His advice is simple: let new items breathe outside before bringing them in.

Building on that point, Feldstein really emphasizes ventilation.

He explains that air filtration isn't just about square footage, it's about cubic volume, and you need HEPA filters paired with activated carbon to handle both particles and gases.

Carbon dioxide can spike dramatically indoors, especially when you have people over.

So what's the solution? Opening windows?

Windows help, but he recommends installing ERVs or HRVs, so your home can breathe without wasting energy.

And then there's the mold conversation, where Feldstein gets pretty blunt.

He says mold remediation is often oversold.

Yeah.

So I was like, this is a big problem.

People are having to make a choice between ineffective or really effective and loud and ugly.

So after about 10 years doing air testing, air consulting, mold cleanup, fires, flood, I'm like, this is sad money because we're cleaning up homes and then the next time there's a fire, they're being recontaminated.

And I'll mention that when I got home, I started using all my fancy gadgets, same ones I used here, by the way.

Yeah, yeah.

So I wanna make sure that we're, um, scientifically accurate, you know, testing, monitoring, uh, the sick symptoms, the attendance rates.

Schools are already monitoring attendance really well, but, you know, coughs and runny noses and, and stuff like that, like, we wanna make this undeniable proof.

And that's a pretty bold claim, so I would love to walk us through what the actual chemistry is, what's going on in the body, and why you think that comparison is fair.

Sure.

So I'll start by saying I think secondhand smoke was one of the greatest positive marketing campaigns of all time, because if you go back 60, 70 years, let's say 70, if you were sm- people would just be smoking cigarettes everywhere, in planes, in restaurants, concerts, like everywhere.

There was no, like, this is before they even had smoking sections.

Smoking was just everywhere, inside and outside.

I could not imagine being on a plane with, like, smoking.

And if you complained to somebody about their smoking, you were like the, the negative complainer who was being annoying, mind your own business kinda thing.

even beyond normal cleaning, people are, like, plugging chemicals into their walls and spraying all the time.

I was walking by, and I was drawn to the look of Jaspr, which Jaspr, I'm gonna have you just explain to people what Jaspr is and then talk a little bit more about the inspiration behind the creation of Jaspr and then what that process looked like.

Yeah.

So at that event, we had a very bright blue booth.

So the intention was to be... catch the attention in a sea of sameness, generally.

Yeah, so my background, like you said, was floods, fires, huge mold toxic events, and we weren't like your restoration company that would be your local guy for a kitchen leak or a, a bathroom leak or a little house flood.

We specifically would travel around North America going to natural disasters.

You know, we'd go to like North Carolina or Florida and Hurricane Harvey.

Let's get back to the episode.

So what are your best practices when it comes to wildfire exposure, and what did you learn during the recent LA epidemic?

Yeah.

So I went, I flew out about three weeks after the fire to just get my boots on the ground, and I'm going back on Wednesday again to do some more testing.

This time I'm gonna go deeper.

I'm actually gonna do soil testing, dust testing, and air testing, maybe some water testing too, 'cause you really have to do all of them to get a sense...

No, the, this fire was unprecedented.

Unprecedented.

Wow.

Okay.

Between 0.3 and 10 microns in size.

This is everything from metals, bacteria, mold, allergens, pollen, insect parts, dust mites.

If people took the average sample of air that they're breathing right now and you put it under a microscope, you would be shocked at what you're breathing all the time.

And, like, you know, the rubber from the tires.

You've got to change your tires every few years.

Where does the rubber go? Into your air.

To scare and shock you.