Healthy Indoors Magazine - USA Edition

HI April 2022-USA Edition

Healthy Indoors Magazine

Issue link: https://hi.healthyindoors.com/i/1467183

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 16 of 50

Healthy Indoors | 15 Carl Grimes Carl Grimes, HHS CIEC, has direct experience consulting with those who experience complaints indoors and as a leader in the industry intended to fix those causes. Because he also originally ex- perienced the harm in his personal life, he has a unique perspective and approach for understanding and communicating the complica- tions and confusions between them. He is past president of IAQA, vice president of practice of ISIAQ, and chaired the IAQA Healthy Home committee that wrote the Healthy Home Assessment Prin- ciples course. He has served on committees writing the original S520 mold remediation standard, medical practice parameters for allergists, official policy position statements for ASHRAE, plus sev- eral peer reviewed and published papers. He's currently director of healthy homes for the Hayward Healthy Home Institute and Hay- ward Score in Denver, Colorado; and vice chair of ASHRAE TC1.12 on building dampness, and chair of ASHRAE's SGPC10 commit- tee Interactions Affecting the Achievement of Acceptable Indoor Air Quality. You can reach him by email at grimes@haywardscore.com. S520. They also (eventually) agreed to leave the containment and negative air flow operational for 24 hours so the chemical could first evaporate and dry. Success! There are many potential lessons from this learning experience, but I'll focus on just a couple. First, this couple "knew" something was wrong but couldn't articulate what it was. And, they had no way of altering the behavior and actions of those in con- trol. They were told the standards, the insurance, and the landlord required what they were doing. The customer was being driven at high speed down a mountain road with no guardrails – by those they were forced to trust. There were guardrails, but they were to protect the contractor, regard- less of what happened to the custom- er. Even if the customer were experts in industry consensus standards for professional mold remediation, they were powerless to protect themselves. Second, the guardrail that pro- tected the contractor could also pro- tect the customer but was used as a weapon instead. The protection was hidden from them by the contractor. Say what you will about "crazy" customers wrought with fear and trembling making hysterical accusa- tions and insisting on impossible ac- tions based on gossip and conspiracy theories. Sometimes – and just a little too often – they are justified. The challenge for industry is how to identify customer concerns and re- spond without using their protective guardrails against the customer. Indus- try has guardrails (ANSI standards) and parachutes (legal disclaimers). Consumers also have the guardrails of industry standards – but they don't know about them. And often don't trust them because incidents like described above travel the Internet groups at lightening speed. What they perceive as generating their own guardrails, are often an illusion – partially generated and further exploited by industry.

Articles in this issue

Links on this page

Archives of this issue

view archives of Healthy Indoors Magazine - USA Edition - HI April 2022-USA Edition