Keep Mold and Moisture Out of Your Attic | ep. 56 feat. Michael Childs

[00:00:00] This is the Chester County Real Estate Podcast. Bring in you the info you need to make your next move a great one

[00:00:09] Hey everyone welcome to the Chester County Real Estate Podcast. I'm your host Sean Dimenski and this is the show that gives you the information that you need to make your next move a great one I'm sitting down with Michael Childs of BFH Pro Dying

[00:00:23] BFH Pro I keep wanting to say BFG because that was the book the big friendly giant But no Yours is a little bit different. I shrunk. Yeah Yeah, so this week I want to talk a little bit about

[00:00:40] Some an issue that I keep seeing I've seen pop up a couple times You see this on home inspections you see this in people's houses but you know I feel like In general the enemy of a house of any structure is humidity moisture

[00:00:59] Water in general water in the air. We call moisture, right? So I've noticed that over the years there's been different ways of well first of all there's different sources of moisture in a house obviously

[00:01:13] You know if if the house was just a structure with a roof on it you just have to worry about the roof But the problem is we keep pumping water into the house Yeah, and if and if that's not being controlled properly it can cause

[00:01:28] a lot of damage. I mean not not the most damage fires not not a good thing for a house either But you know, as far as like day to day damage that people that you'll see See most commonly among homes

[00:01:44] Water seems to be or water unchecked seems to be an issue that we see a lot right? Yeah, it comes in a lot of forms You have obviously you have water coming in from the envelope Outside you are rainwater coming through roofs windows walls etc

[00:02:01] Yeah, you can have water come up through foundations and debates. You can have Humidity issues from I mean just being inside breathing your You're you're putting out moisture you have water leaks from Mechanicals in your house pipe water pipes you have drainage

[00:02:22] That goes out you even have a water that's put into if you have four stair systems You have humidity system you have humidifiers and dehumidifier systems Built right into your H-Fax system that if they're not maintained properly can over or under

[00:02:40] Moisturized a house yeah, and when we were when we were talking about this you kind of mentioned that if you're looking at Moistur in a house To in general at first maybe separated into different two different groups a above ground and below ground correct

[00:02:54] Yeah, I mean you have to identify where the moisture is coming from yeah Now below ground basements that's a whole thing I wanted to talk a little bit about the above ground mitigation at a homeowner should be aware of

[00:03:10] I mean from my experience the bathroom is a big I said one of the main source of moisture Sometimes it can get out of control and you can have mold problems, but most of the time There's ways to mitigate that

[00:03:25] One thing that I've seen pop up a lot on home inspections So when you're buying a house or even even when you're selling a house if you're doing a prelisting home inspection

[00:03:34] This is idea of the bathroom vent so I've heard different things about there's different ways of putting vents in There's different vents that are in there I'm pretty sure it's required to have a vent of some sort in a bathroom

[00:03:49] It's required to have an all new construction required of a venting system or a window Okay, so a window a window does count for a vent in the bathroom. It's a poor source of venting

[00:04:01] But it is acceptable in a lot of areas now why would a window be poor like what what what What does a window not do as far as venting a moisture out well? It's a little not so much for what it doesn't do, but there's a

[00:04:17] When you're talking about ventilating at a bathroom There are two main sources of water in a bathroom. You have you have your plumbing systems which are Water in water out so

[00:04:30] If they leak that's their own issue, but I think what we're talking about here is moisture in the air Um What you as that moisture goes in the air It's hot. It's it's a warm moist source. It's going to find a cool surface

[00:04:45] It's going to hit that surface. It's going to condense back into a liquid and it's going to run down You want to get that moisture out of the home as quickly as possible Windows if you're

[00:04:59] Gonna open the window and let it air out after each shower or bath Great, but let's face it. It's you know you get home late. It's it's the middle of winter It's 14 degrees outside you just got out of your nice hot shower

[00:05:12] What do you want to do? I want to open that window to the 20 degree air. Let it let all the heat is All that hot water no one does that right so what you get is it

[00:05:21] Hit those nice cold walls or that nice cold window glass and runs down and then turns into that beautiful mold that we all get to love and see and spray with bleach every The kill yeah right

[00:05:36] Okay, so so you have the window outside of that or the bathroom vents which we're from the most part familiar with until

[00:05:44] Well, I would say for the most part we all know what it is but we don't we don't really pay attention until them to them until they break Or until it comes up on an inspection report that's not good enough So

[00:05:56] You most vent seemed to vent through the ceiling right They'll usually vent through the ceiling or a wall. Okay Most of the newer ones are ceiling now just because they're easier to access Threes you're doing stall

[00:06:12] Gotcha, and then all right, so the issue that I've seen pop up is The vent is going through the ceiling but it's just going into the attic And now we have some sort of hose or what it what do you call the

[00:06:29] Duck thing the duck thing yeah, you have the duck coming out, but it's not it's just it's just going into the attic Is that better than nothing is it is it worse than nothing? Depends um It's getting it out of the bathroom so that is a good thing

[00:06:45] But it's really as cause it's solving one problem, but it's just moving at somewhere else The attic is a cold space or hot space in a summer Not as much of an issue because that'll vent it should if your attic is properly vented should vent out

[00:07:03] In the winter months however you're setting that up into a cold space that water is now going to go out land and Collect on everything so you've now just added a lot of moisture Into a area with a lot of permeable um

[00:07:16] Services and it'll sit there until it molds. Okay, so it's more so the temperature that makes a difference because that's what I was thinking like Well the attic the attic has vents as long as it's been built in the century for the most part

[00:07:29] I guess I'd be surprised But you know like a modern attic would have you would have soft at vents you would have the ridge vent And then maybe some gable vents, right?

[00:07:39] That should create enough air flow to make it to not to not cause moisture to build up and create mold and stuff Yet I'm told that it's not No, and it's mostly because in the winter everything's all cold up there So the water the moisture is condensing on

[00:07:58] Whatever's in the attic. It's more than just that I mean you're you're putting it into an area Mold-like dark areas with moisture and food sources So what do you have in an attic? You've got a lot of organic material

[00:08:13] You know, you see a little siloce insulation. You've got wood rafters You've got the paper on the backs of the drywall. I mean all of which is good food source

[00:08:24] You've just pumped a lot of warm water in there and then you have an area that is void of all light Cause so you've basically created a mushroom farm In an area that is directly above your living area

[00:08:39] So so even if even it so first of all this might be another conversation, but should homeowners be Actively Like should I be concerned about how how much air flow there is in my attic as there is right now?

[00:08:56] Yeah, side from the bathroom fan. Yes. Okay, so what does that look like what should I be looking for? How do you how do you fix that The big thing I see in addicts and I

[00:09:09] See this a lot people want to make addicts into living spaces. They want their attic to be Insulated and a good comfortable temperature What you want in an attic is air flow your attic should never be viewed as as a inside space

[00:09:28] This is a it serves a purpose It's to keep wants to keep roof of water coming down out of your structure and To it's to vent out anything any moisture that's in that space

[00:09:42] That's prolonged the life of your roof prolonged so the life of your framing. It's very important And what I see a lot of times is venting that is blocked off in order to you know Prevent air from getting in there or I see a lot of people who

[00:10:02] Try to make their attic, you know cooler in the in the in the summer months and warmer in the winter months, and that's Exactly the opposite you want your attic to have that flow of air and

[00:10:18] That those different differences in temperature are your friend on that should not be the same temperature is outside Should be a little warmer okay in most cases And this is really going to depend on the type of venting system that you have okay There are several types

[00:10:38] Initially people used to close these things off and There's all kinds of problems used to have problems with a roof rot The the the sheathing would rot out the shingles would fail Framing members would rot so they started realizing that they needed ventilation

[00:10:55] So they next came like the gable vents They worked okay they got some air in and fix some of the problems and then people start realizing while we need more air flow So used to put those Vents of the top the power vents yeah, you're saying

[00:11:12] It was like the spinny thing. Yeah, so yeah The old barns had the spinning ones so you the wind would catch it spin it pull the air up

[00:11:20] I was kind of wondering what that was yeah, that's what they're there for this. It's it's the pull that air up And then later on you had the electric fan ones okay

[00:11:30] And then like that's what I want to say like I'm pretty sure like I live in a In a buy level built in early 80s or so And basically we have I have the the gable vents and in front of one of them is a humidity control

[00:11:44] I think it's humidity. I don't think it's a very bright temperature temperature controlled fan And it just kicks on at some points and kicks off and is that so that's mostly to Create more airflow in the attic not necessarily to control the temperature of the attic

[00:11:59] That was that actually may be for temperature control So up until recently The temperature was kind of what most people were worried about Maddox

[00:12:08] They didn't want that attic to get too hot so they'd have that fan that would kick on it would pull the air in from those cables and exhaust it out through the edge Now what most

[00:12:20] Most roofs are being put up with in any good roof and if we're putting up your roof, it will have it Our ridge vents okay and with that we we always remove those mechanical vents

[00:12:34] We remove those gable vents because what we want is we want your attic to get hot We want it to pull that that air in Through the through the the solifits up the Up the roof and out through that out through that ridge cap

[00:12:52] That is the best way to keep your Your roof in good shape because it's as long as that space that attic space is hotter than the outside temperature You're going to have that convection and it's gonna come in take that that moist

[00:13:10] Dirty air and exhaust it out of your home So this is in the mechanical thing. This is just but a literal vent like a hole in the top of your roof that's not just creating that that's our relation there Yeah, what on the bottom you'll see

[00:13:27] If you look up at the eve you'll see pieces with little holes at them The air literally will come up there because that air will be slightly cooler that'll go in there Go through there Enter your attic space The peak of the attic

[00:13:41] There'll be a cap with a material like a mesh material that the ridge cap and we'll go over And as that air hits that gap it'll exit there just because hot air rises

[00:13:54] So it comes in cooler hits that hot air. It's at hot attic heat goes up out as it's going out It's pulling more air in underneath It's a It's a movement that requires no additional Mechanics there's nothing that can break on it

[00:14:13] Right, it's just design as long as hot air keep rising. It'll keep working. Okay, so let's bring this back to the bathroom vents So now we're pumping moisture into the attic actively Everyone to do

[00:14:27] Quickly attach it to a hose and send it outside either out through a roof With a proper well the proper hood vent or out through the soft it so

[00:14:39] I have heard things to say that by venting out the soft it's venting out the soft. It's not a good idea We'll recommend it there wasn't epic I mean, I'm thinking of like an episode of this on house I have no idea when this was made because

[00:14:51] You watch these reruns and you This could be 20 years old But it basically showed coming out the soft it and then he was saying the moisture comes back in through the vents Back into the house is that been your experience with those? it can be so

[00:15:08] If that if that system is working properly, it's still better than venting into the attic You have a choice Outside any outside is better than nothing If you have the option going up through the roof is always the better option Because it's getting it the furthest away from

[00:15:28] The attic like another entry point back to the attic Yeah because as we said before the air is being pulled in from down there going up in the attic Yeah, it's all staying out now if you're exhausting out there most of it's gonna stay out there

[00:15:41] You will get some that will actually vent back in just because of that current Yeah, and because I've heard the argument also is like well, where do you think happens when it rains like there's obviously moisture

[00:15:52] That's going to come in through the attic at some point whether it's through that or not but I guess it's the idea is over time With the you know increased amount there are no perfect systems. Yeah, you will always have

[00:16:06] Yeah, if you go up into an attic when there's a 100% humidity outside it's gonna be humid in the attic If you go in if you're up there during a rainstorm you will notice humidity in the attic But what it is it's not so much

[00:16:20] The fact that the moisture gets in there. It's the fact that it dries itself out quickly When that rain stops as soon as we get that sun hitting it that attic bake out it evaporates it out and it sends it out Gotcha, okay

[00:16:33] And more importantly it's exhausting out those mold spores that are growing you're always gonna get mold in any space you're going to get mold But what you don't want are those spores to stay you want them to exhaust out. Okay, that makes sense

[00:16:49] Now have you seen the soft events that kind of are built to push the air out past the roof line? Does that make sense? What do you mean so it you know how like the soft events mostly push the air directly down

[00:17:03] Out of the soft it this kind of kicks it out to the side a little bit well the air is coming in from the bottom and out through the top It's never well the soft event. So if it's oh, oh, you mean for like a I get

[00:17:16] For the bathroom yeah, yeah, okay So so that you know had the two's will go out down out the soft it, but then it's kind of collecting underneath the soft it

[00:17:26] I've seen a couple of them where they kind of get kicked out a little bit to the edge of the roof I've seen some people get creative with that Yeah, if you're going out the soft it You're gonna have the same problem

[00:17:41] Unless you're willing to like really push it out past in which case you're gonna start getting into other issues such as You know You're now going to be dealing with things like it's you're now creating habitat for squirrels and so on

[00:17:54] So that's going to start to become an issue Also in the event of a Snow Snow slide off that's now a point of damage right right I never like extending stuff out too much past the gutters because you know

[00:18:10] You have that ice sheet on the top of your roof when that it's designing to come off And just miss your gutter yeah, there's something else out there It's when once they start moving they don't stop. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense

[00:18:23] Cool. Well, is there anything else that we should know when it comes to this this kind of thing because Honestly, it's not something that people really think about that often the you know health and their attic All all the answer then two ways one

[00:18:39] We'll start back in that bathroom area One of the things we like to see within bathrooms is I'm a big proponent of either Timberd vents vent fans okay or Motion activated with with an offset turn off the main reason is you go in there. You take your shower

[00:19:03] You go you leave right most people don't leave that fan run They finish they turn off that fan and now you've just left it in its most moist Spot which is right after that shower. It's no longer venting out

[00:19:17] Gotcha, you really want to vent for another you know 10 15 minutes after you're done until all that moisture is now been expelled Is that something you can add on

[00:19:26] After do you have to get a special bathroom fan that does that or is that something you can add on later easily added on You can buy motion activated switches at any hardware store It's a fairly easy DIY. If you have some electrical background

[00:19:42] if you're even the least bit Unfermilar with electric higher professional bring us in we can put them in quickly yeah there usually Between the the cost of the of the switch and the install You're usually gonna be fairly reasonable. I'd say one to two hundred dollars

[00:20:01] Yeah, range and the main benefit there is that you so you don't turn it off right when you leave It's gonna stay on for a little bit longer but now have to be on all day after works. Yeah

[00:20:12] You can see there's once with switches you can hit you know 10 15 20 30 minutes So when you're done you hit the switch and it'll run for 30 minutes Or even easier have it set up so you walk in it turns the fan on when you walk out

[00:20:25] That will run for a few minutes afterwards Great for both showers and I mean the the inevitable You've used the facilities say that all needs we vent it out also. Yeah, that makes sense As far as the attic goes What you're gonna be looking for are any discullerings?

[00:20:46] If you're not if you don't feel comfortable getting up into an attic or it hasn't have good access Reach out to a good qualified contractor have them just poke their head up there or send the camera up there just to look It's worth doing

[00:21:03] But you're looking for anything missed this coloring think areas where it's dark and areas where you see streaking Anything that looks like Like a mushroom shape is is a sign that something is growing yeah, but yet just this Discullering is the big one yeah, and nothing nothing

[00:21:26] You can usually tell if there's mold up there just by that sniff test You'll get that musty smell if you have that musty smell It means there's a problem and you should probably have it addressed. Okay, great

[00:21:39] All right, well, thanks a lot. What's the best way people can get a hold of you? Well, wait wait just get a touch with us you reach out right there to that remax The remax office and you say Yes for us and we are they're in house vendor

[00:21:53] Or you can reach out to us directly at bfhpro.com Awesome, all right Michael. Well, thanks a lot. I appreciate it. Absolutely Thanks for listening this has been the Chester County real estate podcast brought to you by

[00:22:06] Remax ace Realting serving buyers and sellers in the Chester County area Subscribe for new episodes at ace real dpa dot com slash podcast And you can find us on Facebook YouTube and wherever podcast or found