Mold Prevention and Treatment with Tim Swackhammer

Today I welcome Tim Swackhammer, founder and CEO of Mold Medics and Mold Medics Franchising. Tim talks about how Mold Medics offers services like mold remediation, air duct cleaning, and radon mitigation to improve environmental quality. The discussion highlights the growing problem of mold in homes, particularly in new constructions, and the role of modern building materials in exacerbating mold issues. They also delve into the importance of air quality management and the use of good quality building materials to prevent mold growth during construction. Tim gives valuable insights into steps for mold prevention and the benefits of early detection, stressing the importance of proper ventilation and dehumidification in homes to avoid humidity-based mold growth. He emphasizes the need for regular checks, especially in humid seasons, to prevent potential mold infestations, which often manifest in unexpected places like basements and inside walls. Additionally, he discusses the impact of mold on physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being, and offers practical advice on building wealth and maintaining health, including the unseen dangers of radon gas and its mitigation.

If you've had testing done and need help interpreting the results, Tim will gladly help you for free if you contact him on his website: https://www.moldmedics.com/

Transcript

Magic Barclay: 0:43

Welcome back to A Magical Life. I'm your host, Magic Barclay. And today, Tim Swackhammer joins us. He is the founder and CEO of Mold Medics and Mold Medics Franchising. Mold Medics is dedicated to helping people improve The environmental quality of their homes through mold remediation, air duct cleaning, radon mitigation, and other environmental services. They are proud to have franchise opportunities available across the U. S. Welcome, Tim!

Tim Swackhammer: 1:18

Thank you very much for having me on.

Magic Barclay: 1:20

I'm so excited to have you here because here in Australia, we deal a lot with mold and in my practice, I help people treat mold toxicity and we have some great companies here making. cleaners that can combat mold. I think it's just such a growing issue. And I often talk to listeners about, you know, we've created these needs to have these homes that are perfectly sealed off from nature. We have running water in them and we have heating and cooling. And so we're really creating a breeding ground for mold and other nasties.

Tim Swackhammer: 1:59

Yeah, you're you're 100 percent right. And there's a another component to that equation. And that's the building materials that we're using. If you go back in time, there was a lot more natural solid wood products used. There were just generally a lot of a lot more products that were more accustomed to. Handling some level of moisture, whereas so many of the products we utilize now are manufactured products, things like MDF or plywood, these different materials that are wood products that are basically held together with glue. that just create really ideal, areas for mold to grow. they suck water up like a sponge and then they, the mold can grow completely throughout the building material. So, yeah, you're, you're 100 percent right and it's, uh, thankfully, more people are aware of it. Then they have been in the past, but

Magic Barclay: 2:53

so I just wanted to ask a quick question before we get on with the rest of the podcast. I live in an area where there's a lot of new builds. And what I often see is a slab goes in, the frame goes up, which is more often than not wood and then rain comes. And then the day after the rain, they're putting on the roof and they're doing the next stages without really allowing that wood to dry itself out to, you know, naturally combat any, I guess, breeding ground for mold. Is there a better way of doing that? Is there, should there be stages? In the building that allow for the wood to completely dry.

Tim Swackhammer: 3:37

It certainly wouldn't hurt as far as a way that that could completely be done. Honestly, I've, I've seen a variety of different building methods. And anytime you're talking about traditional framing or stick build construction, you're going to have some level of that where you've got structural members that are exposed to the elements. what I really look for is. Number one, I want to see the house get under roof as quickly as possible because we've dealt with some of these issues that you're talking about where homes are left exposed to the elements for a long period of time and where it tends to be most problematic is whenever there's no roof. But there's floors and subfloor and that just gets absolutely saturated by rain and soaks and soaks and soaks for weeks or months. So the faster that house can be under roof, the better and also making sure that they're using a good quality house wrap. around here. I'm sure you have a similar product, but things like a zip sheathing system, um, which has a waterproof element into it, and it basically provides the sheathing to go around the framing, and that Is much better than like a traditional house wrap that can get ripped and just allow the house to be much more exposed to water during the build process. But it's definitely something that people, especially if they're going to be moving into new construction, you should be aware of and they should be watching the builder.

Magic Barclay: 5:05

Very true. Okay. Let's get on with our standard questions. Everyone gives me such different answers and I know yours are really going to be important for the listeners. So your first one is what can your expertise do to accelerate health? Not just physical, but also emotional and spiritual health. Knowing that mold really does pull limbic or emotional system.

Tim Swackhammer: 5:32

Yeah, so, I mean, as we all know, our environment has a huge impact on our health, and obviously the first thing that we jump to is physical health, because we know Mold can cause all sorts of respiratory issues. It can cause immune issues that can cause a whole variety of things in our system that, uh, can be very challenging to overcome, uh, and many times can, uh, last for a really long period of time, particularly if you're not able to identify that that's what's actually causing the issue. Uh, what is particularly challenging about it is. that not only does it have this impact on our health, whenever we talk about our emotions and our relationships, uh, it can have a huge impact there. And that's something that we see a ton, because one of the things that's challenging with mold is It does not affect everybody the same. Uh, there are some people that are based on their genetics, uh, genetic predisposition or, uh, prior experience and exposure to Molder and other environmental issues. Uh, there are just some people that are a lot more sensitive. to mold and other environmental problems than others. So a really, uh, common thing we see is women tend to be a bit more sensitive to some of these issues than men. And we'll go into a situation where the wife is experiencing prolonged issues due to mold exposure and It ends up causing conflict with, uh, their spouse who maybe isn't experiencing the same things, uh, doesn't necessarily believe the link there, or, uh, that their environment can have that much of an impact on their spouse's health. And it can end up really wreaking havoc on their relationship, uh, in addition to the physical issues that they're experiencing.

Magic Barclay: 7:29

And so our second question is around wealth, not just financial, but personal and emotional wealth as well. We know that chasing mold in house can get costly and thankfully, you know, there's your company that can help people, but what are your top three tips to creating wealth?

Tim Swackhammer: 7:50

So first and foremost, it's to invest in people and your relationships. Uh, no matter what you're doing, no matter what line of work you're in, uh, you need people to be wealthy and to be successful. And that, that hits on all three points, the, uh, personal, financial, and emotional. Uh, if you're just very much a loner and you're not really immersing yourself with friends and loved ones and others around you, you're going to be very poor. You're going to be poor financially. You're going to be poor emotionally. Um, and you're not going to feel that, personal fulfillment, uh, that you really could if you invest in people. I mean, I love my family. I've got three wonderful children and a fourth one on the way. Spend a lot of time with them. They really are sort of the crux of my world, also I spend a lot of time with my coworkers and my employees, uh, and invest a lot of time in them and seeing them succeed and achieve their individual goals, uh, is huge for me because I, I really love being able to see how much they can grow as people, as family members, uh, and really just expand who they are, uh, in their on an individual level. So definitely investing in people and relationships is a big one. The second one I would say is constantly invest in improving yourself. And this is something that I really try to focus on. And to be frank, I go in waves. There's some periods where I'm much more focused on the self improvement aspects and reading and listening to podcasts, researching, working on myself physically as well. And then there's other times where just other, other things come up. work life gets a lot busier. There's new things going on at home that can kind of distract from that. but always trying to pull back to that personal improvement and just focusing on being better than I was the day before. that's always been a big focus of mine and I, I really try to live by that. some days it's easier than others. And then the final one, and this is, primarily on the financial side, but it definitely ties in with the others as well. Live on significantly less than you make. You mentioned, obviously, with with mold remediation, it can come up and it, can cost a lot of money. And that's, not just from the services that we offer, but all the ancillary things that need done whenever you encounter any sort of unexpected, uh, issue. And if you're constantly living paycheck to paycheck. You're always immersed in that stress. You're always feeling it. Um, it's not just a financial issue. It very much becomes an emotional issue and a personal issue because you just never feel like you can breathe. So by being focused on reducing your spending and making sure that you are, keeping your, your daily spend, your, what it costs for you to, uh, To go through a day, keeping that well under what you're bringing in. That's where you can really create wealth and you can create generational wealth, because that's going to give you not just a buffer for the. Emergencies that can come up, at any time in our lives, but it also gives you room to take your money and invest it, to take your money and do more things with your family, and just really live a life that is much less stressed. Uh, and much happier, uh, than you could just going out and buying the next great thing that you think's going to, uh, to make you happy. And in the end, you know, it probably won't

Magic Barclay: 11:28

well said now our final standard question is around weight loss. And I know for myself, my yo yo weight increased when mold toxicity became an issue. So have you ever battled your weight? Yeah. If so, how did you win that battle? What can you offer the listeners who may be experiencing this?

Tim Swackhammer: 11:51

So, yeah, I mean, I definitely have battled my weight and, uh, still am very much in that fight. And I try to honestly not look at it as, really, a fight, but just again, that sort of constant improvement, what better choices can I make today? What things can I change about my life to improve, my physical being as much as possible? And that's something that, sometimes it comes down to traditional weight loss, things of watching calories and all that. But a lot of times it's more just making choices to be more active. to be more involved with my kids to get down and play with them more, take them out in the yard, and really just expel some energy and have fun with it and just, be focused on trying to have a more, engaged in physical lifestyle. on the mold side, it's Really, again, I think, uh, we've seen that a lot with a lot of different clients. they voiced similar concerns of, particularly when they, were still living in a moldy environment or, uh, they were trying to, resolve the physical, aspects of moral exposure they had. dealt with weight problems, and really struggled to kind of get a handle on it. And there's definitely obviously physiological components to it. but also like we talked about with the relationship thing, there's the stress side of it. And when you're stressed, when you're constantly feeling that it's very, very hard to do things like lose weight. Uh, it's just very challenging. So, trying to identify what issues you're, you have going on, working towards solutions for those. And really just being focused on, again, trying to get a little bit better each and every day, uh, is where I think people can really have success.

Magic Barclay: 13:37

Great. Now let's open the floor to you, Tim. Mold. It's such an insidious pathogen. People often ask me, you know, why is it so bad? And from the health perspective, it's, you know, The biggest, you know, immune system suppressor. It doesn't care if the host lives or dies. Like it's just a decomposer. So it's going to go to the next thing. What are you finding in people's homes? What are some things that they need to look out for? Where are places that mold trickily hides?

Tim Swackhammer: 14:18

So there's a variety of things that people really need to look out for whenever it comes to mold. And I really do try to spend the majority of my time on educating, early identification and prevention of mold issues. Because that's where I think, you can get the most sort of bang for your buck. Uh, whenever it comes to actually resolving a more mold issue, things can get fairly complicated. and it becomes a very, very situational issue. So, focusing on the prevention side, at the end of the day, whenever we're talking about mold, mold needs a few things to live. So mold needs air, which we obviously have in abundance in our homes. mold needs Temperature range, which is the same temperature range that we live in, so we can't control it through that method. Mold needs a food source, which the food of mold is organic, material, organic plant material, dead plants, basically. And the downside here is we build our homes out of largely dead plant material. So our homes naturally are a great food source for mold, which brings us to the last item that mold needs, and that is water or moisture. And this is the one that we can really control. And whenever we talk about mold prevention, it's really about water. management and mitigation. so typically when we see a mold issue, uh, it's going to manifest in a few different ways. It's going to show up from a couple different types of water intrusion. Uh, the most common one, and this is typically what people think of whenever they think about a mold problem is a, some sort of water intrusion or leak, uh, where there's was a normal environment before, and then suddenly you have a massive water problem. A perfect example of this is we're working on a project right now a small landlord. They had a tenant that was out of town for a while. And whenever they came back, it had kind of a funky smell. They were on the 2nd floor. The 1st floor was vacant, and then it had a basement. They noticed kind of a weird smell whenever they came back after being gone for a while. it smelled just generally kind of musty. They weren't really sure what was going on. It also felt fairly humid. and it turns out they, they called the landlord whenever they identified that. turns out he went into the basement and the hot water tank had ruptured. and it wasn't a full blown like explosion, but it was leaking basically steaming hot water into this basement for a long time. We're not sure exactly how long, but it was at least a month. and this skyrocketed the humidity throughout the building, uh, creating pretty significant mold issues throughout as well as just absolutely saturating the basement. this is the type of mold issue that we see, Pretty consistently, again, more with insurance claims, those kind of things where it just sort of pops out of nowhere comes from something like a hot water tank or a plumbing rupture, plumbing leak. and we see this mold that just. starts to grow significantly if it's not addressed. The good, thing with this type of leak is in most cases, people tend to notice it fairly early. so they'll generally pick it up a little bit faster, provided it's not somewhere hidden, like a basement that they don't have access to or inside a wall where they can't see what's going on. But again, with this type of growth, it's always about prevention number one and then early identification. So just making sure that you are going through and, checking your basement periodically. If you hear a weird hissing noise coming from inside your walls, you're investigating that to see if there is something going on and you're not just sort of writing it off or ignoring it. but these ones tend to be tend to be fairly obvious. Uh, some more nefarious ones, is. Humidity based growth. This is what comes up when you just have elevated humidity in a home, and there's not really a specific water intrusion event that comes in. There's not a flood or a leak or anything like that. Sometimes there can be in conjunction with it, but typically this is more of an issue with lack of proper air movement throughout the home, lack of dehumidification depending on what, geographic environment you're in some areas get a lot more humid than others where we're at in Pennsylvania we have very humid summers then we have very cold and dry winters so that creates a litany of problems because during the summer the ground gets saturated with rain it gets very very humid, on the exterior of the homes and then If you don't have dehumidification, it's very easy for the humidity inside the home to quickly get up into levels where you can have more growth throughout the home. And that's what makes this so tough is unlike a mold growth that's based off of leak. This generally manifests sort of throughout. It's because it's based on humidity and not an actual water leak. Anywhere that is a particularly cold surface in the home, you're generally going to get condensation appearing and then you're going to have mold growth. So this is one that we typically see a lot of people, where they're having health issues. They'll know that something's sort of wrong, but they won't know exactly what it is, and they won't typically jump to mold because they're not aware of any direct water issue that's came up, and instead they just have They just generally feel off, don't feel well, they're, they're feeling some symptoms of a mold exposure and they'll typically notice maybe some sort of a musty odor or something like that, on the smell side. And that's, that's generally what tips them off to begin looking at a mold problem. but it's hard because there's, there's not that key. Source that they can directly identify. And then whenever we come in and we know what to look for, we're able to identify areas where this humidity based growth typically manifests in, like the corners, the exterior corners of rooms where, there's not as much installation in the walls. So those get a little bit colder around, air ducts with cold air coming through them. Those will generally get very cold and we'll notice a lot more condensation there and growth around it and around windows and everything will typically see growth come up some, those are definitely a lot more challenging to pick up on early and identify. And that's where you want to have. Some mechanical systems monitors in place to help make sure that you're good, depending on where you're at geographically and what the humidity ranges are like where we're at every single person should have at least one dehumidifier in their home because in the summer, you're going to need it. It's going to run and it's going to be needed to really pull that moisture out of the air. And if you don't have that, you're very, very likely end up having a mold problem. But if you're in an area where you're not really sure you can pop on Amazon or at your local home center and get a humidity monitor for your home to check and maybe have one on each level and really check and monitor the humidity levels to make sure That they're staying within the ranges that you want to see them to not have those sorts of issues come up.

Magic Barclay: 21:27

Wonderful. Now we've discussed a fair bit today, Tim, what's something we haven't touched on that the listeners need to hear?

Tim Swackhammer: 21:35

So one thing I'm a huge proponent of talking about and raising awareness of is Radon. And you're in Australia where, from the research that I've done, radon's not that much of a concern. but for any of your listeners in North America, radon very much is a concern and it's something that I like to talk about because a lot of people. Some people have heard of it, but a lot of people just have no idea what it is. And, I think it's something that's really, really important. so radon is a, gas that comes from the soil, comes from the breakdown of uranium, uh, in the Earth's crust. And as that uranium breaks down, through the radioactive decay cycle, it eventually becomes radon gas. And when it's radon gas, it will slowly emanate up through the soil and can enter our homes through cracks in the foundation, gaps along electrical lines or plumbing lines, any sort of perforation in the building envelope, radon can come in. And the problem with radon is it is completely colorless. It's odorless. It's tasteless. We have no way with our natural human senses of being able to detect the presence of radon. so because of that, many people just have no idea that it even exists, or that they should be testing for it or what to do about it. Uh, and the problem with radon is it's odorless. it can cause lung cancer among other respiratory issues. So again, if you're experiencing mold issue, which mold issue, which can cause all sorts of respiratory problems, as well as recap on your immune system, you layer on radon with that as well. And you're really setting yourself up to have some significant, health issues. So with radon, the, the key to it is getting it. tested. there are very inexpensive home test kits available, that you can find online or you can lot of areas, especially where they have significant rate on problems. Their local Department of Environmental Protection or Environmental Protection Agency or equivalent, will have these available either at low or no cost. And they're very easy to do. You basically set out the test canister. It'll give you a set period of time that you want to leave it out for. Then you put it back in the Ziploc bag that it came in. It sends off to the lab and they give you your radon readings. And if the readings are high, you can have a mitigation system installed to help manage and basically exhaust the radon gas that would be coming into your home and safely diverted, to the outside. So it doesn't accumulate to unsafe levels inside your home.

Magic Barclay: 24:17

Great. Now, Tim, we love freebies here. So what can you offer the listeners and where can they find it?

Tim Swackhammer: 24:26

Absolutely. So we would be happy to offer a free phone analysis or a consultation of any in home mold or radon test results that you've got. So if you're sitting at home, you did some mold testing, you're not really sure what to do next, or you've done a radon test and you don't really know how to read those results. A lot of times. Those, laboratory results can be fairly complicated and challenging to interpret if you're not overly familiar with it. So you'd be happy to offer free phone analysis of any of those. And you can find that on our website at dot mold medics dot com. And just scroll down to the, uh, the contact form and fill that out. And we'll be happy to help you, uh, interpret those results.

Magic Barclay: 25:11

Great. And people can find you on Facebook at mold medics, PG H Instagram mold medics. You also have YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, and of course the franchising website, mold medics, franchising. com. Thank you so much for your time today, Tim.

Tim Swackhammer: 25:31

Thank you. Greatly appreciate it.

Magic Barclay: 25:34

And listeners, thank you for your time. We do appreciate the time you spend listening to these episodes. For now, go forth and create your magical life.