Legal Battle over a Mold House: Anil's Lawsuit against Production Home Builder & Lessons Learned

Hear advice and lessons learned from somebody who is willing to throw down with the (second) biggest homebuilder in the USA (as of 2022's numbers, they're slipping haha). Ryland Homes was sold and became Cal-Atlantic Homes, which in 2018 was sold to Lennar. Anil Mittal is a force to be reckoned with- here's how to be like him when you grow up.

See the tour of their mold-infested home, and get the analysis on the house itself here: https://youtu.be/x_jAxHZ-zLE

Get a DIY mold test kit if you think you need one: https://GotMold.com

How to Start a Mold Investigation Inexpensively: GOT MOLD? DIY Mold Test Kit

Our friend, longtime mold inspector Jason Earle has developed an affordable DIY kit for renters, teachers, and anyone else who'd like a quick and easy way to spot check for airborne mold. Here's his background with mold exposure from childhood, and what led him to R&D for this valuable monitoring solution. Check out the kits or order one: https://GotMold.com

How NOT to Pick HVAC Registers and Grilles: Aria Vents Test Data Reviewed

One of my HVAC design clients sent me a question about these vent covers he found online, and it cracked open the whole basket of eggs. Here's a brain dump on how to look up the performance data on products like this. Here's a brand of decorative grilles that perform well- I know because I test them: https://stellarairdecorativeventcovers.com/

Learn WAY more about HVAC on our playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsc2-5fAgMq5yJOp-kliEoYVML8dS1G2f

Join our Patreon group for exclusive access to us and our work behind the scenes: https://Patreon.com/HomeDiagnosisTV

Mold House Tour and Scientific Causes: Disaster Production Home Build in Houston Texas

Meet our friends Anil and Nilima Mittal- they're suing the biggest production home builder in the USA. With help from Jason Earle, 20-year mold inspection veteran, we tell the story of how this mold disaster of a brand new home began, and how their health has suffered because of it.

Get your own simple mold test: https://GotMold.com

Become supporters of our work, just like Anil, and join our Patreon group for as little as $5/month! https://Patreon.com/homediagnosistv

HERE’S A SEPARATE VIDEO WITH ANIL’S TIPS AND TRICKS ON THE LAWSUIT ALONE:

ERV Setup Testing/Commissioning, Using Pressure Curves to Measure Airflow

Using a Renewaire SL70 energy recovery ventilator and a TEC DG-8 pressure gauge, Corbett demonstrates how to set the low and high speeds on an airtight home's balanced ventilation system.

See this ERV line at: https://www.renewaire.com/our-ervs/single-multi-family/sl-series

Get the DG-8 to test your own stuff: https://www.trutechtools.com/tec-minneapolis-dg-8-digital-pressure-gauge-kit.html

Ventilation design course: https://buildingperformanceworkshop.com/ventilation

5 Factors for Ventilation: How to Plan a Healthy Home

The 5 Factors for Ventilation are:

1. Circulation

2. Capture/Filtration

3. Humidity Control

4. Dilution Air

5. Pressure Relief

This way of approaching ventilation design is condensed from hundreds of hours consulting on home projects across North America- let me know if this way of thinking about ventilation is missing anything, we're pretty sure it's a comprehensive guide! Check out the ventilation course: https://buildingperformanceworkshop.com/ventilation

The ventilation brands I refer most include:

https://Broan.com
https://AirCycler.com
https://Renewaire.com

First DIY Tiny House on Wheels? Tour this Self-Built THOW Motor Home

Welcome to Pioneer Village in Minden Nebraska, where they have one of everything. This place is a picker's wet dream. We'll stick to Wendell Turner's 1950 DIY truck conversion to a motor home, before motor homes were a manufactured product. See the awesome things he got right for performance, along with a lot of the kooky things you tend to see in unique tiny homes the world over.

Learn more about our TinyLab, the world's highest performance tiny house on wheels: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsc2-5fAgMq51-6Gwm3m7HXjRhgt9X7RK

Learn to tune the performance of any tiny home in our online course: https://buildingperformanceworkshop.com/tinyspaces

Tearing a Historic Home Foundation Apart- Pouring a Passive House Concrete Slab and Shotcrete Wall

Our friends, Builder Matt Hoots (https://www.youtube.com/@sawhorsedesignbuild) and architect Chris Laumer-Giddens (https://www.youtube.com/@LGSquared) have made lots of progress on the 1920's Passive House Retrofit since our initial blower door test, the leakiest test I've ever seen. See and hear the details of how this is working, and what's to come down the road for this project.

Here was the blower door test before they started the renovation:

Toss Your Black Plastic Kitchen Cookware: It May Have Lead and Flame Retardants Built In

We talked with University of Toronto researcher Miriam Diamond, and she dropped this bomb. This is not a drill, or a joke. Researchers found LEAD and FLAME RETARDANTS leaching from black plastic cookware of all types, brands, and prices. You simply cannot know if they made it black to hide recycled content or not, and the plastic they use comes partly from recycled electronics- hence the chemicals. We hope you share this tidbit with everyone you know- the manufacturers too please.

Manual S Deep Dive: Selecting HVAC Equipment Based on Manual J Load Calcs- Part 2 of 2

Picking up where we left off in Part 1 (https://youtu.be/LEKEMI05dJE), Alex Meaney shows a design where a 3.5 ton, a 4 ton, and a 5 ton air conditioner all match a Manual J load, and explores the fine points of practical applications of the 3 rules of Manual S: 1. Select equipment that can handle 100% of the humidity load (latent heat) at minimum 2. Select equipment that does not exceed cooling load by too much (15% for single stage equip, 20% for 2-stage, 30% for variable capacity) 3. Select equipment that does not exceed total capacity by too much (but this rule must be broken in some cases)

Check out Alex Meaney's trainings: https://MeanHVAC.com

Watch Matt Risinger's video on the Build Show about my Manual J report tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL-_VjlYnD0

Manual J Deep Dive (and Selecting HVAC Equipment with Manual S)- Part 1 of 2

Alex Meaney is my trainer when I level up on HVAC design calculations, and he came to visit us and share some of his expertise. Alex reveals what the J stands for and why you should never round up the tonnage from your Manual J software, and gives two rules for Manual S: 1. Never use AHRI data 2. Meet the latent load while not going too far over the sensible load (more in part 2) Check out Alex Meaney's trainings: https://MeanHVAC.com Watch Matt Risinger's video on the Build Show about my Manual J report tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL-_VjlYnD0 Learn more about the Science of Homes: https://BuildingPerformanceWorkshop.com Watch the first-ever TV series about the Science of Homes: https://HomeDiagnosis.tv

Where Best to Put Ventilation Intakes? ERV, HRV, Supply and Intermittent Exhaust Vent Terminals

The maintenance of homes just doesn't stop, whether it's a high performance home or not. There are too many variables between family behaviors, between homes, between neighborhoods and climates that you just can't predict everything. Tweaks must be made. Here's a quick demonstration of HOW and WHY to clean the ERV or HRV outside ventilation terminals, as well as a quick modification of the insect screen on these 8" round duct hoods.

More on this home at: https://homediagnosis.tv/atlanta-homestead