Looks like you've stumbled on the HVAC school podcast, the podcast that helps you to remember some things that you might have forgotten about the HVAC our industry or helps you to remember some things. You forgot to know in the first place, I'm Brian and today's episode is called a moisture problem, a moisture problem, but before we get into that, I want to thank our sponsors, sponsors and partners. I should say that is Mitsubishi comfort and carrier they've been with me in business since the very beginning. When I started kalos in 2005 and they've been great partners with us, they are the equipment that we sell at my company, so that makes them easy, easy low-hanging.

Fruit for me to talk about here on the podcast and very thankful to them for making this podcast a possibility. I also want to thank Aero Asus Aero Asus makes an excellent quality bipolar ionizer. They make a great a HP, Co system that sends out hydrogen peroxide ions into the air, probably familiar with it. There's a lot of different technologies like that, but what I like about aryl asus, is that they're american-made they're really quality people.

They make a really good product. We haven't had any issues with their products, they're very forthright, with their training. They help. You understand how it works.

If you want to find out more, you can go to aro Asus comm, and I also want to thank Wright soft for what they do to make excellent design products for manually manual J. They also have one now for florida, florida energy code, which i use a lot, and i want to thank those guys for making great software and supporting us here on the podcast as well. But today's podcast is called a moisture problem and i have to give full credit on this to my friend Joe met. Osh Joma was formerly lead trainer or i don'tfeel lead trainer.

He was a trainer for retro tech and went all around the country and that's how I met Joe also at retro tech, also a good company and they make blower doors and duct leak, test kits and everything. But Joe was down doing a little training with us. Not long ago, and over talking and talking with Joe and we, the subject of mold came up, we were specifically talking about healthy homes and, of course, even just saying the mold word I feel like. I shouldn't be saying it because you know it's something we don't say in the field, we don't say the M word.

In fact I tell my guys don't say mold or mildew for years. I've said biological growth or organic growth right. But I used that phrase with Joe and he said no, you don't even need to say that he said just say that they have a moisture problem, because that is fact-based. If you say anything else, you may be saying something wrong because you don't you don't know for sure exactly.

What's growing and you're, not an expert and in some states like Florida, we can't even comment on it. We're really not licensed to even comment on mold or test for it or measure it or any of those things. So what can we say? Then you know customer walks up and says. What's going on here, we can say: you've clearly got a moisture problem now, if it's something that obviously is, is gon na be a real danger to them.

Then you may make some suggestions. You know I get somebody who is a expert in those areas, but in general you know we find these little things here and there and whenever we find those types of growth, we know that it's a moisture problem and as HVAC experts, some of you may be Plumbers as well, we're able to deal with the source of the moisture problem we're able to deal with indoor air quality. So we can talk to the customer about things that can help with their indoor air quality. We're allowed to install some indoor air quality products, starting with good filtration.

You know, that's the that's the basis of everything start with good filtration and then go from there based on the customers needs and desires. But we really need to be thinking about moisture problems and why do we have growth? Well, we have growth because we have a moisture problem and why do we have a moisture problem when, as it pertains to at least the air conditioning, we have a moisture problem because something is hitting dewpoint and/or waters leaking, I mean, obviously, if you get a you Get a pipe that's leaking, or something or or a roof. That's leaking well. That can cause a moisture problem, but in a lot of cases it's because something's hitting dew point or because we're actually adding moisture to the space.

So a couple a couple, interesting cases you can have cases where something's hitting dew point, because the temperature of whatever it is is lower than it ought to be. That would be cases where in Florida, let's say a customer sets the inside of their inside temperature down to 66 and, of course, aside from the system, probably freezing when it gets down to that temperature. If you get a space too cold inside you're, going to have a big moisture driver from the outside and you're, actually gon na drive the indoor temperature below dew point in a lot of cases, which means that somewhere, there's gon na be moisture. Hopefully it's at the vapor barrier on the outside of the house, but if it if the vapor barrier is not fully intact, then it could happen on the inside walls right behind that drywall.

So this is where you'll see cases where you start to get a moisture problem behind drywall, because when you don't have a properly sealed envelope on the outside keeping moisture from coming in. In addition to a temperature inside the space, that's that's lower than it ought to be it's lower than outdoor dew point I mean. Theoretically, we really don't ever want to get the inside lower than outdoor dew point because that's going to create condensation somewhere, but in the real world we, of course you know, can't control our customers and sometimes that's gon na happen. And so what do we do about? It well there's a lot of things we can do about it.

One thing that I've been thinking a lot about lately and then we're gon na have a podcast about it. Very soon is ventilating dehumidifiers, actually making sure your relative humidity inside this inside the space stays 55 % or below, and that also brings in some out that outdoor air in order to put the house under positive pressure which helps reduce infiltration. If you have a leaky house, there's a lot of things you can do, but obviously that's a fairly extreme one, but a lot of it can be. You know you.

Sometimes you can fix it by sealing the envelope itself, keeping the moisture out in the first place in some cases it's a matter. Maybe you can convince the customer that they shouldn't keep their temperature so low. In some cases things hit dewpoint, though not because of something the customer does an example would be lets say you have a duct, that's lost its insulation or the insulation is compressed. You see it's a flex, duct, that's running over a truss and that flex is compressed and in that area you'll a lot of times get some moisture, and in that moisture you can have a moisture problem, which means some biological growth that you'll find there.

And so what do we solve? Well, what we want to solve is the moisture problem. We want to take away that problem that was causing that in the first place, so we want to lift that duct up, strap it up properly. So we don't have that compression of the insulation. What do we do in the case, if we have a top of an air handler where it connects to the duct is sweating, because it's done properly sealed or improperly connected what we deal with the moisture problem.

We properly seal it properly, insulate it to make sure properly connect it so that you're not going to have moisture problem. There's some other cases. Let's say you have a vent that is starting to sweat, has a moisture problem and then the growth that goes along with that. Well, what do you do you identify? What is the source of the problem? Is this source as a problem that the supply air is too low temperature and that low temperature supplier is resulting in that vent hitting dew point? Could that be because you have a dirty air filter? Maybe you have a bypass damper, that's open and a zoning system.

Other air restrictions that are causing a really low, coil temperature could it be because the blower settings aren't correct. Those are all things that can result in the temperature of the air being lower than it should be, which can result in dewpoint can result in a moisture problem, or could it be that air is actually escaping around the edges of that boot around the drywall and You're getting a moisture problem around the edges because you have infiltration around that vent. Well, that's that's fairly easy to solve. You just have to seal it up, make sure it's properly sealed properly insulated seal the gap in between the boot and the drywall.

That's something that has to be done often take that grill off and you can do it from the inside or you can go up top and do it with with foam or sealant around the outside of the boot and probably even a better option in some cases. So then that's an an attic application. Obviously crawlspace would be the opposite that same basic idea, and so we can sometimes solve the problem by reducing air infiltration. But the air doesn't again a key thing with Moya with a moisture problem.

Is you don't have a moisture problem where hot meets cold? A lot of people will say that? Well you get moisture where hot meets cold. That's not true! You get a moisture problem where moisture Laden air hits a lower temperature hits a dewpoint temperature. That's where you get it and, of course, hotter air can hold more moisture. So often that is the case.

Often that's the perception. Is it where this hot air mass hits it? That's where you get the condensation, but really it's because that air mass has a higher dew point that warmer air mass has a higher dew point, meaning it hits do easier because it has more moisture content. Your dew point tracks with the amount of moisture in the air, so main thing of this podcast, this quick little podcast is. We don't need to talk about mold, we don't need to say mildew.

We don't even need to say biological growth. In most cases we can just say you have a moisture problem so that customer asks you. What is this? The answer is simply, I don't know ma'am, but I do see that you have a moisture problem and I can help you with that. So there you go.

Hopefully that helps. Obviously there are extreme cases. We don't want people to be in bad situations where that's going to make them sick or anything like that. But we also know nowadays that a lot of times these problems, we need to fix the source of them.

We as professionals need to fix the source of them and then the customer based on their particular resistance or sensitivity to things in the air. Then they need to pursue additional solutions occasionally in order to deal with with the m-word. But that's not what we do in our profession. That's a separate license a separate set of professions, but we are licensed and we are trained to deal with moisture problems, especially moisture problems that have to do with dew point.

So hopefully that helps. Thank you for all of our partners. Thank you for all of you who listen, if you wouldn't mind going on iTunes and giving us a review based on whether you, if you liked it or if you don't like the podcast, leave me a review. Let me know what you think.

I would greatly appreciate that and we'll talk to you next time on our full-length version of the HVAC school podcast.