Your Home Might Be Destroying Your Health (& how to fix it) - Michael Feldstein - #1173

“So, it's four weeks. The first week, no air filter, tracking your sleep. Weeks two and three, Jaspr on in the bedroom, fan speed three. Week four, Jaspr's off again. Um, and then everybody sent us their data. We analyzed it. The average they were using some sort of track, like a whoop or similar, right?”

“We bought the Jaspr because of some allergies. And now my husband can come back into the bedroom again. Oh, my God. You've saved the sex lives of a few hundred thousand Americans. That's funny. So that's like kind of the short term.”

“We can handle stuff in an acute setting. Also, like when we test the, in Austin, anyone who gets a Jaspr, we go to their homes. They don't even know we're in Austin, but when they make an order, we either call them or text them and we hand deliver the Jaspr. We test the air before and after.”

“What was an unexpected benefit consequence with Jaspr, because it has sensors on it, when people use their hairspray, it kicks up. Every morning mine goes mad at me when I spray my deodorant. It goes fucking crazy.”

“So it becomes like a lot of like the low-tox, non-tox influencers. They use their Jaspr as their little like, which product is the most toxic. Oh, that's funny. Okay. What about stuff like this? But if yo, if you're going to use the hairspray and stuff, I would recommend if you can, do it outside. If you can't, open a window.”

“or a hemp wick. So I've done tests before. There was something on our Instagram where we tested some candles and we blow it up beside the Jaspr. So a beeswax candle is like a natural ionization. So I like beeswax candles.”

“Company, so Jaspr originally, I spent the first two years actually trying to design a HVAC air filtration system. I thought that would be the perfect solution. Pop it in the furnace, out of sight, out of mind, whole home would be good. It was loud and it was quite ineffective because what happens is it chokes out the airflow.”

“Efficacy is how much air is flowing through it. So, unfortunately, long term, that's our vision with Jaspr is to create HVAC products that'll be the lungs of your home. That's not just heating and cooling, but it's thinking about pollen, it's thinking about mold, it's thinking about wildfire smoke, and it's actually designed to breathe.”

“Why is that a big deal? How much can that help? Like, and how do people need, where should they put it? Yeah. So, um, we call Jaspr an air scrubber, not an air purifier. The reason that is, it's kind of like saying, uh, a Yukon Denali versus a Honda civic. They're both cars. They're both vehicles. They have four wheels.”

“Before that, there was no SUVs. Now over 50% of cars that are purchased in America are SUVs. It's practical. So a scrubber, a Jaspr is typically, it's about five small little cheap air purifiers. It's made from, so what it does is air is flowing through it, passes through a filter.”

“And because it's much larger, the filter on it is about four and a half pounds. Most air purifiers filters are like a third of a pound, half a pound. They're tiny little filters. Jaspr is like a tractor filter. So because it's bigger, that means two things. Number one, it can move more air silently.”

“It goes to orange and red. When you hear it, it's because you want to hear it and it comes back down. Basically, like Jaspr is the child of a mold man who has a wife who cares about interior design and I wanted something that was effective and beautiful. Would you have designed something that was significantly uglier if you hadn't had your wife's input, do you think?”

“If you had a Jaspr, you were eight minutes. So it became, the dentist would pay it off in one day. So then our first thousand customers, our first thousand, we were called Jaspr Medical when we launched because we launched to the dental industry during COVID. Didn't see that happening. I had 50 sitting in my garage.”

“So about a thousand dentists in Toronto had them. By the way, we had no e-commerce for the first three years. The only way you could buy a Jaspr was to, there was a free consult because I was a blue-collar guy. So request to quote, free consultation. You'd call me and I would talk to you for half an hour about your mold situation, about your dental situation.”

“Eight Minutes and the next guy can come in. Yep. I've been cycled through a variety of machines. I've got Jaspr's all over the house. Thank you for helping me to keep my house clean. But I'd gone through the bedroom machine. That was kind of interesting, but really, really loud and pretty ugly.”

“to Jaspr. We did an air test at your home on video of those other filters. I wasn't there. You weren't there, but it was on video. The air coming, because we have hundreds of these on video, we tested the air coming out of the other machine.”

“And I want to, I'm going to believe that air quality is important. Where do you prioritize putting air purifiers first or air scrubbers first? Like, what's the first place that you put a Jaspr? Well, our logo is kind of the A is a tree that kind of looks like a mountain because the long-term vision for these products should not exist.”

“I'm good. I don't do the other stuff. I take a sauna occasionally. To me, it's a no-brainer. If anyone goes and hears the first 20 or so podcasts I did, I didn't mention Jaspr one time. I'm like, oh, would that be salesy? And I'm like, wait, once the dentist started to show off the Jasprs, then mom's like, do they sell these for the home?”

“box, make the DIY one. That's going to be awesome. I made Jaspr for myself. So the filter is a three-in-one filter. It automatically comes every six months. You just change the filter in 30 seconds. You can, you know, I like things that are easy.”

“So I like, so we designed the product. And by the way, we only make one thing. It's called the Jaspr. No small one, no big one, no water. We are radically obsessed with one thing. And has we, you know, we're on like our fifth, fifth filter. So every six months a new filter comes like, whoa, that looks different.”

“proud about than how Jaspr works. Like, I'm so proud of the team, man. If someone's Jaspr breaks, they get a brand new one shipped to them. They take the new one out of the box. They put the old one in the box. We give them a prepaid shipping label.”

“Some people put one in the home office. So, you know, we're going to do that sleep study next year. The other two studies that are so important, I think about Jaspr like a lab. It's like, let's just put our money where our mouth is and prove stuff. So, the other two studies that are so important to me, hopefully, we can get this done is: number one, we want”

“So, what we're going to do is today, the day the podcast drops for the next two weeks, we'll have a $300 site-wide discount on jaspr.co. So, no discount codes, no nothing like that. J-A-S-P-R.co-o. By the way, this is going to be our Black, our Black Friday discount is kind of the only time we do a sale, except for when there's wildfire smoke, we do them locally.”

“Um, if it's not absolutely, you're not feeling the benefits, seeing the differences, cook, put it in your living room for a day on smart mode and cook and put it in your bedroom on fan speed, three dark mode, track your sleep, feel the difference, and then try a night without it. Like the results speak for themselves.”

“Okay. We've got Jasprs in every class. So in Finland, they did a study a couple of years ago. They put air filters in 50% of the classrooms. Absentee rates drop by about 30% in teachers and students. So we're using the school. It's called Kindling Academy here in Austin, has a living lab to show schools.”

“So keep an eye on that. But yo, jaspr.co, j-as-p-r.co-o, no code required. That's where you could find us. Do you ship internationally? Oh, thanks for asking. So right now, as of today, we're only in the US and Canada.”

“in the future. It's somewhere on the horizon for you as well. I think that that would be a huge solution. But I appreciate you. I fucking love Jaspr. I use them all. And hopefully we've educated people. I don't want people to be scared. No. Like, look, air quality, yes, it's a big deal that you should think about. There's free ways to do it. There's ways that you can mitigate the problems.”

“I can't remember if it was a Best Buy or a Walmart or Home Depot, but I went out and I bought a bunch of little air purifiers, the regular ones you see for two, three, $400. Most of them are very similar. And I left five or six in the home, tested the air again a few hours later, totally contaminated again.”

“The smell part's gone, and you get used to it, but the contaminants stay behind. So I was like, whoa, we need something more significant than these air purifiers. Forget these huge fires, but just for anywhere that's dealing with smoke. So it was clear to me, these air scrubbers, super effective.”

“And we bought them out at about 100 CFM on the silent setting. A lot of air filters, max, are about 80 CFM. The sneakiest thing out there is you walk down the shelves, you see a little filter on the shelf and you're like, covers a large room, 1,500 square feet.”

“There'll be smoke. We can go there, help. And then COVID happened. So what ended up happening is they mandated in Ontario that every dentist needed an air filter in every room to open their doors for business again. So it was a requirement in Ontario, but based on the airflow would determine the time between patients.”

“You can, you know, I like things that are easy. So I remember about eight years ago, I bought a different brand about 10 years ago, I bought a couple of air filters and then little light comes on. I go back to the store. They don't sell the filter anymore. What size? So I'm like, the stress, I don't need another appliance to manage and maintain.”

“I would recommend if you can do it outside, if you can't open a window, and then if not go in a bathroom and leave the bathroom fan on. Okay. So this is like a bathroom, bathroom air freshener. Uh, I'm glad you pulled this one up. Okay.”

“Range hood being the exhaust fan above your stove. A huge one is use the bathroom fan is not for poop smell. The bathroom fan is for humidity. So I would recommend buying a switch. Like, you know, dimmer switches are awesome.”

“switch. Like, you know, dimmer switches are awesome. One of the greatest inventions ever. So also you can get a bathroom fan that has a timer on it, like 30 minutes, 60 minutes, two hours. Hit the two-hour button at least an hour.”

“So use your bathroom fans. Use your range hood when get your dryer, the dryer vent, clean out the lint drawer. A lot of people have home fires from their dryers too.”

“Well, that sucks because we have a sick baby here and insurance is like, we're done. So what we did is we left four of our big industrial air scrubbers in Tanya's home. And about two, three hours later, the air was good. Downside, it was a little bit loud. There was these machines running, but the air was good.”

“we really need an air scrubber that looks good. It's quiet. It's pretty. So I called the restoration. It was like, it was sad work. So I'm like, and it wasn't impactful. We cleaned the homes and they're recontaminated. So I thought the most impactful thing I could do is take what”

“It's the very thing that you're operating from. So the short term, I love those three studies. Okay. Well, just for the people that are listening, we have these sensors in front of us, an Aranet 4, which you kindly gave me. And this is tracking primarily CO2. Yeah, that's what it's for. Okay, so we're at 973, which is on the upper end of what's okay.”

“Like the CO2 should be that present. Because there's people, I found this out this morning from the guys. There's people taking these Aranets through the airport and waving them around and being like, oh, I thought that I needed to be worried when I was outside. It turns out the airport's killing me. The airplane too. Wow.”

“Yeah. It looks beautiful. It's very relaxing. Good for the nervous system. If you can find a really, really sexy candles and cuddles is the new Netflix and chills. Very good. So if you can have a beeswax candle, a really good one with a good wick, like a wooden wick or a hemp wick.”

“we tested some candles and we blow it up beside the Jasper. So a beeswax candle is like a natural ionization. So I like beeswax candles. Are there any companies that you recommend? I'm still in the process. I've got like 25 different ones.”

“Okay, um, Vancouver Island, very good. Also, I had my carbon dioxide detector out there, and it was like 10% less than the rest of the world in the rainforest. That's why when you walk by trees, even like here on Ladybird Lake, like as soon as you go under with the trees, you like feel that cool freshness because like they're breathing on you.”

“You know what dry feels like in your hair, in your throat. It's too humid. It's too dry. You kind of have a sense of that. Because I've lived with a carbon dioxide detector so much. My, I can, little party trick for me. Sometimes like friends will be like, he knows what the CO2 is. I guess. And then they pull it out. I'm usually within about 30 to 50 ppm of what the CO2 is.”

“This is really important. There's these diaper pails that people put into their nurseries. So you change baby's diaper, you pop it in this little airtight container. Do you ever go into a baby's nursery? It smells like shit significantly.”

“When my daughter Aria was newly born, I remember it was our first child. We were living in British Columbia at the time. Rachel, my wife, she was, we had this diaper pail. I'm not going to say the brand. They probably hate it, but they're all the same. And I'm like, yo, every time I'd go in there, I'm like, ugh.”

“The way all of these smells work, if you have the hockey bag or the gym bag and you spray it with Febreze, it didn't clean the stuff. All it did was block your olfactory system, which is your smelling system, so you can no longer smell the stuff.”

“Yeah. So you mentioned Febreze, and this is an interesting one. Like fabric extra strength fights odors and freshens. I think a lot of people, I certainly thought this for a long time. I'm like, all right. So if I've got something that's on my couch, that's on this rug.”

“Life wants to move. Water wants to move. Air wants to move. So we got cooking. We got the shoes. Then we have all the chemicals that we're using to hairspray, the Febreze, the Glade plug-ins, all the candles, the incense, some of the stuff here. The other one is the building materials themselves.”

“I'm glad you pulled this one up. Okay. This is a fragrance. Okay. So everybody's got these Glade plug-ins for breeze. It's not about the brand fragrances. Get this. The fragrance market in America. So by fragrances, I mean the air pollution industry, the indoor air polluting fragrances, it's about a $7 billion market in America.”

“It's going to be called Clean Air Studios. You might have it before us. So, what we're going to be able to do is put a little air exchanger all the way on the other side. Because what happens is, if we put the ventilation in here, that would ruin everything. It's going to go the opposite side out there and then pull the air slowly and quietly.”

“I'd been through what's the Aquatrue Air Doctor. I'd been through those. That was like, you know, okay, this seems a little interesting, but it feels like more of a one-stop shop to go to Jasper. We did an air test at your home on video of those other filters.”

“So speaking of like the home, so we got the shoes. Cooking. Cooking's a big one. So even if you're using organic avocado oil, which I think avocado oil is not in anymore, but if you got good oil or beef tallow, beef tallow is still good. Grass-fed, grass-finished steak, still good.”

“but if you got good oil or beef tallow, beef tallow is still good. Grass-fed, grass-finished steak, still good. So even if you're cooking with great ingredients on a great pan, the high heat and the proteins create something called PAH, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.”

“But these three simple things where the environment set up a couple little red light bulbs, a salt lamp off Amazon for 50 bucks, a countertop water filter for your drinking. And like zero to one is always the biggest step. Also, by the way, you can make an incredible air filter for $60 to $120 with Home Depot parts.”

“Every morning mine goes mad at me when I spray my deodorant. It goes fucking crazy. So depending on the products you use, if you're using better products, it will react less. Oh, that's funny. Yeah. So it becomes like a lot of like the low-tox, non-tox influencers.”

“So I would recommend buying a switch. Like, you know, dimmer switches are awesome. One of the greatest inventions ever. So also you can get a bathroom fan that has a timer on it, like 30 minutes, 60 minutes, two hours.”

“to, you know, to me, it's all about air awareness. But I know I only, I've only made a lot of my big health purchases, whether it's like an eight sleep or whatever. I wait for Black Friday. Fund this discount. Discounts get me going, even though like the $50 and the $300, but like I want to get a deal.”

“And if it's $7 for the glass one, I'll pick that one. If I reversed osmosis, I'll add some electrolytes back to it. Like easy. The majoring in the minors is perfect because people want to sell people stuff. So they make all these things.”

“So ERMI, for example, it's a good test, but it's designed to be kind of alarmist and it's checking your dust. So was there any mold present in the last six months?”

“What do we think about candles? Because I know that a lot of people like the idea of candles, candle, light. This is a Glade Limited Edition warm apple and spices flavor fucking edition, I guess. How do you feel about candles generally? Can we have safe candles?”

“but if you got good oil or beef tallow, beef tallow is still good. Grass-fed, grass-finished steak, still good. So even if you're cooking with great ingredients on a great pan, the high heat and the proteins create something called PAH, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. So when I was testing homes after fires, we're always looking for hexavalent chromium and PAH.”

“Oh, that's funny. Okay. What about stuff like this? Wait, if yo, if you're going to use the hairspray and stuff, I would recommend if you can, do it outside. If you can't, open a window. And then if not, go in a bathroom and leave the bathroom fan on. Okay. So this is like a bathroom, bathroom air freshener.”

“I do have them. So, we've got incense sticks. How do you feel about those? I like them outside. Okay. Yeah, you can't really combust stuff in your home and expect that not to pollute your home.”

“So, the system is only designed to move the air through it and heat and cool. So, a lot of people during COVID, they're like, get the MERV 16s. They got these super intense filters, shove them in their HVAC system, and then their motors blew because you're choking out the system.”

“So like I carry a bag of a really non-toxic deodorant with me. And if I like hug someone with speech stick, I give them a primally pure. And then they're like, is this because I stink? And I'm like, actually, yes, but it's not that you stink. It's that your deodorant stinks. And then all the people around you, I think synthetic fragrances are going to be known as the new secondhand smoke.”

“and deck out your whole home with red lights, go for it. But these three simple things where the environment set up a couple little red light bulbs, a salt lamp off Amazon for 50 bucks, a countertop water filter for your drinking. And like zero to one is always the biggest step. Also, by the way, you can make an incredible air filter for $60 to $120 with Home Depot parts.”

“And if it's $7 for the glass one, I'll pick that one. If I reversed osmosis, I'll add some electrolytes back to it. Like easy. The majoring in the minors is perfect because people want to sell people stuff. So they make all these things.”

“and deck out your whole home with red lights, go for it. But these three simple things where the environment set up a couple little red light bulbs, a salt lamp off Amazon for 50 bucks, a countertop water filter for your drinking. And like zero to one is always the biggest step. Also, by the way, you can make an incredible air filter for $60 to $120 with Home Depot parts.”

“To me, clean air, clean water, clean food, good lighting. I'm good. I don't do the other stuff. I take a sauna occasionally. To me, it's a no-brainer. If anyone goes and hears the first 20 or so podcasts I did, I didn't mention Jaspr one time. I'm like, oh, would that be salesy?”

“No one else can see on the ceiling, but you can. There's all of these sound deadening panels. This is as hermetically sealed as we can, double cavity insulated from the outside. Go to Rogan's studio, he's on a floating floor. Like you would get in Rick Rubin's music studio or whatever.”

“Yeah. Way better than Febreze or something else. What the fuck else would we do? Also, sunscreen, by the way. Think about this. If you're like on the beach or by the pool and you see someone using that say, spray sunscreen, number one, it messes up the plants and the water and everything. But if next time you notice it, someone could be 50 feet, 100 feet in any direction.”

“It was like a little bit of awareness. And I got a water filter at home and I changed the filter twice a year. And when I go out, I buy a bottle of water. And if it's $7 for the glass one, I'll pick that one. If I reversed osmosis, I'll add some electrolytes back to it.”