HEALTHY HOMES

What makes a home healthy, and why should we care? Brett Stenner, owner of CI Partners, and certified Well AP, walks through three key elements: water, air, and light.

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Co-Host: Mike Freedman, owner,  AI Technology & Design
Co-Host, podcast editor: Jennifer-Lee Gunson: jPod Creations

Brett Stenner has over 23 years of experience in the Residential Electronics Industry including 16 years as a Product Trainer and Sales Manager for both Hitachi and Samsung and 4 Years on the tools as a Technology Integrator. Brett is the owner of CI Partners, a company that represents the Best in Home Technology in Canada. As members of HAVAN, BILD GTA, IDC and HTA we are focused on building bridges between the build design community and technology. In 2020 we became WELL AP certified with a focus on spreading the Healthy Home and Living message and creating conversations about the technology that makes the Home Well for the Human. Brett lives on the North Shore and enjoys the amazing Mountain Bike trails and ski hills that are close to home. Brett and his partner Dana are kept very busy between work, 5 teenage daughters, 2 dogs Roo and Roxy and training for a Half Ironman Triathlon this summer.

CiPartners

WELL Certified

RePure

Jennifer-Lee:

Welcome to Measure Twice, Cut Once. The podcast from HAVAN, the Homebuilders Association of Vancouver,

Mike:

It’s season three, and we’re exploring how our homes can improve our wellbeing.

Jennifer-Lee:

We’ll be looking at the impact of the air we breathe,

Mike:

The water we drink and

Jennifer-Lee:

The acoustic levels in our homes,

Mike:

Smart kitchens,

Jennifer-Lee:

Award winning designs,

Mike:

And leading edge building construction.

Jennifer-Lee:

We ask the questions.

Mike:

So you know how to make your homework for you.

Jennifer-Lee:

I’m Jennifer Lee Gunson.

Mike:

And I’m Mike Friedman. Now that you’re here, why not hit subscribe and you’ll never miss an episode.

Jennifer-Lee:

Hey Mike, it’s great to see you back in the studio.

Mike:

Well, hello, Jennifer-Lee. It’s good to see you too. It’s been a while and it’s good to be back. This is way more fun than working. This season is particular interest to me. As we look at how buildings operate for the wellbeing of the people inside. As you know, I love how home automation makes our lives better. So I can’t wait to get our guests in here and explore how buildings can help improve our lives.

Jennifer-Lee:

I agree. Coming from a builder’s family, there’s a lot of discussion with families on the benefit of building beyond the basic code for added comfort, safety, and other benefits, and living through a pandemic, spending more time at home, we seem to have heightened our awareness of the value of home for sure.

Mike:

Oh, I couldn’t agree more. Working from home with three dogs and three kids. I can tell you we’ve come to really appreciate and notice the things in our home that we wish we could improve on.

Jennifer-Lee:

Me too. And I know what you’re living with, so I, I applaud you. I live alone, so I’m, I’m good to go. So let’s get to it.

Mike:

All right. I’m super stoked to introduce today’s guest. He’s a longtime work colleague of mine. He’s a friend of mine and he’s somebody who’s actually from my industry, at least my past industry. And honestly, he’s one of the nicest people in the business. Brett Stenner of CI partners is here. Brett has over 23 years of experience in the residential electronics industry, including 16 years as a product trainer and sales manager for both Hitachi and Samsung, and four years on the tools as technology integrator. Brett is the owner of CI partners, a company that represents the best in home technology in Canada. As members of HAVAN, BILD GTA, IDC, and HTA, Brett is focused on building bridges between the design community and technology. In 2020, he became WELL AP certified with a focus on spreading healthy home and creating conversations about the technology that makes the home well for the human.

Jennifer-Lee:

Thank you so much, Brett, for coming on today. Let’s start at the beginning. I wanna know a little bit more about you. I know Mike just did a great intro on you, but give us a bit more of your background, please.

Brett:

Thanks for having me on here. It’s great. Been in technology for the longest time passionate about it, passionate about how it can make your life easier in your home. And then the next stage of what I’m passionate about technology is, is the wellness side. And that all kind of started in before COVID. I took an interest in how lighting control can affect your sleep patterns in your home. And then when covid came about, I looked into other technologies and what the industry was doing in order to get accreditation.

Jennifer-Lee:

And on that note, what is AP certification? Just in case somebody doesn’t know?

Brett:

So WELL AP is a certification in more of an industrial commercial environment. It’s put out by the International Well Building Institute and they basically created seven criteria that a WELL AP certified person would come in and make sure that the building follows these criteria. The criteria is mainly set for that commercial environment. And they’re now working on the home advisory committee. That’s designing that for a residential environment.

Mike:

So we’re talking about scaling something for a residential environment. Can we talk a little about what certified buildings being good for humans means to someone who owns a home or is living in a home in a residential setting.

Brett:

Looking into the different aspects of the house, not just the energy side of it and energy is very important. And, our footprint on the earth is very important, but what happens when we, when we make something more energy efficient, we may take away from tthe past building, you know, breathable building that we’ve where your air is coming from the outside and it’s allowing it to circulate. But when you seal that building, it’s gonna make it tighter. And now you need to take care of the air that’s happening inside. Homeowners can do many different things in their home, which, you know, I’d love to talk about that can help them have better wellness that aren’t that expensive. There are some very expensive solutions and then there’s technology that can help us, you know, monitor it and make sure that we’re making healthy decisions.

Mike:

Okay. And before we go too much further, we just talked about air quality, but obviously there’s a lot more to wellness in the home than just air quality. Can you help us by expanding on some of the other areas you might focus on, to a homeowner experience, a better lifestyle in their home or certified buildings, which are good for humans?

Brett:

So out of the seven criteria in a commercial environment, the most important ones are air, water, and light. These are all things that we consume. We consume air, we consume water, light just helps the experience of the home and gives you better sleep patterns. The other four that are part of the well AP, which could actually have something for the home also is fitness, comfort, mind, and nourishment. You know, it’s really a look at the house being instead of a place to live. It needs to be designed for life. That makes sense. You have your house built because you want a place to live, but the design of it should be based on life. And that’s really what the message is gonna be just reading some of their introduction and what they’re doing, you know, it’s gonna be important that that is part of that conversation.

Brett:

So it’s not about the mechanics of it and where the air purifier goes or the water purification goes. It’s also about how it’s designed. So as when you walk into a house, you know, I live with music every day in my home. I have speakers in the ceiling and I love it. It always has just lightly playing music and that’s my comfort level. So everyone’s gonna be a little bit different in what they find comfortable in the home, what we talked about the physical health and what air is, you know, doing to your body and what better air can do and water and what it can do and light in what it can do for your sleep. But there’s the mind side of it that we talked about mood and that mind side of it is so equally important.

Jennifer-Lee:

And Brett, like a lot of us don’t know this stuff, like a lot of the current homes are living in are probably not as healthy as they could be. And I think this is something that we’re learning. There’s a lot of outdated buildings. So what are some just, I know we’re gonna get more into it later, but what do you think is like the easiest way to start having a healthy home? If you can just give one little start.

Brett:

I would start with monitoring what your home is like when you put in an air monitor, you’re gonna experience, you know, what little things happen in your home and the, the lifestyle things you do and how it’s affecting the air in your house. An example of that is our colleague in the industry, Larry Clay, had a posting on LinkedIn where he talked about his daughter turning on the gas stove, not turning on the hood fan. He wasn’t at home, but his air monitor sent him a notification saying that the air quality at his home has gone from, you know, very good to not so great. And so he phones his daughter and says, ‘Hey, did you not turn on the hood fan?’ And of course freaking his daughter out, cuz he is not there. He could tell from the app that there was a change and so little things we can do in our, in our home, whether it’s opening a window, whether it’s turning on the hood fan or using VOC free cleaning supplies, these are all things that we can make that are just lifestyle change. It’s, there’s no cost to that.

Jennifer-Lee:

And I think you hit it on the head too. There’s just some simple apps or just some simple devices that we gotta monitor first before we know what we need to change, or maybe other things that we need to bring into the home. We need to know what we’re starting with. And I know I was researching the Google nest today and the Google nest also tells you about the heating, like how much heat you use and things like that that we you don’t think about. So I think just kind of starting at step one and thinking like, okay, what are we starting with? Am I totally like, is my home like so bad that we need to like fully renovate it? Or what are some things that we can add into the home technology wise? .

Brett:

Just, you know, there’s several different air monitors that are out there. You know, you can buy ’em on Amazon. One that I use here from air things, it kind of monitors every part of what’s happening in the air and gives me those notifications. And I’ve always believed that when you have the knowledge, you have the power to make small change

Jennifer-Lee:

And then you can make those changes slowly but surely. So it’s just getting started. That’s all we want you to do.

Brett:

That’s correct.

Mike:

While we’re on the topic of knowledge is power and monitoring is knowledge. Are there any other areas in the house we can monitor? As an example, we have a very safe water supply here in Canada. Is it worth us looking at something to monitor the quality of water coming into our house? Are there any other areas in terms of wellness that you think we should be monitoring to give us that knowledge we need to make the right decision.

Brett:

I mean, we’re blessed with the water we have in Vancouver. It’s drinkable straight out of the tap, but there’s scenarios that we need to also look at that can happen. And I believe that we need to, you know, have greater individual responsibility. So an example, you know, the smoky summers that we’re starting to experience year after year, well, that particulate ends up in our water supply. And I know our water supply has disinfecting capabilities that are, that are, you know, removing a lot of things, but there’s also byproducts to that. And by putting in water purification systems in a house, you are taking that individual responsibility and proper water into your body. Some of those can be expensive. Some of them can be inexpensive. You can also get, you know, simple things like a Brita water filter in your fridge that can help you, you know, have better water, buy a fridge with the water filter built in, or you can get under the counter water purification systems or whole home. So it all depends on the budget, but there is something for everyone’s budget when it comes to the water that we consume.

Jennifer-Lee:

Perfect. And let’s dive a little bit more into air. I know we talked about it, but obviously air is very important. And what are just, you already talked about monitoring it, but really what are some misconceptions that maybe we have in our home currently that we don’t know about the air quality? Like what are some things that maybe while we’re sitting here, it’s like, we wouldn’t even recognize unless we’re an expert like yourself?

Brett:

Well, I mean, we all think that the outdoor air is, is the place to be, and it’s true. So the indoor air quality that most people have (about 90% of our time is spent indoors) is usually 5 times worse than outdoors. So as soon as you enter your home, you’re thinking you’re entering your sanctuary, where you’re safe, but the indoor air quality is worse than what you would have outside. And a lot of that could come down to the materials in your home, especially a new house. We talk about VOCs, which is volatile, organic compounds. And this is basically the chemicals that are in furniture, wood, flooring, paint, air products, you know, all those sort of things. And that enters our air and, you know you need to be conscious of that side of it also. So in a new home, the VOC count is quite high and an air monitor would tell you that. And so you can always do things like buy older furniture, you know, from a second hand store or something, which would allow you to reduce those VOCs in your home.

Mike:

One other question, I absolutely love my gas stove and my gas range top, and I love cooking with it, but obviously I’m burning something as a combustible substance. Can you talk a little about indoor air quality as it relates to that? And some of the things that we should be looking for?

Brett:

Absolutely. I have a gas stove at home. I, I love cooking on gas, but you certainly know that it turns on when you have an air monitor in your house because it is admitting, you know, CO2 it’s, you’re gonna put that into the air that you’re breathing in, in your home, simple things like we mentioned earlier, you can turn on the hood fan. There is technology in some of these gas stoves now that will talk to a hood fan and will turn it on automatically. If you have an automation system in your house, you could automate that where the air quality sensor would talk to the automation system, which would then trigger the hood fan to turn on. So there’s lots of opportunities, especially in a new build to put that type of technology in place. And when you’re doing it at that point, it’s not that much more expensive to add that type of feature.

Brett:

There’s so many things that are thrown at a new build and the person building the house, you know, right down to expensive appliances to the HVAC, all that. And part of it that really isn’t talked about is that air quality and what they need to do to make the air quality inside the house. So as the tightness of the house gets better and better because we’re trying to, you know, make it as energy efficient as possible. The problem with that is the air that is inside the house is gonna be inside the house. It doesn’t, you know, get cleaned. In the past, they used to say, homes needed to breathe and let outside air flow through the house and all that, which is still true. Because as I mentioned earlier, air quality inside the house’s usually five times worse than outside. And all of air comes from the outside. If we have control of the air inside, now, there’s a better opportunity of making that air better. So by having the right air purification system, that’s part of the conversation early on in the build. It actually, you can make that air inside the house better than the air outside.

Jennifer-Lee:

Which is important because you know, in the last few summers, especially this past summer, it’s been really bad. We have the fires out there and the smoke is getting so bad that we’ve gotta find different ways to, to be safe indoors and have good air quality, because I know it’s bothered me like, and it bothered a lot of people, especially seniors, like my mom and dad, it’s like, when you’re breathing in that smokey air every day, it’s not really good for you.

Brett:

And then the other side of that is, you know, with airborne illnesses, when your air in your home has a lot of dust particles, humidity level is not correct. Then it actually allows airborne, you know, viruses and everything to float in the house amongst, you know, people in the home. We live in that time, right? Where you wanna be more conscious of what is actually happening when you’re close to people.

Jennifer-Lee:

And people don’t think about allergies being indoors, but they are like, everyone laughs at me, my winter allergies are probably worse than my other seasonal allergies. And I talked to the doctor and she said, no, they can be worse. And it doesn’t matter if you’re clean. It’s just because you’re stuck inside. You’ve got the recirculating air depending on what type of home you’re living in. Some people even have what electric heat that gets dusty and it’s not good to breathe in. And if you have pets, there could be dander stuck in the carpet. People don’t realize that it’s like allergies can really be brought in inside your home, no matter how clean you are.

Brett:

Yeah. And that’s why the WELL certification they look at, you know, how is the building treating the human and not necessarily how the building is treating the environment and they’re both equally important, but we just don’t have those conversations until now about the wellness of that person.

Mike:

Well, I think it’s an important conversation to have. And what I like about this is what we’re talking about here can benefit everyone immediately. All of us should be thinking about this and into our air quality, cuz we all have lungs. That being said, there are a lot of people out there, including some of my family members who have respiratory illnesses, asthma, things like that. And these people could be helped immediate by using some of these small, scalable solutions to improve the indoor air quality, water quality, and every other aspect of how they interface with their house. I am hoping you can just expand on one thing. You talked a little about using some automation to do things like tie your hood fan in to your range top for people who don’t live in the world that we live in. Can you just very briefly talk about ‘A: what is automation and B: how that might benefit someone looking to gain some of these things that we just talked about in their home,

Brett:

The simplest way of understanding automation. I always use a morning scene, you know, where you can get up in the morning and you hit either a button or, I mean, you can go as far as having sensors in your floor that knows that you’re getting up and it will create paths. Maybe turn on some music, raise the shades, all the push of one simple button or command. It’s something that’s becoming more and more common. And it allows you to bring that automation side into the wellness side. So, you know, I mentioned automated shades. Well shading is part of lighting in your home. It’s the control of outdoor light within your home. And so by us having the ability of controlling the outdoor light, we can do things like reduce glare. We can, you know, help control the temperature in the house. Also, you can create that into an automated side also. So that’s the other part of automation is you could have sensors that monitors where the sun is. And if you need to block the sun out of your living room, because it heats the living room up too much during the day, your automation system can do that.

Jennifer-Lee:

Looking at the home from a vantage point of what a home can do for the human who lives in it is so forward thinking. I love it. And we have a lot more to uncover. You touched a little bit on lighting. We’re gonna do that shortly and dive deeper into that. But first we’re gonna take a quick break and talk to our sponsor

Mike:

Measure Twice, Cut Once is grateful for the support from our podcast partners, Fortis BC, BA Robinson, AI technology, and Design, and their support helps us share expert knowledge and resources like you’re hearing today from Brett Stenner of CiPartners to help build design and renovate the home right for you.

Jennifer-Lee:

And speaking of resources, BC Energy Step Code program is a provincial center that is moving the higher home building industry forward to build homes to better energy efficiency standards, which means better comfort, health, and safety. Be sure to check out better homes, bc.ca, where you’ll find a variety of rebates for construction materials, home, energy evaluations, plus mortgage and tax refunds.

Mike:

There are also rebates for renovations too. Just click on the rebate search tool button on the homepage of better homes.bc.ca to find cost saving resources for your next project, or talk with your licensed builder or professional contractor. They’ll help guide you. Now, let’s get back to Brett.

Jennifer-Lee:

Okay, Brett. So we led a little bit into it in our last discussion. We were talking about water. We talked about some simple ways that obviously you can purify your water on a grander scale though, in your home. Is there anything that you can do to better your water and where do you start? Like how do you even know if your water isn’t great or not

Brett:

The testing procedures now water testing is a little bit different. There isn’t really a consumer device for water testing. So you would have to, you know, get a hold of a professional that could come in with the water testing tool and, and do tests of the water out of your tap. I know Metro Vancouver does thousands of tests every year on the water supply. And we are commonly rated as some of the best water in north America. But there is that path that water goes from their testing through the pipes, into your home. And if it’s an older home with copper pipes, those pipes do give some materials that will go particulate that will go into the water that you are consuming. So water testing is the only way that you’re gonna know straight from your tap, what your water quality is.

Brett:

And that could be the time of the year too, right? We all, I mean, I remember experiencing, you know, milky water in the springtime when there’s runoff. I was thinking this earlier, like we, we go through our fire season and you know, what happens if there’s a fire in North Shore here, you know, god forbid that that that happens and it’s in our watershed that will affect our water supply. And that’s why I like living with the idea of a greater individual responsibility where you could have a water purification system in your home and you’re taking care of your home. And if there are some unforeseen circumstances that happen that we can look after ourselves.

Mike:

I look at it like this, some of what we’re talking about might not be needed right now, but there’s a lot of stuff in our home that we don’t need on a regular basis, like a smoke detector or a sprinkler system it’s there in case we need it. So to your point, we have very, very good water in Vancouver now, but I know out in White Rock, we’ve had issues with water out there. And certainly in Walkerton Ontario, there were issues with water and let’s be realistic 10 years ago. We had not nearly as many issues with indoor air quality and heat domes and stuff. So just because it’s good now, doesn’t mean it’s not gonna be great later. But it does to mean it is gonna be great. And so being able to design infrastructure in our home that helps us prepare for this and the eventualities of change. And I think it’s important that half of what we think about here is not just where we’re at now, but what we’re gonna be in a few years and planning for the future because they it’s coming.

Brett:

Absolutely. I agree, you know, with the design of buildings, they need to take that into a account, right now. So it needs to be an early conversation in the build cycle.

Jennifer-Lee:

And water’s so important because like I said, going back to the fact that we’ve had so many natural occurrences and phenomenons this year, like heat dome, you need water, floods. If you’re in an area floods, maybe you have to boil your water for proper hydration. It’s just, it’s a lot to think about. And unfortunately, as we keep going, not to be pessimistic, it’s something we need to think about. We don’t know. Or, you know, they always talk on, knock on wood. They always talk about that big earthquake coming too. So like, what would that do to our water supply? You know, these are things I don’t want everyone running for the hills and screaming, but we need to think about these things.

Brett:

You know, what the of time we live right now, I mean, two years ago at this point in time, we didn’t think that we would go through two years of, you know, what we’ve gone through. So, you know, if you could go back two years right now and plan for what it would’ve been like for those two years, you probably would, would’ve done few things differently and, and planned ahead.

Jennifer-Lee:

Yeah. And you talk about planning and something that I think a lot of us should have thought about before. COVID me included because I live in a basement suite is light. We spend so much time in our homes either if we’re locked down or even now that people are moving freely. A lot more people are staying at home for long periods of time, either you’re working there, or maybe because we do have some restrictions on some social stuff, you’re not going out as much, but how does a lighting impact you? I know it can impact a lot of moods, but how does lighting impact everyone?

Brett:

There’s so many layers to lighting. Biggest topic when it comes to wellness is your sleep patterns. Light has a major effect on your sleep pattern because we are geared to follow the sun. So we have a circadian rhythm to our body that tells us to be the most alert during the middle of the day and start feeling sleepy at night because it’s time for bed. That’s the nature of a human with indoor lighting. We’re changing that. And so, you know, we spend time in front of devices, TVs, we put different color temperature, L E D light bulbs in our homes now, and that blue light that’s in some of these devices actually makes your body think that it’s earlier in the day. So there is technology that is available now that will allow your lighting system, if you do have a lighting control system to follow, this circadian rhythm of the sun and help those sleep patterns maintain a natural rhythm.

Jennifer-Lee:

I think it’s funny that you say that it’s meant to keep you up because I know many doctors always say to the worst thing you can do before you fall asleep is look at a screen. I find though at nighttime, anytime I watch a screen, I fall asleep. Like I could be watching a movie and I’m out. Like, I don’t think I’ve ever watched a full movie. So I guess it just depends on the person light. Isn’t just about, you know, our body waking up and everything like that. It’s also good for our mental health. I know during the winter myself included a lot of us suffer from, you know, maybe being a little bit depressed when it’s quite dark outside too. So how can you change the light up in your home for that?

Brett:

Some of the things I did is add lighting that is a little more cheery and that can be in multiple layers. So what I mean by multiple layers, instead of just having pot lights in your ceiling, you have maybe strip lights under the counter or above the countertops or anything that just adds different layers to the lighting actually makes your body enjoy the space more using the right color temperature of light. Also, you can get different L E D lights now that some are abrupt, light, more task oriented, and then others are, you know, more warm and allow you to relax, which can affect your mood. And so using the right lights within the certain areas of the home will, will make a big difference. And then there’s just color changing light bulbs that you can put in lamps.

Brett:

You know my kids who you have, you know, color changing L E D and light bulbs in the room, and sometimes they’re pink and purple and all that. And just more cheery color that can help your mood also. But light is one of the most important when it comes to mood sleep and just your overall comfort in, in a room. It’s telling your brain what responses to do. So if it’s a warm light, you’re comfortable, the mood is, is more candlelight. And then if it’s task oriented, because when we have a task light is a very bluish color. It’s like the middle of the day, it’s like noon, you know, like right now, noon, it gives you, you go outside in the middle of the day. You’re most awake than what you’ll ever be at any other time in the day.

Brett:

And so you can choose different types of lights, different layers of lights and different color of light in order to affect your mood lighting. You know, outside of the wellness story, we like to talk about, you know, adds safety, convenience, you know, the safety side of it is I always say, you never have to come home to a dark house. You know, if you’ve ever come home and every light is off in your house, you can use technology or an automation system to do a couple things. You, you can turn the light on remotely before you get home. Some use proximity sensors that will allow you to, you know, walk up to the house and lights turn on, uh, or geofencing, which knows you’re getting close to the house and it will turn lights on for you. The other side to, to lighting control is, you know, you can program the lights to be at certain levels during certain times of the day.

Brett:

So, you know, we know that we’re gonna be cooking dinner at five o’clock and we hit the button on the wall, the lights just go into task mode into that brightness level. At 4:00 AM you walk into the washroom and you hit the light, you know, we’ve all done this and it’s full bright, and you’re half asleep, you know, your lights turn on full brightness. And it’s just really annoying and hard on your eyes. You can use an automation system to turn that same light on, and it’s gonna take it to just 10%, because it knows it’s 4:00 AM in the morning

Mike:

And correct me if I’m wrong. Once you’ve got that, it’s really easy to use things like voice control to, to easily interface with it as well, which makes it more accessible to a lot of people, right?

Brett:

Yeah, absolutely. There all these automated lights are working with the major brands of voice control. So you can just say sometimes awkward language, but you can just, ask it to turn on lights in certain rooms and it will,

Jennifer-Lee:

For these systems, they seem a little complicated to some time. Are they easy to install these systems or do you need professionals to help you?

Brett:

I mean, there is a DYI component to it and it is readily available. I never say change a light switch out. If you don’t feel like you can handle it and you’re not an electrician there is a large integration, industry where you can hire an integration company to come out and design and, um, install and service the system. It’s a relationship build type of integration. And what I mean by that is you, when you’re dealing with an integration company to take care of all these things, because it can can be complex, it shouldn’t be to use, but it can be complex in maintaining it. You’ll wanna have a great relationship with that integrator that, uh, that can service it in the future also. And that, and that’s the thing with the wellness side of it also.

Brett:

And just the automation side is there are advancements in the automation system and the wellness products talking to each other. So that sensor that’s on the wall, that’s monitoring the air quality will talk through the automation system to the air purification system and make sure that it turns on or it’s running at the right time. It will also take into account the temperature in the room and the, and the humidity and run, run it that way. So that way you’re not just running these systems 24 7, they’re turning on when they’re needed. And that’s the advantage of having a very holistic integration system. That’s looking at every component in the house.

Jennifer-Lee:

Don’t enjoy that. They’re talking to each other. It’s a little futuristic for me.

Mike:

Brett, you know, on this show, we spent a lot of time talking about planning ahead working with our builder and designer to get the best results. If we’re gonna incorporate some of what we just talked about into our discussion with them, when is the best time to bring it, it up with the professional you’re working with in order to capitalize on the opportunity to get this stuff in your home, as soon as you can.

Brett:

Well, if it’s a new build and the, and the budget is there, then you want to be, you know, talking about it right at, you know, right at the beginning with the architect, the designer, your builder needs to be on board. So I know is an integrated design process that’s talked quite commonly where you get everyone to the table. And that’s really where you want this brought up is to okay, we’re gonna talk about our heating system, our cooling system, you know, the, the water system, we’re gonna talk about air purification. We’re gonna talk about all those things. The it go into the start of the design. It needs to be part of the conversation, you know, at least begin the conversation. Because if it’s not, then the mechanical, the mechanical side of it might not have the room, um, you know, to, to put it in or the plumber isn’t on board to, to pipe be where the water purification would be. And you can’t change those things after you start. And if you can, they may be an expensive change.

Jennifer-Lee:

For renovations at Brett, is it kind of the same process?

Brett:

Yeah. I mean, it depends on the level of the renovation. You know, you can renovate if, say, if you’re renovating a kitchen, you can make the area under the sink large enough to put just a local water purification system. You don’t have to do the whole entire house, because it might not be possible. But if the kitchen cabinets, you know, are being redesigned, then you can actually make that possible at that point in time, if it’s a renovation and they can expand on the area that the furnace, if it’s a forced air furnace can be, you know, where you can put in an air purification system for the entire house, then it’s definitely possible. And we can assist there. So our partner Repure, they actually do design services for air purification, you know, and I actually used my own home as a, as the process, you know, just took pictures, provided the size of the house, you know, how many people live in it and it, they can provide a quote on what it would be for the equipment. And then of course the install would be a local install.

Jennifer-Lee:

Anyway, Brett, this episode has been so informative. You’ve given both Mike and I and our listeners, a lot of great information to start a discussion about how we can improve our lives through the homes we live in.

Mike:

Oh yeah. This has been an excellent discussion to kickoff season three, looking at homes through the lens of better living today, we talked about healthy homes, focusing on air, water, and light, and about how knowing your environment can help you control your environment, and helping control your environment can help you live a significantly better lives. The easiest step, Brett, in your opinion, to making our homes a little bit healthier, just to leave our listeners with some great insight, what do you think?

Brett:

Get an air monitor again, it’s available a lot of different places, but an air monitor would be the first thing I would do. And then just make web illness choices, you know, maybe turn the, the label to any cleaning products that you’re buying and see if they’re VOC free, because that can affect the air quality. But an air quality monitor would be the first thing I would do in order to jump into understanding what’s happening in your home.

Jennifer-Lee:

Are there any resources that you’d like to share with our listeners, Brett? You covered a lot today.

Brett:

Resources. I mean check out the, if you Google the WELL AP, I mean they definitely are upping their information game when it comes to residential environments. CI partners.ca and our partner repure.io, which is our wellness partner. They have a lot of really good information and, and the brands that we deal with, there’s a lot of different brands, but these are the brands we deal with. So there’s lots of resources there and just, you know, cuz everyone’s gonna be running out, buying an air monitor, right? You know, after they hear this. So when you buy that, there’s lots of resources that are available from, you know, different brands of air quality monitoring.

Mike:

Thanks, Brett. This has been an amazing episode. And you know, for over 20 years you’ve been an amazing resource for me and everyone in the technology industry and now the construction industry. And it’s so wonderful to have you sharing your knowledge with homeowners and people who live in homes so they can benefit from your years of experience as well. So that’s amazing. And to our listeners, if you enjoy this podcast, please follow and share with your friends and families. The more followers we have, the more people who find our podcast and the excellent resources our guests like Brett are sharing.

Jennifer-Lee:

Links to everything mentioned on today’s episode, including links to WELL AP, go to www.havan.ca/measuretwicecutonce. Thanks for joining us.