102: Wildfires: How to Protect Yourself at Home

Narrarator 0:04

How would you like to improve your health and keep your family safe? You're listening to the Healthy Home Hacks podcast where we firmly believe in joining optimal health shouldn't be a luxury. Healthy Home authorities and husband and wife team Ron and Lisa will help you create a home environment that will level up your health. It's time to hear from the experts. Listen in on honest conversations and gain the best tips and advice. If you're ready to dive in and improve your well being and increase your energy, you're in the right place. All right, here are your hosts, baubiologists, authors, media darlings, vicarious vegans and avocado aficionados, Ron and Lisa Beres.

Ron Beres 0:49

Where there's smoke, there's fire. And guess what friends, it's wildfire season. We talk a lot about indoor air quality on the show, but we've never discussed the health dangers of wildfires. This year Texas has already experienced its largest fire in recorded history. And recent blazes also occurred in Virginia, North Carolina, West Virginia and Maryland. In the first three months of 2024, over 2600 square miles had been charged in the United States.

Lisa Beres 1:21

Think you don't live in an area that's affected. Think again, smoke can travel for miles beyond its source in 2020 smoke from wildfires in the western US drifter for almost 5000 Miles eventually being detected as far away as Europe.

Ron Beres 1:38

And that's a huge concern considering the primary cause of death from wildfires is smoke inhalation. 50 to 80% of fire deaths are from smoke inhalation makes sense when you consider the fact that wildfire smoke is a mixture of 1000s of individual compounds.

Lisa Beres 1:56

Someone who is with us today to shed light on this extremely important topic is wife mom, tree huggers. sports enthusiast as we talked at the top of the hour before the show started ex pro athlete and the CEO of IQAir North America. Glory Dolphin Hammes is an expert in environmental control, a certified indoor environmentalist, and a licensed HVAC contractor. Glory began her tenure with IQAir one of the youngest CEOs in North America, she oversaw the launches of IQAir's health Pro Series and the air visual platform allowing air quality data to be shared around the world.

Ron Beres 2:37

She also created the Clean Air For All which led to the IQAir Foundation, a nonprofit focused on providing clean air for kids in schools. Welcome to the show Glory, yes.

Glory Dolphin Hammes 2:52

You guys are so awesome. Thank you for that wonderful, wonderful introduction. I think it's all just gonna go downhill from here.

Ron Beres 3:00

Oh, no, it's going uphill. But you know, I there's been chatting with you before the podcast about just your athletic career and running 400 meter hurdles. And oh my gosh, you're just a champion Glory.

Lisa Beres 3:10

Yeah. And she's got a walking desk behind her guys. So don't let her humbleness.

Glory Dolphin Hammes 3:15

I do go hard on the walking desk though. Yeah,

Lisa Beres 3:18

I need one of those. That's hardcore. I'm very impressed with anyone who uses one of those. Because I'm like, Isn't it like patting your head and rubbing your stomach a little?

Glory Dolphin Hammes 3:26

It is you can really only do it for certain things like don't try to write emails on while you're doing it.

Lisa Beres 3:33

There'll be a little bouncy. Well, this is a really awesome topic that we have not covered on Healthy Home Hacks before the dangers of wildfires. And you know, we talk about indoor air quality inside the home, which obviously this is going to affect too, but not so much about the outdoor pollution. So Glory, how do wildfires impact people?

Glory Dolphin Hammes 3:52

They impact people in a major way, of course, the concentration of pollutants in wildfires is very high. So these are very highly, highly sensitive times where we need to take extra precaution because the concentration levels in terms of pollution is very high. I mean, we've all saw last year when the wildfires hit New York City, how you could barely see in front of you. Right. Ah, so that happens quite a bit. When you're next to a wildfire. If you're in terms of being upwind of a wildfire. You can have that happen for a couple of hours here and there. And it's those time periods where we do need to take the extra precaution to actually reduce our risk to reduce the health impact.

Lisa Beres 4:40

Right.

Ron Beres 4:41

That's the orange smoke in New York City. Right? It looked almost like a horror movie. That was ridiculous. Yeah. Oh, how long did it last? Was it for like a day and a half or something weird like that?

Glory Dolphin Hammes 4:50

It lasted about nine hours. Okay, okay. And we were actually able to break the story just because we have the data on our data platform that New York City was at that time, the most polluted major city in the world.

Lisa Beres 5:07

In the world? Wow.

Glory Dolphin Hammes 5:09

At that time, and it was for about a four hour period that it was,

Lisa Beres 5:13

And it's so congested there. It's like, where can you go? Right? And a lot of people, oh, they don't have HVAC a lot of people there. So they rely on opening their windows, right?

Glory Dolphin Hammes 5:23

Yeah, a lot of older buildings in that area. But one thing that someone actually talked to me about, and they said they found it particularly unfair, that level of pollution occurred in New York City, not because of anything that was happening in New York City, it was happening in Canada. So the wildfires actually came over from Canada through the winds that just brought it there. So it happened a long, long way. But also we see for other different issues, industrial issues like an East Palestine, just the plume that was detected in East Palestine. It's spread over 14 state. Oh, my so yes. See, just from that one particular incident. So that just goes to show you how much we're inter dependent on one another, and we just share this environmental envelope, all together. Wow. Yeah.

Lisa Beres 6:20

Is wildfire season, typically in the hot months summer, or I've also read that now it's becoming like almost a six month season, right? And or longer?

Glory Dolphin Hammes 6:33

It used to be a two to three month season. So it's been substantially longer. And unfortunately, what's going on with regards to Canada, so Canada, is a larger geographical area than the United States. So it has more miles more square miles in the United States does, but it actually only has 1/10 of the population. So what does that mean that there's a lot of land, there's a lot of forestry. Yeah. And because of climate change, and because of the Earth, just warming, it created a hotbed, essentially, for wildfires. And that's what we saw last year, we saw that the wildfires in Canada got to in the area that was essentially non inhabited. And for 1000s and 1000s of miles, and how can they possibly really damp in those fire when there's basically 1000s and 1000s of miles burning? And there's no real way to attack it?

Lisa Beres 7:34

So right, yeah, nobody there and how long it takes them to get there and to handle that? Yeah, that's an interesting point. Yeah, yeah.

Glory Dolphin Hammes 7:40

So at some point in time, they just had to evacuate just evacuate cities and evacuate people.

Lisa Beres 7:46

That's so sad.

Ron Beres 7:46

I'm guessing a colder climate actually, does that limit the number of wildfires there could be? Or is that irrelevant?

Glory Dolphin Hammes 7:52

It becomes irrelevant during the wildfire season. And that's because there is a spring season where it just warms up. And then unfortunately, how these wildfires get started is exactly after the spring season. Oh, wow.

Ron Beres 8:09

Well, what percentage of wildfires are caused by humans? And if so, how?

Glory Dolphin Hammes 8:13

Yeah, I believe you would probably say that almost all of them. Yeah.

Lisa Beres 8:18

I read it too. Yeah.

Ron Beres 8:19

So these guys come out every spring and they start the winds trees on fire. And they just realize it's an opportune time to cause a fire, I guess.

Glory Dolphin Hammes 8:26

Well, I think the bear would probably have a lot to say about this, but..

Lisa Beres 8:33

Maybe we'll call him as a caller next time.

Glory Dolphin Hammes 8:37

And then we also had one of the largest fires within California, being caused because there was a what was it a gender reveal party with fireworks?

Lisa Beres 8:48

In Malibu? I think right? Wasn't that Malibu?

Glory Dolphin Hammes 8:50

Yeah, that was one of them. Also, in paradise, there was also a gender reveal party. So when people get out there and just the fireworks alone, so I do have to say something about the fireworks probably nobody's gonna like me.

Lisa Beres 9:04

We will.

Glory Dolphin Hammes 9:05

I'm making friends mom. No. So the issue really with fireworks is that they are pretty, but they just do a major, major job in terms of pollution. Yeah, in terms of just threatening our environment in terms of wildfires as well. So I will say I need to I'm gonna say overall we have this article it says fireworks yay or nay so I'll just say nay.

Lisa Beres 9:34

I'm gonna say nay with you now.

Glory Dolphin Hammes 9:36

Yeah, need to fireworks animals like your dogs just start going berserk. Birds go berserk. It's just every day you get the wildfires. There's just nothing really positive about them, except that they look pretty. Everything else is pretty bad. So we're really looking towards drones and just doing other things that are pretty to celebrate.

Lisa Beres 9:58

Yeah, you can do beautiful drone show, right? Yeah, Ron and I are animal lovers and we rescued a hummingbird. A baby hummingbird outside of our house that night had a broken wing and took it to I'm diverting here. There's a place in Huntington Beach called the wetlands Wildlife Center. Shout out to them. They're amazing people. And they actually have a hummingbird specialist, who we ended up taking this bird to, and it's really incredible what they're doing to help the wildlife. They just rescued all these pelicans that were beaching themselves basically. Oh, wow. Yeah, they were starved all along the coast of California, these pelicans and they did they don't know why.

Glory Dolphin Hammes 10:33

Oh, interesting.

Lisa Beres 10:34

I know. But I learned from them how bad the fireworks were for me think about how sensitive a tiny hummingbird is. There's so little and that sound, let alone other little birds, finches. And then you grew up the thing. They said it's very stressful and very traumatic for wildlife. When they hear that, I mean, think of how loud it is for us. So I'm with you on this glory. And I'm glad we brought this up. Because not only just from a fire safety perspective, but think about the wildlife. I mean, your dog's freaking out, he's freaking out because he's not comfortable. He or she is not comfortable with that. It's stressful.

Ron Beres 11:08

Absolutely.

Outside of canceling fireworks for Fourth of July. What can we do to prevent these wildfires from happening?

Glory Dolphin Hammes 11:15

Just being much more conscientious and really listening to really everything that they say about forest fires, like we really, truly can prevent forest fires. It is almost always I think, when you look at the statistics caused by humans, and we just need to be much, much more conscientious. Don't leave things behind. Don't start fires when they actually post signs. And they say, don't make a fire here. Like really? Don't do it.

Lisa Beres 11:42

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So how much damage do wildfires do and how fast do they move?

Glory Dolphin Hammes 11:50

So great question. So we do every year World Air Quality Report. Right? So with our World Air Quality Report, when it looked at Northern America, we usually always have United States being number one and pollution. But guess what happened last year, United States was second to Canada, which had air pollution in Northern America. And why did Canada have for the very first time in seven years? Because that was our seventh year of posting that report. The reason why Canada was more polluted than the United States is because of the wildfires that occurred, right. It was just they were so major, that actually it even shifted, what typically we'd find in the US as the major cities that were the most polluted. So even in the US, the major cities that were the most polluted, usually it's always on in California. Oh, yeah. However, it was, surprisingly, a lot of cities within the Midwest.

Lisa Beres 12:52

Oh, that is surprising.

Glory Dolphin Hammes 12:53

Yeah. And that has to do with up winds, with the winds from the Canadian wildfires, taking that plume, from the Canadian wildfires and distributing it throughout the Midwest. So for some reason that doesn't have anything to do with the local pollution. We have the Midwest cities actually up rooting what would typically be the most polluted major cities in the US. And of course, Canada being the most polluted country. Overall, for the first time.

Lisa Beres 13:23

We're glad we're not first anymore, but we don't want anyone out doing that either. It's not in the competition you want to be a part of.

Glory Dolphin Hammes 13:31

Right, right? Absolutely.

Ron Beres 13:34

More importantly, Glory, how do wildfires impact our health. So for example, what kind of VOCs and other dangerous contaminants are present and smoke?

Glory Dolphin Hammes 13:43

it's pretty nasty. So in terms of toxic pollutants, we have wildfire smoke, and also pollutants, from traffic, from diesel soot, really containing such high levels of black and brown carbon, there toxic levels of black and brown carbon. So also the other problem, you combine the toxic levels of black and brown carbon with PM 2.5. You combine that with the amount of VOCs in general, the amount of volatile organic compounds that you have, and it's just a dangerous mix. It's a dangerous mix that not only affects us from a respiratory level, but it actually affects every cell of our body and can not only do damage on a respiratory level on a cardiovascular level, the amount of people that go into the emergency room as a result of what's called an air quality episode, or heart problems very high. So it actually changes the epidemiology. And you're able to see the impact from a health perspective of cardiovascular disease just because of air quality episode. Wow. But also we're able to see on an app their level, even certain cancers that are caused by exposure to these different toxic pollutant materials. And so what that does is also approve what might be in terms of cancer statistics, throwing off these statistics, and then we see certain types of cancers actually increasing as a result.

Lisa Beres 15:22

Right. So going back to what you said the PM 2.5 Is the ultra fine particles, correct?

Glory Dolphin Hammes 15:28

It's what's called fine particles. So ultra fine particles are probably pm one and a little bit smaller.

Lisa Beres 15:34

Okay. And by that by that pm two, five is what's the size point in there? Again?

Glory Dolphin Hammes 15:39

It's as PM 2.5. Is 2.5 microns, or smaller or smaller? Okay, or smaller? Yeah. But when you actually look at what's really included, there's a lot of fine particulate matter that's included.

Lisa Beres 15:54

Yeah, which is we just did an Instagram live Glory, and you really educated everybody on that. So like, 90% of the particles that we inhale are in that PM 2.5 category, which brings us back to you know why air filtration in your home is so important, because otherwise, they're just floating around in your breathing them in if there's not something and you mentioned the chemicals that are in the wildfire and formaldehyde, correct formaldehyde? Yeah.

Yes, that's one of the most common chemical.

hich is a carcinogen guys, a cancer causing chemical. It's also in our home, as we talked about before, but in smoke. So which individuals are at the most risk for health consequences if they're exposed to wildfire? Smoke?

Glory Dolphin Hammes 16:39

Yes. So there is a category, according to the EPA, it's called sensitive group. So these are young people or children, the elderly. And then also there's another category of sensitive groups, which are people that have respiratory issues, have auto immune diseases as well and cardiovascular disease and of course, people that might be suffering from other diseases like cancer as well. Okay. Yeah.

Lisa Beres 17:05

So stay indoors. Just standby.

Glory Dolphin Hammes 17:15

If you have to go though outdoors, you can wear a high quality mask to go outdoor, right. And that the post to provide I know, we even have an a mask IQAir has a mask and it's FFP2 German made masks. And it provides over 95% essentially protection when you go outdoors.

Ron Beres 17:36

Is that "wunderbar, sehr gut"

Lisa Beres 17:39

Is that more effective than an N95? Ron got to show off his one German line.

Ron Beres 17:46

Thank you. That's my chance.

Glory Dolphin Hammes 17:47

It was really good pronunciation, though. Like I am always super impressed?

Lisa Beres 17:52

Well, it's the one word he says over and over, you better have it down.

Ron Beres 17:55

If you say 20 words, you know, consistently, hopefully you get it right.

Lisa Beres 17:58

So no, I'm kidding. He knows two words. A couple sentences. No, it is the n95. How does that compare to the PPF2.

Glory Dolphin Hammes 18:08

Oh, yeah, so they're similar. The only difference is that our masks you can see like gaps around most masks. But our mask has what's called a soft seal. So it has a seal, but it's not going to actually like kind of stick to your face and make these molds on your face. It's a really cool kind of soft seal that makes it so super comfortable. Okay to breathe in to breathe out. And it's just a very, very comfortable way to wear an N95 quality, mask.

Lisa Beres 18:38

Nice, Okay, and I'll say, guys, if you're doing home remodeling of any kind, you should be wearing this, like you should be wearing a mask with your painting. I mean, you see, Ron and I, in our old house, like the lady across the street was pregnant, and she was outside painting, like a rocking chair. And I'm like, at least she was outside, but she didn't have a mask on and I'm like you're pregnant. You know, Oh, wow. You gotta take precautions when you're doing that. And anyone listening? Please, please just do.

Glory Dolphin Hammes 19:05

Yeah, that's so true. Because I do watch some of those home improvement shows. And it's super scary. Scary. I'm seeing the demo. I'm seeing the plume. I'm seeing all of that. And I'm not seeing any mask. No mask. Listen to Lisa.

Lisa Beres 19:23

Get masked up. I mean, heis so fun. And he's on his demo day. And you're like what?

Ron Beres 19:29

And you'd have no goggles sometimes too so even him eyes were affected. It was crazy.

Lisa Beres 19:33

I know. And then there's Tarek and Christina, who are local celebs right here in California. He got there was a viewer who noticed he had thyroid cancer and he also had testicular cancer. And I often wondered, was that linked to all of that exposure? Tarik, if you're listening, please wear a mask next time you do demo.

Ron Beres 19:52

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. We're getting back to wildfires. I'm curious. What are some of the less obvious dangers that come from wildfires?

Glory Dolphin Hammes 20:01

The less obvious ones, of course, are just these ultimately longer term exposure, that can lead to a DNA change and which can lead to cancer. Also, these longer term exposures leading to cardiovascular disease. So these are the less obvious ones that people actually don't realize that, ultimately are actually caused as a result of exposure to air pollution.

Lisa Beres 20:30

Right? Because, yeah, these particles can be absorbed directly into our bloodstream, right? And then through there, they can actually reach organs and areas of our body, which you really shed light on on our Instagram live that I think a lot of people don't realize. I mean, because we don't see them. And it's easy ignorance, you know, can seem like bliss, but it's not. Because just because you can't see it doesn't mean it can't hurt you. And that I think that when you say Glory is one of the things that's really difficult to get people to understand about the importance of purifying your air, because it is easy to say, well, I don't see it, you know, my home is healthy, I'm healthy. Right?

Glory Dolphin Hammes 21:03

That it's such a great point, Lisa, because people you actually can't see it, though it is much, much smaller than the naked eye and 0.1 microns alone accounts for in sheer number over 90% of all particulate matter that's floating through the air, the 0.1 microns or larger, it actually is so small, and has such little weight that it stays in the air indefinitely. So um, unless you're actually using a purifier, unless you're actually filtering the air, you don't have a chance to reduce your exposure. And he's ultra fine particles because they're there. They're gonna stay there. Yeah, it's just a matter of physics. And unless you're filtering out the air, you're basically the filter. Your lungs are the filter.

Lisa Beres 21:53

Yeah, you're a human filter, and you don't get to change your filter, right.

Glory Dolphin Hammes 21:57

Only one set of lungs. Right?

Lisa Beres 22:00

Yeah, take good care of this. So we kind of talked about what factors and conditions could drive the wildfire risks people camping that maybe aren't putting up their fire fully. I mean, you have arsonists? What percentage would you say is actually like intentional versus like just people not intending to cause a fire?

Glory Dolphin Hammes 22:20

I think they said it was less than half. Oh, basically, are actually caused by arson. Less than half less than half.

Lisa Beres 22:28

Right? Yeah. It's sad. Because like, people love to be out in nature. And we think it's so beautiful. And we all want to enjoy it. And then you see people litter or you know, start these fires. And you just wonder, Don't you enjoy this? Don't you enjoy this beauty? What on earth would make you want to ruin that? I never understand that. Even when I see litter. I'm like, you came to this site campground because you thought it was beautiful. But then you littered. So are you going to want to come back and camping the littered spot, because that's what you're creating.

Glory Dolphin Hammes 22:56

You like a Girl Scout to or you've been scouting?

Lisa Beres 23:00

On my honor, I will try.

Glory Dolphin Hammes 23:04

Me too. That's awesome. Because basically, it's this Leave No Trace, that it's a part of the scouting and scouting community. It's basically don't let anyone or anything know that you've been there. And that's clean up after yourself. And but it's really tough because I think that people do it unintentionally, right? I really do think it's just an accident, they are smoking in their cars, there are still people that smoke, right? They throw their cigarette out the window, and now because of climate change, because now there's basically a perfect storm. In terms of the brush, just pure dryness and the brush. It's much more easy to create a fire than let's say, like seven or eight years ago. So just the dryness level as it increases though dry. Yes, due to climate change. That means you have to be, you know, probably two or three times better at watching yourself, but we haven't gotten better. We're just the same and throwing your ash or having your cigarette throwing that outside your window. might actually start a fire. Yeah, right.

Ron Beres 24:17

I had a flashback to my childhood when I was seven years old. I lived to grow up in northern Indiana a while back and I had this little friend named Stevie and unfortunately Stevie was a good kid, but he liked to play with matches all Stevie a long story short, I wasn't with Stevie this day. But there was a huge fire that took place on this grassy lot that was behind all the homes that we lived in all the townhomes. And lo and behold, it was Stevie I don't think he intended to burn anything as a seven year old. Stevie wasn't really hanging out much for a few months after that. I'm sure Yeah, but he was just a naughty little kid. But that you know, it's we're so vulnerable to these potential wild fires.

Lisa Beres 24:55

Kids you just don't even think to unless you you know, education obviously is such the have this right. I mean, it's really comes down to knowing and being aware. And it reminded me Ron during COVID I was on next door, you know the app of your neighborhood. And they were talking about we live in Irvine area. And they were like, Oh, they have these goats. Have you heard about this Glory?

Glory Dolphin Hammes 25:17

I've heard about goats and yeah, yeah, tell me more.

Lisa Beres 25:21

It's so cool. The city of Irvine is really good at like using non toxic pest control. And they have like great initiatives around that. And they every year, bring in goats. And they put them up in the hills. And the goats graze on all the dry brush. And it actually is a natural, non toxic way to reduce the risk of fires, basically. So they bring them and they call the guy that the goat like he's the angel. He comes in, he brings all these goats on his track. And he sets up this fence this big fence like they're in a big area. And they have their goat herding dogs. The dog, you know, he's you know how they are?

Glory Dolphin Hammes 26:00

Right. Was that they're the German shepherds that heard the goat.

Yeah, this one was a he was like a collie, a border colors. I don't remember. But yeah, so protective. We got to go and held the baby goats and meet the guy and talk to him. And everybody was no one had anything to do during COVID. So everybody was going out there to like, interact and see the goats. And he this dog like he does not take his eyes off the goats the whole time. He's like staring staring at one moves. He's jumping in. I said to the guy pass. He's like their angel. And he said, Oh, he actually really is his whole life is to protect them. You see that with sheep, right? The sheep herding dogs, but this was goat. And it's such a cool thing. And then he would like have them there until they graze that section. And he moves the whole fence over and it goes up and down all these different hills. And that's a natural, non toxic way to reduce fire risk. Isn't that interesting?

It's really good. I actually when I was in Germany, because I used to live in Germany, actually for almost three years and then moved over to Switzerland. But when I was in Germany, I actually lived with a family of the shepherd for that town. So I know exactly what you're talking about. So yeah, generally there would be there's a shepherd who would have just a pretty large herd and then there were two German shepherds that would watch over. Oh, yeah, all of the animals

Ron Beres 27:19

Not to digress Glory. But my Bares is actually pronounced "bearish" And it's Hungarian, and it's mean sheep herder so. Cool circle moments.

Lisa Beres 27:28

We need goats and sheeps.

Ron Beres 27:30

IQAir is a German Shepherd protecting all the flock of the world. Right? So full circle monitor.

Glory Dolphin Hammes 27:35

That's what we try to do. Giving out air quality data to everyone.

Lisa Beres 27:41

Yeah that's amazing. Wow. Okay, so we gotta leave you guys, listeners you're like, Okay, what can I do? Give us some tips that we can protect ourselves, both indoors and outdoors, from air quality fires all of that, right.

Glory Dolphin Hammes 27:53

So really just watching your home in terms of what you put in your home. So unfortunately, we're the big polluters. And so just being much more conscientious about the quality of the materials about painting around really the use of different things like particle board, they can actually build up pretty high levels of formaldehyde within your home. So those are the things that you want to avoid. And I'm sure you talk a lot about things like that, Lisa, because I know you really take a great approach when it comes to reducing and making your home really clean and healthy overall. But these are things that people can do when you have wildfires. If you have an air purifier, you definitely want to have your air purifier with your filters ready, really recirculating the air all the time closing windows, we all want to have oxygenated air, but when it's times during the wildfire, you do not want to have the additional burden of having just high concentration pollutants in your home. So definitely if you can fill up even gaps within doors and windows during that time.

Lisa Beres 29:03

Yeah, get that cocking out and seal all those holes. And I know it's like, yeah, we've interviewed a lot of architects and builders on the whole tightly sealed situation. Yeah. And now they're kind of saying yeah, it's still good to do that. You just need a great filtration. A lot of them like the ARB or whatever.

Glory Dolphin Hammes 29:20

Great. Yeah so you're still going on without a filter though, right?

Lisa Beres 29:23

Yes, exactly. Filter, Filter, Filter Filter. Yeah, filter. And if you're listening and you have not changed your H HVAC filter, do it today. Let this be your whisper. You'll be shocked every time we change ours and we change ours every three months like you're supposed to according to the EPA. Every season guys change that HVAC filter, you'll be shocked at what it's collecting. And then in addition, of course your air purifier your portable air purifiers that you have in your house, your IQAir hopefully, you want to be changing that filter regularly and I know we talked about this to Glory, you do your pre filter. Tell us the times that you would be changing these filters.

Glory Dolphin Hammes 30:02

Sure. So your pre filters changed about every 10 to 12 months. Okay, your gas and odor filter that the five fellas change every 18 months, the hyper HEPA filter is changed once every four years, once every four years. Okay, so last a super long time. Yeah.

Lisa Beres 30:18

And you said it's about 100. And how much a year?

Glory Dolphin Hammes 30:19

It's about $120 a year.

Lisa Beres 30:19

$120 a year, guys, that's an investment in your health. You buy vitamins, you have a gym membership, this is a health this goes in your health category. Your filters, don't think like, oh, it's expensive. It's your health. It's an investment in your health.

Glory Dolphin Hammes 30:36

And if you don't have the filters, then you are the filter.

Lisa Beres 30:42

You're the walking human filter. Yeah, yeah. And so when we're talking about wildfires, is it really the gas filter that's really working hard? Or is the HEPA filter taking stuff out to?

Glory Dolphin Hammes 30:51

It's going to mainly be the HEPA filter? That's working extra hard? Oh, the HEPA okay. Yeah, it's gonna be mainly the HEPA filter. All of the filters. Of course, there's gas and odor. But boy, the amount of PM 2.5 The amount of black carbon and brown carbon is off the chart.

Lisa Beres 31:11

Scary. You'll see it when you replace that filter, right? You'll probably see. Oh, okay. Yeah, absolutely.

Glory Dolphin Hammes 31:16

So you'll see the color has changed. So our filters are white. So when you not going to be white, it's going to be black. And it's going to be brown when you're changing the filter and all of that what you see is what you're not breathing. Right?

Lisa Beres 31:30

That's insane. Because yeah, when you look at that you're like that would have otherwise gone in somebody's lungs in this household. Right? If it wasn't being captured, seeing is believing. Wow, well, this is exciting, really great glory. Thank you so much for helping us cover such an important topic. And I noticed on your site, you guys have a wildfire checklist, which I thought was so amazing. So I'm gonna put the link in the show notes. Remember, this doesn't matter where you live. If you think you're not affected, you still can be because of the drifting of the air and all of that, as Glory mentioned.

Ron Beres 32:03

Absolutely. And to learn more about IQAir, please visit IQair.com. And as always, head to healthyhomehacks.com for all the links in the show notes. And be sure to subscribe to this show, so you don't miss another episode. And get ready to uplevel your health by everyone they do.

Lisa Beres 32:22

Bye everyone. Thank you Glory bye.

Glory Dolphin Hammes 32:25

Thank you. Thank you.

Ron Beres 32:26

Thank you Glory.

Narrarator 32:29

This episode of the Healthy Home Hacks podcast has ended. But be sure to subscribe for more healthy living strategies and tactics to help you create the healthy home you always dreamed of. And don't forget to rate and review so we can continue to bring you the best content. See you on the next episode.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai