Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark - “A Blueprint For Creating A Toxin-Free Home.” - With Jen & Rusty Stout

Episode Date: March 1, 2024

Did you know that your furniture releases chemicals into your home for a significant amount of time after you buy it? What paints can you trust? Does an organic mattress matter? What is the best air purification system? Alex chats with Jen and Rusty Stout, creators of non-toxic home building company Healthier Homes about how to build a non-toxic home or transform an existing space into a non-toxic safe haven for your family.Follow Jen and Rusty on Instagram @healthierhomesbyjs2Visit Healthier...

Just announced we are doing our young women's leadership summit this year in San Antonio, Texas. First time ever. Usually it's been in Dallas in the past, but we are bringing our biggest conservative women's conference ever to San Antonio. You can get all of the details. YWLS24.com. Speakers will be announced soon. This is the largest conference for conservative women in the United States. All ages are welcome. We will have a mother's room. And when you find out the guess. I'm just telling you, some of your most favorite from the spillover over the past year are going to be headlining. It's going to be bigger than ever. YWLS 24.com. Use code Alex for 25% off. She started losing hair. Then she was totally bald. Her body was shutting down. She became allergic to

everything around her. The culprit? Her home. This episode is crazy because part of it involves a truly shocking story of how your own home could be your worst. wreaking havoc on your health without you knowing. But you're also going to find out what steps you need to take to either build your own non-toxic home from the ground up or what you can do to transform the space that you're already in to lower your toxic load as much as possible. I'm talking to a home-building couple whose mission is to raise awareness about the materials inside and outside of our homes that could be dangerously impacting your health, helping

others build the non-toxic home of their dreams. Yes, a completely non-toxic home. Everything from the driveway to the roof, walls, flooring, furniture, appliances, even hardware on your kitchen cabinets. Today's guests strongly believe that the public lacks reliable information when it comes to modern home construction and the health implications of our living environments. Think of them as Whole Foods for your house building needs. I had a dream of finding someone to interview on this when I found out that Lauren Scruggs Kennedy built her house this way. Today's episode is shot in one of their model homes that they built. You can watch this interview and see the home in beautiful detail by subscribing to Real Alex Clark on YouTube. Please pause.

Leave a five-star review on this episode so that more people discover this podcast. Please welcome Jen and Rusty Stout, the founders of healthier homes to the spillover. Jen and Rusty, I did so much research trying to find the perfect. couple who does this for a living to interview. And I found you guys in Horseshoe Bay, Texas, never been here. It's absolutely beautiful. And I've really been looking forward to this interview because, one, this topic, your expertise, it's so unique and interesting. But two, we're actually filming in one of your non-toxic homes. So this is one of your builds. Yeah. Yep. This is our model home slash office. Yeah, we kind of did some things to it. You know, we took the

couch out and all that, but you'll see it. You'll see it in the video version on YouTube what it actually looks like, but you know, we had to do our podcasting thing. But not only can you help somebody build a non-toxic home from the ground up, all of the materials and everything, but you also can give recommendations to people on what to tweak when it comes to things inside of your home, from your sheets to your blankets and furniture, everything, right? Yeah, absolutely. So we're going to get into all of that kind of stuff. But before we get into the how-toes and what to buy, and what to avoid, there's actually a really shocking personal tie to why you build non-toxic homes in the first place.

You didn't develop a desire out of nowhere to help people create non-toxic homes from the ground up. Jen, you were really sick yourself at one point due to what you discovered was your living environment. How did you discover that a house can literally make you physically sick? I was in grad school at SMU doing my MBA. in Dallas, this is over 10 years ago, and I was always been super healthy and active and no health problems. And suddenly I started to develop rashes like all over my face. It was very embarrassing.

And my hair started falling out. And I actually ended up wearing a wig for several years. And I went to all these doctors, even out of state, and nobody could figure out what was wrong with me. And finally, right before I graduated, found a ginormous black mold problem. behind the walls of my, it was a new apartment. It was like several years old. And I was like, this has to be a part of the problem. So I found an environmental doctor in Dallas. They tested, tested me and they found high levels of mycotoxins, which are poisonous metabolites that mold gives off. And they wreak havoc on your health. I learned my immune system had crashed. I'd become allergic to everything around me, my clothes, my makeup, soaps, like trees, foods, everything.

And the worst offender was chemicals. And that was a problem because I could not find any place to live that didn't set me off. I'd walk into a new home and there would be formaldehyde or solvents in the air and it would make me like rash up. Or I'd go into an older home that had some time to off gas a little bit and I would react to like a tiny amount of mold like it's in the shower like in the HVAC system. It's like certainly there's somebody that's building homes without chemicals, right? and there wasn't. So I was like, I'm going to have to figure out how to do this myself. I researched everything that goes into a home. I'm a marketing person. Like you said, this is not something I set out to do. It was like, well, if I want to get well, this is what I'm going to have to do. So I, yeah, I looked at like, drywall screws, everything that goes into a home, all the finishes. And I built my first healthy home.

And then I got a job offer here in central Texas. And I love this area. And I couldn't turn it down. And so I moved out to Horseshoe Bay and I was the director of the Hill Country Builders Association. That's when I met Resty. And we dated and eventually got married. But he's a builder of 20 years. And so he saw the value in what we were doing. He's like, let's do this for other people.

So that's kind of how we started. So your hair starts to slowly fall out. You've rashes all over your body. You actually end up completely bald like wearing wigs. all because of mold in your apartment. When this was going on emotionally, when your body is reacting this way, I mean, was there a point where you thought

my apartment is killing me? Absolutely. Once I figured out what was going on, the scariest thing about being sick, especially if you're not used to ever being around anyone that was sick, I didn't, it was not knowing what was wrong. And then when you finally figure it out,

I'm of the mindset. It was like, okay, I'm going to figure out how to fix myself. And it's not something that can be done overnight. And especially like somebody that has their MBA and I'm like, I want to go get my big girl job. And it's like, okay, not happening. I'm going to have to fix myself first to be able to like function. So when you have the people come in and inspect the apartment, which I think is so interesting,

you said that it was a brand new apartment. It was two years old and I moved in. Two years old apartment had black mold made you go bald. When they go into the apartment, where did they find the mold hiding? I found black. mold like around the trim, the baseboards in the bathroom. And so I started pulling them off and realized that there was a giant leak in the shower. And so it came in and they tested it with like the water test and it showed that it was leaking. So the problem was it wasn't just my shower.

It was the shower above and the shower above and the shower next door. Like my entire closet was full of water under the carpet. I'm like, no wonder I became allergic to all my clothes. That's right. Yeah, you're your, you're a clover. were absorbing all of this. And that's the thing. The objects in your home can soak up things like mold, right? Micotoxins for sure. And mold, yeah. And then they also discovered that it was like in the walls in the area. You were working from home at the time. So that was the other thing. You at first, I think this is interesting and really important. This is before it was so, you know, in to do remote work. Right. You are working from home. And at first you think like, man,

it's just working at home and not being in a normal office environment. I'm just having trouble focusing. It's just maybe working from home isn't really good for me. But it was actually your home was making you sick. And then they discover that it was, the mold was all in the walls, right? Or the area of where you were sitting to work from home. Yeah, it was. So see, these are the things that we ignore. It's just like, oh, I'm struggling, paying attention and all these things. But it's like these little things are your body telling you something isn't right. Right. Yep. I think a lot of people have issues with things around them that they don't. It's just like you said, they write it off. And it's different for so many people. And all of these doctors that you went to see, nobody had

any clue what was going on until you went to an environmental specialist. Now, what is that? An environmental doctor is like a functional doctor. They look at the body as a whole. If you go to conventional Western medicine, which I'm a fan of, I think there's a place for both. They they kind of compartmentalize. If you go to an eye doctor, they're going to look at your eyes. But I had my eyebrows were all gone too.

And I asked eye doctor and he's like, I don't know. I don't like do eyebrows. I'm like, now you got to find an eyebrow person. And that's just kind of like, I think that's where the big disconnect comes in.

And an environmental doctor looks at the whole picture. And they use a lot of testing to look and see. Like I found out I had lead from when I was a kid. So it kind of helped to like uncover a bunch of different things

that I had in my, my body and I think a lot of us could benefit from detoxing, you know, someone that doesn't fall apart like me, but like just everybody in general. Yeah, because an environmental specialist is going to look at your living environment, not just your own physical body, but also like, so tell me about, you know, where the closest 5G towers are around you, right? They're going to ask you all those types of questions to see if there's something in your environment making you sick, which of course, in your case was severe mold. How common is mold in homes? It's, you know, the, Depending on the climate, it's very common, unfortunately.

And I mean, it's all around us. So as soon as you open a door, there's mold that's going to get in your house. The big key is keeping it from growing inside your walls, creating an environment where it's not conducive for mold to be. Because the ones that are really dangerous are the ones you can't see. Those aren't the ones that are coming in when you open the doors. Those are the ones that are slowly growing behind the walls because of leaks, you know, in showers, windows,

all those different places. Three out of four homes have had or have an existing water problem. And where are the secret places in a house that mold could be hiding? The easy answer that most people think is going to be a roof leak. And that's not the case. The biggest offender inside of a house is showers. Showers are typically poorly done. They're poorly waterproofed, especially with the new construction.

Most people don't have tubs in their showers anymore. It's just a full shower. and so the pans leak, they don't waterproof all the way up. And then on the exterior of the home, the windows are actually the biggest leakers, the biggest offenders because they're not flash properly. Is it okay to live in a house where there's been mold before if it's been cleaned up, in your opinion? It's cleaned up properly.

You know, I mentioned mycotoxins earlier. They're like an oily substance and they get on things and they penetrate things. So it's important to not only clean your house, get rid of where the mold is coming from, get rid of the water source, like rip it all out and rebuild it, but also to clean up the mycotoxins. And that can be difficult. Like, I ended up in my apartment throwing away, like, my mattress and I had all my clothes professionally cleaned. And, like, I just, I ended up throwing those away too. Like, anything that's, like, soft goods, that's difficult. We get asked a lot about doing a remodel or renovation, and we say no, unless you're ready to completely, you know, gut and tear it down to the studs, just from a psychological standpoint.

You know, someone who's been through something like Jen, it's really important for them to be comfortable to go back to that situation. And most people wouldn't be unless they completely gutted it. And I know, the HVAC system has to be completely swapped. And for us, as a company, we would not feel comfortable without getting it so we can confidently say it's all gone. Right. We've done this. You get all the mold thing figured out.

You know that you had been poisoned by toxic mold. But because it had wrecked your immune system so severely for years, your body just became allergic to everything in your environment. So, yes, you got the mold thing figured out. You knew that that was like the gist of the problem. But then you still had a long way to go because you became. am allergic to everything. And so that's when you were like, okay, every environment I try to live in, I'm still getting severely sick. So now I've got to go on this journey and I've got to research everything.

And I was just so impressed with you reading your book because, I mean, to me, definitely is a girl, but this stuff just feels so over my head, like just trying to understand all, you know, building a home. And you write about in your book how you were researching every single material, I mean, from the air filters to the piping in the walls and, I don't know, drywall and the type of woods and just everything you looked at, which was so impressive. Like, I mean, that must have taken forever to study and figure all of that out. It took several years. And we're still learning. I mean, we've been doing this for over 10 years and it's like we learn new stuff all the time and I think it's just fascinating. And so you find him and you, Rusty, had already been in the home

building business. You were just building normal homes, I'm assuming. Yeah, mostly commercial at that point, though. I wasn't doing a whole lot of residential work. Just commercial work. So you meet her and she's telling you she's on this journey. And then, I mean, were you just immediately like, okay, that sounds like a fun project? Like, we should do this not only just for you, but for other people. Yeah.

Fun was obviously working with their wife is always fun. But I was just inspired. I mean, for what she went through to turn that into a positive situation. not only for herself, but then to be able to, okay, let's start a business, let's make money, and let's help people. I mean, what's better than that, and then also doing it with your best friend and your partner. And so it was a no-brainer. And then to get to see her shine and use all of that knowledge that she gained, I mean,

I tell our clients all the time, like, Jen is the brains, she knows all this stuff ends and out. She just tells me where to put it. And I'll listen because I like being married. What were some of the important questions that you learned to ask when it came to non-toxic home building? Gosh. I mean, the home building in general, I mean, there are so many moving pieces and it's just, it's a constant chess game. So formaldehyde is used in nearly everything inside of a home. And it's like it's considered normal. And that's one of the biggest questions I had to start asking is what has formaldehyde in it? What has solvents? in it. And what does have it in it? Everything.

Wait. I'm not kidding. Your furniture, your toilet paper. Yeah. Yeah. So the reason why it's used is because it speeds up the curing process. So if you're going to put paint on the walls and you have formaldehyde in it, you get to, you know, your paint dries quicker and you move on to the next thing. Even like during, whenever, you know, stuff is being made like in a manufacturing, they put formaldehyde and like all the engineered wood and glues so they all set quicker. And I get it. That's how you make more money quicker, but it's not okay to sacrifice people's health for that. formaldehyde is a severe sensitizer. It makes people allergic to things. And then once you go down that route, there's really hard to turn your body back.

So when you meet her and discover all this stuff about like what materials are or aren't toxic, were you overwhelmed like, oh my gosh, everything I've been doing up in this point, like how toxic it was? Yes. I was like, don't wear your cologne. Like, you need to switch laundry detergent. It was definitely a learning process. I mean, just like she said, starting at home, just in our living environment, not realizing the things like as simple as my soap or body wash that I use and, you know, like the fragrances and stuff in it. So having to change all that. But then going into the building, yes, it was overwhelming.

And it still is. We're continuously learning. And especially since manufacturers change their ingredients all the time. Yeah. How do you keep up with that? it's tough. And I mean, we, we have an encyclopedia right here that really helps with that. But also, we travel. We go and meet our manufacturers. We see the products. We feel them. We smell them. We, you know, we see them being made. And it's important for us. It's kind of an old school approach. We don't really

get into the Zoom meetings. We want to go to your place. We want to meet you. We want to see who's making this and just staying on top of it that way. But yeah, I mean, looking back, because a lot of the stuff I did was government contracting and the stuff that we put into those spaces and hospitals and schools and stuff. It's like, wow, what, what was I doing? In the hospitals, the places people go because they're sick, they're made with materials that will make them even more sick. Yeah. And I mean, the hospitals, they do a lot for for air quality and stuff like that. But it's, you know, it's like making a soup and then trying to, you know, remove something from the soup when it's all put together.

There's so many parallels here between what you're talking about with, I want to go to every manufacturer and be like, show me what you're doing, show me what you're putting into this product, show me how you're making the furniture. What you're describing when it comes to home building, I've been talking to my audience about doing that with your food. You have to go to your local farmer's farm,

and you have to see how they're farming. You have to see what the animals are eating. You know, you have to double check all this kind of stuff. Is it truly regenerative? Is it truly organic? And you're saying in all aspects of your life to make sure it's truly organic, non-toxic, do it even with who's building your home. A lot of people ask us, like, what do you think about, you know, these different certifications? And it's kind of like what you're saying. It's like you can rely on the certification.

But the more I looked into it, the more disappointed I got, actually, because it would have made things a lot easier. But I think it's because, you know, they do let small amounts of tar, formaldehyde or like things that we would never feel comfortable putting in our houses. still having these in the certifications because there's not really a lot of products out there that are truly chemical free, like paint. If you go to like big box store and there's low VOC or no VOC paint, there's exempt solvents that are allowed in there. I mean, it's a whole laundry list of like biosides and ammonia. Is there any paint brand if someone walks into Home Depot that you would trust for them to paint their home with? Not at Home Depot? No. No, we actually, we had to manufacture our own paint. because there was nothing on the market that was truly non-toxic.

It's huge. And one of the reasons, too, is because it's the one that we've created seals the walls. And that's important, especially from like a remodeling standpoint. You don't know what's behind the walls. If you can seal any kind of off-gassing, it helps tremendously. The ideal hand wash and body wash for your non-toxic home, Alevia Organic Prebiotic Body Wash. Alevia gently removes dirt, toxins, and excess oil on your skin.

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Olivia prebiotic body wash and see if you see a significant improvement. Go to Alevia.com, use code Alex 15 for 15% off. That's Alevia.com with code Alex 15 for 15% off. Find everything in the show notes. Over 50% of Americans have one or more gene variants I learned from your book that can cause them to be genetically predisposed to processing toxins ineffectively. How likely is it that someone who just thinks, oh, I just get sick often. I have a weak immune system is actually somebody who is reacting to their living environment. Oh, gosh. I think so chronic disease, this is interesting.

It is doubled. The rate of it has doubled in the last 40 years. And that's not solely, I'm sure, because of the homes, but at the same time, homes about 30, 40 years ago started to get tighter and tighter. And that's because of energy codes, which is a great thing. But as a byproduct of that, the houses are exponentially becoming more polluted because the pollution has nowhere to go. The chronic disease does manifest itself from chronic exposure to things. and I think it's rampant. And having a healthy home is crucial to not only, unfortunately, if you're in my position to get well, but to maintain your health. I mean, that's how you live your best life. And that's why we're doing what we're doing is it needs to change. And for whatever reason, people work out, they eat healthy and they just don't think about their living environment impacting them. The two biggest drivers for your health are your biology and your environment. Your biology, you're born with it. It's in your DNA. You can't really change it, right?

Your environment, you can control. So that's why we're doing what we're doing. And you mentioned, you know, people thinking, well, you know, I'm just sick or it's allergies. What's interesting, what we've noticed since we've been doing this healthy homes is we meet families. And it's usually the wife and the kids who come, who are saying they're sick. And the husband's like, yeah, you know, I'm just here to support them. When reality, they're the ones that are probably sick too, but, you know, as men, we could, we probably shrug it off more than the, than the wife and the kids would. And so it's, it's interesting, you bring that up, because we see that, you know, but we've also gotten the opposite where the, where the, the husband has been

severely ill and the wife is, is there. That's the hardest part of, of what we do is, is seeing that part of it. And sometimes we can't build for them. Sometimes they, you know, we just, they're in a different area or they can't afford it or, you know, there's all kinds of different factors. And so you launched your company healthier homes. And what exactly is it that you do for people? People come to us and we can work on their blueprints with them and create that and then go through the whole selections process with them because everything you put in your house needs to obviously be healthy. And once all that's completed, we build the house like from start to finish. used to do some remodels, but we just don't really have the capacity or the bandwidth. And we also

started tiny houses. We were our first two tiny homes that were almost completed. And then so you said healthier homes are actual building companies called JS2 partners. And once we launched the book called Healthier Homes, we're like, you know what? We build these houses and I work on, you know, design project or interior design packages for people and it's like okay now i have healthy house what am i going to put in it and so the whole like doing furniture and rugs and decor and paint that made sense and so that's why we launched healthier homes uh pretty much to be like whole foods for your house yeah it is like it's a whole website and you have everything there you have blankets and home decor and everything paint and all kinds of stuff hardware how much does this cost

because this is everybody's going to want to know how much does it cost to build an average family size non-toxic home. Yeah. How long is a piece of string? You know, that's our first answer to the people. It's so relative to location, you know, the topography of the land that you're at, you know, what people's needs are. And so that's probably the most question that we get, but it's also the hardest one to answer without actually having something to tangible to look at. Every person is going to be wanting certain special things based on their family. But if you had to give a guesstimate on like an average price range, what do you think most of the home builds you do fall into? For our area in central Texas, I would say probably, it's expensive here. 400 to over $1,000 of square foot. Do you only build in Austin area or can people hire you to build anywhere?

Currently, we're in central Texas in the Austin area. We are in the process of expanding, currently in the process of getting our California contractor license and then trying to take over the sunbelt from there in Nevada, Arizona. And then, I mean, we're wanting to bring this to everyone. And we want to do it on a level because we are aware of what's going on in people with the prices of home building. I mean, it's expensive. specifically custom homes are expensive. And so we're trying to bring this healthier home model to a more development approach where we're building more affordable and where they're ready for people when they need them.

Instead of them having to come to us and build a custom home, you know, it's typically going to take a year. And so this way they're ready. They're for purchase. You know, you can move in and you have a healthy home ready. And I feel like it's we can do it where we have packages like interior, furnishing packages and everything ready to go. What is the average square footage you think of most of the homes you build? Oh, it varies.

Like this is 1,700 square feet or model home. And then we just finished a 7,000 square foot home. Wow. Last year. Holy cow. And how many, how big was that family? That's a family of five. Okay.

With a mother-in-law, yeah. Oh, love that. Love a multi-generational living family. We did a whole episode on that recently. If you truly want to live with as little environmental toxins as possible, how much does location play a part? Like, do you have to be willing to live in the middle of nowhere? No. Fortunately, no. Okay, good. So you can have a non-toxic home even in a city. Oh, yeah. The location really, like, if you're looking at, are you close to an airport? Because noise is a big, like a noise pollution is something we don't think about. We tune it out, but it's actually a big stressor on your body. Because that's what we're trying to avoid is all this stuff that puts stress on the body. Also, highways or are you downwind of factories. Like, these are the important things like inside a city, I think, that. But do you have anything to time in on about that? Yeah, I mean, I think just, you know, we realize it's not practical for everyone to move to the middle of nowhere.

I'm sure everybody would like to that need something like this. But we understand that some people have to live in cities. They have to work there. They have to live in the suburbs so their kids can go to good schools. And so what we really try to focus on is, okay, we know that this isn't a catch-off. But what can we do? Can we get 80%? Can we get 90%?

if you live, you know, where the air is bad, let's really add some into the air purification inside the home. So when you come home from work or you bring your kids home from school, you have that safe haven. You have that fortress. That's what we've developed a way to be able to control, complete control of the air and water quality inside your home. From every, like that's also, that's a huge part of a lot of builders, they'll build houses. that don't, they breathe. Even with the energy coats, they still breathe. And that's important for us is to actually have it contained to where we can ventilate it appropriately. We can purify it. We can dehumidify it and just keep it clean and safe inside. Because like you said, outside, it's a dynamic

world, which is fine. But where you sleep and where you're creative and where you're resting and relaxing, so your body can heal itself after a long day of work. I mean, that's regenerative and that's really important. Let me tell you what freaked me out. When you put new furniture, new items in your home, there is a period where they release chemicals into the air. Yes. What is this process?

Explain what this is called and why this is important for people to know. It's called off-gassing, and it's like basically vapors that come off of your furniture, and it's from VOC, volatile organic compounds. We like to actually look at HAPs, hazardous air pollutants. That's a little bit more accurate term, but people aren't familiar with. You can look them up on the EPA's website, but like VOCs are like vinegar or essential oils, things that aren't necessarily bad for you. So anyways, going back to your question, the evaporation process is like it's formaldehyde breaking down, it's solvents breaking down, and they release into the air, and then they stay there and they

compound themselves unless you ventilate the home appropriately and you filter it appropriately. But our solution to this problem is to actually don't put stuff like that in your house in the first place. Yeah. So like an organic couch, what is your favorite one cost? Your favorite organic couch company? So Medley, I love their stuff. Okay.

It was like the couch we have in our house now, I think, cost like, what was it, 7,000? And how big is it, you think? I mean, it'd be suitable for probably a family of four or five. I mean, it's a nice L-shaped. But that's kind of one of the things, like, if you're investing in your home and in your health, it's worth it to set aside money for that, I think, instead of, like, going on a family vacation. Like, you can make it work or you can do payment plans. It's just, like, having an organic couch that has the right.

or like sort of pure foam and organic material on top of it. And then there's no MDF and no particle board. None of that goes into our houses because it's basically like sawdust and glue that off gases like for a very long time. So it costs a little bit more. But to me it's worth it. And you sit on your couch every day. Well, let me tell you what. I'm reading your book and I'm prepping for this interview.

After I just spent money, I redid my entire apartment, like as far as furniture and everything, a year ago. My every single item in my apartment, I got rid of and then replaced. And then now I'm doing this and I'm learning, oh no, I did all. I would have done all of this differently. So that, that was like horrible when I found that out. But it is what it is at this point. Some furniture manufacturers, when you get it delivered, it will have a note to say, we suggest leaving this like outside for a day or two before bringing it in. Yes. I'm like, you know, if your furniture comes with that note, why would you even want to put it in your house? And you, also talked about how if you walk into your home and it has a smell right there, that is a warning

sign that you've way too many toxic products in your home. And when my crew and I walked in to film today and your non-toxic home, I was wondering that. I was like, what, because everybody is a house smell. Yeah. And I walked in here, there was no house smell. And you said, yeah, exactly. Because when you're using all these organic ingredients and non-toxic ingredients, there will not be a house smell that everybody in America has. Right. Yep. No, Freidants is the way to go. I mean, that's how you know that it's clean. One of the coolest compliments we ever got. And it wasn't even meant as a compliment. It's one of the first houses we built. The bank sent the appraiser out to do the closing.

And he was walking around. And he was like, I thought this was a new build. This doesn't even smell like a new build. And I'm like fumbling for my phone. I'm like, can you say that again? We need to post this on our socials. No kidding. Are older homes more toxic or newer homes? Older homes, definitely. have way less chemicals in them, like usually three to five years old. But then again, my conundrum was like, how about like a little bit of mold that's in an older home? So I think clean older homes, yes, for sure. Well, I'm thinking like really old. Like if you move into like a historic old home that was built, I don't know, early 1900s or something, I mean, do you have to worry about things like lead paint or things like that? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Anything, I think it's before

1971, you have to worry about lead paint. And asbestos. Are people opening? their windows enough. I believe so. Jen touched on it. We hear this thing all the time about a house has to breathe. A house is not alive. You know, if you need air in your house, open a window. You know, that's- Or ventilated. The air that we bring into our homes is actually, it's filtered. And I can't believe that, like, builders don't do that. The normal way to build a home is to bring in the dirty air, make it swish around, and then stick it through a filter. It's like, like small, simple stuff. And we're just to build a home. And we're just to bring in the dirty air. And we're just to build a stuff. And we also put our fresh air intakes, like away from the neighbors laundry coming out

like the dryer vent. Yeah, dry vint, sorry, away from the barbecue pit. And we don't put them on top of the house. A lot of times that's like, that's the standard. We put them underneath the Eve because if you have an asphalt roof, your air is going to smell like tar all summer long. So it's these little simple, lots of little simple things that you can tweak. And, really change the health and the quality of your home. In the past 40 years, how many chemicals has the EPA banned in 40 years? Eight. Is it eight? I think it's eight. Yeah, sadly. Out of like 80,000 and there's like five or six thousand new ones, it's this, it's this notion of like regrettable substitutions, like BPA. That's like a big thing. Oh, I don't want BPA in my baby's

Baby bottle. Well, let's just put BPS or BPF in it, which is the exact same health consequences. But that's that's the workaround. But then they can say, oh, it's BPA-free. Right. Yeah, exactly. You know, that's what they say to us. How do you feel about Wi-Fi in your non-toxic builds? We don't use it. No Wi-Fi. Nope. What do you do instead? We wire. Yeah, hard wire or use 4G, 5G. And that's a challenge. That's one of the biggest challenges currently with our homes. because appliances are every year. They're changing like your stove, your bed, your mirrors, like your HVAC components, your garage door. Every, like your sinks.

I don't really know why your sink needs to talk to your car. But you know what I mean? But it's the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and I'm not saying we have to go back to the Stone Ages. They fall in a continuum of like lights and motors. It's all the same thing. Some of it's visible light. But the problem with the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth is there in the microwave range. And that's damaging to your cells.

And that's a chronic, constant bombardment of this can really start to create problems. Like if you have problems sleeping at night. And the easy thing to do is just unplug it. And that means unplugging it from both like your router and your computer or just turning it off on your appliances in general. How do we know that the non-toxic building materials that you're using to build a home are as sturdy as the toxic stuff? Like, are your homes just going to, you know, blow over and a heavy storm? Yeah, so that's a good question. And the answer is because, I mean, you're in one.

I mean, you look at the quality of what we're doing. And that's one of the things that we set out to prove is that it doesn't have to be built out of sticks and mud. Like, it can be built using traditional methods. It can go in any city at meet any code. And it looks beautiful. You know, your neighbors, unless you want them to, they won't know the difference. the only thing they'll know is a nice new beautiful home in their neighborhood. And so that's important to us as a company.

We will not put anything. We wouldn't put our name on it if we didn't believe that it would stand up. We won't build a house without the foundation and the framing being engineered, first of all. And that's going to be done based on the location, you know, the wind load and all of that stuff. So very confident in the structural integrity of our builds. That's one of the things when we started this, There's a lot of experts, experts in healthy building. And they have all the ideas of what should be done.

And then when you start asking them, how many have you done? And they're like, oh, well, none. What? No, they've never built anything. They talk about it, but they've never done it. A lot of people like Google experts online that, I don't know why this space attracts people like that. But it's like we're building quality custom homes.

And that's what. you know, everybody wants, people don't want, like, alternative materials. And a large problem with these alternative materials is they're not tested. Everything we use is tested. It's all, like, standard stuff. It's just be vetted. Are there only certain materials that are non-toxic you can use for the outside of your house? Like, can people choose, I want a brick house.

I want a stucco house. I want a vinyl house, stone. Or can it only be a certain thing. No, I mean, we find, yeah, the exterior of the home we find can be anything. I mean, we're really, the exterior, for our bills, the exterior is really to keep water out, right, and to look and to give an aesthetic appearance. We're focused on the inside air quality, the outside part, and we love to show off our builds. We like our clients to come and look behind the wall so they can see how much thought we put into that is keeping water and the conditions out of the house. But it can, it can be out of anything.

Roof, can roof be anything? So we like to use standing seam metal roof just for, because there's no screws in it and for, you know, the weather tightness of it, you know, we do some clay tile or concrete tile. We don't really like asphalt shingle roofs, just one because of the tar. And then they're prone to leaking more than the other two. What about a driveway? Does a driveway have to be non-toxic? Just have to watch the watershed. Yeah, watershed's important. I mean, where we're at here, I mean, there's a lot of restrictions on what you can do. I mean, I've seen, like, asphalt driveways.

I probably wouldn't want that in my house because what happens is, I mean, you even see it driving off the roads. You turn into your driveway and it leaves a trail, especially on hot days. And so I probably wouldn't want that in my driveway. That's asphalt. I mean, it's that smell of tar during the summertime. It's disgusting. Is there a certain flooring that you recommend people use in their homes? Porcelain.

I love porcelain. It's like, it's economical. Of course, there's always a range. It can look like wood or marble or stone. Super easy to clean, super durable. Also stone. The only thing about stone is it does require a sealer being put on it periodically, so it's a little bit more maintenance. And isn't it freezing walking around on?

Yes. Cork. There's some click together cork flooring that's actually really warm. And then there's a handful of engineered wood. I would stay away from most engineered wood. because of the glues that they put in it and then any kind of particle board or MDF, like you need to find some that's free of any rubber and they use glues that are formaldehyde free. Is carpet safe?

There's some, there is some carpet that there's a couple of brands that are natural wool carpet that, you know, fortunately in modern construction, we don't do a lot of carpet anyway. I think people realize like at Grandma's house when you've, you know, pulled that carpet up, it's like, oh my God. It doesn't matter if the carpet's healthy, what it's catching. Like dirt, yeah. And so we don't do a lot of carpet, but we do have a couple of natural wool brands that the colors are very limited. I will say they're not very, for me personally, they're not very attractive.

They're like earth tones. Because you have to look at the dyes that they use. And if you're using dyes that are, they may be synthetic, but they're non-toxic, usually they're not going to be like deeper bright. How do you feel about home security systems? If they're wired. Yeah. Okay, so they have to be hardwired in. What can people tweak in their pools to make them non-toxic?

We're actually doing a new build now where we've undertaken the pool build ourselves. And so we've got a little research. You can add an ozone filter to your pool. It's not that expensive. And it uses UV light and ozone to filter the water. So you're using about 1% of the chlorine that you would have to use before. There's also some very super expensive, like copper magnesium type filters. But, I mean, those are getting way, way up there in dollars.

But I think the easiest thing would be that ozone and UV filter. Okay. What should everyone have in regards to air filters? Whole home air purification is pretty much what we do in every single house. There's different components to that. There's a UV light, which helps to purify the air. It kills germs. Then there's the filtration part and like our filters look like suitcases.

They're electrified. So the dust and particles stick to it. It's like static. And so it actually creates healthcare grade level air. It's like Merv 13, I think, is the level, which is kind of our standard. And so for people who are renting an apartment or home like me, do you recommend there's some kind of like air, purifier that you just sat in the room, or is there something that we should be doing in addition to whatever we're provided by our landlord? Oh, absolutely. Those Austin air purifiers, they're expensive,

but the filters last for several years, and they're very, very effective. Yeah, you can turn that on and, like, go, go, like, on a weekend trip and you come home Monday, and it's, it's amazing, like, the difference in your, in your home. But also what Jen mentioned, like, those UV lights, they're very, they're very, simple and cheap add to any HVAC system, like any system you can add that UV light to. And so even if you're renting, I mean, it should be no problem to add that. You are what you eat. There should be no mystery when it comes to your meat. That rhymed, and I didn't even mean for it too. Look at me go. A great way to eliminate the question on if there are strange ingredients or practices with the meat that you're eating is to shop with ranchers you

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Yeah, at first I would look to see if there's any moisture issues, if you see any evidence of mold or if you smell anything. And that actually, like, relying on your nose is a big deal. I know some people are like, whatever, but like your nose doesn't lie. And so going around and like looking under sinks, looking behind the washing machine and dryer, seeing if there's mold in that drain, like cleaning out your HVAC system regularly every six months. And then looking at, you know, what kind of chemicals might be in your house. And I know all this seems like so overwhelming and I get it. Nobody can do it in a day.

So if you start with layers, like you replace your mattress with an organic, because you spend a third of your life sleeping, like an organic mattress or you start switching out furniture. All of this like adds up. And it's kind of like a mindset, a way of life. Like you just start to slowly, you know, trade out your food for organic food. It's kind of the same, same type of mentality. How do you know if your furniture is toxic that you already have? Furniture in the living room, bedroom, wherever it may be, you want to look for, what we look for is natural materials, things that don't have a lot of finishes on them.

And if they do have finishes, water-based finishes. No oil-based finishes, no PVC, no rubber. and the big offender in furniture, and we have a hard time even sourcing our own pieces of furniture because of this, is MDF and particle board. What is that? Well, MDF is actually, it's like sawdust. Yeah.

It's like it's a way that they're able to reuse byproduct like at sawmills and stuff like that. And so then it's just, it's mixed with like glue, which is basically from aldehyde, and then it's heated and compressed into boards. It's like molded into boards. Yeah. And if your furniture was cheap, if you bought it at IKEA, it's got MDF and from out of hide full of it. Well, I'm thinking my media center or whatever, my TV stand, that was real cheap that I got at Target. Yeah.

Oh, when I pulled that out of the box, it was covered in like sawdust and all the stuff I had to vacuum off. Yeah, part of the board. Yeah, off gases for quite a while. Great. So, like, if you spilled water on that and, like, a couple of days, it would swell up like a sponge just because it's... And if the paint, like, kind of bubbles if it gets wet and stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

It's like, it's basically like spongy material that they just form. And it's so easy to create, like, things that look like anything. It's like a molded type material. Even, like, your baseboards in the house, your fans. There's a lot of things people don't think about that are made out in cabinets are a big one with MDF and particle board. Solid wood is butter or plywood. Where do you buy non-toxic furniture? Like literally give me some of your favorite brand names, favorite stores that people could go to and look at.

Healthy your homes. Well, of course, healthier homes. But I mean, because you have companies that you like house on your website, right? Or no. Or it's just all your own stuff. Well, most of it is our own stuff. Furniture, like upholstery, we don't have any of that just simply because it's so difficult to source. Like we would have to actually have our own factory, which maybe one day we could do that.

Medley, I mentioned earlier. They have awesome couches and chairs. What about that avocado? It's like avocado, organic mattress. Love avocado. They even have some pieces of furniture. And they're one of the few furniture companies that use clean finishes. Even the ones you think would be clean or not.

Like they have organic wood. But then like what's that, what's the? Well, wood is organic anyway. That's always like a gimmick that people use. I mean, that's kind of what we define as organic is like, is it natural and was it like grown without pesticides? Like I know that certified organic has a lot of meaning to a lot of people. But in all honesty, the smaller family run like farms, especially overseas, it's like anywhere from 30 to $100,000 just to have our paint like Green Guard certified. And furniture is the same thing.

It's very, very expensive to have stuff actually certified. So we actually go straight to the to the manufacturers or the people that are making it to understand like what kind of finishes are being put on it. Same thing. You ask like living room like rugs. You want to look for rugs that don't have PVC backing on them, natural materials like cotton. Fire retardants. Yes, no fire retardants. That's that's on like, yeah, a lot of pillows and rugs.

And unfortunately, I had to go, like, call West Delm or Craternboro and be like, hey, guys, like, before we started our own healthier homes company, I was like, what kind of fire retardant so on your rugs? And they'd be like, I don't know. Right. Our fireplace is good or bad? They're good. We have LED fireplace. We like to use those. And they give off heat. We also do direct vent, which is gas. But it has to be completely enclosed. And so it actually pulls air from. one side of the house and it heats up, you know, inside the fireplace and then exhaust. That way you don't have any contamination of gas inside your home. Yeah. The thing the thing to look out for with fireplaces like a real traditional fireplace is, you know, we touched on it earlier about big offenders for leaks. Chimneys, I've seen a lot of builders get in trouble like with houses with mold problems

because they didn't properly flash the chimney. So that's just one area. if people are doing a traditional fireplace is to really look at the flashing of that, you know, how it's flashed before the roof goes on. Okay. It's kind of hard to control your environment inside a home with a, even with a flu on an open fireplace. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's kind of a builder trick that with the new energy codes,

the way that we have to put negative pressure on a house, like a traditional fireplace, you would never pass that test with the damper because they don't close all the way. So woodburning fireplaces, do you like this or no? Well, what we're getting, like, it's basically an open hole, like in your home. And so what a lot of builders will do before the test, they'll put saran wrap on the chimney. And so it'll pull negative air. The test is a blower door test. And they pressurized the home to see if any air is coming out.

And it's standard. Most cities in the U.S., this is required. And so, I mean, most homes are pretty much airtight, but it's, if you have a fireplace, it's impossible unless you cheat. Right. We don't do woodburning fireplaces. Yeah, we don't do. If I was going to choose a fireplace and I needed it for heat for, you know, to save on my bills,

it would be like one of those woodburning stoves that you can close up. And, you know, it's not like the big open, the hearth in front of you and all that stuff. What do we need to know about stoves? Gas stoves. We tend to stay away from unless our clients want them because. Gas is a combustion. It's actually being outlawed in California. And I think there were like nine, last week there were nine different states that kind of formed this coalition to outlaw gas heat, I believe it was. Electric stoves, the, what are the ones with the magnets? Induction. Yeah, induction are awesome. Cookware. You want ceramic cookware. It's like gold standard. It's awesome. It doesn't last quite as long.

as the other, like, toxic ones with Teflon and things that, like, kill birds inside your house. Like, if you have a bird, you cannot use any kind of cookware with Teflon on it. I mean, there's a whole movie about, like, how poisonous that stuff is. Yeah, Dark Waters. Yes. Yeah. I love that movie. I've told my audience a million times to watch.

It's one of my very favorite. It's eye-opening for sure. It is so eye-opening. It's all about Teflon. But, okay, so how do you feel about Caraway, pots and pans? Oh, I like them. Do? Okay.

They're really beautiful. Green pan, Osiri. Those are two brands that we love. We actually have green pan here on the stove. Stainless steel. Stainless steel's good. The only thing about stainless steel is if you're cooking something that's acidic, then it can leach, which is, I mean, if you have a nickel allergy, that would be problematic.

Okay. But otherwise, if you're not using, like, tomato soup in them or something, they're great. Cast iron. Yeah, love cast iron. How do you feel about microwaves? They don't have one. We don't install them. I mean, there's no microwave in this in this kitchen.

I noticed that. Nowadays, the ovens, like the air-frying ovens, they cook so quick. It's kind of like a microwave in and of itself. How crucial is the water system? Super crucial. Yeah. I mean, people think about the, oh, I drink filtered water, it's fine. No, like your body absorbs it.

And so whatever you're bathing in and cooking with, we do whole home water filtration systems. and if that's not something that can be done, like if you don't want to, they are a little more expensive, but if you also want to do something cheaper and quicker, there's like point-of-use filters where you put on your sink or on your showerhead. Showers, people don't realize, like, the chlorine is, like, it's gas that comes out whenever you're showering and it's hot, and, like, that's not good for you. So there's chlorine filters that easily just screw on. There's also ways, too, that we encourage people to, like, instead of just going and buying that point of use filter, the one off the rack, you can send your water off. It's fairly cheap to have it tested. Like, for whatever you're, if you're, you know, the city of Horseshoe Bay or the city of Austin, city of Phoenix, you can test that water. And then they will recommend a filter based on what's in your water. And it's very inexpensive.

What do you think is the best water filter system? Is it RO? Is it something else? So we do whole home water filtration systems and they're like probably the size of rusty. Like they're tall. It looks like big helium tanks. And they have like layers of charcoal and sand and rock. And it's RO quality water. But RO is so expensive. I mean, it's great if you have the means to be able to do RO. But it also was waste like two thirds of your water. So R.O. is fabulous. If you don't want to go down that route, you do a, like, a complete whole home water filtration system. But I do want to warn people. Like, I went into Home Depot the other day and I saw, I'm not kidding, a whole home water filtration system that was like this big. It's like this. That's just not physically possible. It's like the size of like a newborn baby. Right. Are there certain countertops that you prefer? Yes. Quartz love quartz Why quartz

It's rock It's an engineered product It has zero VOC, zero off gassing And it's zero maintenance Like it's rock hard You have to try really hard to chip it And it comes in like It looks like marble

It can look like granite It can look like soap stone It can look like all different things And there's a lot of different price ranges for it Stone is good too But you have to seal it Stone's very porous Yeah

What are the worst cleaning products somebody could use in their home. Oh my gosh. Fabuloso. Fabulous. Oh, no. We stick with like, and it's actually like really economical. Use hydrogen peroxide, vinegar. Bonnie, I mean, makes like a really cool.

It's just made out of like limestone and some surfactants that are like vegetables. And like alcohol, vodka. We use vodka on windows. Oh, okay. Instead of Windex? Yeah. I tell you, there's nothing more embarrassing than getting a text at like 9.30 in the morning. It's like, hey, the housekeepers here, we're out of vodka.

And I've got to go to the liquor store and wait for them to open. They get two half gallons. Okay, man. The cheapest vodka. And I'm like, I don't drink, man. I promise. This is for cleaning. And they're like, yeah, bud, sure.

Yeah, they're like, sure. We hear that all the time. Rusty, if that is your real. Yeah, right. But I tell you what's funny about you say the cleaning. And it's like people have this notion that it has to smell. like something for it to be clean. And it's like this genius marketing thing that these cleaning products have. If it doesn't smell strong like chemicals, people think that my house isn't clean.

But you're saying that is a lie. It is. Yeah. I mean, absolutely. You might clean the grease and the grind, but what you're leaving behind is worse. I mean, you're leaving a chemical body. The fumes. Yeah. That was one of the first things I became allergic to was soaps and chemicals. Yeah. And I was like, Why is, why am I breaking out after, like, I wash the dishes? And a lot of them are petroleum-based. So plant-based products, like seventh generation, love their stuff. Brand-wise, what do you like for cleaning supplies? So we have a healthier clean, like on our line of stuff.

We have a degreaser that is so concentrated. We use it for everything. Laundry. And, I mean, it's, it's made. It's created to work with our building products, like our paints. But it's, we use it to wash the cars. and, yeah, laundry. But Seventh Generation, we use a lot.

Whole Foods has a soap nuts-based laundry detergent, too. So we actually mix the two together. Ammonia, I know ammonia smells super strong, and it's a VOC, but if you can use it appropriately, which is like a ventilated area, it goes away very quickly, and it cleans, like, grease off of things without having to use, like, super harsh chemicals.

What cabinet hardware should you stay away from? I would just stay away from, like you said, the cheap ones, because the metal, you don't, like, you don't want tin or, like, copper to. Copper's beautiful, but it can tend to rub off and leech and too much copper is than a good thing. Bedrooms. What does it mean if your light in your bedroom is constantly kind of like flickering a little bit? or you hear an electrical wire buzz. Mine constantly do this in my apartment. So I never knew this was problematic

until I read your book. And now I need to know everything. So it's likely you have LED, like probably can lighting or something. And so a lot of times what happens now is that people will put in LED recess lighting and then they put in a very cheap switch or maybe it's, is it on a dimmer?

It's on a dimmer. So if you think about LEDs, they use like, three, five watts. And you have way more than that coming to that light. And so what that switch has to do is that electricity has to go somewhere. And so if that switch is a cheap switch, it's not really diluting it enough for the LED. And that's what causes the flicker. That's a very unscientific explanation. It's an EMF problem. Oh, great. So that's something you think I should just tell my apartment about or they're going to be like, okay, you're, you're probably going to have to keep hounding them about it. Tell them to replace the dimmers switch. Because we don't actually use dimmers in our house. The dimmers nowadays that are like quality are okay. But the problem with dimmers is they create this transient like Rusty was saying. Like you think of like a plumbing hose and you block it and like the it starts to create pressure.

It's pretty much like creating like a large EMF field around where it's buzzing. Oh good, which is right above my bed. Yeah, that's no point. So does it need to, do I need to get rid of the dimmer switch entirely and just have an on and off switch? Yeah. Okay. All right. I'm going to ask them.

What is the best non-toxic bedding? Bamboo. I love bamboo. Tensil. Modal. All of these things are, they're grown without pesticides naturally. So even if you're getting bamboo sheets and they're not necessarily organic, you can pretty much know that they're not going to have chemicals. Look for brands that say that their dyes are non-toxic.

Does it truly mess? matter what a baby's crib is made out of. Gosh, yes. Yeah, it's funny to me how we, they market all these things to us. This is safe for your baby, safe for your baby. But then once they reach a certain age, do we just reach a point of immunity to these type of chemicals where they won't bother us anymore? That's true.

They don't care about you and I. They don't care about the adults, but they're like, you need to be using these certain things for your babies. Very true. Mattresses are, that's where your baby's faces. I mean, all of us. We sleep one third of our life. Babies probably sleep two thirds of their life. A mattress that's made out of organic cotton or something that breathes and doesn't have fire retardants on them. There were rules,

there were laws that were recently reversed about having to put, that makes me sad to even think about fire retardants on all the baby pajamas and like baby clothing. Like when we grew up, all of our clothes when we were little were covered in fire retardants because it was a law. And yeah. So, nowadays, thankfully if you go look for brands, like Kiki Pant, we just have a three-year-olds, so we're kind of familiar with the baby stuff. Kiki Pants has awesome bamboo stuff. And it's quality. So if you're paying a little bit more for it, it doesn't fall apart. Organic cotton is awesome for little babies. Like there's sheets and diapers. Honest is like the only diaper that we've been able to use. So.

And as far as the crib, I mean, you know, going. It's kind of similar to the furniture. You don't want a cheap one. You want something solid wood, probably not finished. I mean, what we have a lot of people do is they'll buy a crib and then they'll buy our paint. And it's like a cool project. They'll paint the crib. And then we sell a lot of paint to paint, you know, baby rooms.

And we're like, hey, what about your room? You think all of us just need to become really good friends with our local Amish farmer or whatever to our Amish furniture makers so that they can make us some of this stuff. Yeah, so, I mean, Jen actually, like, this part of her marketing brain, I mean, we, when we come up with this furniture, we sell unfinished furniture that's similar to the Amish furniture. And so Jen come up with this term P-I-Y. And so you can buy this. You came up with it. I did. No, that's not smart enough for that. Anyway, you buy this unfinished furniture, but you can also, we'll send you, like we've already calculated the amount, we'll send you the paint to go with it if you wanted to paint it yourself. What is the most crucial advice about building bathrooms so that they don't create mold growing environments like what you ended up with? Waterproof your shower. Waterproof your shower. That is the most important thing is to make sure that your shower is completely waterproof that it's done properly. You know, I realize that not everybody can't afford a custom home. Most people don't live in custom homes. They live in apartments or they live in production homes.

And unfortunately, their goal is speed. It's not quality. It's not paying attention to all those details. And so, I mean, if you're able to get in there while your home's being built, look at that shower pan. Make sure that it's done properly. Some states require that you fill it up with water while the house is being built to make sure that it doesn't leak. Texas is not one of those, but some states require that. And waterproofing all the way up the sides of the showers because I think most people,

people just go up like a foot or two, which I don't really understand why. We also, we do something else unique. We put sealers in our grout. And so our grout is like an integral waterproofing sealer because grout lines are notorious. Like they're concrete. And so they will absorb water over time. So using tile that is larger also helps reduce the amount of grout lines. What items in a bathroom could be really, really toxic to our health that we don't even think about?

your towels, I wouldn't say they'd be super toxic, but if you're using like organic towels, that's a much better thing than using the cheapy towels that have kind of dyes. You don't even know, you know, that are in them. I'm thinking about my grandmother's house and opening the sink, and it's like, you get a woof, like the scrubbing bubbles. They love the scrubbing bubbles. And so all the cleaning, the cleaning products. I mean, you know. I was going to say toilet paper, non-toxic toilet paper, which my listeners know, I love bum roll. for that. And then also floss. Okay.

I learned recently how toxic floss is. Because of the oil on it? No, it's like made with plastic. Like your traditional floss. So one brand I found that I really like is cocoa floss. Okay. I'll have to check that out. Yeah.

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This is known as the Botox plant because it suppresses the breakdown of collagen in your face. Try NimiSkinkare, modern skin care with timeless values. Nemeyskinkare.com with code Alex Clark for 10% off. That's Nemeyskinkare.com with code Alex Clark for 10% off. Find the details in the description. The shower curtain, if they're made out of PVC, that's like you'll know. know because it smells like a beach ball, throw it out. Get one that's, I think, I believe it's polyvinyl acetate, PVA. It won't off gas. What are a few shocking things that people would not expect when it

comes to toxins hiding in their home that we haven't covered yet? They're insulation. What's going on with insulation? So with a lot of the new energy codes, there's, you know, foam insulation is widely being used. There's a lot of misinformation out there about insulation. And unfortunately, the most commonly used in residential is open cell foam. And it is toxic as they come. And it will off gas forever, forever. That's what you smell if you walk into a new home. You're smelling that insulation and you're likely smelling the paint.

And so we don't use open cell. We use a water-applied closed cell. And so once it cures, it's completely rock-hulled. It will not off. Like, it's closed up, basically. And then we steal it. Yeah, we steal the entire cavity of the house with a non-toxic sealer. Which room in your house is the most like a tomb when it comes to toxins?

So your garage is probably the most toxic or the most problematic room in your house. And so a lot of people don't think about ventilating the garage, but you keep all kinds of stuff in your garage. You keep your vehicle in your garage. So it's full of petroleum products. cleaning products and, you know, unfortunately, probably weed killers and stuff like that. And so it's important to ventilate your garage, you know, keep a window open or have vents installed. Oh, that's interesting. So you think people should have windows in their garage? 100%. We don't build a house without windows in the garage. Or if we can't put a window in there, we put vents. We do a passive

vending system where you have a vent on each side. So it's constantly venting. There's been cases of little kids that live above a garage and they get very, very sick from the chemicals. What are some easy tests people can do in their home to see if their houses make them sick? You can use the VOC meters and they're actually available on Amazon and they work relatively well. TVOC stands for total VOCs. There's also ones that do specifically like formaldehyde. But the caveat, of course, is kind of take it with a grain of salt because if you're using like essential oils or if you just cleaned with vinegar, it's going to register. And so, like, doing it whenever there's not other things that get interfered would be helpful. I actually take, and then we do this for the products that

we sell, I'll take something and put it in a big glass canister with a glass top, because glass doesn't off gas, it's very inert. And then I'll put, like, a piece of wallpaper in there with the VOC meter, and I'll let it sit and see what happens. And so that's an easy way to tell if something is off-gascing VOCs. if somebody wants to build a non-toxic home, do they have to find a builder who specializes in that? Or can they give any builder your book and say, do this? So it would be ideal if there were builders that specialize in this or a lot of them. I mean, I'm sure there's more out there.

I don't know of any. We don't know any of any that we could recommend. The answer to that second part of that question is yes and no. our book would be a helpful tool, but ultimately it's up to that builder to really be open to that. It's a tricky slope, right? You don't want somebody, like, as a builder, I'm responsible for the warranty of that home. I'm responsible for making sure that the fit and finish is correct. And so if I have a third party chiming in and telling me, well, this is what you should do,

then they don't have any skin in the game. They are not warranting. It's really tough. And so finding- They have to believe that. Yes. Exactly. Because if they're like, I mean, this is kind of silly. We'll just like cut a corner here or whatever. If you're interviewing a builder and you get that vibe, that's time to walk away. Like if your builder's not willing to work with you as a client, especially if you're building a custom home.

Like that, to me, custom home, the biggest part of that is customer. Like that's like we're not there to tell them no or, you know, we're there to say, okay, yes. And if it's not something that we typically do, it's like, well, we're going to figure this out. That's probably the biggest part of our job on a daily basis is figuring stuff out, like just on the fly. How can we make this work? But, yeah, I mean, it's a yes and no question. What is your website called and how often do you update the items on the store there? It's healthierhomes.com and I've updated.

Every night. We do. We build houses during the day and I go home at night and I work on the website. And I have a small team of people that are awesome. And together we've been able to get a lot done. It's fun. I enjoy it. Your book is like an incentive.

Ecyclopedia for this. This conversation didn't even scratch the surface of the granular detail that they go into in this book. I mean, I was flipping through seeing stuff I didn't, I never even thought of in my life. They had details, beautiful illustrations, exact directions, blueprints showing on how to, you know, do your, I don't even know what. I mean, I don't build homes, but every single thing you can imagine, it's in their book. So healthier homes is the name. And I'm They can buy that on your website, right? No, it's not on the website. It's on Amazon. It's a publisher thing. Oh, okay, okay, perfect. There's a link on the website. Yes, there's a link.

Okay, cool. So Barnes & Noble, Amazon, I'm just going to tell you right now, we've got to get this book at the front of every aisle in Home Depot or whatever. Oh, I love it. Now, how can somebody get in touch with you if they're interested in hiring you to build their home? So they can reach us on healthier homes, also on j.js2Partners.com. One thing I would say is just, you know, have an idea of, what you want. It's really hard to mine that information out of people, especially on a custom

home because it's, you know, it's their dream. It's not our dream. And so we tell people to think about what you don't need. Don't think about all the things that you want. Think about the things that you don't need. It's like a relationship, you know, past relationships. You learn what you don't want in a person. Do they need to be at least right now living in central Texas? Currently, yeah. Yeah. I'd say we're probably a year and a half away from being able to expand. But we're doing the tiny houses and those you can take anywhere. What is your all's Instagram? Healthier homes by JS2.

Same thing on Facebook. Any final thoughts that you guys want to share with a listener who has, maybe they've just started house plans to build and now they're like, oh, do I need to pause and like stop everything and then do the non-toxic route? What is your advice for them? Absolutely. Buy our book. It walks you through the entire process.

And even if you're already halfway through, there's a lot of information that can help with doing your finishes. And I think that a message that I want everyone to receive is it's not overwhelming. I know what we've talked about today seems like a lot. But it's your life and it's your health and it's your family. And this is important to take baby steps to getting to a point where you're starting to feel better. You have more energy. You don't have trouble sleeping at night. There's a lot of different things.

The outcome of it, and Rusty can even speak to this, is you start to feel so much better. Because we're not doing this just for people like me that have issues with their home. This is for maintaining your health and your quality of life. And that's the most important thing. Yeah. One thing we noticed when we started is that the trend has now gone away from people that have gone through what Jen's gone through. Now we're getting young families that are just aware of the, of the trend. things that are in these products of the chemicals that are out there. And they just want a safe

place for their kids and for them to grow up. And so that's, that's really refreshing to see that, that part of the business. But you spend 90% of your time indoors. But I would also warn people when they're, when they're getting started is to don't get, don't get caught up in the green build aspect, because a lot of times green building gets mixed up with healthy building. And green is not healthy. Healthy can sometimes be green, but, you know, green. is it can be a problem because people, you know, you see it on TV like they're going and they're using this nice reclaim beam and they're putting in their living room. Well, what if that was in a fertilizer factory? You know, what if, you know, what if that was where they made Roundup or something,

you know, and it got sprayed all the time, but now it's in your house. So you have to be careful with stuff like that. Like old farmwood. A lot of times is containing with pesticides and chemicals. Recycled plastic is another one that we don't put in our homes just because they could smell like tide bottles and like different petroleum type products. I think it's just two different goals. Like ones for the environment, like outdoor environment, and then the green would be that. And then a healthier living environment is like a goal for inside the house for the people. Not necessarily the outdoor environment.

Fantastic advice. Jen and Rusty, thank you for inviting us into your home to film the spillover. Yeah. Thank you guys for coming. Anytime. Next week is an episode featuring an expert on attachment. theory, what it is, what the different types are, how it's developed, how your attachment can affect your romantic and platonic relationships and what to do if you have a less than desirable

attachment style. The spillover is back next Thursday at 9 p.m. Pacific, midnight Eastern, anywhere you get your podcasts and real Alex Clark on YouTube. I'm Alex Clark and this is the spillover. Love you, mean it. Bye.