IAQ Radio

David B. Corry, M.D. - Baylor College of Medicine - Fungi in Health & Disease

This week we welcome Professor of Pathology & Immunology and Medicine, David B. Corry, MD of Baylor College of Medicine, Michael E. Debakey VA Medical Center. We are looking forward to a fascinating discussion on Fungi in Health and Disease with Dr. Corry. 
 
Dr. Corry is a pulmonologist by clinical background and still practices, mostly focusing on allergic airway diseases such as asthma and sinusitis. Most of the time, he is an immunologist and his research focus is into the mechanisms underlying inflammatory lung and other diseases including smoking-related emphysema, asthma, and sinusitis.
 
Among his groups contributions to science, they have shown how fungi cause allergic inflammation-largely through their release of powerful proteases.  They have further demonstrated the ability of fungi to infect the mouse airway and produce a disease that is essentially identical to asthma and further demonstrated that common human disorders such as asthma and chronic sinusitis are often times, in essence chronic fungal infections. His group primarily relies on antifungal medications to treat their asthma and sinusitis patients. It has been revolutionary and they have published some of their experience, with more to come.
 
Dr. Corry also recently published a paper on Candida and how it goes directly from the blood stream to the brain in mice. We will also talk about non respiratory health issues and fungi including the state of evidence on Alzheimers, Chronic Fatigue and other health issues sometimes blamed on Fungi. If you are interested in Fungi and Health don't miss this show.

Shelly Miller, PhD - University of Colorado - The Weatherization, Ventilation & Respiration Puzzle

This week Shelly Miller, PhD joins us to discuss some recent research and thoughts on weatherization, ventilation & respiration. We hear a lot that we need to tighten homes and ventilate them. What does that do with respect to occupant health? Today we will go over some results from work Dr. Miller has done. 
 
Dr. Miller is an Associate Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder in the Mechanical Engineering Department and faculty in the interdisciplinary undergraduate Environmental Engineering Program. At the University of Colorado Boulder Dr. Miller investigates indoor air quality, assesses exposures to air pollutants, and develops and evaluates air pollution control measures. Her research has included studying weatherization of homes and indoor air quality, understanding the role of ventilation systems in the transmission of infectious agents in buildings, engineering controls for reducing exposures to infectious diseases, studying ultraviolet germicidal coil cleaning technology, source apportionment of particulate matter and associated health effects, characterization of indoor air quality and the microbial communities in homes, and investigating urban air quality issues including industrial odor episodes.  Dr. Miller has received funding for her research program from the US EPA, CDC, NIOSH, NSF, NIH, ASHRAE, HUD, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and various private foundations and industry sponsors.

Henry Gifford - Buildings Don’t Lie

This week Mr. Henry Gifford of Building Energy Science joins us to discuss building science issues and his new book "Buildings Don't Lie".
Henry Gifford has 25+ years experience making buildings energy efficient, using common sense approaches. He's worked on all kinds of buildings, but apartment  houses are his favorite. Henry Gifford has worked on and designed over 40 Energy Efficient buildings and houses.  Henry Gifford is also a well known speaker, an expert on Building Science and using real measurements not just estimates.  
Henry spent 11 years working on this over 500 page masterpiece and created a truly remarkable book. Order your copy and learn all the science behind better buildings. Buildings Don't Lie includes all the science behind creating better buildings and houses.

Jay Stake - IAQA President - Open Microphone with the New IAQA President

This week we welcome Jay Stake to back to Iaqradio+. Mr. Stake joined us last year right after the Indoor Air Quality Association announced they were leaving the ASHRAE fold. We will preview the upcoming conference, see how things are working out, learn about plans for the future, review 2018 and preview 2019. A few friends of the show will be calling in to join the conversation.
 
Jay Stake is the new Indoor Air Quality Association (IAQA) President for 2018-19. He is also the owner of J&J Consultants a total indoor air quality assessment company and President of Structural Sciences, Inc. Structural Sciences provides indoor air quality consulting services to the relocation industry throughout North America. Mr. Stake uses a network of 269 inspectors to assist with the relocation of clients in the network. The majority of the inspectors in his network are IAQA members. He has been a member of the IAQA Board of Directors for 3 years and prior served as Vice Chair of the IESO before it became inactive under the ASHRAE umbrella.

Thomas J. Phillips - Healthy Building Research - Davis, CA - The Heat Is On

This week we welcome Tom Phillips to Iaqradio+. Mr. Phillips is a consultant on healthy sustainable buildings and lives in Davis, California. He has spent over 35 years working at the intersection of research and policy addressing public health, pollution, and buildings, mainly at the California Air Resources Board. From 1985 to 2009, he designed and managed research contracts on human exposure to indoor and outdoor pollutants, ventilation, air cleaning, and building ventilation. He also produced health-based guidelines on indoor combustion pollutants and air cleaners. Tom has served as a technical adviser to national, state, and local agencies, NGOs, and private firms on various IAQ issues, climate change adaptation, and green building programs for homes, schools, and offices. Since 2010 Tom has served as the principal scientist at Healthy Building Research, where he has assessed IAQ research needs for net zero energy buildings, effective ways to prevent intrusion of outdoor pollutants, and ways to adapt and mitigate climate change and health impacts in the building sector.

FLASHBACK FRIDAY - William (Bill) Vaughan, PhD Mold Assessment Issues and Answers | Original Air Date: 4-15-16 - Episode 410

Radio Joe and the team of IAQ Training Institute instructors are in Greenville, SC teaching all week so this week we will flash back to a great show we did with Dr. William (Bill) Vaughan about methods for assessing mold contamination and best practices for preparing for clearance air sampling. Over the years Dr. Vaughan has perfected a method for assessing Condition 2 areas in buildings and a method (air polishing) for cleaning the air prior to post remediation verification. He has had great success using and teaching these methods. We look forward to talking in detail today at noon.
 
Dr. William (Bill) Vaughan is President & Principal Scientist for Nauset Environmental Services, Inc. on Cape Cod Massachusetts. He has worked in the area of air quality investigations since the late '60s with a focus on IAQ issues for the last 15-20 years. He and his staff have carried out investigations at more than 3,000 locations in New England. Dr. Vaughan became interested in the IICRC's concept of Condition 2, settled spore, contamination just after the IICRC S520 was initially released in 2003. He asked the question, "If you can't see settled spores and colony fragments, how do you know if they are there much less if they have been cleaned up adequately? His group developed the concept of paired air sampling - quiet and fan-disturbed - to address this question and have been utilizing it productively since 2004. Dr. Vaughan's PhD is in Biophysics from the University of Illinois, Department of Physiology and Biophysics.

Joe Spurgeon, PhD - Can Airborne Mold Samples be Interpreted Objectively Using Numerical Guidelines?

This week we welcome back Dr. Joe Spurgeon to continue our conversation on the use of sampling as part of a mold inspection. We will focus on his latest paper and answer the question can airborne mold samples be interpreted objectively using numerical guidelines? 
 
Dr. Spurgeon has a multidisciplinary doctorate degree in Analytical Chemistry and Environmental Health from the University of Pittsburgh; and was a Certified Industrial Hygienist from 1993 - 2013. His career has included working as a research chemist on the NBS Lead-Paint Poisoning Program, directing the FAA's Combustion Toxicology Laboratory, performing Health Assessments for CDC/ATSDR, implementing US EPA's Laboratory Exposure Assessment Project, and working as a consultant specializing in microbial indoor air quality for US PHS. He has performed over 4,000 residential and commercial investigations involving water intrusions and microbial contaminants; has taught courses on mold investigations, sampling, and data interpretation methods; and has served as an expert witness in numerous mold cases. Additional articles from Dr. Spurgeon are available at www.bi-air.com. His books are available at http://expertonmold.com/ 

Flashback Friday - Lew Harriman & Terry Brennan Mason - EPA Moisture Control Guidance for Design, Construction and Maintenance - Original Air Date: 7-11-2014 | Episode: 333

This week on Iaqradio+ we flashback to a great show with Lew Harriman and Terry Brennan from 7-11-24. The EPA Moisture Control Guide is one of the best, if not the best document EPA has developed in 20 years. Terry Brennan and Lew Harriman join us to discuss the document and give us their thoughts on evaluating moisture issues in buildings. If you do not have this document in your library, get it, its free and your tax dollars helped to put it together. 
Terry Brennan was the lead author for the EPA's new Guidance for Moisture Control in Buildings. He is a founder and managing partner of Camroden Associates, a building science consulting firm located in Westmoreland, New York. He began his career as a physics major at Northeastern University, but some how, some way got diverted into building science, working on the earliest research into radon problems and radon behavior in buildings, and moving on to energy and moisture issues. For the last 40 years, he's spent more time crawling around damp basements and hot attics than most normal people would find pleasant. But in return for those decades of investigation, Terry knows a LOT about what makes buildings tick... how they go wrong... and how to make sure they don't.
Lew Harriman was a contributor to the new EPA guidance for Moisture Control in Buildings on the HVAC aspects of moisture control. He began his career as an architecture student at Dartmouth, but after five years as an Air Force officer, he went to work for a manufacturer of dehumidification systems, and got permanently diverted into HVAC engineering, where he's spent the last 38 years. He is the founder of Mason-Grant Consulting, a building science consulting firm located in Portsmouth, NH. He is active in ASHRAE as the vice-chair of technical committee 1.12 (Moisture Management in Buildings), and is an ASHRAE Fellow and Distinguished Lecturer.

What We Learned – Healthy Buildings Summit 2018 – Nate Adams & Radio Joe

This week on Iaqradio+ we welcome "Nate the House Whisperer" Adams back to talk with Radio Joe about "What We Learned... Healthy Buildings Summit 2018" (HBS 2018). This year was our 6th year putting together the Healthy Buildings Summit. Our Keynote speakers were Jordan Peccian, PhD and Jeff "My House is Killing Me" May. Yesterday Nate Adams and Radio Joe sat down to go over the presentations at this years event and discuss key points from each presentation. Both the Youtube version and our podcast are up now! We will return live next Friday at noon.
Nate is the founder of Energy Smart Home Performance outside Cleveland Ohio. He is the author of The Home Comfort Book; The ultimate guide to creating a comfortable, healthy, efficient and long-lasting home. Our thanks go out to Nate for attending the conference and for joining us to go over the highlights.

Nate Adams - The House Whisperer The Evolving World of Home Performance - Part 3: Building Science, IAQ & Insulation

Today on IAQ Radio we welcome "Nate the House Whisperer" Adams. Nate is the founder of Energy Smart Home Performance outside Cleveland Ohio. Today we conclude our 3 part series "The Evolving World of Home Performance". This week we will focus on Building Science, IAQ & Insulation. Much or what we will discuss today comes from Nate's excellent book, The Home Comfort Book; The ultimate guide to creating a comfortable, healthy, efficient and long-lasting home. Nate is knowledgeable, entertaining and always eager to share his ideas and unique perspective on home performance.
Nate Adams, Cleveland, Ohio based company Energy Smart started out as an insulation contractor for existing homes and evolved into doing Comprehensive Home Performance retrofits. These projects are somewhere between a simple attic insulation job and a deep energy retrofit. These projects are sweeping in scope with thorough planning process and careful attention paid to what problems the client wants to solve, what the house needs, and what fits within the homeowner budget. No two projects are alike. Through substantial air tightness and insulation upgrades, and sometimes HVAC replacement, homes are made far more comfortable.