobody has any consistency in in third third-party testing. What are your thoughts on that? Because that's that's this whole battery of next questions go play into that testing.

Question yeah we've been hoping forever to have ashrae come out with a standard using an ashrae 52.2 test rig, which we ended up having our own. Now we bought one. We have it in our facility. We had hoped that they would establish a standard, so you would have a battery of tests that you would have to perform against a common microbial or chemical, and you would determine how effective your product wasn't.

You know get it close to what merv was. There was originally an ultraviolet rating value and irv rating that ashrae proposed, and it never went anywhere. That was about back in 0.607. So unfortunately, yes, they're all independent studies, but they're paid for by guys like me.

So if i want to have a study, i call a college and say: hey: can you study my product and they go? What do you want the results to be? Sadly, but true, so i determine the flow rate. There's a couple products on the market. They literally did their study in a cube with no airflow and they say we're up to 99 kill. Well, there's no airflow, but again that's not required so yeah.

I think you're gon na see the wild wild west of indoor air quality, probably for another five. Ten years um, maybe with this recent uh uh pandemic, we'll see more people concerned about indoor equality and more government agencies stepping up to make sure that you're getting what you paid for and you're, not getting something. That is an oxidizer. That is ozone because that's the other thing pco is a negative word, because people think of the oxidizer as ozone and it can be a short lived oxidizer or an oxidizer that lasts 20 minutes in your home, like ozone does so yeah again it's uh yeah.

Just we just have to do uh. We just have to do a better job or hope that a government agency is going to come through and and and and clear. The message for everyone - and i think, also as sensor technologies, get better and better consumers are going to be able to see this actually on a readout somewhere. That tells them where they stand, which i think is a good thing.

One of the questions that nathan had was is uvc dangerous to the iron skin. I'm gon na go ahead and say yes, because i've been uh blinded by the light, so to speak myself but i'll. Let you answer that one yeah! No, you have, and you know i ask people in a training, who's, uh who's who thinks uv light works personally and um. They all yep the people who raise their hand yeah.

It doesn't take more than about five seconds, and i always warn people, don't uh. Don't think it's 30 or 60 seconds, no matter what you read, think of it as five seconds so as soon as you turn it on you turn it off to test it, but yeah you should wear proper eye protection, which is any plastic lens. Will work keep uvc out, but um your skin? It only takes a little more time to start to to give you a skin rash and you basically get sun poisoning, so yeah keep clear of uvc for humans uh one question um i'll answer and just see if you have any. If you want to add anything or take anything away, it says so, if you run your fan all the time and people sneeze and cough it does go through the air stream and kill the virus.

Or am i missing something? If i understand correctly, it does not kill what is on the surface and i think you're getting that backwards. First off we're talking specifically about covid19 the sars virus um. The studies show that it's very unlikely to end up all the way in your return and then making it into your um evaporative coil in the first place. So that's thing one and then thing two uv traditional uv is gon na, do a much better job or it's gon na it's gon na be much easier for it to irradiate, to kill to neutralize microbial um life of any sort, whether it's viral and that's always That you know is a virus alive or not thing, but it's going to be more likely to neutralize on a surface than it is in the airstream.

It's just much easier for it to do. That is that uh. Is that a correct answer? What would you add to that? That's right and again you can size for airstream, disinfection and there's companies. You guys probably never heard of like sterile air and uvdi and uv resources.

Um, you may have uh. You may have brian because you've been in this wall, but they only do commercial, they don't do residential and they focus on airstream disinfection. They um. They have products that get wheeled into hospital facilities to disinfect on a timely manner.

So um you can get as scientific with this technology as you'd like to and and there is an opportunity to kill microbials in airstream. You just have to um to work with the manufacturer that it's sized correctly um for that. For that application, we've got a couple. Other good questions at some point: i'm gon na have to cut this off because the questions are all great um.

So this is a good one. It's just a general one. John says what is the best product for covid19 in a residential central ac system for a customer's home? So from your perspective, what's the advice you give somebody who's afraid they want to do something to protect themselves from uh, kovid19, okay, uh bleach, sorry, um, gargle it or or no. I would just apply it to surfaces.

Wash your hands um it. It does. Uh get me a little ticked off when i see uh manufacturers saying their products kill stuff on surfaces when they're mounted in your ductwork. That's just not true, and i always tell people ask for the data.

As for the original study, you'll see that it was probably done in a cube which there's a lot of. I see some products flowing up and down your your chat room uh. Those products were all tested in a cube or they were inches away from the microbial. They were testing again so when they say their product killed stuff on surfaces asked for the original study um from the university and you'll see that it clearly states that there's no air flow, so yeah bleach is my go-to.

You know when we had mold under the sink. I ripped out all the drywall. I bleached everything i didn't irradiate with uv. I put uv in my ductwork to keep my coil and drain pan clean and to handle you know odors when it came across my apcos.

So it sounds to me like your strategy, that what you believe in based on what you're building is a combination of traditional uv um. Some hydroxyls in combination with carbon is that is that right, yeah they're, saying something there nope that's perfectly stated yep. We my business partner chris willett, who uh designed and engineered all of our stuff um he's uh he's with my little brainiac but um. He just basically combined the chocolate and peanut butter as he calls it by applying carbon with uv and really what the hydroxyl radicals do for us, or the the p and or the c and pco the catalyst is to regenerate the carbon.

That's his whole purpose. You know we're not, after anything more than having that carbon cell last forever. So that's exactly uh right, it's the uv combined with the carbon and we use the catalyst to regenerate the carbon. Now i imagine with your um with your device um, there is going to be some pressure drop across it when it's mounted into a supply, duct right, um, you know what uh it's negligible.

It's really negligible. We've never really had any problem with uh with our technology and and flow rates matter of fact, you know if you, if you treat a coil and drain pan with uvc 24 7 you'll, actually keep it running at its peak operating efficiency, so um, there's yeah. There's. Definitely no drawbacks to uh to airflow, so caleb's asking um.

He he wants the specific answer so has it been measured? Have you looked at or rated uh the the pressure drop in the supply, duct um for your uh pco product? We have yeah for many uh for many years, we've had it tested, even if we change the technology at all, so uh we're about a point: zero one in pressure drop but yeah, it's very low. You can actually see through our cells, visibly see through them. So um yeah, we were always worried, maybe about some whistling and such like that. But even the new apco x, with more cells is still full flow, so so yeah we're not we're not restrictive got it.

Um kenneth asks: where does the fear of producing formaldehyde and benzene come from in regards to uv pco? Is this a real concern that we should consider? You know a lot of the some there's one pco study that went around everybody? It was actually the the the facility that manufactures titanium dioxide um, so it's kind of like walking into a bleach facility. You know yeah, those are kind of scary. You got to be careful but um. You know what what most companies are applying is just trace.

Amounts of this catalyst and therefore you're not going to have um, have any titanium dioxide falling into your air space or creating additional formaldehydes or benzene toluene ethylene xylene, which actually comes from gasoline so btex. So i don't know where the benzene came in from, but it is kind of funny that we end up talking about all these chemicals of which most of them aren't in your home anyway, but formaldehyde's a real one um, if you don't properly neutralize uh formaldehyde, which Is considered a long chain voc, then you're actually going to make it worse into a worse aldehyde and now you've got something that really can affect your uh affect your environment, so um, but yeah. You know i there's just a couple products that you just have to be careful. Are you absorbing these chemicals long enough to properly neutralize them? And again, that's where you look for the study, um and and that's what we tried to do is is go to an ashrae 52.2 lab and have it tested, so they could show the actual breakdown of those of those uh chemicals.

So, but that's where that probably question comes from brian, do you have those, do you have those tests um or do you have more in the works yeah? No, we have uh. We have those tests from aramid, which is probably back from 2011, so uh. We have our new uh apgo x, being tested as well, but we're fortunate enough to have our own ashrae 52.2 test rig now.