All right, so hey thanks for joining me. I'm gon na go ahead and record this as well. Just in case we lose it elsewise else. Why says Edward I'm Brian? This is HVAC school, livestream, video and I'm glad to have you here.

It's a great honor that you would spend this time with us here on Saturday. Anybody who's out there hey tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us a little bit about what you do in the chat. Introduce yourself to the group feel free to have side conversations: that's how this goes: we're a team or a team here at HVAC school.

So any we're gon na talk a little bit about what we've learned about Kovac 19. I'm gon na rip through this presentation, real, quick, hopefully it'll, bring up some questions that we can help answer. Those of you can help answer each other chat whatever this is informal, just a bunch of nerdy HVAC, our friends hanging out on a Saturday talking about the disaster that is currently just kidding just kidding all right here we go. Let's do so.

This organ talk about kovat 19, aiming important note, I'm not a doctor, and so anything I say here, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a microbiologist, I'm not an epidemiologist, I'm not a industrial hygienist. I've learned that those are all actual jobs that people do. I don't know what they all hurt, but I have talked to a few of these people and that's where some of this comes from, but isn't you know in general, follow what the professionals say not me. Yes, I have to say that somebody told to loose the music.

That's a good point. I forgot about the music, so we're gon na lose that there's that better sorry about the music, my bad anyway, hopefully you didn't miss all of the amazing things that I just said because of the music that was playing over me here, we go. Who are we so when I say we, I have to be clear about who we is HVAC school as a training thing that we do with the podcasts and videos and tech tips and all that it's it's. I myself and I have a few people who help me most closely, which would be Caleb's.

The levee is doing some of the writing and research and things as well, some of the videos and then Burt testerman. Also, you all know him from Bert life. He does some of the videos, it doesn't do any writing, it does do some videos and - and then obviously, if you listen to the podcast, you kind of know how this goes. There's a community of folks who do what we do.

Let's see here, some people are saying they lost the stream. Let's check huh, not sure why you would have lost the stream hmm yeah, so I'm not sure Google is acting. Really weird right now actually YouTube itself, because my my date is pretty strong here and I've got all the kids off and it's showing my stream is healthy, so see here. One second see if I can give me one second I'll, be right back all right.

So hopefully that might help we'll see. I don't know. Let me know if you can hear me. I changed my my output bitrate, it's a fancy tech talk for something I don't understand, but I just do things that I'm told alright.

So you can hear me fine, good, good, good, good, okay. So anyway, that's who we are, but when I talk about when I say we a lot of times, I'm talking about chalo services and kalos services is the contracting business and one of the people. I work closely with is the guy in the picture here who's my wife's brother Jesse, my wife's brother Tyler also works with us. Burt is my brother-in-law, my sister's husband, my brother works with me.

Lots of family members so but jesse is one of the people who I work with a lot and a lot of what I talk about in the podcast and on these videos is residential stuff jesse is the residential GM. So a lot of what we do at kalos - he has a big say in and and also is just a big part of making that all work and happen. So I was have to recognize him and some of what we're gon na talk about today applies to that yeah boy. Daniel asks are you ever gon na expand beyond Florida, and the answer to that is yes, we already have.

We actually have a Georgia and South Carolina license. Caleb lives in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina only only really commercial. We may do some kind of high-end residential, consulting work outside of Florida, but we have some commercial customers. We work in grocery working convenience.

We work in self storage, and so I was actually checking on some jobs out of state just recently that we were doing so anyway. Yes, yes, we do. We do some other southeastern states. Okay, so that's who we are, but let's talk about respiratory contaminants, it's important that you recognize that these things are all different and because, when technicians talk about IAQ and and again so this is when we talk about Co.

Vyd, specifically, we have to get our heads around the idea that you know viruses are different than other things and there you can't just take them in love them all to the same big bucket. So pollen dander dust, mites, mold and fungus, pretty big particles - and they are a big concern - they're trigger of you - know: asthma and allergies and all those sorts of things. So they matter and our our actual normal filters that we use do a pretty good job of catching those. You know Merv eights pleated.

You know your typical air conditioning filters, but when you start to get to bacteria funguses VOCs which are vey perc, Emma khals carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, ozone, normal filters that we're used to using 1-inch stuff isn't gon na cut it. And so we have to know the difference between these. The size of them makes a really big difference, since is something we talk. A lot about is pm10, which are bigger particles, particles that are 10 microns in size in between 10 microns in size and 2.5 microns.

In size and PM 2.5, which is really small, stuff, 2.5 microns and smaller, and actually the real bad stuff like viruses, are sub 1, micron, okay, so and there's a boring stuff, but this is important when you start to try to understand how to solve these problems. Alright, so things to measure - and I'm just going to show you this right here - this is the one of the measurement tools that I'm testing. This is the temp op. What is it it's? The M mm see Tim top M mm see, and this is actually a pretty good tool once it warms up here.

I'll show you what it has on it, but it's got PM 2.5 and PM 10. I don't know if you can see that there it is PM 2.5 PM 10 and that it also measures temperature and humidity horribly. If you get this, do not use it for the temperature and humidity function, because it is just all over the place, but then it also measures co2, and you can see it's preheating right now on co2, but co2 is really really handy and the reason why it's Handy is because these are the things we can measure PM 10 big particles, PM 2.5, smart, small particles, I care about PM 2.5. Those are the ones that can actually make it into your bloodstream and hurt you the worst total VOCs.

Now this is a really tricky one. You'll you'll see a lot of different sensors. That say they measure it, but VOCs volatile organic compounds gases are really hard to measure its odors. In fact, that's one of the best indication of odors.

I I honestly it's people, think I'm joking when I say this, but I honestly believe that the that a woman's nose is probably the best broad range total vo, see detector in the world and I'm not being sexist. When I say that women tend to have a better sense of smell than men, do and there's actually a English lady who can literally smell disease, and they didn't believe her when she first said it, but they've actually done double-blind tests and she's among the best predictive Disease diagnostic tools for certain types of diseases like Parkinson's that exist on earth, so the nose is an amazing, totally OC sensor. Dogs are probably better the problem is they can't talk, and so they don't. They can't tell us everything.

They know their noses are incredible, but you know that's the that's the challenge, but yeah, so total vo C is really tough to measure. There are some sensors that are okay, but a lot of cross contamination, a lot of challenges and again there's some good people in the chat there. Joe sure Michael House talked to those guys too, while I'm going through this because in this segment I'm not gon na. Look at chat too much, but VOCs are bad.

Oh three is ozone, not good. We don't want ozone in our in our areas that we're breathing, and so most sensors aren't gon na measure ozone, but they do make special ozone sensors and the main point as it relates to ozone. Is we don't want to be putting in devices that are going to produce a bunch of ozone and dump it in the space? Co2 is good because it tells us a lot about ventilation. It tells us whether we're ventilating properly.

So if you start to get co2 levels that spike above a thousand parts per million, that's an indication that you don't have enough ventilation need to bring in more outdoor air and that's what I found on my house because I'm testing out, I don't know eight different Sensors right now and I've realized that I don't have enough ventilation air in my house, because I have so many occupants - always thought because doors are open and closed so much and we run so much so many baths fans and so much kitchen exhaust that that would Be reduced but the reality is it's just the amount of breathers we've been checking it in the in the rooms when the kids are sleeping and it's actually pretty pretty bad. So, let's see here and then carbon monoxide see. Oh, that's a you know, odorless terrible killer, because you don't know you can't see it, you can't smell it and it just kills you and I'm a big fan of low level, carbon dioxide detection, not regular ul-listed, carbon dioxide detection, that's in most houses, so a special, A special dedicated, low level, carbon monoxide detector for anybody who has fuel burning appliances so of these of these love is list of things. What I would really love you to pay attention to its PM 2.5, so you want lower numbers.

The measurements are measured in micrograms per cubic meter, that's just the standard, and we really want to see that inside houses below 12 micrograms per cubic meter co2. We want to see below a thousand ppm and then carbon oxide you won't see any, and so those are the three things that I would like to see. Contractors looking at more often as it relates to indoor home health, but here's the thing about coronavirus. The reality is that they're not in the same they're, not alive.

So when we talk about viruses being alive or killing the virus, you can't kill the virus. It was never alive anyway. The way to think about a virus is it's like a message in a bottle. So you don't you the old trope, about taking a message putting at a bottle throwing in the ocean that's kind of what a virus is, but what's in the bottle is instructions on how to build more viruses, and so it gets into our body, and it attaches To us, using these little red proteins, the shell is made of a fatty lipid.

It attaches to our shells or to ourselves using the proteins it melds into ourselves and then releases RNA, which is genetic material inside ourselves, and then ourselves build a bunch more of them. So our shell ourselves take this copy and make a bunch more of it. So the reality is is that viruses don't grow on stuff. That's what you that's the point, so you don't get a little virus onto your evaporator coil and then it grows.

You don't set out a petri dish and come back and see a bunch of viruses growing in the petri dish. That's not how it works. What you find growing are things like fungus and bacteria viruses don't grow, they replicate and they replicate because a host replicates them. So we're the ones we are the virus factories and that's why other people are the huge risk, as it relates to viruses, not things like evaporator, coils or even air filters, or things like that, because, while it is possible that you could have some virus on an Air filter, it would be because somebody very recently sneezed coughed whatever near enough to it, that those respiratory droplets went and stuck in that filter, and then you just happen to pull it out, which is pretty not pretty darn unlikely.

So people carry the virus and people are where it grows in spreads, not on surfaces, it doesn't grow and spread on a counter. It just lands there. It doesn't grow and spread under of a protocol or on a filter. It just lands there.

Unlike a bacteria or a fungus that can grow and spread, and this is where people who are selling lots of products to kill coronavirus to me, it doesn't matter whether or not that product actually kills coronavirus, because the question really is was coronavirus. Are there in the first place, because if it wasn't there, if that, if that corner virus isn't there and it's not active to where it can harm us, then why does it matter now? Corner virus can live for a reasonable amount of time on some surfaces, sometimes maybe even days potentially, but that's pretty rare in general. In a matter of a few hours, it's going to be deactivated and deactivated just means it can't make it into our cells. A lot of people say it scrambles the DNA well, first off corona virus has no DNA, it's all RNA, so you can just say genetic material.

That's a better way of saying it, and what happens is is that this shell breaks down and when the shell breaks down the RNA can't make it inside of us. It's not that it gets scrambled. It's that it needs its shell in order to make it inside of us, which is why soaps and detergents work soaps and detergents break down this fatty shell, which then render it useless. It can't make it into ourselves anymore.

So that's why soap and detergent works really. Well, I mean let me move my head so that way you can actually see this. You can sanitize with an appropriate sanitizer EPA has a list, but even the EPA basically says these are sanitizers that will probably work because they worked against the SARS virus. Sars Scioli one this is called SAR CoV to some people.

You know you want to clarify if it matters and it's maybe a little pedantic but Co. Vid 19 is the name of the disease you get. The name of the actual virus is the specific name. Is SARS Co v2, which is a corona virus? There's lots of corona viruses, so even some things that are, we would normally call the common cold or corona virus SARS.

The original stars bird flu was a corona virus as well, so kernel viruses aren't new. What's new? Is SARS Co, v2? And so when the EPA says this sanitizer is likely to work, they haven't tested it they're just saying it's likely to work because it worked on the other stuff and that's the other thing when people say when people say that they've tested their particular thing against this Corona virus, that's false, they've tested it against other corona viruses and it killed them. So it's careful with your claims and not that it matters not that that particularly matters that much. But we want to be really really accurate, with the things that we tell our clients, and so these are the things we're teaching people like Kalos, as well as generally good masks, do help.

We've learned that the data it actually seems mostly like the government, was telling people not to wear masks as they didn't want them to go out buying them. So that way, the healthcare workers couldn't get them, because smart air filters, which is a really great source of free information, did some independent testing. There's been lots of testing done and it looks like so even surgical masks do a pretty good job, especially from protecting other people, but even from protecting you it's the n95. Does that really do a good job, but of course those are really hard to get the other thing.

Is you can't get can't contract this virus through your skin? So it's not like just touching the virus with your hands is going to infect you it's that when you take it and you touch your face and then it gets in your eyes or no mouths or whatever that's how you get it. So all this matters, because understanding this will help you make better choices for you personally to protect yourself in your family, but also will prevent you from selling somebody something with the idea that I'm gon na help you prevent the growth of the virus, the growth of The virus happens inside of you, doesn't happen on a counter or in a sink or on a knob or whatever it lands there, and then somebody else comes and picks it up. So we we're the factories of the virus and we spread it around. It's the spread.

That's the problem, if that makes sense - and I hope it does all right so soap works against this - we've already covered that these look like something you've, probably seen in human biology class, but basically little tails break up the fatty shell, the lipid shell, around the RNA, Rendering it useless because it can't make it into our cells, then you don't need to use an antibacterial soap. Antibacterial soap makes no difference because it's not a bacteria. This is what's funny. We keep you like people, so use an antibacterial soap.

Well, it's not a bacteria. It's a virus, so you need to use an antiviral soap and, as it happens, it doesn't matter what kind of soap you use as long as it makes suds as long as it breaks up that lipid shell, so washing your hands is the way to go or Surfaces even washing up with soap, good old dish, soap works good, that's one thing: we've handed out to our technicians speaking this, my Tim top is now showing me that I have twelve hundred and forty parts per million co2 in here, because I'm sitting in here breathing And so, if I get sluggish it's because of my high co2 anyway point being this Tim top is a tool that I would recommend for technicians to have it actually is a you know. You have to it's really slow to read, so you need to take it and set it on a counter, but it's the M mm C. You can get it on Amazon, for I think about a hundred sixty bucks, something like that which is very reasonable.

I just don't look at the humidity and temperature measurement on it. Another thing is: if you want to invest in companies right now for the future, I would invest in companies that that make copper and brass touchpoints, copper and brass knobs, copper and brass handrails faucets, because copper and brass and silver but Silver's expensive do a really good Job of killing many microbes and the testing has been done. This actually has been done in labs on covin 19 and it doesn't live as long. You can kind of see in the background of this slide here on copper.

It doesn't live nearly as long as on cardboard or on stainless steel. So we really we really like copper, coppers good stuff, which is part of the reason why, when we went to these all aluminum of a protocols, we're starting to see all this crazy, bacterial and fungal growth in our drain pans, because aluminum does not have that same Antimicrobial properties, that copper has copper is an antimicrobial Maxx, just said it it actually, it's ions actually kill stuff, and it's actually shown to be in a lot of testing in time into bacterial antifungal and antiviral. So it's cool thing. The simple things matter most putting some fancy air purifier, doesn't matter nearly as much as washing your hands, keeping your distance cleaning your surfaces and wearing masks and gloves where they're appropriate.

Those are the things that matter. The most is, as it relates to coronavirus again fungus. Different thing: when you look at a dirty cruddy of a per two coil and you put a UV light, you clean it put a UV light and it keeps it clean. That's fungus, that's not! Virus virus grows inside of us fungus can grow on an evaporator coil.

This is the point I'm trying to get across, because a lot of these products probably do deactivate the corona virus. I'm not necessarily disputing that, although they haven't proven it, it's very likely that they do, but it's very unlikely that there's any significant amount of corona virus inside your air conditioner because of how it travels it travels in respiratory droplets from people not it doesn't grow in Places like air conditioners and ducts cuz viruses don't grow without a host. I just got fuzzy. I just realized that look at me.

I think when I wave my arms around my my camera refocuses alright keep going here. Alright, so important note, it's unlikely, make her own virus will survive all the way through an HVAC air stream and return to the space as infectious based on current research. So it means that people will talk about how their product will kill it, but it's also unlikely that it will actually make it all the way through and still be infectious by the time it gets out anyway. So you know once a virus leaves the host, it only has a short life short varies.

Obviously you know, depending on the conditions and we've already seen a lot of studies about that, keep different humidity levels. Different exposure to light different temperatures can affect the longevity of the virus in lung. By longevity we mean how long it remains infectious, but it's very unlikely that it's going to make it through the system, and this isn't just my opinion. This is based on a small small, that's not a word, a small study that was done where they actually tested.

If there was a virus in a ventilation, air stream at a positively pressurized room that was being used with a I'm sorry, no, it was a negatively pressurized room where there was a patient that had corona virus and they actually checked that air stream to see. If there was corona virus Senate, I think this test was done in China and and it didn't, it didn't, show any significant current a virus in the air stream. So basically, it's saying that even in worst case scenarios, it's you're just not seeing a lot of it and carried through the air, those sorts of distances. But again, who knows right, and so some people will say well, I just want to install a UV light to help.

Okay, that's fine! You know it on the surface. It could help, but I wouldn't count on and that being something that's actually gon na save somebody. So air filtering factors I mean you guys all know this, but I would I really want to see more of you doing. Murph 13 plus filtration.

That just means, though, that you're gon na have to really rethink how you do filters, because you're not gon na be able to do that with a one inch without having way too high aesthetic pressure drop. You got ta move air in order to catch airborne, particles, PM 2.5 and smaller particles are the most dangerous. Those are the ones that viruses live in and those are the ones that are also the hardest to catch and filtering and capturing. So good filters are really the best way that we know of that been scientifically tested to actually do what we're claiming.

We need to do so use good filters, but that means that you're gon na have to oversize your filtration in order to not have ridiculous static pressure drops and a lot of these electro statically charged filters. You got to keep in mind that electrostatic charge will wear off over time on a lot of them, and so sometimes they'll have a higher Merv rating initially because of that electrostatic charge. But after a week or so that electrostatic charge is gone and now it doesn't function, the way it was supposed to Steve Roger says infectious is the important word it takes more than a few viruses to get infected, and that is true. Infectious dose is something that they talked about in the epidemia at the edema, the logical whatever.

However, you said that word epidemiologists use that word a lot because it doesn't just take a single virus statistically to infect you there's a infectious dose that you need. Somebody says ECM constant fan on good filtration - AHA, maybe yes, but that can also cause humidity issues, and this is my next thing, so it depends on where you live, whether that is or isn't a good idea. Many AC systems cannot handle a more restrictive filter. So you can't just jam a more restrictive filter in without doing proper testing and that static pressure, sometimes system upgrades must be made to accommodate it generally.

That would be things like putting in larger filter grills. So that way it can accept bigger filters, maybe filter grills - that can accept two inch depth filters or bigger using specific media filters that have the inset Honeywell make some of those or you can make your own custom girl, like I did at my parents house with It with just a much deeper flange to hold a four inch filter AC systems only filter when the blower want run so people say well, let's just go ahead and run the blower all the time, but the problem with that is is that running the blower continuously? Isn't advised in Florida due to humidity and what I say it isn't if eyes, it isn't advised by me, because we've shown that when you run the blower all the time, it reads the moisture off the evaporator coil and out of the drain pan, which causes an Increase in humidity, and it also creates pressure imbalances. I was just talking with Steve Rogers about this in the podcast and is going to bring in more moisture that way as well. True HEPA, filtration is awesome.

Hepa is amazing, but you can't install it as a primary AC filter. The ones that claim to be HEPA equivalents are all using some sort of other magic technology in order to try to achieve that. But when I say HEPA, I'm talking good old-fashioned, dense, weave, fine, fiber, HEPA filtration. That restricts like crazy and that can be installed.

But it has to be installed in parallel with the system, not as a primary filter, and that's something that I think we as an industry need to start offering. More and more is whole house HEPA filtration in parallel with the air conditioning system or in parallel with the return, is actually a common strategy. That's used and I think we'll, as we start to think about this as a solution as true HEPA. I think we can come up with some good ways of doing that, all right, so I'm gon na rip through cuz.

I only got two more minutes before I want to get to your ask me anything section here. I love this filter fan, taking a merv, 13 plus filter better. Yet, even if you can find a HEPA filter and literally just strap it to a fan or tape it to a fan, whatever put it on a fan put it in a room, it will catch stuff, it will actually help reduce those PM, 2.5 and larger particles And will reduce people's if they have allergies, or you know, pollen that sort of thing and right now. This is a great idea, because getting a good air purifier is hard to find right now.

So just doing this way, you got somebody who's at risk. It's great thing to do. Another thing is: if co2 levels are getting high in the house open a couple windows cross ventilate, that's another! Those are easy things to do. One of the biggest suggestions that I would say to people right now is use quality filters.

Go with four inch plus filters and learn how to read a static pressure chart to make sure that you're not going to cause too much tress oversized your filters so find ways to oversize your filters. I just shared on social media. I didn't put it in here, but you couldn't find it easily on Instagram or Facebook, where we came down the returned riser and then we made it bigger in order to accept a larger filter. So that way, you have a lower static pressure drop going into the unit.

I really really like that solution and that you know a lot of people talk about that. Nate Adams talks about it. These are great or adapt your filter grills, so that they can accept them or two-inch filters and just really oversized them, but oversized filtration is huge. True hepa filtration can catch particles through diffusion that doesn't seem like it should be able to that's what it comes down to HEPA filtration just works.

Amazingly, it's a really good technology. It's basic, it's straightforward, it's well tested and it will catch viruses. So if you want to tell somebody that you can catch viruses, you better be installing true HEPA in parallel, because you you will catch some in a merv, 13 plus, but you're not gon na catch a significant amount, whereas with hepa you will it's what they use In hospitals, straightforward people will say well, they use UV in hospitals too. Yeah UV works great to irradiated and it can irradiated streams.

But you're gon na need many more bulbs with much higher intensity than what we're using in residential to consistently purify an air stream using UV. I don't have a problem with UV, but you know this is what true HEPA looks like. This is the clean comfort one and they are doing it from return to return, and if you do this strategy, obviously the blower does have to be running. So it is a trade off what we like the idea of is taking this out of its own return.

In the space and then blowing it into the return, so that way it's you can actually run even when the system's not running still, of course, better to run when the system is running humidity. Control matters keep it right as close to that 50 % in the summer, as you can get, especially in humid climates and in the winter, try to try to get it to 30 %. If you can safely do that, all right, high humidity causes indoor there's people inside. If you're in aa few mid place, it's gon na get humid, add it cracks and gaps around vents and can lights in Florida we have attics.

Our attics have super high dew points. They get really hot and any gas and car into the attic is the worst possible place you can have them around can lights. Things like that, and so we use LED cans that have gaskets and that way it helps seal drywall ceiling to wall connections can do it bath fans not running long enough. So thing you can offer to your customers is to put in humidity activated bath fans pretty straightforward technology.

They have to be set up correctly, but it's a good thing to offer in kitchens need to exhaust to the outside. If somebody cooks, obviously they never cook, it doesn't matter, but Michael says: don't some stats have functionality to turn blower off for a little bit after call for cooling to minimize the rise in humidity yeah they do have. That carrier has that they call it drip time. So there are strategies you can use and again this just takes thought, depending on the system that you have an AC can only control humidity when it's running in cool mode.

Obviously, humidity is often high at night. When units don't run running, the fan on makes the humidity worse. Setting the unit colder, isn't better due to dew point concerns, meaning that some people will drive the temperature down in order to make the humidity in the space better. But then you can actually cause duck sweating sweating in the walls, all kinds of nasty stuff, so you really don't want to drive houses down too cold, especially in very humid climates.

You moisture must be controlled in the occupied and unoccupied zones. This is a mistake that we've made and we've seen made, is that people will design an air conditioner in a humid climate so that way they can get the space really cold, because the customer wants that and you can control the humidity in the space. But it still results in sweating, other places that aren't in the occupied space. And that's it that's a problem.

So the answer is supplemental dehumidification and I'm a fan of telling people hey. If you don't want to spring for the whole house, dehumidifier ventilating dehumidifier. It's start with a little portable and the reason why is is because it's going to drive them crazy. Portables are pieces of junk, most of them and they're not gon na like having to deal with it.

And so then they'll probably go with the whole house solution, because it does make a big difference in a humid climate. And then you can bring your outdoor air and pretreat it before you put it into your air stream, because you don't want to take ventilation, air and a super high dew point and dump it straight into your equipment or into your ductwork without pre-treating it, especially if Your equipments not sized to handle it, but even then a lot of times you can create a little mini rain forest inside your ductwork, and you know what that means: yucky growth, all right, so ventilation bringing outdoor air to decreased co2. I want to see us doing more and more demand ventilation, rather than worrying about all these codes and standards, and all this stuff and math - and all this I mean yeah, but you do need the math. So I'm not saying don't do math, but I am saying that I think we want to bring in outdoor air in order to bring down co2 and vo sea levels and the solution there is to start measuring co2 and vo sea levels with controls that then automatically Bring on outdoor air ventilation, and hopefully over time we can start to develop some systems that will even modulate it appropriately filter.

It really well, you can even filter it through a HEPA filter for that matter and then bring it in in a humid climate through dehumidifier or through an ERV and in other climates you may be able to put it straight into the equipment, but you got to Filter it, you got a humidity control it and you got to be careful with it, because if you do it wrong, if you bring in outdoor air wrong, it can cause more problems than it solves. Removing VOCs is tricky, and I'm only gon na say here that for removing airborne chemicals, I, like carbon, activated charcoal carbon activated carbon. Those are that's what I like for removing VOCs and that's really all I like the EPA this guide here, this technical summary, if you just look, if you just google EPA residential air cleaners, this guide talks about how PCOS a lot of these fancy technologies, cold plasma, Bipolar - hydrogen peroxides all this stuff - they don't have any testing protocol for that now they do say in this EPA guide that if you use PCO in combination with charcoal that they show so or activated carbon, it shows some good results and that that's the product that I'm most comfortable with right now. If you're gon na use a PCL, then you also use charcoal to deal with maybe some any incomplete degradation, but for those of you who have fancy space-age technology that you'd like to sell, I'm just gon na tell you to read this guide from the EPA.

It's it's very bullish on hepa, filtration, good quality equipment, filtration and activated carbon. Those are my 3 things that I really like, and I just did my parents house, with probably the best air-conditioning setup, we've ever done and that's what we did in their house with a ventilating dehumidifier with a ECM fan to bring in outdoor air to the ventilating Dehumidifier, that's what I think matters most in our market. Let's see here so less testing standardized solutions would be pzo. Plasma ozone has been tested and it's terrible so don't use that, but anything that's an oxidizer.

Basically, all of these active technologies where they say goes out into the space and it sanitizes your surfaces and all that stuff. Those are all oxidizers and they are not well tested, and there is some evidence that they can cause other problems. I'm not saying they do just saying there is some evidence, and I'm partially saying I'm personally being so careful because I don't want to get sued because some of these companies - and I look at me right in the eyes here - some of these companies that sell these Products are some of the most sue-happy aggressive monstrous humans that exist in our industry. I'm not naming names, I'm just telling you some of them are so be careful what you say and also be careful what you believe read the studies.

Ask for independent testing. Ask for independent studies keep asking just because they give you a chart with lines on it. Ask them how they did the test. Ask for photos of how they did the test.

Ask for videos of how they did the test. You'll learn some stuff, so there you have it air quality monitoring. Air quality monitoring is an awesome idea because it gives you an idea of how big a problem is. Is it a big problem and then you can also leave it in and see if you solved the problem with your HEPA filter or with your carbon with your fancy, air purifiers, you can see how it does.

Air thinks is a great one. It's real expensive, but it a lot of things. It measures, EOC checks, formaldehyde directly, your PM, 2.5 particles and your co2. So that's that's one caleb likes best right now.

Currently, i also suggest, if you have any fuel burning appliances in your house and get a carbon dioxide low-level. Sorry, carbon monoxide, co, low-level detector, please everyone just do that in your own houses, your friends family tell people to buy them, even if they don't buy them from you. You can get them on true tech tools, but it's real important because even low levels can make you sick. Alright, so neutralizing live organisms.

Uvc can work well to irate irradiate services and is well proven. I do not have a problem with UV so long as it's properly installed. It can easily be installed wrong and it can easily be oversold. People will say: oh, it kills the virus.

It purifies your air just focus on what it does well, if it's installed properly, it keeps stuff from growing on your evaporator coil and that's perfectly good thing for it to do, and so long as people understand the value of that and understand the lifetime expense associated With replacing the bulbs good on you, oh three: ozone works really well the sanest sanitize things, but it's dangerous. It's been proven to cause respiratory harm in a lot of people, especially those who are at highest risk, especially those who are most likely to go out trying to buy air purifiers because they know they already have a health concern. So be very careful about anything that produces oh three even low levels. I've changed my opinion on this over time.

If you look back at some old podcasts, some older products that I used to support, I no longer want to put in any products that are shown to produce ozone. You live, you learn filters catch, but don't kill directly, but I still like HEPA best fungus bacteria and viruses all behave differently, and here we go PC, OHP, Co, ap, co, air scrubbers, remi, halo, hydroperoxides all use oxidizers and are not subject to standardized testing from the Government my source is here, so that's all you need to know about that. Saying: they're, bad products, I'm not saying they're terrible and you shouldn't use them. I'm just telling you they're not subject to standardized testing.

Therefore, they make their own claims and do their own tests, which can cause problems at times. I'm sure we would all admit all right. Here's what want to do reduce toxic chemicals inside the home practice, CDC best practices seal the envelope better, get the building sealed better, especially it from places like the attic and the crawl spaces, where there's lots of nasty stuff leave a door a window open. If you want to ventilate, that's perfectly fine, but you still want to be able to control it.

You don't people say well. The house needs to breathe fine. If you believe that which I don't, I think you should be controlling the air going in and out, but if you believe that fine, but it still doesn't need to breathe to and from an attic or a crawlspace or a basement. Those are not good places to breathe, that is not healthy air run, bath fans longer event, kitchen exhaust outside and consider using brass and copper touch points because the stuff won't live on them as long and I think that's a really good practical idea next time I Go to replace knobs handle touch points in my house, I'm going to be looking at copper and brass.

So the fact that I, like copper and brass, if any of you want to start a company making, copper and brass doorknobs and touchpoints and poles now, would be a good time to do that or invest in one get some good sensors. I love laser egg. This guy right here this is my current favorite. It has amazing charts, graphs online.

You can make yourself, you can connect multiple people to the same device online, which is great for contractors. You can take all the lazer eggs that you've put in four people and all it is you just set it in and plug it in and it's a piece of cake, but you can use that to actually look at whether or not yours you've successfully solved a Problem which i think is pretty cool, there's the end of slideshow, so I'm gon na go ahead and bring up chat now and y'all can ask any questions that you might have so. There's chat now some of you're gon na notice that the chat is a little laggy from what you were from what you're saying, but that's just how it works, because there is a delay. There is latency that exists.

So any questions you might have you can ask me about things that we're doing at kalos. You can ask me about anything that you want. I do have my Kalos guide here. If you want to see this actually we'll go ahead and we'll go ahead and bring that up real quick just so you can.

You can peruse that, because I haven't, I haven't released this publicly see if I'm gon na find it there. It is so yeah. This is the this: is our Kalos best practices guide. It first covers why we are an essential company, because there's a lot of people questioning whether or not we're allowed to even be out - and we are so - I actually show the laws, but here's what we suggest.

All staff wash hands before eating after each call. After back bathroom breaks after fueling a vehicle Michael house helped me with this actually so kudos to him. Please stay home if they're showing any symptoms. I've actually stayed home for the last week because of that just a mild cough, but you never know, even though I wasn't running a fever at all check temperature every morning before the start of work and stay home at the exceeds 100.4.

I incorrectly said that we could use our infrared thermometers to measure our temporal temperature. You actually can't our infrared thermometers, don't have the correct accuracy and also you need to set the emissivity to the emissivity of skin, and so the only ones that work accurately are the ones that are designed for this purpose. Let's see here, sanitize tools, you know practice social distancing, no, no hand shaking all that I'm one thing with the customer interaction zone. This is how we currently do it.

We ask the customer if any occupants have symptoms before dispatching, so that we can at least be super careful. If that's the case, we're not gon na say that we're not going to go, but we need to really be aware of. If there is anybody with symptoms. Wearing gloves and masks, we do have them available.

We got surgical, masks for everybody. I got 300 of them we're using soaps, but we're also using sanitizers. I got some alcohol wipes. We also have hand sanitizer spray that were utilizing, and mostly you know the biggest thing with all of this was just getting the right stuff and so early on.

When this first started happening, I went on eBay, I went in Amazon and I was just buying stuff up just so we could have it for our employees and obviously not buying the n95 masks. But you know just the basics, some hand sanitizer. Some alcohol wipes clean white cloths, those sorts of things. You know glass, safety, glasses all that as far as servicing the equipment we're just telling them.

You know if you're pulling filters out pulling things, have an air handler. Just wear your PPE service filters and evaporators with a blower off obviously, and then we're telling them to put things into a plastic bag if they're taking it from the air handler like filters and that sort of thing so now that's all that our guide is is Just is just that see here: I'm gon na get that off the screen. If I can figure out where that is there, it is bring chat back up so I'll go through and answer some questions more jello, please first of all has a very inappropriate picture there. What if the attic is conditioned? It's sealed 75 in the house, 76 in the attic it doesn't matter so much with what the temperature is in the attic.

It matters, what the dew point and humidity is in the attic. So the attic needs to be not just cooled. It needs to be dehumidified again, I'm in a humidity zone where that matters Regan Murphy says, have you ever been arrested? No, I have not ever been arrested. I've had three traffic tickets in my life, that's it.

I did get into a battle with my local city at one point, a time where I was threatened, but I was never arrested. How much wood is a woodchuck really chuck? Well, everybody knows the answer to that. Corey says what are your thoughts or plans moving forward to remain profitable with the current situation as a contractor with emergency service, only people not working text, taking layoffs so on and so forth. So the question about profitability - I think you have to you - have to be really honest in business, and this is something that I've learned is that you have to act more quickly than then you want to generally in order to make things work, and so, in our Divisions where we've had you know we had some of our grocery customers bump, really big projects.

We had to lay some people off, it's not something you want to do. But again you can't sacrifice the business for the sake of a few people who, who you know you that need to be laid off because there's not work, you know and we've we've always traditionally said we hate laying people off. We never want to do that and we don't want to, but those are just decisions you have to make. So as a leader, you make hard choices and then you go out and you find things that we can do so.

We found some projects in segments of the the industry that we're still doing projects in order to keep people busy and we've. Actually, since that time, we've actually stayed pretty busy. Let's see here, somebody wants my email front, dad joke now. No thanks.

Let's see here, as your guys load slowed down at all with all this work going on with all this going on in some divisions. Yes, in fact, we do a lot of work in grocery, like I said, but our service and groceries still up, but we had projects pushed because they didn't want the distraction in the stores, and so that's impacted us residential has slowed slightly. But honestly it's been fine. You know like normally, we would actually be getting really busy right now, almost a little too busy, and it's it's actually been good.

So no concerns there. Hopefully you all are doing okay, it says Brian on sizing, big return, duct. What about a noise factor to the customer? A bigger returns is going to reduce noise in the equipment and at the grill, so bigger bigger returns. Man, I'm a big fan of big returns.

I like big returns and I cannot lie let's see here. Have I tested the CPSIA Q Pro I have not yet and there's a reason for that, which I don't remember what maybe that is there a subscription or something I'm trying to remember what it was? Maybe was the price, but I do I do want to test. Let's see here, somebody says so you don't recommend any UV light brand at all. I didn't say that I said UV works, you just don't don't oversell it.

Don't say it does things that it doesn't do I'm a fan of UV. It does very good at keeping stuff from growing on surfaces fungus specifically. So if I give that idea that I'm against certain products, I'm not I'm just against them being mis-sold and and not not having the full conversation, what is the difference between a flu and a virus is one question: a flu is a virus. A flu is a type of a virus, and so there's also bacterial infections, but bacteria can grow and propagate on their own.

A virus has to grow inside of us there's lots of different types of viruses, so the flu is a type of virus and corona viruses are a category of virus. His maintenance really essential. I said no heat, no a/c. Only my boss keeps sending me on maintenance.

Well, I think this is a. This is a question. It comes up a lot. People are blaming their bosses for sending them on things where they feel unsafe, but the reality is: is that there's a couple different factors here? The one factor is that people want to stay busy; they want to stay working.

So if you want to stay working, that might be the only thing there is to do, and you may think to yourself that risk is too high and if you think it's too high, then you just need to tell your employer that, but the reality is he Might have to lay you off instead, which isn't that bad, because the because of the current incentives and things? So that's what I tell people if you don't want to work or if you're, it's, not if you don't want to. But if you're worried about doing things like maintenance, then tell your employer, I think most of the people who work with us. I understand that there are some maintenance that some of our guys are doing. Maintenance is, but they're not doing.

Maintenance is where they're in close contact with the customer and we're having those conversations and we're taking all the proper precautions. I wouldn't put people what I thought was a real risk. I think you're at risk, if you're not being smart about your interactions with people, because people are the main risk as it relates to this virus. Let's see here, sanitize, smartphones and tablets, if used for invoices and having home under signing them.

Yes, very good one, and we actually just said just don't: have homeowners signed your phone right now you have to still handle their credit card, probably put the scanner, so you can sanitize that, but it's kind of gross to hand somebody your phone right now, not that There's a huge risk if you're sanitizing it, but somebody says I've got five Lennox heat pumps in a row of houses that weren't good in cooling mode, but when they go into heat mode they all cut off on high head sounds like an airflow problem to me. He it sounds like you're, probably overcharging them in cool mode, in order to keep your head pressure up and then, when it goes into heat mode, you probably have an air flow problems. I would look at air flow. That's where I would focus have you had a layoff any employees? Yes, we have had two in a couple of those divisions on the commercial side of things, and we have laid off a few apprentice helper types that were good, but it's just we cut back.

We laid off some office staff. We you just have to stay lean right now and so with not significant, not a huge percentage of our employees. But when you have as many as we do, you have to look at cutting back overhead when times are tight when it's kalos hiring out of Palm Beach County we've, we have people who live in Palm Beach County, so we're not hiring right now, but but yeah. So again, when I don't hire on these live streams, I want to be careful about that.

Do you think commercial businesses will have a lot of equipment breaking because they're stopping their maintenances sure I think, there's going to be there'll be a reckoning that occurs and and that I think everybody understands that and it's part of being lean like you can we can Blame people but again nobody's to blame for this. I think it's it's funny when politicians will say that they'll say you know. The hardworking Americans are not to blame for this well nobody's to blame for this employers aren't hardworking Americans aren't to the government's not to blame. I mean some people would argue that the government is to blame, but I don't believe they are.

I think it's just it's a sort of thing that just happens like a hurricane or an earthquake, and everybody just has to kind of go into fundamentals mode for a while. Let's see here, how can we reshape the market? Dustin asks for more variable equipment, home testing, encouraging manual Jay S & D. I think we're going away from a world in which people are thinking as much about an energy efficiency because we're getting to diminishing returns. So I would really focus on what you can do with comfort, I think doing more with showing real data from devices like laser egg, where we can show real results.

I found, for example, that even my my sales guy who's a great sales guy. He doesn't sell things until he can see it with his own eyes. He has to have the experience, and so as organizations we have to, we have to help kind of get that critical mass and push for some of these good solutions, so that then people have a story to tell and say hey. I worked on this one house and we did a ventilating dehumidifier.

We did this variable speed equipment and it worked really good and here's how we set it up and people get excited about. That Reagan says I have a corona cough, it is possible, which is why I've stayed that's why I've said out of the office. It is very possible and I'm not afraid personally of coronavirus. I think you know we've established this, that young, healthy people aren't at that.

Much of a risk, so I'm really not worried about it, but I am worried for other people, so Jeff says the NIOSH recommended exposure limit for ozone is 0.1 part per million. According to NIOSH ozone levels of 5, part per million or higher are considered immediately dangerous to life or health yeah, and it's like the it's like the old. You know how much lead do you want in your drinking water? You know what are the allowable mouths like? Well, with the ozone, we really don't want it inside like we understand there is some of it outside, but it's actually not good. It happens because of a reaction.

Caleb was just sharing with me with different oxides of nitrogen and combines and low-level ozone in our atmosphere. Really isn't a good thing, it's not something we want people say well, it's created with lightning yeah, but again, nature has a really good way of like generating it and then flushing it generating and flushing it in your house. You don't want it.