Crawl Space Ninja Show
Welcome to "Healthy Home ABCs with Michael Church," where we dive into the essentials of improving indoor air quality. Learn practical tips for fixing your attic, basement, and crawl space to create a healthier home environment.
Crawl Space Ninja Show
Why Soda Blasting Is Worth Every Penny For Your Crawl Space
Curious about what soda blasting really is and why it's revolutionizing crawl space mold remediation? You'll want to hear this revealing conversation with the experts from Crawl Space Ninja of Charlotte (https://crawlspaceninja.com/locations/charlotte-nc/).
Videos mentioned:
$25,000 Inspection - https://youtu.be/6mOWfJEm6MA?feature=shared
Redo Crawl Space After Walkthrough - https://youtu.be/6mOWfJEm6MA?feature=shared
Most homeowners facing crawl space mold are presented with basic chemical treatments that merely mask the problem temporarily. These "spray and pray" approaches leave you wondering if new mold is growing or if old mold is returning because there's no clean baseline for comparison. The team breaks down why soda blasting stands apart as the gold standard for complete mold removal, literally stripping mold away at its root while making wood look remarkably new again.
The discussion tackles common misconceptions head-on, particularly the widely-held belief that bleach effectively kills mold. The experts explain why bleach's high water content, quick evaporation rate, and damaging effect on wood's structural integrity make it a poor choice compared to sodium bicarbonate, which is both effective and non-toxic. You'll learn about potential residue concerns during the process and how they're managed to minimize impact on your living space.
What truly sets this conversation apart is the holistic approach to mold remediation. The team emphasizes that while soda blasting excels at removing existing mold, preventing its return requires addressing the underlying moisture issues through proper encapsulation, dehumidification, and water management. They share powerful success stories, including one customer whose debilitating health issues dramatically improved after proper mold remediation.
Whether you're struggling with crawl space mold currently or want to understand your options before problems develop, this episode provides clarity on what effective, permanent solutions look like. Don't settle for temporary fixes when your home's structural integrity and your family's health are at stake. Subscribe for more expert insights on creating healthier home environments from the foundation up.
Check out Michael's book, "Crawl Space Repair Myths-Busted" now available on Amazon!
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Hey there, michael Church, crawl Space Ninja. I had the opportunity to sit down with the folks over at Crawl Space Ninja of Charlotte. I got a chance to talk to Doug James and Mason and we are going to go through a lot of questions that I had for them about soda blasting and mold and procedures and indoor air quality. I feel like it's some great information. Sit back and relax and take a listen to these guys explain exactly what soda blasting is. Is it cost effective? How is it different than other methodologies when it comes to addressing mold? Hope you like this content. Hope you'll subscribe. Mason, let's start with you. Tell me I don't know if you've ever done this before. I want you all to be comfortable, so usually you get comfortable by talking a little bit, so why don't you tell me a little?
Mason:bit about yourself and how long you've been with the company and all that kind of stuff. Well, yeah, my name is Mason Gordon. I'm 21 years old. I'm from Charlotte originally. I went to high school right down the road at Providence High School. I went to college at East Carolina and I'm a little bit of a unique case. I'm still in school, um. I transferred to online school about two years ago, um, and I'm still taking classes at East Carolina university. Um, I started with the company about six months ago. Um. Doug, our owner um, I know him through a personal connection and so I started about six months ago through that and I've I've come to know James and the rest of our crew, of our crew and and had a good time so far.
James:that's great, james, uh, yeah you're the same, yeah, yeah, I've been with uh crawlspace ninja for just over three years now, um, and I've been in the crawlspace industry for, let's see, I always forget I think it's been uh six years actually.
Michael Church:Yeah, very good uh Doug, how you doing.
James:What's going on. What's happening?
Doug:I see these two every day.
Michael Church:I don't see you every day, so well, you're probably seeing the best ones every day you want to see.
Doug:Yeah.
Michael Church:Yeah so.
Doug:Michael.
Michael Church:I'm good. I'm good. I just got back from Nashville. My oldest and I went to a concert in Nashville. So he plays bass and he's not in a band or anything, he plays at church. But he loves all kinds of music, from country to hip hop to metal. So we went to a concert out in Nashville and it was really good. There's a lady called Poppy. I don't know if you ever heard of her before, but she's a metal screaming lady.
James:Oh right. It was a really cool venue.
Michael Church:Yeah, it was called. It was a bowling alley. I've never seen anything like it before. It was a two-floor bowling alley with a venue inside of it, so it was super cool, small, you know venue. Uh, it was her and and she had a small, opener band and uh, yeah, it was really cool. We, uh we were going to fly down, but the weather wasn't that great, so we wound up driving down. So, uh, yeah, we got back yesterday afternoon.
Doug:So yeah, good, how have you been, doug, Active bowling alley. I mean, it's an old bowling alley.
Michael Church:No, no, they were bowling, it's like you know. I'm like, well, do they have to pay to see her? Because they can see her, and I had to pay to get in here. So you know it was a little weird. I never seen anything like it before in my life.
Doug:That'd be a good lesson. Rent your bowling shoes first next time.
Michael Church:Yeah, I was like that's pretty cool. So and then him and my wife are going to go see Ghost in July back in Nashville, but that'd be a little bit bigger of a venue. I think they're going to the auditorium out there for that Ghost is a little bigger.
Doug:It's a good show. I saw them about four years ago. It's a good show. I saw them about four years ago. It's like Marilyn Manson meets Blue Oyster Colton.
Michael Church:Yeah, yeah, ghost is pretty cool. We saw Killswitch Engaged up in. I always want to say Paducah, but that's not where we went. It was Corbin Corbin, kentucky. There's like a small venue up there and we saw them. And anyway, it's you. You know, I'm getting a little old to be standing around getting in a mosh pit, so I, uh, I kind of sit over on the side and get beer thrown on me every once in a while. That's about it, but uh, anyway, pretty, pretty cool, pretty cool experience.
Doug:Don't sell yourself short. I'd go in a mosh pit with you yeah, well, he was in there, I wasn't.
James:I was holding his jacket there, you go yeah, that's, I mean you go to the mosh pit. You're good for the gym for a few days.
Michael Church:Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, he was in there pretty good. Apparently, people dress up like bananas. I don't know if y'all ever been to one recently, but there was a couple of dudes in banana suits and they're mosh pit. It's a thing.
Doug:Okay, the Masons are got to keep us culturally relevant.
Michael Church:Yeah, mason, you should know about this stuff. Come on, that's outside of my scope, guys, that's.
Mason:that's definitely not my niche. That's definitely not my niche.
Michael Church:Yeah, yeah, so, but yeah, it was good stuff. It was good stuff, all right. So so I made this little list, 10 compelling soda blasting talking points. And you know, I will admit that I asked AI to kind of help me do this because I wanted to know. You know, I've been doing this forever, right, and I know what I know, but there's homeowners that probably have different questions than I think they have. So I wanted to see what AI had to say about this kind of stuff. So that's why I asked it to kind of give me some topics that a homeowner might be interested in asking. So that's where this list kind of came from. Great, let's start with James. How about we start with you, james? You've been obviously doing this six years with two different companies now. What is soda blasting and why is that ideal for mold? And what I mean by that is not only for us as the soda blast store. But why is it ideal for a homeowner who has mold in the crawl space of their basement? Why is soda blasting ideal for them?
James:Yeah, so soda blasting is basically we take. So soda blasting is uh, basically we take uh baking soda and we pressurize it and we uh strip the very, very top layer of the wood, um, and that the great thing about soda blasting is that it removes uh not only the surface mold, but it the mold at its root, um, and it makes the wood look essentially brand new or as new as can be. I found that the greatest success for homeowners is when, if your house is a little bit older, say, it's from the 70s or even older than that sometimes you know we still buy some 80-year-old homes and the wood looks incredible. I mean way better results than you can get with any other method of mold remediation as far as removal of mold.
Michael Church:That's right. So, basically, whenever you know, I first discovered soda blasting, I was trying to find a way to strip the mold off. Right, because it seems like every other company out there, they're what I call a spray and pray. Right, they just spray it. A lot of times they'll even leave the insulation in place, they'll leave the wood damp, all that. We've got our protocol that we follow for all that kind of stuff. But I wanted something, like you said, to make the crawl space look good and and to almost reset the wood. So you know, if you're in the, if you're in the spray and pray column, and you go down there and you spray the mold and maybe you kill it, maybe you don't. Uh, how do you know if new mold has come back? Because you, you don't know. Right, and that's what soda blasting does. It gives us that clean surface so that we know if something does come back.
James:Uh, then this is new, this is fresh, there must be a water problem or something like that going on right, right, yeah, exactly, I mean, if you don't actually physically remove the mold, your only hope is to take pictures of what it looks like at a certain point and then compare it. You know, down the road and you're just guessing, unless you can maybe get it tested and sent off to a lab and maybe it's dead. It's just, you're absolutely hoping it's taken care of and I've always heard that you know, hope is not really a strategy. It's not something that with solar blasting. It's gone, it's completely gone. It's really remarkable, that's right, that's right.
Michael Church:Mason, do you have anything to add about that? I mean, as far as what you've seen, has it been pretty amazing the results that you've been able to see with that.
Mason:Yeah, Soda blasting is just something that you know. Since seeing this and learning this industry and learning how we take care of mold remediation, soda blasting seems like the number one way and the number one process for how to remediate that mold. Not only does it remediate the mold, but often we have to explain to customers that when there's mold, and when there's a presence of mold over an extended period of time, it tends to stain the wood. So for a lot of customers like you were talking about with the Spray and Pray company, even if they're doing something like using a wire brush to wipe it down or using towels to wipe it down, that wood is still going to be stained because of the presence of mold. So soda blasting is so amazing because we can make it to where a homeowner goes down and, depending on the way that they use the soda blaster, we can even try and help with some of that wood staining as well.
Michael Church:Well, and I want to touch on that just for a second too you talked about the method of soda blasting versus a wire brush or some kind of brushing. You know the crawl space is not always ideal for those brush or wipe off or HEPA vacuum type scenarios, and I don't know which of you want to speak on this, but you know, if you've got, say, for example, hardwood and you've got nails going through there, hey there, michael Church, founder of Crawl Space Ninja. Do you have a crawl space or a basement, or perhaps your home is suffering from some type of indoor air quality issue? I want to encourage you to check out my book Crawl Space Repair Myths Busted, available on Amazon. This is a great book for any homeowner that is concerned about indoor air quality, mold, moisture, whether you're on a crawl space or a basement or a slab built house.
Michael Church:This is a great book, great information. I encourage you to check it out Again. The name of the book is Crawl Space Repair Myths Busted, now available on Amazon. You got like a sharp corner. I mean, do you see the wire brushing and all that being able to be effective at getting the mold off around those areas? James, do you want to talk about that?
James:Yeah, I've personally at a previous company I worked at. You know we spent some time, you know, working with the crews. I worked at. You know we spent some time, you know, working with the crews and you know they would spray the mold and then you hand wipe it with either towels or rags or wire brushes. But when there's nails, I mean not only is it it's really hard to get it actually removed, but it kills your hands, even if you're wearing thick gloves. I mean you're every time you're going to get bloody. It's so it's. It's really difficult for to get the process to actually get it removed and also for whoever does the work. It's hard on them too.
Michael Church:Yeah, yeah, absolutely I. I just don't. It wasn't effective. I mean, before I could do soda blasting that was my preferred method was wiping it off. I feel like that's even better than HEPA, because in my opinion, hepa vacuums are not powerful enough to suck mold off of wood, especially that damp mold. Right, you guys have seen that before. I mean, imagine, imagine going to a tree and this if you're a homeowner and you want to test this out, go find a mossy or a lichen covered tree and try to vacuum that off. Yeah, I mean you to vacuum that off. Yeah, I mean you can't do it.
James:No.
Michael Church:So. So how can a mold guy go down there or mold lady go down there and vacuum? I mean, mold it's, it's not, it's like sucked on it's. It's it's fighting for its life. Yeah, it doesn't want you to take it off. Yeah, you know.
James:I mean, it's resilient.
Michael Church:Yeah, take it off.
Mason:Yeah, right, you know I mean it's resilient. Yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry, go ahead. I was just gonna say, yeah, mold is resilient. Um, you know, it's gonna try and find out the you know the areas that it can live and be undisturbed. Um, it's gonna try and find you know the best places, uh, that it wants to be and where it makes it the hardest to to remediate it. Um, and that's why the soda blaster is so important, like you were talking about. You can't really get into a corner, especially if you add, like James was talking about, some nails in that corner it's hard to move towels, rags, brushes, anything through there. That soda can just go right there. It's number one.
Michael Church:Yeah, very good, very good's. Uh, let's talk a little bit about sodium bicarbonate itself. Um, I've got a question here to ask, uh, or a question here from a homeowner that asks is it safe for my family, my pets and my home? And I just want to be cautious on the word safe. All right, uh, because even though sodium bicarbonate is a food grade material, it still requires certain PPE you know, personal protective equipment and those kind of things to be able to utilize it effectively. So which one of you want to speak on that safe aspect, with our customer or with our homeowner?
James:customer or with our homeowner, sure, sure, um. Well, it is. I believe it's the same stuff you put in a cake when you bake, right? So I mean you can't, I mean you, I tell people you can lick it if you want. Now, when you soda blast, you are, there is probably going to be some dust, um, that comes into your house, and baking soda, uh, uh, particles that come into your house, and baking soda, uh, uh, particles that come into your house. You know, some houses have more, some houses have less. Every house is different, um, and when we do that, we we do have an air scrubber running in the home just to help purify the air, um. So, yeah, I mean it is very safe, but you are going to see some, uh, some particles probably coming to the house.
Mason:Very good, I think that that is just what I was going to say. Is that, um, you know, for families that are, uh, asking, you know, are curious, um, about what it's going to do inside the house, um, you know, every home is different. Wood warps and contracts through different temperatures and moisture. So we definitely see homes that that soda comes up through the subfloor. But, like we were talking about, if the soda blaster wasn't that powerful and that good at remediating it, then I don't think that we would have that problem. Like James mentioned, you know, we put that air scrubber in, we come in, we tape up all the receivers of the ducts on the first floor, we ask that you turn your AC off, so we take steps to try and remediate the residue inside the home. And then, even with that residue being inside the home, it's a safe, non-toxic residue. That, if anything, is just a little inconvenient.
Michael Church:That's right. Well, and the reason why I said safe in quotes was because you know everybody would think oh, water is good for you, right, Water is safe. Well, you can actually die from water, right, If you can drown. But there's also something called water toxicity, which means that you can drink so much water that it can kill you. So with there's still, it's still a chemical, it's still a product that has to be utilized correctly. It is a high alkaline base which and mold is typically acidic, so it likes to kill an acidic mold.
Michael Church:But, like you said, it's in. If you drink alkaline water, if you go into the grocery store and buy alkaline water, that's sodium bicarbonate that they added in that water to make it alkaline. If you, if you're taking a Tom's or a Rolaise or something like that, that's sodium bicarbonate. And then the opposite of that is, if you're kind of stopped up a little bit, it can become a laxative. So you know, it's food great, that's the whole point. But you know you still have to be cautious with it. You don't want to, you know. But, like you said, if your dog or something goes down there after we soda blast, we're not using, you know, EPA registered chemicals that would kill that animal if they accidentally got into it. So that's now. That's the nice thing about it, Right? So now it will brine your grass a little bit. I mean, if you guys have ever seen that happen around the doorway of the crawl space, it will brown that grass a little bit. Doug, were you going to comment on that?
Doug:Yeah, I was just going to say just as, as as a business owner, it just feels good putting our people in a safe place.
Doug:You know I talked and James you would know a lot because you've worked at other companies and Mason you would know a lot because you work with our crews every day. But some of these other processes of treating or trying to kill mold not great for the workers either. I mean it's probably a little bit tougher on us to train these guys up so that they know how Most of these guys will come to us, even if they have cross-based experience and never touched a soda blaster before. So we have to train them up. So on the front end it's a little tougher for us. But I mean I feel good knowing that you know my people are going into a home not only trying to improve the air quality and the investment for the homeowner, but not only trying to improve the air quality and the investment for the homeowner, but that it's a safe, really good green process for our employees. I'm not putting them in a spot where they're breathing in dangerous chemicals and those kind of things.
Michael Church:Yeah, that's a good point, Doug. And the flip side of that, people always ask me well why, doug? Well, dry ice blasting would kill my staff, or could, because it off, it's, it's, it's exchanging oxygen for, I think, carbon dioxide, yeah. So, yeah, we have not had a work comp claim due to the ingest ingestation of soda, so we're good to go there. Right, it might have had some people run to the bathroom if they decided to eat it, but other than that, I tell you, you know what the guys after you soda blast your skin and your hair are impeccable.
Michael Church:Hey, why do you think my hair looks like this?
Mason:I rub soda in my hair every day. All right, James. Soda in my hair every day. There you go.
Michael Church:I don't, I don't do it All right, james. How effective is soda blasting at killing and removing mold? Can you just? You know that was one of the questions our homeowners are asking us.
James:No-transcript uh, it's the best process I've ever seen. I are the best process I know of at um removing uh mold growth from the surface. Uh, so you know we we work with houses. You know some are brand new, like I've worked under new construction home that developed mold while it's being built and you know, obviously it removes mold there really well. But I'm really impressed whenever we work under houses that are 100 years old and I mean when you see that mold being stripped away and how that wood looks that old growth wood after we're done, it's really remarkable. I'm sure there's plenty of pictures online that we could find, but it looks great. So it's the best process I know of. I've researched.
Michael Church:Yeah, very good, mason, you got anything to add about that?
Mason:Yeah, just reiterating what James said. I would compare it to if you have a very dirty concrete surface and you pressure wash it, just going from seeing that dark concrete to light concrete. It's the same thing with the wood, like James, when you have an old house that is exacerbated and it is like night and day and it's honestly satisfying. You know the, the soda blaster is just so effective at taking mold off, regardless of how old or how heavy or how present it is that's a great analogy.
Michael Church:the the pressure washing analogy is fantastic.
Mason:I definitely have a video or two in my camera roll of us. We did a house one time and we also ended up doing soda blasting on the joists of his porch because all of the floor and the wood was taken up. They were just renovating the whole entire house so we were able to soda blast outside and it was easier to get a video. So, yeah, my guys got a video and it's like you're pressure washing the wood, but we do it with soda and it remediates the mold. It's night and day.
Michael Church:That's great. Well, please send that to me, I'll include it in this video. Yeah, one of the other things. I don't know if you all have had any experience with this, but we got a lot of cabins. You know log cabins in the Smokies and I know Paul has done this up in Delaware. You can soda blast the outside of log cabins, especially if they've gotten all mossy. You know, usually these cabins are in the woods and it's shaded and damp and mossy.
Michael Church:If you want to restain your cabin, soda is very good. If you were to pressure wash that cabin with water, you're forcing moisture into that wood. That could grow mold later. It's okay to pressure wash concrete, but I certainly wouldn't want to use that on wood a whole lot, because then you're just forcing that water into the grain. So that's where soda blasting is really good. By the time the soda comes out, the end of that nozzle it's almost a powder. It's so dry. So it's a very good alternative to a wet form of removing staining and all that Very good. All right, I'm going to start with you on this one, mason. Will soda blasting prevent the mold from coming back?
Mason:So I think my short answer on this one is going to be no. In my opinion, what is going to prevent the mold from coming back is the process that we do after the soda blasting, whether that be insulating the walls, adding plastic to the floor, taping all the seams and then doing something like that, or just doing maybe a partial and adding plastic to the floor, depending on what the project needs. The soda blaster is going to be the most effective at getting the mold off of the wood, but from there, the work that we do after is what prevents that from coming back.
Michael Church:That's right, James. You got anything to add to that?
James:Yeah, same, it's just important to remove the reason why the mold is there. You know, because sometimes we'll come in and soda blast after someone's had a prolonged plumbing leak also, and maybe the mold is not there because of prolonged humidity and crawl space, but maybe they just had a leak there for six months I didn't know about. You know, of course you want to have that fixed, but the only way to keep the mold from coming back is to remove the reason why it was there, which is moisture.
Michael Church:That is correct. So you know I'm always big on humidity. Well, humidity isn't always the reason why there's mold. I mean, like you said, a plumbing leak. Well, humidity isn't always the reason why there's mold. I mean, like you said, a plumbing leak. So if we were to go down there and we were, you know, real dumb at how mold works and we were like, hey, we're going to soda blast this crawl space and we're going to leave the plumbing leaking while we're down there, well, that's dumb. Everybody's like, why don't you stop the plumbing leak? Well, to me it the mold, without addressing the humidity, because that high humidity is going to allow that mold to return, no matter how much you clean that wood.
Michael Church:And one of the other nice things I like that that we as Crawl Space Ninja do is adding that protectant. You know that that penetrant is what it's called. It's an X 70. You know it's a silver nanotechnology protectant. But you still have to control moisture and humidity. It's it's not a standalone product Like some of these other products that, oh, if you squirt this on your wood, it'll never grow mold again. That's a lie. That's a lie. If you don't control moisture, moisture and humidity, it doesn't matter how good that product is. Mold is going to come back. Would you guys agree with that?
James:yeah, yeah, if you go to shuffle home depot or loaves or whatever and you'll, you'll find a ton of products that say they clean and prevent mold in two-in-one. It's kind of like two-in-one shampoo and conditioner. You ask anybody. Those don't really work very well. The same with mold products like that.
Mason:Yeah, yeah, I'll say that my time with the company, which has been about six, six and a half months. We've done projects where we've gone out, installed plastic, a dehumidifier and that's been it. There's never been a project where we've just gone out and soda blasted. We aim at remediating the reason why the mold was there in the first place.
Michael Church:That's right. That's right. So you got to have that process of either removing standing water through the flooding, fixing the plumbing leak, sealing off the vents and installing that dehumidifier along with the vapor barrier. It's all a process, right, so that's great. I appreciate you all sharing that with me. Now here's another one. All right, let's, let's, let's see how many videos of mine you all have watched. Ok, so which is better, bleach or sodium bicarbonate at getting rid of mold?
Mason:I mean. James, I know the answer. I think that you could probably answer the why better. Well, you're the new guy, so let's see what you got. Ok, yeah, I like that. So the question was why does the sodium bicarbonate prevent mold better than than bleach, correct?
Michael Church:Actually, which is better at killing the mold, the bleach or the sodium bicarbonate? Which one would you think would be better?
Mason:Just going to use logic here. As far as killing the mold, I'm going to say something that has an ability to, on a chemical level, remediate it. I want to say bleach to, on a chemical level, remediate it. I want to say bleach when we soda blast in my mind. What we're doing is we're taking the mold from where it is, which is on the wood, and we're taking it off of that From there. After that, we apply our Anabec cleaner, which I know is a peroxide-based cleaner. In my opinion, that is what kills mold on a chemical level.
Michael Church:I'd love for some constructive criticism, though if that's how I'm correct, james, you got any constructive criticism for him?
James:Well, I believe a couple things with bleach. Bleach is what's the percentage of water that makes up bleach. Is it like 97% or 98%? Pretty high water content. You're just introducing even more moisture into the the wood in the crawl space. So that's a problem number one. Number two I believe that, uh, the chemical in bleach doesn't evaporate too quickly, or something to do with the contact time on the surface, that it doesn't really have the time on the surface to properly kill them all. Is that correct, michael? That is correct, that is correct.
Michael Church:So, mason, it was a loaded question man. So you should have asked how much bleach or how much chlorine is in the product because, like James was saying, you know the stuff you use in your laundry it's only like 3% to 10% chlorine.
Michael Church:Okay, now they. They do have some things that I use. To you know, bleach my beard, that's a little bit higher. I'm kidding, I don't bleach my beard, obviously, but, but you know there are higher chlorine content available. But even then, to James point, bleach or chlorine evaporates so quickly, so quickly they say it doesn't have a long enough contact time to actually kill mold. Okay, and here's the last thing I'm going to say about bleach is the log cabin industry has written many, many, many articles about this.
Michael Church:That bleach, even if it did everything that the homeowner wants it to do and all the old wives tales that have been told about it over the years, hey, just put bleach on it. All that, even if it did what it was supposed to do, it destroys the lignin of the wood and the lignin is the wood skeletal system. So as a homeowner, do I want to put something that's effective, even if it is effective, on wood, so that I can soften the wood and destroy the skeletal system. So that's, those are the three. You know, in my opinion, the three big reasons.
Michael Church:Number one, like James was saying, got a lot of water in it, so it's going to, you know that moisture, you're just adding water to it, right? Number two it evaporates super quick, okay, like really fast, I mean unbelievably fast. And then number three is obviously it destroys lignin. And then number four how much bleach do you want to sniff? Yeah, right, yeah, I mean, I've been in some. I've been in some crawl spaces where you know the DIY used a bunch of bleach. You can't even stand to be in there, or and how much that's coming into the house.
Michael Church:Oh, exactly. Yeah exactly so. Anyway, good, good, good, try, mason. That was, that was a good effort.
Mason:Well, yeah, I, I, uh. I'm always trying to learn, but I'm never gonna. I'm never gonna say what I think you want to hear. I I'd always like to try and use my brain first.
Michael Church:So I appreciate the prescriptive criticism yeah, very good, very good, all right. And then if you, you know, if you throw the uh, the bleat, or if you do the soda blasting and then you go down there and spray it with vinegar, then you've got the volcano effect going on. If you want to try that, doug, y'all just do that for fun, see, if a homeowner lets you do that. I'm just kidding, don't do that. It foams out. Have you ever seen one of those volcanoes?
Doug:Alright, very good that doesn't actually sound very fun, it's an angry irate customer. It'd't actually sound very fun. It's an angry customer. Yeah, it'd be cool. It'd be cool for 30 seconds.
Michael Church:So yeah, until it bubbles up into the living space and Mrs Jones is going to be upset about that. So All right. So let's talk about the mess. We mentioned it a little bit before, but let's, let's actually talk about the mess. All right, because I'm sorry, but it's. It's very hard to clean something without making a mess. I mean, I know that seems like a weird thing to say, but whenever I go to, when I was a kid and my mom would tell me to clean up my room, it would actually be more messy To start cleaning it up, because you're piling stuff and what Right.
Michael Church:And that's kind of the way with with addressing mold, you know it's way more messy to yank out all that old plastic and get all that debris out and the yards full of debris and everything before the final product Right, so let's talk about what possible mess could come from soda blasting. James, you want to start us off with that one.
James:Yeah, I mean we, we talked about a little bit. But number one, I mean, when we're pressurizing, I mean those little particles of baking soda are so small they're going to find any little crevice they can find to try to come up into the house. Now, unfortunately, sometimes there's a decent amount of baking soda that comes in the house and just we do our very best to avoid that from happening and take every precaution, but sometimes it's just unavoidable. But I always tell people like it's a minor inconvenience for a permanent solution, and you know it's going to be a little.
James:It's kind of like when you go to the beach and you get sand in every little area you can imagine. And it's kind of like when you go to the beach and you get sand in every little area you can imagine, and it's. It's kind of like that. But uh, you had a good time at the beach though, didn't you? Uh, you don't, you don't go home thinking about cleaning up, uh. And so that's how we kind of treat the soda. Blasting is, yeah, you know what there's. Sometimes there's some um residue, but we take care of it and after it's done, then it's, it's over. You never have to worry about it again as long as you encapsulate it.
Michael Church:That's right. That's right, and Mason, you got anything good about that?
Mason:Yeah, I mean, that's that's my day job is just is just customers and trying to remediate that and and and explain that.
Mason:I think that, like James said, you know that that that baking soda is is the perfect remediation, but because it's so good at what it does, it's going to find every little crack and crevice that it can. I say on trim, on baseboards, if they come out just a little bit, it's going to be an area that Soda Blast is going to get through. I'd say even not just inside the house, but, like you mentioned, when we pull insulation, you know there's going to be debris in the yard, debris, like you mentioned, when we pull insulation, um, you know there's going to be debris in the yard, debris around the, around the door of the crawl space, Cause you're pushing a bunch of insulation insulation through a small area, Um, so, yeah, there's, there's a mess and a damage that comes with, um, like you said, cleaning and doing the job, Um, I think my main goal is to just try and be forefront with that. But, like James said, I think that that's a very good saying it's a temporary inconvenience for a permanent solution.
Michael Church:Yeah, and I just try to be as upfront with people as I can. I don't want any of us to go in there and say, oh yeah, you'll never have soda in the house, because the one time you say that it's going to explode in the house, I mean you're going to miss it, and that's that's what that's what these videos are all about, is educating homeowners on that process, and that's why we, you know, do a lot of things that we do.
Michael Church:That's where our methodology has come from, because I have, over the years, filled up a lot of people's homes with soda and it took me a minute to figure out how to prevent or how to get that, you know, under control, to where it's as little as it is today. You know like, for example, we air seal the subfloor, you know, to the best we can. You know, but we can't air seal the rim joists until we soda blast. And that's where this baseboard issue that you're talking about comes from Mason, because usually the baseboard sits on the rim joist of the crawl space, and so people are like, well, why don't you air seal the rim joist? Well, there's usually a lot of mold on the rim joist.
Michael Church:If I cover it up with foam board and spray foam before I've had a chance to dry it out and remove that mold, then it can become a problem. So that's why we have to do that. That's just part of it, and the nice thing about baking soda is that, if some of it does get in, keep in mind. It's alkaline, so it's it's going to kill anything that that it's touching, as far as that goes. So those are great answers, doug. You got anything to add to that?
Doug:Yeah, I was going to say what you just said too. I mean, it's like if some, if I'm the homeowner and something's going, I'm okay with baking soda. It's not a perfect process. I kind of have a question for you, michael, because we found that communication and expectation both of those things are the two keys to having a better experience, which is why I feel like, james, you as an inspector do a really really good job of setting that expectation with the homeowner at the initial visit, at the initial visit, and, mason, I think you do a really incredible job communicating with the homeowner, kind of holding their hand through the process. I was going to ask you what that looked like, but you already you beat me to it. You already talked a little bit about. Hey, here's what I talked to him about. Here's, james, you mentioned the air scrubber. You know, here's that communication piece. Is that? What do you feel those two things have been the most important Absolutely, absolutely.
Michael Church:I'm I've always been under the the philosophy of under promise, over deliver, right and. And to me I would rather say hey look, mrs Jones, you're going to get soda in the house and then maybe it's not as bad as she thought, versus me trying the opposite and being like, oh yeah, there's nothing. And then the littlest amount touches the baseboard and she's like oh yeah, there's nothing.
Michael Church:And then the littlest amount touches the baseboard and she's like you said nothing, you know I mean, so I'd rather err on that, Because if you're going to tell me you don't want me to soda blast, tell me now.
Mason:Yeah.
Michael Church:Don't tell me when we're halfway through the process. I want you to know. I want you to go in this thing with your eyes wide open. Yeah, you know.
James:Go ahead, james. Well, the worst thing I've had is we did a big subtle blessing job for close friends of mine and they didn't really. I honestly I probably didn't do the best job of communicating that this could be a decent problem and it was everywhere. But they also had their regularly scheduled cleaning. People come like we started the job so their house was perfectly clean and they just paid money to have it cleaned. And then we it was, that soda was everywhere, everywhere and uh, that was like I tell everyone now, if you're gonna have your house cleaned, just wait until after we're done.
Mason:Yeah, I'll never forget the house that we did, we did a gold on and we sort of lasted. On a Thursday, the weekend before Christmas, and her house was from the 60s and the wood had expanded a lot and so, lo and behold, you know it's the day before Christmas Eve and she had to have a cleaning service come because we just didn't have the wherewithal to think ahead. But, Michael, I'd also like to ask you in my experience I remember one specific house that we soda blasted in and the entire first floor was either carpet or large vinyl tiles either carpet or large vinyl tiles. That house I remember not only not really seeing a residue of soda, but not seeing at all residue in the air inside the house. Have you experienced that maybe carpet or vinyl is better in terms of residue inside the house than maybe wood?
Michael Church:Yeah, and I'm not sure it's the the actual material.
Michael Church:I think it's how the material is installed so usually, usually carpet you can push it under the baseboard right because you got that extra. Where hard, excuse me, where hardwood, for example, they leave almost an expansion joint, yeah, around the edge, which means that there's more direct air to the crawl space at that expansion joint. So I would think tile would be similar because there's an expansion joint, or maybe they don't go all the way to the framing, the outside framing, because of the baseboard right. So I think it's not necessarily the material, but how the material is installed is probably the driver of whether more soda comes in or not.
James:We had a customer about a month ago, maybe six weeks ago. He had a great point Like the more soda you have come into your house when we're soda blasting, that's how much more air leakage you have from your crawl space, so even more. So you needed it done, you know, because you're breathing that mold even more.
Michael Church:Absolutely, and you know, like a tongue and groove, you know, subfloor is going to have more joints, more air spaces, versus, you know, plywood or an OSB, you know. So it all depends on the construction, right? Yeah, those are great questions, mason. And, like I said, I've filled up more homes with soda than probably anybody combined, because I had this one situation and that's the other reason why we have a ninja up in the house, you know, is to watch, to make sure, you know, because I've trusted the homeowner Right To watch and they get busy, they're not, they don't know what to look for. You know, we, I had, I've had two situations. I had a homeowner who had their teenage son watch.
Michael Church:Well, that didn't turn out very well, not well at all, I'll just say that. And then I had another one where the homeowner watched but she worked from home. This was pre COVID. She worked from home and she had an office that was that was on a slab off of the main part of the house and she, she went into that office and closed the door and here we are, thinking she's up there watching. Well, about the time we're done, soda blasting, she decides to come out of her office and it looked like it had just. I mean, it looked like the Arctic there was soda everywhere.
Michael Church:Yeah, you know, and this was before we learned to air seal the sub floor and turn off the AC. You know all these things that we do. Now. This was me still learning the process and you know what was so great, and I'm not bragging on us but we still turn that into a five-star review because I recognize that we had messed up. I paid to have it cleaned, I paid to have her carpets cleaned. I did all that and they wrote us a five-star review and I've never had that situation happen again. Because of what we learned from that scenario and that's how long ago.
Michael Church:That was. That was many, many years ago. That's not like it happened last week. So, anyway, that's the. That's the other nice thing about us is we try to learn from our mistakes. Right, you know to do things differently. So that's why we don't allow you know, the teenage son to watch, because I've had bad experiences with that. But anyway, yeah, these are great questions. So, mason, I'm going to, I'm going to let you answer this one how long does the process take? Let's say we got a thousand fifteen hundred square foot crawl space. Yeah, what's the timeline? And just for soda blasting, forget about capsulation. All that, just for soda blasting. How long does that typically take?
Mason:so 1500 square feet. I'd say that's a pretty typical house for us. Um, you know, we've seen bigger than 2000, we see less than a thousand, but I feel like 1500 is pretty typical. Um, we typically expect um that we are able to pull the insulation, maybe, do clean out and soda blasting Um, sometimes, uh, most of the time, or it really just depends on how the house is Um, but we, we, we can. On some cases I feel like we can do clean out and then start soda blasting. Um, soda blasting will maybe take five, six hours, um, and then, and then you know we're ready to move on from there. Sometimes I know that we'll do a half a day of clean out and then we'll start soda blasting and then it takes a little longer than that. That's really something that I'm still trying to to to really hone in on. Is that expectation?
Michael Church:on is is that expectation of? Okay? Well, and to be fair, again, another loaded question, because it kind of it kind of does depend on how thick the mold is on there. Yeah, yeah, I mean, if you got a lot of wood decay fungus on there, that dude's going to take longer than one that's got just a light, you know, white mold or a light brown mold.
Mason:So yeah, I mean as much to that as is if you have a uh, if you have a crawl uh, if you have a crawl space, that's four and a half cinder blocks high or a crawl space, this two, um, I I think that that can, it can affect the process. Um so much. Um, it's, it's really a tough question.
Michael Church:Yeah, cause you know that low crawl I mean, I'm six one, you know a'1" tall and a low crawl space it's harder for me to turn around in. It's almost like an aircraft carrier trying to turn around in the water, right, it just takes a while, right. But if I get in there and I'm in a 3 1⁄2", 4' tall, that's like the ideal size for me because I can still sit down, you know, and work and move very well. So that's good, james. A follow up question to that. We've mainly been talking about baking soda and all that, and you kind of mentioned the Anabec product. What do we do immediately after we we soda blast it?
James:What do we apply after and why? Can you kind of share with us a little bit? Yeah, Well, yeah, Once the once the mold's been removed, then we spray the Anabec peroxide cleaner to sanitize everything down in the crawl space. Make sure all surfaces are covered. The air's like anything that's in the air has been killed. All the mold's dead.
Michael Church:Yeah, and that's a really great point. Because two things the reason why I like to apply Anabec is for two reasons. Number one like you said, you can really only soda blast hardwood surfaces. We can't get down there and soda blast somebody's ductwork, because then we'll just rip it to shreds. So the anabag, the peroxide, it's nice to fog that afterwards so that any other materials I mean I've even seen like PVC grow mold.
Michael Church:So anything that's wet can grow mold. I've seen glass grow mold, you know, uh, so you know anything that's wet can grow mold. I've seen glass grow mold. It wasn't that the glass itself grew mold, it was just the. The dirt on the glass was yeah, right, um, so you know, that's. That's the other reason why I like to fog. And then, secondly, a liquid can penetrate deeper into the wood than obviously soda can. So if, for some reason, there's a deep root system or something like that inside the wood, we like to saturate that wood so that that peroxide cleaner can get into that wood and kill anything that might be inside of it. So so great answers, though I like two questions michael.
James:Um, one would be uh, does the does so? Does the baking soda? Does it actually kill the mold? It does.
Michael Church:It does because of its alkalinity okay. Does it actually kill the mold? It does. It does because of its alkalinity. Okay, it does kill the mold, just like it kills the grass, right. But that's not the main reason why I use it. The main reason why I came up with the soda was to remove the mold. So for me, the removal of it is the most important side of it, and then the Anabec is more the killer side of it. But yes, it does kill mold too.
James:And you ever see mold growing on the concrete block or brick.
Michael Church:Usually if it's not painted concrete block in a crawl space if you see a white color, a lot of times that's efflorescence. Now I'm not saying that concrete cannot grow mold, because obviously it can If something is on there that can grow mold. But for me, most of the time concrete and brick and things like that grows mold more if it's got a food source like a paint that's been applied to it, because every once in a while I've seen like kind of a, like a black furry mold grow kind of at the bottom of the concrete block.
James:Sure, um, and I've just I've only seen it probably two or three times, but I have seen it all right so those of you that don't know, let me let me explain this to you.
Michael Church:Do you know where most toxic molds come from? I don't, okay, it was. I don't expect y'all to know this because we're not microbiologists. Obviously we don't study mold. We kill it, right, um. But? But I've spoken to a lot of microbiologists, I've interviewed them and we've had a lot of talks. Most toxic mold, your stachybotrys, those types of molds actually come from the soil. Oh, really, okay. So what you're alluding to, james, is where the brick or the block, at the base, which is where the soil is right. So that's why you're seeing that.
Mason:Oh.
Michael Church:Okay, it's because that soil either is contaminating that low section or even maybe on the brick or the block at that point, and that could grow mold. Got it? Okay? Now it's completely what's the word I'm looking for. There's no reason to try to kill mold in soil. Okay, because it would be like trying to kill mold on wet wood and you never dried the wood out. It's just going to come right back so so the soil is always going to hold a certain amount of moisture.
Michael Church:Especially us in North Carolina and Tennessee, we got a lot of clay soil, which means it's got a lot of organic material in there that can.
Michael Church:That is a food source for mold. So that's why we don't really try to kill what's in the soil, because it's, it's irrelevant, there's no way you could do it, but that's why you're probably seeing that line that you're talking about is because of the soil. So one of the things that I've learned over the years and I don't know if a lot of people realize this, but taking off your shoes at the door helps to prevent a lot of mold tracking into your home, because if you go out and play with your kids and the grass, that's where a lot of mold comes from is the soil. So you know, having that habit of like taking your shoes off at the door has been proven to be pretty effective at keeping mold from spreading a lot of times. So just because it comes from soil, what do you think about cost effectiveness? Is the soda blasting treatment that we use cost effective for a homeowner, and why?
James:If either one of you want to answer that, when you think about cost effectiveness, I think about doing it once and having it done forever, like it's just, it's gone. Um, so yeah, on the front end, a subtle blasting is going to be more expensive than just spraying, doing a spray and pray, fogging, or even somebody who's going down there and hand wiping it with with a chemical. Um, a subtle blasting is no doubt going to be more expensive than that, but it's going to be gone. So when you go to sell that house, eventually there will be no visible evidence of mold as long as it's been encapsulated properly and the moisture has been removed. So it's not cheap by any means, but as far as never having to worry about it again, never have to pay for it to be done again, then yes.
Doug:James, you're always really good about this, and what I found out is that they say it's about the money and how expensive it is, but it's really about the value. And so when you realize that that's what really is the heart of the issue, it's just important to understand really what this is, because in our market nobody else does this. So it's a game changer and it's something different. And I think education and James, you do a great job with this and I think just the you know, bringing people up to speed with what this process is, what it looks like, how effective it is it's going to build value in your investment.
Doug:I know for me, my why a lot of nights when I go to bed I got a text from a lady, ms Williams. We were on her job a couple of weeks ago and she sent me this text. Her life has changed. She had these horrible allergies and she couldn't figure out where it's coming from and she was just wrecked. Her health was just wrecked and we soda blasted there and in the few days since we've been there, she texted me and told me how, how well she's doing. And you know, it's just. You know you can't put a dollar figure on that you know that's, that's. That's a game changer for people.
Michael Church:To your point, james, and to your point, doug, I have had the privilege of speaking to hundreds of homeowners across the country and and a lot of times people will do a consultation with me to discuss because, you know, crawl Space Ninja isn't everywhere and they'll do a consultation with me to discuss what these other companies are going to do to their home. And there's a. There's a gentleman in Virginia Beach who holds the record for the most consultations with me ever. I won't tell you how many, but there was a company out there and I want to talk about two things. That was happening to him was there were companies that said, oh yeah, we do soda blasting, because he'd watched a lot of our videos. He wanted his crawlspace soda blasted and then he would call these companies. They would get out there and then they would pull the bait and switch. They'd be like, yeah, we don't really do the soda blasting, but we sub it out and it's super expensive. You don't want to do that. We want you to do this, which is really cheap, right, because when you don't have a good product, everything you're doing is based on price, right? And this guy was telling me this story and I'm like, really, and he goes, oh yeah. And then they went along to say, yeah, our method will probably have to treat it every couple of years With our method because the mold's going to come back. Now they weren't putting in a dehumidifier, they weren't even really encapsulating, right, so soda blasting again doesn't keep the mold from coming back. You got to do all those other things too, but that just really stuck me, like, struck me as like, ok, first of all, the bait and switch is just you know, that would be like us saying, oh yeah, we're plumbers, and then you call us out there and you would go down there oh, we don't really do plumbing, but you got mold in your crawl space. You want us to address that. I mean, that was like, why would you do something like that? But then again, like you said, doug, that that value, you know, we like to call it a worry-free crawl space, a one and done.
Michael Church:I've always said there's nothing more expensive than having to do something over, right. And if you all want to see that, if you're watching this video and you want to see the do-over, check out that we redid a $25,000 crawl space encapsulation video. It's one of our top performing videos. He was a judge here locally in Knoxville and he had his crawl space encapsulated, paid a pest control company 25 grand to do it and then paid us 40 to fix it Right. Just to give you an idea Now, to be fair, this is like almost a 4,000 square foot crawl space.
Michael Church:So those of you that just had a heart attack because I said $40,000 fixed crawl space it does. You know a 4,000 square foot roof costs a lot more to shingle than a 500 square foot roof. So you know there's a lot that goes into the pricing here. But the point is is that you got to make sure you do it right and if you don't have access to a company that that does it right, that's why a lot of people will do it themselves. That's where the DIY comes in.
Michael Church:You know and I hate to say it, but there's people in your in Charlotte I don't care how good you guys are, doug they won't hire you to do it because they want to do it themselves. That's just the way it is and that's why we we create this content, because we recognize that those homeowners are out there. They don't want a contractor come in their house at all. Either they don't trust you or they don't have the money to do it. You know, and a lot of people, it's the trust factor. They've been, they've been wrecked by so many contractors out there. You know that they just don't trust them anymore. And you know, to be fair, I can see that. And you know, to be fair, I can see that. I mean residential remodelers have the worst rating on the Better Business Bureau of any industry in America.
Michael Church:I mean you probably have sat across the table from somebody who had money stolen from them. Oh yeah, I paid them 25% down and they never showed up or they never finished the job, right, well, that's, that's where we're different. You know, we're a customer service company that just so happens to fix crawl spaces, because our focus, doug, wouldn't you agree? Our focus has always been on customer service.
Doug:Yeah, I've always felt like the best thing about, one of the best things about Crawl Space Ninja is that my wife and I we're both Charlatans. Mason's a Charlatan. My wife and I we're both Charlotteans. Mason's a Charlottean. James has three really incredible little boys and they're part of the community.
Doug:And you know I don't want to go to dinner and have to run to the restroom because I didn't finish your crawl space or I took advantage of you. Just as a person, michael, that's been really tough for me to be lumped in the category of so many bad contractor experiences, because that's just not who we are, but I do understand it. I talked to a gentleman this morning. He, I'm sure, has a history of being burned by other contractors and has been on guard, and so it's a challenge to then elevate ourselves, to then make sure they know that we're not like that, and then we spend a lot of time and a lot of energy trying to elevate ourselves and reassuring people. They were not like that. So the bar sometimes is low, which is good. You know that we can. We can do that, but that's really important. Again, no, nobody wants to run to the restroom and hide when we see it.
Michael Church:Well, and that's why I brought up the point about you know, we do mess up. We are human, you know, just like the lady with the soda blast that went all in her house, I mean, I messed up. I obviously didn't take caution to keep that from happening, so I paid for it. I fixed it, you know, and sometimes we have to pay for things that we didn't mess up but the homeowner thinks we did it.
Michael Church:So we do it anyway. Right, I mean, that's just part of being in business. But you know, to me the Bible talks about how a good name is to be chosen, you know. So if you're going to have a good name, it's a choice. You don't accidentally have a 4.9 star rating. That's not by accident. Yeah, you can maybe, you know, get the numbers up and you know, having your cousins and your mom and all that right your rating.
Michael Church:But eventually you're going to run out of those people and then you know, the truth is going to come to the surface and that's why we try to be really good at what we do and if we do mess up, we try to fix it right. I mean, that's the whole point. So if you're watching this video, hopefully you'll see that as us, as a company, not only here in Knoxville but in Charlotte and Delaware and in every area that we are, that's what we try to be. So, anyway, gentlemen, I really appreciate y'all joining me today and I felt like this is a great video for people to get to know you all there in the charlotte area. So, um, anything to add before I let you go?
Mason:no thanks for having us yeah, I appreciate it very much.
Michael Church:It was nice to meet you and just get to talk to you and ask my questions yeah, very nice to meet, uh, all of you as well, and and, uh, uh, I had the pleasure of knowing Doug. How long now, doug, has it been? Three years.
Doug:Man, I think you and I first met in 2020.
Michael Church:Five years.
Doug:Yeah, almost five years. Honestly, personally, I was super pumped to be talking today because I really wanted you to meet James and Mason. And James has been with us over three years and is such a big part of why we're successful. And Mason does an incredible job with our customers and is our job coordinator. And again, Michael, you and I know each other very well, but it was mostly exciting for me for you to meet these two guys. They're such a great part of our success.
Michael Church:Yeah, yeah, and just so you know, this is James Taylor, but not the musician James Taylor.
James:There'll be no singing for me.
Michael Church:Well, it was a pleasure and an honor to meet both of you all as well, so appreciate y'all being on this call with me, and I'm Michael Church for Crawl Space Ninja. We hope you make it a happy and blessed day and we'll see you later.