The Awakening Spaces Podcast - Conscious Construction for a Healthy Home

Episode 03: Buying a Home? Don’t Miss These Red Flags

• Ashley Spanovich • Episode 3

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Buying a new home can be exciting, but also dangerous if you don’t know what to look for. In this episode of The Awakening Spaces Podcast, Ashley Spanovich walks you through the top environmental and structural red flags to be aware of before purchasing a home, especially if you’re prioritizing health, low-tox living, and long-term safety.

This episode goes far beyond aesthetic appeal and home inspection basics. Ashley offers a comprehensive guide to investigating what's around and underneath a property, things most inspectors miss but can have serious consequences for your well-being and wallet. Whether you're chemically sensitive, healing from mold illness, or just want to make an empowered, educated decision, this episode is your roadmap to confidently vetting your future home.


THINGS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Air Pollution Near Highways

Air Pollution Near Airports

Mold in Crawlspaces

Understanding EMFs

TOOLS + GUIDES


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you are listening to the awakening spaces podcast a show about building homes that heal and the sacred journey within i'm your host ashley spanovich a healthy home consultant building science nerd and the founder of awakening spaces around here we're not just talking about walls windows and wiring we're also exploring how the spaces we live in shape our nervous systems our health and our sense of self whether you're building from scratch recovering from an environmental illness or just starting to question what's really in your walls we're here to you reclaim your home as a place of deep nourishment let's dive in welcome back to the awakening spaces podcast today i'm going to be talking all about the red flags to look out for when you're buying a new home this is going to be geared towards somebody who really wants to create a healthy home in their next home that they're looking for. Not only is it going to be geared towards someone who's creating a healthy home, but it's going to help even the average person avoid getting themselves into something that has a lot of costly mistakes that are going to need to be repaired before you can move into the home or that will need to be repaired eventually. Our goal for this episode is really to help you see past the pretty tile and the pretty light fixtures and really help you to walk away being a little bit more savvy maybe more savvy than an inspector because i will tell you that not many home inspectors are going to be looking for these things there are some great home inspectors out there who are going to be looking for these things but in reality, I'm not seeing that many of them out there. And that is why I created this podcast. And that is why I try to encourage homeowners like you to do your research so that you can advocate for yourself because your team might not always be on your side when it comes to this stuff. And I have seen so many people get into pre-existing homes that they've purchased, whether they're older homes or whether they're new build, new construction homes that they're purchasing, get into situations that are unfavorable, costing them hundreds of thousands of dollars sometimes to repair things that they just didn't know were going to cost so much when they were looking for the home. So my goal with this episode is to help you with making those mistakes so you can save money so that you get into your dream home so that you can feel confident knowing what you're going to have to invest your money in when it comes to the home as opposed to only finding out later that you have to dump a bunch of money into something that needs fixed. So let's get into it. Before you even go to look at a property, the very first step is to do your research online. So when you find a property listing, go in, check the address, and put it into Google Earth. That's the very first thing I do anytime I'm looking at a new property. I want to understand what's around the property. Is there anything around it that could be creating environmental hazards for the person living in that home? of the first things I look for is, is the property next to a golf course or a farm or orchard or vineyard or somewhere there might be growing crops? Because if so, then they might be spraying heavily with pesticides. If you do see a property, you really like it and you want to know if they're using pesticides, you could try to reach out to them and ask them what they use, if they're using anything, you know, for farms and orchard and vineyards those types of places, they might be using an organic version of something or they might not, you know, you don't know what is being used and you really want to avoid moving into a home where there's going to be pesticide residue everywhere you walk, right? Because part of being healthy is being able to walk outside, put your bare feet on the ground and soak up the free electrons from earth. But if your home is next to a golf course, then you risk getting and absorbing those pesticides through your own feet anytime you walk barefoot outside or breathing it in the air as you have a stream of wind coming towards your house. These are really big indicators. I would try to be about a one to two miles away or farther if you can from these types of places. And then the other one is parks. So we don't know what they're using at parks. You might be able to call your city and ask them what kind of pesticides or care they're using for the lawn or the grass and see if they're using pesticides. Usually they are, but maybe some jurisdictions, some cities aren't. If you see a home, it's close to a park, that's... Always seems like a really good thing, but just check to make sure that that park isn't going to be laden with pesticides. How close is the home to a highway? There's actually a wide range of studies showing that the closer that you live to a highway, the higher your risk for cardiovascular disease, for diabetes, for developmental issues, asthma, and just adverse birth outcomes. And I'm going to link two studies in the show notes that actually show this If you do live next to a highway, then you are definitely going to want to be more diligent about cleaning your air. Make sure you're purifying your air in your home so that you can avoid bringing in all of the ultrafine particulate from all the exhausts and all the other VOCs that come from cars. The other one is large HOA neighborhoods. So these really big cookie cutter box neighborhoods, I think they can be really attractive. because there's somebody there taking care of your lawn. But I would caution to make sure that they're not using pesticides. And I would want to know how are they treating their lawns? Who's doing that maintenance? Who's doing that work? And if your home is either in that neighborhood, the home that you're looking at is either in that neighborhood or you're looking at a home that's nearby, that could potentially bring those contaminants onto your property. So Do some digging as you're looking at the house for large HOA neighborhoods and seeing what they're using, what type of products they're using. And again, I would try to stay between one to two miles from any places like this that use pesticides. And I know that it could be hard to find these places, you know, but you just got to do your best to weed those places out. No pun intended. And this is, you know, going to be even more important for somebody who's chemically sensitive. The other big thing I look out for are airports. How close is the property to an airport? I know that there's some convenience factor to living near an airport, especially if you travel a lot, but because of all of the exhaust from the planes, airports are a major source of ultra fine particulate matter. And this ultra fine particulate matter can actually bypass your lungs, go directly into your bloodstream And it's just not something that we want to be near. And actually there were studies out of LAX and Boston Logan airports that found that neighborhoods as far as five to 10 miles away downwind had elevated levels of ultrafine particulate. And so I'm actually going to link those studies below so you can check those out, see those studies for yourself. And the other big issue with airports is that they are a major EMF issue since they're using radar for air traffic control. and weather monitoring. And the planes themselves are also emitting radiation for communication and navigation. And not to mention that the airport itself also has a ton of Wi-Fi going because it is trying to support the people who are traveling so they can stay connected. When we are looking for our home, we want to make sure that our home doesn't have that kind of exposure. Our home is the one place we have control over in this crazy world where we're getting by bombarded with toxins, it should be a place where we're not getting bombarded with toxins. So I highly recommend staying away from airports. Some other things you might be able to see on Google Earth, you may or may not be able to tell what they are, are high powered transmission lines in the backyard of the home or within a quarter mile of the home. These are really big metal structures. You may see them. They're big power lines that run through and these emit a really high magnetic and electric field. And with magnetic fields specifically, those have been linked to childhood leukemia and cancer. And so they're definitely not fields that we want to be sleeping near. And with that type of exposure, we're not able to shield it. So it's not like we can use paint or something to bring that level down. That magnetic field level is going to be really hard and very, very expensive to shield near impossible. So the best thing you can do is distance yourself from the power lines. There's going to be other power lines that we're going to want to look out for, but you might not be able to see these on Google Earth. You might also look out for quarries or concrete plants. These can create really high levels of silica dust and particulate matter and VOCs in the area. And really just any factory or chemical factory of any sort. I would be cautious of that. And also landfills potentially. Those are some of the big things that you can find on Google Earth before you even go and see the properties. So this is going to give you a big headstart because if the home doesn't pass this criteria, it might not even be worth looking at. And I want to also preface all this by it's really going to depend on you and your goals and your needs. But for me, these are some really big red flags that I wouldn't want to get myself into. So I'm sharing that from my perspective. However, take this all with a grain of salt and just know that it's really up to you what you're willing to live in. But I think that these are really important factors that you can consider early on so you You don't have to waste your time going to look at a property only to find out that, you know, especially after you've seen the beautiful finishes or aesthetic and it starts to draw you in. And then you find out that there's these other things that are nearby that could be contributors to your health. One other big thing that I do when looking at a property is, you know, asking the real estate agent if there was any history reported of water intrusion in, you know, the basement, in the crawl spaces, really anywhere in the home. It's really good to have that information so that you can assess that. And oftentimes people aren't gonna report that. So you're gonna have to do some digging on your own, but I like to get that information upfront just so that you can see if there is anything disclosed on the property with that in mind. Because if there's been flooding or standing water, even chronic dampness in a crawl space or basement, that's gonna be added cost to improving the exterior drainage and it could be reason for you to walk away just because you're not up for investing in those repairs later. Especially fixing a wet basement or a wet crawl space, these can be difficult to do. It really depends on why they're wet and it could be really, really, really expensive. So if you see a wet crawl space or a wet basement, I would probably say walk away unless, again, you're up for investing in making those repairs. I also always check the FEMA floodplain maps to determine whether the property is sitting on a high water table or in a flood prone area, because this is going to be a greater risk for chronic moisture issues that, you know, eventually could lead to mold or foundation issues over time. So, you know, I try to avoid homes that are in a high water table or flood prone area. I'm going to link those maps below in the show notes so that you can access those. And one other thing is we also have a checklist on all this. That's going to include what I'm talking about here and more. So I will leave the link to get that free checklist below so that you, as you're going in, you're, you're embarking on this journey of finding a new home. You can take that checklist with you and make sure that you're remembering to look for all these things when you're assessing properties. If the home has any of these qualifiers, I would probably continue to look because these are pretty big red flags. They're difficult to change. They're expensive to change. So for me personally, these are things that I'd probably walk away from. But again, it's totally up to you to know what is your level of investment? How much of a flip are you planning on doing? If you're planning on gutting everything and redoing everything, and you're just trying to find something really inexpensive so that you can totally redo it, then some of these things might not matter. Some things are going to matter like power lines are a total non-negotiable. You can't change those. And those are linked to childhood leukemia and cancer. And I will link my blog post where I go through studies that show all of this for anyone who's skeptical of that. There is research that indicates that. And then some of these other things like living near a golf course and things that can contribute to poor indoor air quality. Those are things we really can't change. So, you know, it would be worthwhile to walk away from that if you are really trying to find something with health in mind. Could indicate major repairs or health hazards that you're just not really willing to get into or update or change because maybe it's too costly. So the first thing I always recommend you do is go to the site and just take a moment to just sit with yourself in the front yard or the backyard or around the side of the house. Just walk around the property. And just take a moment to be silent, to be still, and to really look around without being jaded by the aesthetics of the home and ask yourself, is it loud? You know, what does it sound like? Do you hear a bunch of cars buzzing by? Do you hear neighbors yelling, kids playing? What do you hear? And just make note of that because I think we can become really jaded by the excitement of the home and the aesthetics and all the things that we want that we don't realize these things until we're living in the house. And we're like, wow, these neighbors are really loud or wow, this street is really busy and it's really noisy. So make a note of that. And then also look around at the streetlights. Are there any streetlights or building lights or neighbor's house lights that look like they could actually be coming into your window at night? Because that could be a big issue. I mean, you could always get blackout shades, but if you're someone like me who doesn't like to use blackout shades, because I really like to wake up with the sun and I like to see the sun in the morning and maybe you want to pay attention to that because you don't want a bright white blue light shining in your window that is just going to wreck your circadian rhythm unless you have your blackout shades down that's that's a big one for me so something to consider as you're as you're kind of just sitting with the site now just because you don't see high-powered transmission lines or regular power distribution lines, they could still be on site and they could be buried and they could still be emitting a magnetic field and an electric field. So I recommend getting a Trifield T2 EMF meter. It's a fairly inexpensive consumer grade meter that is perfect for measuring magnetic fields. I'm going to link it in the show notes below so you can see what I'm talking about. But I recommend bringing that to the site, leaving it on the standard magnetic setting and walking the property with it. And just noticing when the levels go above one milligauss. It's not that big of a deal if you're outside. It's really going to be the most important in the bedrooms and the sleeping spaces. But if you're going to be hanging out outside, you plan to have a chair out there, you plan to have a table out there or something, you want to make sure that those levels are below one. If they're higher than that, then it could be coming from buried power lines. It could be coming from overhead power lines. It could be coming from a few different things. When you get inside of the house, then You definitely want all of the magnetic field levels to be below one. And we're going to talk a little bit about what you need to do if you get higher magnetic field levels when you go inside the house. But right now we're just talking about outside the house. So get your tri-field T2 meter and start to assess if there's any buried power lines elevating magnetic fields. This is going to be really helpful. If you start to get higher readings, then maybe it's worth bringing in an electromagnetic radiation specialist to come in and assess your property because nothing is going to compare to having somebody who's been training in this to understand why you're getting it and to help you mitigate the situation. Because oftentimes these don't mean you need to walk away from the property. The only thing that would require you to walk away from the property or would be a deal breaker is if you have magnetic fields coming from some sort of buried power line or power line overhead that's impacting a bedroom where you would want to walk away. But most of the time you're able to fix wiring errors. You're able to fix plumbing current. You're able to fix a lot of things that result in high magnetic field. But with buried power lines and overhead power lines, you're really not able to fix those. So that would be considered a deal breaker. All right. So next I would look at the visual cues outside of the home. Is the home located at the bottom of a hill where water could be draining? You know, is the backyard a big hill where it just drains right to the house? Start to notice that. Where would water be draining around this house? And if you're in a really rainy area or even if you're not in a rainy area, somewhere like the desert where you get monsoon season in August where it, you know, it doesn't rain like at all for the whole year and then all of a late July, August, early September, it's just monsoon season where you're getting a ton of rain, then you need to understand where's the water draining and try to understand if, you know, if that's going to be impacting the home. Walk around the house and look for signs of discoloration on the siding or the foundation, because you can usually tell if water has been pulling around the side of the home. You might see moss You might see some efflorescence if there's been some drying through the foundation. You might just see discoloration, maybe some darkening, some staining. But just notice, do you see any areas of staining around the foundation of the home, but also even around the building siding, like all of the building siding? And then notice, is there a sprinkler system and does it spray the house when it's turned on. That might be hard to know if you can't turn on the sprinkler system. But oftentimes, the sprinkler system points directly at the building siding, and we want to avoid that because that can be a really big issue for compromising the materials on the building enclosure. So the other thing I look at when I'm looking at the foundation is I notice what is the siding material made of? Is it made out of brick? Is it made out of stone? Is it made out of stucco? If it's made out of one of these materials, that is called reservoir cladding. And reservoir claddings get their name because they act as a reservoir for water. They hold moisture in the material. So one of the biggest issues I've seen when we find mold issues inside of people's homes is that they have a reservoir cladding cladding like that, or stone cladding or brick cladding that's touching the dirt and it's almost buried in the dirt. And so it's all the moisture from the earth is wicking into that stone cladding. And then it's probably not draining because they may not have installed it properly with a drainage gap behind the stone. And so the moisture is getting into the And it's moving through the wall via solar drive. And it's also moving through the brick through capillary action and it could damage the wall assembly and it can make the wall assembly wet. And then that can lead to mold on the inside wall cavities right down there at the bottom of where your foundation is. So that is something I always pay attention to because if you can spot these things, you can find the mold issues, even if it doesn't look like there's mold issues on the inside of the house. If you can spot those building defects, then you can find where water damage and mold are going to be hiding in the walls. Then I look at the roof. So I will follow the roof lines to see where does water drain off of the roof? Does it look like it's missing gutters or flashing where you see discoloration on the building siding because sometimes you will see water is shedding directly onto a wall or it's shedding directly at a window or a door. And if a lot of water is constantly hitting those areas without proper flashing in those locations, it could be damaging those areas. So notice how is the roof pitched? Where does the roof slope go? And where is water draining? Again, When you start to see these things and you can start to see those areas of discoloration, that's going to be how you can find potential issues on the inside of the home. You can look for visual indicators the same way you would look at the foundation. You might see moss. You might see just discoloration. You might actually even see just areas where there's shingles missing, things like that. But note all of these things down. Note what you're seeing. Note what you're finding so that you can rate the home at the end so that you can take all of these different things you're finding and you can give the home a rating so that you can start to weigh which home you've looked at has the better rating. Because all homes are gonna have some levels of issue, right? They're all gonna have something. But this is gonna help you understand at what level do we have issues potentially. I also look to see if there's a chimney. If there is a chimney, I inspect it pretty closely. You wanna make sure that the roof is not sloping directly down at the chimney where water is just going to be constantly beating up on the face of the chimney. Oftentimes they will add a cricket or they should add a cricket where, and I think I'll show an image of this. If you're watching this on YouTube, I will show an image of a cricket, But the cricket essentially is like a little tiny mini roof that gets put on the slope and right in front of the chimney so that when water comes down the roof, it can go down to the sides instead of coming directly at the chimney. Because the chimney area is one area where we see a lot of issues happening. Chimneys are a big weak point in the home. So if you aren't planning on using your fireplace, if you're not planning on using the chimney, then the best solution would be to remove it completely and totally close it off and repair that area of the roof so that you can air seal that area. But I understand that people love their fireplaces. So I'm not saying that you need to do that, but these can be really high risk. Okay. So now you have visually inspected the exterior of the home. You have photos that you've taken. You've made note of some of the issues you're seeing so that you can kind of see, okay, well, if I'm seeing this on the outside of the home. I want to go to that area on the inside of the home and do a little bit more of an evaluation. So if you're seeing issues that look like discoloration on a wall or discoloration at an area near the foundation, you might want to go on the inside to where that area is and do an interior inspection of where that exterior issue was. There are going to be two tools that can really help you through this evaluation. evaluation. We recommend getting a moisture meter and a thermal imaging camera. These can be really helpful. So all in, if you buy the electromagnetic frequency meter, you buy the moisture meter and the thermal imaging meter, you might be spending around$500. But if you're planning on looking at a bunch of different places, these three things are going to be really, really helpful tools in your toolbox. And I am going to link these down in the show notes so that you can see the moisture meter and thermal imaging changing camera that I recommend. These are on the lower end in cost. You can find, you can get better ones if you think this is something that you want to have just as part of your healthy home toolkit. There are some better ones available and I'll link those two just so that you can see sort of the level of cost and which ones we like for low cost and then which ones we like for maybe a little bit more expensive if you want to invest in something a Even the lower cost thermal imaging cameras and moisture meters are really, really fine. For EMFs, the Trifield T2 meter, I only use that for magnetic fields. That's not going to be great for radio frequency radiation from like your smart meters or Wi-Fi or cell phones or anything like that. I will link another meter I use for that. But the thing with radio frequency radiation is that you don't want to be in a home where you have really high levels of radio frequency coming from outside somewhere. But the benefit is that you can shield radio frequencies to some extent. You cannot shield magnetic fields. So with radio frequency radiation, we want to keep it as low as possible, but If you are really set on the home for one reason or another, then the possibility of shielding outside sources of radio frequency radiation is more accessible than shielding magnetic fields from power lines. I will link a radio frequency meter that you can use if you want, but it's not necessary. If you plan on having an electromagnetic radiation assessment before you purchase to the house, which I do recommend doing during the actual inspection period if you do plan on committing to one of these homes. So anyway, now once you have these tools, then you can go in and you can start to assess some things inside. You can go to where you saw the discoloration or the potential water damage on the outside, and you can start to assess on the inside. So you can use your moisture meter along the wall at the baseboards or at the lower half of the wall to see if you notice any changes in moisture content. You can use thermal imaging camera, which we're not going to go too into how to use these things in this podcast, but there are some great videos online that can help you understand a little bit more about thermal imaging. Maybe we might even do an episode on that to kind of walk you through how to use a thermal imaging camera on your own. But these are things that you're definitely going to want to look into on how to use to make sure that you're not getting readings and you don't understand how to decipher and interpret the data that you're collecting. But generally, you'll be able to see with a thermal imaging camera, you're able to see temperature differentials. So if there is a wet spot, you will see some of that temperature differential through the wall. But if this is a historical thing, or you're not getting any, you know, or the wall is dry at the time of your inspection or evaluation, then you're not going to see that. So that's where cavity sanitization and things like that are gonna come in handy down the road if you decide to commit to that house. You're gonna wanna make sure you're doing cavity samples and you're doing some testing at those areas to make sure there isn't anything hiding behind the walls, especially if you don't plan to do any renovation or anything like that. One other thing I wanted to mention is that I've worked with a lot of people who have purchased homes that have decorative vines growing on the outside where they were screwed into the brick or the stucco or the stone and Every single time I've seen it, it's been a disaster. Every single time I've ever seen vines on somebody's home, they've removed the drywall and found massive mold issues in the wall. There's a lot of reasons on why that happened, but this is something that I would just caution. If you don't plan on making any improvements to the home, if you're trying to find a perfectly clean home, then I would avoid vines. If you are planning on gutting the walls and that kind of thing, then maybe vines don't really matter because you're going to redo the siding. You're going to redo the drywall. That's not going to be an issue for you. But just keep that in mind that vines typically come with very big risks. I actually have an entire Instagram post on that. I have a few Instagram posts on that because I kept seeing it over and over and over where people have these vines and they were creating issues and lots of water was getting into the wall. So keep that in mind if you're looking at a home that has vines. And always, always, always use your nose. Okay. If the house smells musty, then you're actually smelling MVOCs, which is a microbial volatile organic compound. And this is essentially mold farts. My building biology professor, Steven, he said that he said that MVOCs are mold farts and it's because they're eating their cellulose material and the MVOCs VOC is the gassy byproduct of them eating. And that's what we smell when we smell that earthy musty smell. That means we are dealing with active mold growth. So use your nose. If you smell it, trust it. You're probably right. There's, I mean, and if you're, if you're, if you've been in this mold space for a while, then you've got a good nose on you because we know how to sniff out that mold. We trust your nose and don't convince yourself that it's not anything. Okay. I want to talk a little bit about the mechanical systems. Some things I like to spot, and I want to talk about mechanical systems because these are expensive things to change down the road. So again, if you're going to gut everything, this isn't going to really matter. If you're planning on changing out all the mechanical systems, this is not going to matter. But if you're not, I don't want you to get into a surprise later where you realize that you're furnace and your air conditioning are short cycling because they have grossly oversized your system. And so it's what's happening is that your system, it's not running long enough because it's oversized. So it does what's called short cycling. And so what happens when you get short cycling is it's not removing the moisture from the air the same way a system that was properly sized or even a little bit undersized would, because if the system is undersized or properly sized, it's going to be running more often than something that is oversized. An ICT two AC condensing units for a home that's 2000 square foot or smaller, then that's probably too much. You're probably getting short cycling. It's probably not removing the amount of humidity that you want it to remove. So this doesn't necessarily mean there's an issue. And this could be a terrible rule of thumb. I'm not a mechanical professional, but from my research and from just like working in this field and being a fly on the wall and many mechanical conversations with my clients, we want to make sure that the AC is properly sized. So I'm going to do another episode on specifically the inspections that I think you should do if you get to that point of, you know, putting a deposit down on a house. If you get into escrow, you want to start that inspection. period, then there are some inspections that I would recommend. So I'm going to do another episode on that. But I also like to look at where are the mechanicals located. Okay. Is the furnace in an unconditioned vented attic that's really hot or cold? I do not love to see mechanical systems located in unconditioned spaces. That is going to be an area where you're going to want to inspect it thoroughly with a mold inspector. I think you're kind of always running into issues when you have your mechanicals in a hot or a really hot or really cold space because it's trying to do the opposite. So if you're trying to run a lot of cold air, your ducts are really cold, but your attic is really hot, you could have condensation issues. Everything needs to be insulated really, really well. And the thing with our mechanical systems is even when we seal them really, really well, they're still pretty leaky. They're still pretty leaky. So anything that's happening up in that attic, any type of pollutants or toxins or anything that you have in that attic, could infiltrate your furnace. And the same thing goes if it's in a crawl space. I don't love seeing mechanical systems in a crawl space, especially a dirt crawl space. If you have a dirt crawl space, we're going to talk about dirt crawl spaces in a minute, but if you have your mechanical systems in a dirt crawl space, that is a really big red flag. I would only consider that home if you're planning on gutting everything, rerouting everything, and redesign where that system is going to go. The other reason I don't love having our mechanical system in the attic or in the crawl space, especially if it's like a vented crawl space or somewhere where you don't want to access that space because it's gross. you're not gonna wanna change your filter. You wanna make sure that your furnace is in a place that's easy to access, where you can easily change your furnace filter out, have a regular schedule, you can monitor things, you can maintain things, you can clean things. When they're in really hard to reach places, it makes it harder for us to do that. However, I know that there are some places where all of the furnaces are in the attic, like in Texas, they're all in unconditioned attics, unless they're being built new. And there's a lot of places where you can't find a home without a crawl space. I know it, I get it. But just keep that in mind because that is gonna be added cost to update those things. Now, speaking about heating and cooling, how is the home being heated? One thing that I avoid unless I plan on ripping it out and changing and getting a whole new heating system is electric baseboard heat. Electric baseboard heat can be really high in electric fields. We actually are bioelectrical beings and electric fields couple onto us because we're made out of water and they want to couple onto us because we are the path of least resistance. So they're trying to get back to the earth through us. I've measured quite a few homes because they're very popular here in Colorado, electric gradient heat, and they are very high. So that is unfortunately a non-negotiable for me. If I were trying to buy a home and I knew I wasn't going to change anything out, I didn't want to change the system, then I would avoid electric baseboard heat because I've seen how much these systems can emit. Not to mention that they can actually... get really dusty and then when you turn them on they can burn the dust and depending on what's in that dust that can be toxic for you to be breathing in that burnt toxin that's coming from that electric baseboard heat and trust me this one is hard for me because i live in a place where every home i look at has electric baseboard heat it feels like especially because we've been looking sort of in like the foothills and in the foothills in the mountains they look love their electric baseboard heat so when you guys are listening to this and you're saying and you're thinking oh i know but every single home has the you know mechanical systems in the attic or every single home has this or that i get it um but there are few there are places that don't it's just trying to weed out the places that have better belts and again this is all about how how much you're willing to change, how much you're willing to invest in and what your priorities are, what's your risk. So just keep in mind that there are shoddy flips everywhere. You know, if the walls were moved or the HVAC was rerouted at one point or materials were replaced at some point, you have no idea what's behind those walls. So you have to be really careful about looking for something and seeing really pretty renovation aesthetics because it could be lipstick on a pig, okay? We're just trying to dress up something that isn't very pretty. And behind that wall, behind what that change was could be a lot of mistakes. So it is probably gonna be more beneficial to buy something where you could actually do the renovations yourself. You're gonna have much more control that way. The last big thing that I want to talk about, actually a couple more things I want to talk about here, but the big one is does the home have a dirt crawl space? So dirt crawl spaces are... What I have found to be one of the biggest contributors to people who are sensitive, people can get much better from just encapsulating their crawl space. Sensitive clients have gotten much better from just encapsulating their crawl space. It's possible that the crawl space is wet or maybe it's even dry. Whether it's wet or it's dry doesn't really matter because dirt in its essence is... microbial growth. Fungus lives in dirt. It's just the nature of dirt. That's what it is. Fungus decomposes things and turns it to dirt. And so when we have gaps around floor penetrations where we have plumbing or electrical or ductwork running through our floor between our crawl space and our first floor, we have unsealed floor joists or wall cavities, or we have hatch that aren't sealed well, then we can get air movement through our floor from the dirt crawl space. And that can happen through the stack effect, especially in colder climates where heat wants to rise. So you're starting to get this chimney-like effect where the air from the crawl space is moving up. So as cool air moves through the vents of the crawl space, it's going to want to push the warm air air up and you're going to get the stack effect and you're going to get air movement through the floor and so that is how crawl space air ends up in our breathing air in our living space and there have been studies done showing i'm going to link that study below there have been some studies done showing that um let me look this up it says 19 of homes demonstrated trans of mold spores from the crawl space into the indoor environment. 45% of the homes displayed no transmission and 36% of the homes were indeterminate. So we don't really know about them. So that's still quite a bit of air movement through a crawl space. We wanna make sure that the air that we're bringing up into our living space is healthy, clean air. So if you're looking at a property has a dirt crawl space, just know it's going to take quite a bit of work to seal that up. And I would recommend sealing that up, but it has to be done really well. You do not want to seal a crawl space the wrong way. Otherwise it could be make things even worse than if you didn't seal it at all. You also want to make sure that the basement, if there is a empty. I don't like finished basements all that much because with a finished basement, again, I have no idea if the walls are dry. You can't really tell. You can use your thermal imaging camera, you can use your moisture meter to tell, but that's not always going to indicate a problem because you might just be catching it at a time where it's dry. So I like to see the basement. I like to see if it looks like there was any water coming through at any point and to see that it looks relatively dry before I commit to having a basement in a home. Now I want to switch gears to EMFs again. Does the home have knob and tube wiring? If the home is an older home and it has knob and tube wiring, then that is going to create high magnetic fields. So that's going to be something that you're going to want to replace. I would imagine that if you were buying a home that had knob and tube, that's something that you were going to probably replace anyway. But I have worked with some people who live in homes currently with knob and tube. So just know that the knob in the tube can create high levels of magnetic fields. So that's going to be another expense. You also want to look to see if there's an electrical panel on the wall opposite of a bed. So if there's an electrical panel on the outside or on a wall that's going to be opposite of a bed, that could also be emitting a high magnetic and electric field. So I would avoid that. I would try to find something where that electrical panel is not going to interfere with a sleeping space. and it's gonna be within 10 feet of where a bed is at. And that goes for refrigerators as well. Refrigerators on the opposite side of a bed can also be a magnetic field issue. So another thing to keep in mind as you're perusing the home and you're looking, if you don't plan to change the layout, then you're gonna wanna make sure that your sleeping spaces are distanced from some of these motors or electrical panels, This could be true having an AC condenser or a generator or a pool pump on the opposite wall of a bed. So just keep in mind and make note of those things. So we have gone through a ton of stuff and I have a free checklist for you guys. If you've listened in on this, you're going to get access to this free checklist as well that goes over all of this and more so that when you're going out and you're assessing the property, you can actually take that with you and use it as a little guide. And yeah, I mean, this is a good start. This stuff does not replace having full inspections, especially if you're trying to buy into something where you don't want to make many changes, then you're going to want to invest heavily in inspections upfront. And we're going to do another episode where we talk more about that specifically. So not every red flag is a deal breaker, but some absolutely are. So keep that in mind and trust your and use your nose and don't fall for cosmetic coverups because you are savvier than that. And the one thing I hope and wish for anyone listening to this episode is that this can help you to unintentionally buy into something that costs you way more money than you thought and just creates tons of headaches for you and your family. Nobody wants that. And hopefully this can steer you in the right direction. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you enjoyed it, leave a comment below, let us know, leave us a rating. And if you have any questions or want us to go deeper into any of these topics, leave a comment below and we will do some Q and a episodes where we answer all of your questions. So I hope you enjoyed it and I'll see you on the next episode. Thanks so much for tuning into today's podcast. We have one more thing before you go. 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