Episode 36: Selecting the Best Air Purifier & the Science of Sunlight with Alex Kessler

Episode 44: The Science behind Vapor Barriers, Wallpaper, Paint, and Spray Foam with Emily Mottram of Mottam and Maines

Send us a text with your questions, thoughts, and/or a love note regarding the podcast episode to help us know what to create more of! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2470783/fan_mail/new] What does it actually mean to build a pretty good house, and why is that sometimes a better goal than building a perfect one? In this episode, Ashley sits down with Emily Mottram, licensed architect, building science educator, co-author of the Pretty Good House book, and one of the most thoughtful voices in the residential design space. Emily grew up on a dairy farm in Pennsylvania, got into architecture because her drafting teacher told her it was hard, and has spent the last two decades chasing every building science certification she could find, not because she thinks she knows everything, but precisely because she knows she does not. Together they cover an enormous amount of ground: what makes a house healthy when the answer is different for every person and every climate, why spray foam keeps showing up as a band-aid for design problems, what paint is actually doing to your walls and to the ocean, and why the building code is a recipe book that people keep making worse by swapping the wrong ingredients. Emily also shares the story of two back-to-back clients, one with multiple chemical sensitivities and one with a serious mold history, whose needs were almost perfectly opposite, and what that taught her about materials, assumptions, and listening. This is also a conversation about slowness, about pausing before adding more, doing better things instead of doing things better, and why the most important question to ask before reaching for any building product is whether you actually need it at all. If you are designing, building, or renovating and want to think more clearly about what you are putting into your home and why, this episode is required listening. THINGS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: * BS and Beer Spray Foam Episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGjnZmiviyk [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGjnZmiviyk] * BS and Beer Spray foam Part 2 Episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WP0b2Ibe7WU [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WP0b2Ibe7WU] * Pretty Good House Book [https://amzn.to/44kM4HB] * Get in touch or work with Emily: https://www.mottramandmaines.com/ [https://www.mottramandmaines.com/] CONNECT WITH ASHLEY Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/awakeningspaces/?hl=en] | Tiktok [https://www.tiktok.com/@awakeningspaces?lang=en] | Youtube [https://www.youtube.com/@awakeningspaces] | Websit [https://awakeningspaces.com/] Ashley helps you renovate and build healthier homes to prevent future health issues from arising from your environment. Whether you’re searching for a new home, assessing concerns with your current one, or embarking on a renovation or new build, Awakening Spaces can guide you every step of the way. Ashley brings her background in Building Biology and Building Science and years of hands-on experience helping families build and renovate homes to prevent mold, chemical exposure, and EMFs in their living spaces. If you’re looking to build or renovate a new home, Ashley has courses to empower and one on one offerings to guide you through the whole process so you can avoid costly mistakes and enjoy the process again! Curious about how we can help with your project? Explore our offerings here. [https://awakeningspaces.com/offerings] CONNECT WITH GUEST Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/emilymottramarch/] | Website [http://www.mottramandmaines.com/] Emily Mottram is an architect and principal of Mottram & Maines. She developed an interest in building science and sustainable design in college, where she was inspired to design healthy, durable and energy efficient homes that are also comfortable and beautiful. She is a building science educator, co-Author of “Pretty Good House” a host on “The BS & Beer Show” and the creator of a monthly podcast “E3 - Energy and Efficiency with Emily,” focusing on building science, architecture and female entrepreneurship. SHOW YOUR SUPPORT If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend and leave us a rating/review! Thank you for listening ✨

Episode 43: Mold Illness, Healthy Construction, and Healing with Brent Little of Pinehaven Healthy Homes

Send us a text with your questions, thoughts, and/or a love note regarding the podcast episode to help us know what to create more of! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2470783/fan_mail/new] What happens when the person who builds healthy homes for a living becomes the one who desperately needs one? In this episode, Ashley sits down with Brent Little, a thirty-year construction veteran and founder of Pinehaven Healthy Homes in McCall, Idaho, for one of the most honest and human conversations this podcast has ever had. Brent was a high-capacity, driven builder who had been exposed to mold on job sites for decades without incident, until a brand new RV became the straw that broke the camel's back, and both he and his wife found themselves navigating one of the most isolating and misunderstood illnesses of our time. Brent walks through the full arc of what happened, from the early neurological symptoms he thought might be brain cancer, to the emotional dysregulation that had them considering psychiatric intervention for his wife, to the long and expensive road through functional medicine that led nowhere until he found Dr. Eric Dorninger and Lauren Lowenstein of the Biotoxin Lady community. He also talks candidly about what it is like to be a man going through chronic illness in an industry built on toughness, how CIRS has shifted his entire business model toward natural and low-toxicity materials, and why he now sees this experience as something that was given to him rather than something that happened to him. This episode is for anyone who has ever felt like they were doing everything right and still got knocked flat. It is also for every builder, tradesperson, and contractor who has never connected the dots between the materials they work with every day and the way their body feels. Brent's story is a reminder that the healthy home conversation belongs to everyone, not just the people building from scratch. THINGS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: * CIRS cluster symptoms and VCS test [https://boards.com/a/zIJLT.iMxnzB] * HLA haplotype testing [https://www.testing.com/tests/hla-testing/] * Lauren Lowenstein, The Biotoxin Lady and her private CIRS community: thebiotoxinlady.com [http://thebiotoxinlady.com/] * Cholestyramine and Welchol binder protocol [https://www.survivingmold.com/docs/12_STEP_SHOEMAKER_PROTOCOL_FOR_CIRS.PDF] * Silicosis and respiratory health risks in the trades [https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5971761/] CONNECT WITH ASHLEY Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/awakeningspaces/?hl=en] | Tiktok [https://www.tiktok.com/@awakeningspaces?lang=en] | Youtube [https://www.youtube.com/@awakeningspaces] | Website [https://awakeningspaces.com/] Ashley helps you renovate and build healthier homes to prevent future health issues from arising from your environment. Whether you’re searching for a new home, assessing concerns with your current one, or embarking on a renovation or new build, Awakening Spaces can guide you every step of the way. Ashley brings her background in Building Biology and Building Science and years of hands-on experience helping families build and renovate homes to prevent mold, chemical exposure, and EMFs in their living spaces. If you’re looking to build or renovate a new home, Ashley has courses to empower and one on one offerings to guide you through the whole process so you can avoid costly mistakes and enjoy the process again! Curious about how we can help with your project? Explore our offerings here. [https://awakeningspaces.com/offerings] CONNECT WITH GUEST Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/pinehavenhealthyhomes/] | Website [https://pinehavenhealthyhomes.com/] Brent Little is a custom home builder based in McCall, Idaho and the founder of Pine Haven Healthy Homes. He has been in the trades since he was 18, studied Construction Management at Ohio State University, and has spent his career building in one of the most demanding environments in the country, a mountain ski town with high snow loads and complex site conditions that require serious technical skill to navigate. Two years ago, everything changed. Brent was hit with environmental illness that put him out of commission for over a year. The experience cracked open a whole new understanding of how the homes we build directly affect the health of the people living inside them, and it redirected his passion and his practice toward healthy building. Today Brent brings that hard-won personal experience together with decades of technical expertise to build homes that are as healthy as they are beautiful. Outside of work, he loves the outdoors, was a sponsored backcountry snowmobiler, and is in the process of adopting his eight-year-old son alongside his wife. SHOW YOUR SUPPORT If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend and leave us a rating/review! Thank you for listening ✨

Episode 42: Passive House, Healthy Materials, and the Hierarchy of Healthy Building with Trey Farmer of Forge Craft Architecture

Send us a text with your questions, thoughts, and/or a love note regarding the podcast episode to help us know what to create more of! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2470783/fan_mail/new] What does it actually mean to build a healthy home, and where do you start when everything feels equally important? In this episode, Ashley sits down with Trey Farmer, Austin-based architect, passive house advocate, and co-organizer of the Humid Climate Conference, for one of the most grounded and practically useful conversations this podcast has had on the intersection of building performance and human health. Trey brings a rare combination of credentials: passive house certification work, affordable housing and emerging tech projects, natural building experience, and a seat on the advisory board of Malachi's Message, a Texas-based mold awareness nonprofit. He is also just deeply fun to talk to. Together they unpack what passive house certification actually is, why it functions as such a reliable litmus test for the whole project team, and what it means in practice to build a home that controls its air, vapor, and thermal layers before worrying about anything else. Trey shares his hierarchy of healthy building priorities, from water control and airtightness all the way through materials and filtration, and why that sequence matters so much for homeowners trying to figure out where to put their limited time and budget. They also get into the gas versus induction debate, EMF considerations in context, the growing availability of red list free and declare-labeled materials, and why building smaller and better is often the most powerful financial decision a homeowner can make. This one ends with both Ashley and Trey agreeing that the healthy home space is only as strong as its community, and if you have been looking for your people, this episode will feel like coming home. THINGS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: * Contact Trey directly: trey@forgexcraft.com [trey@forgexcraft.com] * 2026 Humid Climate Conference (biennial, Austin, Texas) [https://humidclimateconference.org/] * PHIUS: Passive House Institute US certification [https://www.phius.org/] * HERS Index: Home Energy Rating System [https://www.hersindex.com/hers-index/what-is-the-hers-index/] * Building Science Corporation (host of Summer Camp) [https://buildingscience.com/sites/default/files/2025-08/Summer%20Camp%202027%20Agenda%20Formatted.pdf] * Healthy Materials Lab at Parsons New School [https://www.newschool.edu/centers-institutes-labs/healthy-materials-lab/] * ILFI Living Building Challenge and Safer Materials Shift Program [https://trimtab.living-future.org/affordable-housing/the-shift-to-safer-materials/] * Declare Label and Red List Free certification [https://declare.living-future.org/] * Malachi's Message nonprofit (mold awareness and support, Texas) [https://www.malachismessage.org/] * Fastwall ICF (borate-impregnated wood chip ICF product) [https://faswall.com/] * Lutron Caseta smart switches with Pico RF remotes [https://www.casetawireless.com/us/en/products/pico-remotes] * Eva King, forensic home inspector (referenced) [https://www.aura-enviroscience.com/about1] * Stuart Brand, author of Whole Earth Catalog (new book on maintenance referenced) [https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/maintenance-of-everything] CONNECT WITH ASHLEY Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/awakeningspaces/?hl=en] | Tiktok [https://www.tiktok.com/@awakeningspaces?lang=en] | Youtube [https://www.youtube.com/@awakeningspaces] | Website [https://awakeningspaces.com/] Ashley helps you renovate and build healthier homes to prevent future health issues from arising from your environment. Whether you’re searching for a new home, assessing concerns with your current one, or embarking on a renovation or new build, Awakening Spaces can guide you every step of the way. Ashley brings her background in Building Biology and Building Science and years of hands-on experience helping families build and renovate homes to prevent mold, chemical exposure, and EMFs in their living spaces. If you’re looking to build or renovate a new home, Ashley has courses to empower and one on one offerings to guide you through the whole process so you can avoid costly mistakes and enjoy the process again! Curious about how we can help with your project? Explore our offerings here. [https://awakeningspaces.com/offerings] CONNECT WITH GUEST Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/forgexcraft] | Instagram 2 [https://www.instagram.com/forgecrafthealthyhomies] | Website [https://forgexcraft.com/] Meet Trey Farmer, Partner and Principal at Forge Craft Architecture + Design. With nearly two decades of experience in sustainable design and construction, and as the firm’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Trey is passionate about projects that make life better for people and our planet. He is LEED AP Certified as well as a Certified Passive House Consultant (CPHC). In addition to his architectural expertise, he is a certified permaculture designer and teacher. Trey joined the Forge Craft team in 2016, drawn to the firm’s dedication to sustainable design, building science, and the shared conviction that great design can solve big problems and improve lives in a tangible way. Trey currently serves on the Austin Passive House Alliance Board, the National Passive House Alliance Council and Policy Committee, the Humid Climate Conference Steering Committee, and the ULI Austin Resilience & Sustainability Committee. Trey is a Master of Architecture graduate from the University of Texas at Austin, holds a Master’s degree in Ecological Design from San Francisco Institute of Architecture, and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Otago. Prior to his architecture and design work, Trey worked as a writer, bartender, job coach, teacher, carpenter, natural builder, community organizer, and orchardist. He enjoys gardening, swimming at Deep Eddy, hiking, and spending quality time with his family in the passive house he designed with his co-parent, Adrienne. SHOW YOUR SUPPORT If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend and leave us a rating/review! Thank you for listening ✨ SHOW YOUR SUPPORT If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend and leave us a rating/review! Thank you for listening ✨

Episode 41: Understanding CIRS, Biotoxin Illness, and the Healthiest Home in America with Dr. Eric Dorninger

Send us a text with your questions, thoughts, and/or a love note regarding the podcast episode to help us know what to create more of! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2470783/fan_mail/new] What if the chronic illness your doctors keep missing has been living in your walls the whole time? In this episode, Ashley sits down with Dr. Eric Dorninger, naturopathic doctor, acupuncturist, and CIRS specialist at Roots and Branches in Boulder, Colorado, who has spent over two decades helping patients with complex, mystery illnesses find the underlying causes that conventional medicine keeps overlooking. Dr. D brings something rare to this conversation: he is not just a clinician who treats CIRS. He is a patient who nearly lost everything to it, and his family's six-month remediation, biblical living conditions and all, is one of the most grounding and honest accounts of what this illness actually costs. Together Ashley and Dr. D walk through the full arc of what CIRS is, how it is properly diagnosed using validated biomarkers rather than urinary mycotoxin tests, what the Shoemaker Protocol actually involves and why so many people think they have done it without ever truly doing it, and why clean building plus proper binder is still the irreplaceable one-two punch that nothing else replaces. They also get into the naturopathic therapeutic order, why effort does not equal outcome in chronic illness, and the real cost of CIRS in America when you follow the dollars all the way to memory care. Dr. D also shares what he is building right now, quite literally, the healthiest home in America, a stick frame build redesigned from the ground up with CIRS patients in mind, and what he has learned the hard way about construction loans, lumber quality, builder integrity, and why having an owner's rep on your project is not optional when your health is on the line. If you are navigating chronic illness, trying to understand CIRS, or building a home for a sensitive body, this episode is essential listening. THINGS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: * Episode 08 of The Vitality Hour Podcast on YouTube [https://youtu.be/6WxFMhYm2rk?si=I8eeeVbfp6Xt7l2e] * CirsX Conference, OMNI Ft Lauderdale Hotel, June 25 to 28, 2026. Register HERE [https://www.joincyrex.com/events/cirsx-2026-conference] Discount code for SirsX streaming: ASHLEY26 * Visual Contrast Sensitivity (VCS) test [https://www.vcstest.com/] * Dr. Ritchie Shoemaker and the Shoemaker Protocol [https://www.survivingmold.com/legal-resources/shoemaker-certified-physicians] * Mold Warriors and Surviving Mold by Dr. Ritchie Shoemaker [https://www.survivingmold.com/store/books] * IICRC S520 remediation guidelines [https://iicrc.org/s520/] * Lab Corp (for Alpha MSH) [https://www.labcorp.com/tests/010421/melanocyte-stimulating-hormone-msh] * National Jewish Hospital (for C4A) [https://www.nationaljewish.org/for-professionals/diagnostic-testing/advanced-diagnostic-laboratories/diagnostic-testing/featured-tests/c4a-level-testing] * Brian Tinker of Tinker Homes [http://www.tinkerhomes.com/about.html] * Bill Weber (construction defect expert) [https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-weber-gc-cr-ciec-cmrs] * Christine Cimabue (new build remediation course) [https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinecimabue] * Foundation Training by Eric Goodman [https://www.foundationtraining.com/] * Roots and Branches clinic, Boulder, Colorado [https://drdorninger.com/] CONNECT WITH ASHLEY Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/awakeningspaces/?hl=en] | Tiktok [https://www.tiktok.com/@awakeningspaces?lang=en] | Youtube [https://www.youtube.com/@awakeningspaces] | Website [https://awakeningspaces.com/] Ashley helps you renovate and build healthier homes to prevent future health issues from arising from your environment. Whether you’re searching for a new home, assessing concerns with your current one, or embarking on a renovation or new build, Awakening Spaces can guide you every step of the way. Ashley brings her background in Building Biology and Building Science and years of hands-on experience helping families build and renovate homes to prevent mold, chemical exposure, and EMFs in their living spaces. If you’re looking to build or renovate a new home, Ashley has courses to empower and one on one offerings to guide you through the whole process so you can avoid costly mistakes and enjoy the process again! Curious about how we can help with your project? Explore our offerings here. [https://awakeningspaces.com/offerings] CONNECT WITH GUEST Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/drericdorninger/] | Website [http://drdorninger.com/] Dr. Dorninger graduated pre-med from University of Colorado, Boulder in 1997. He then volunteered for Porter Care Hospice, shadowing renowned herbalist Brigette Mars and earned his EMT. This dual exposure of medical perspectives laid the foundation for an integrated approach to diagnosis, treatment and healing. After serving as an EMT , Dr. D completed his Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine and Masters of Science in Acupuncture at Bastyr in 2003. He then completed a 2 year residency in Boulder. In 2005, Dr. Dorninger founded Roots and Branches Integrative Health Care, a clinic dedicated to “Mystery Illness” where he focuses on elucidating the underlying causes of unrelenting chronic Illness. In addition to private practice, Dr. D is Shoemaker certified doctor, co-founder of CIRSx.com [http://cirsx.com/] a conference dedicated to eradicating mystery / chronic inflammatory illness. He also teaches functional medicine weekends for Apex Energetics, serves as Director of Research and Development for Blue Sky CBD and the Chief Medical Officer of Medviro, a remediation company dedicated to "medical grade" remediation. SHOW YOUR SUPPORT If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend and leave us a rating/review! Thank you for listening ✨ SHOW YOUR SUPPORT If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend and leave us a rating/review! Thank you for listening ✨

Episode 40: The One-Touch Garbage Disposal That Won’t Eat Your Hand or Clog Your Pipes with Tim Ketchum of Composer

Send us a text with your questions, thoughts, and/or a love note regarding the podcast episode to help us know what to create more of! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2470783/fan_mail/new] What if the appliance you hate most in your kitchen was actually one of the most important tools for your home's health, your food waste habits, and your daily ease? In this episode, Ashley sits down with Tim Ketchum, CEO and co-founder of Composer Appliance, a startup out of San Francisco that is doing what no one else has bothered to do in decades: completely reimagining the garbage disposal. Tim walks us through everything that is wrong with the traditional disposal, from the disgusting rubber gasket to the ear-splitting noise to the pipe-clogging paranoia that keeps most people from using the one they already have, and explains how Composer is solving each of those problems one by one with a thoughtfully engineered, beautifully designed system built around a stainless steel iris, single-touch operation, automatic water injection, and an enzyme-based cleaning mechanism that keeps your pipes healthy without you ever having to think about it. This is a conversation about more than kitchen appliances. Tim and Ashley explore the real story of food waste in America, why composting fails most people in practice, and why the garbage disposal, when designed correctly, might actually be the most accessible, environmentally responsible solution hiding in plain sight. They also go deep on what it actually takes to bring a hardware product to market, including funding, prototyping, market research, intellectual property, and the humbling reality of being a two-person founding team wearing every hat at once. If you have ever stood at your sink wondering what you can put down there, why it smells, or when it is finally time to upgrade, this episode is your answer. THINGS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: * Composer Appliance website: composer.me (pre-order link) [https://www.composer.me/products/composer-one] * Ashley's Awakened Homeowner Home maintenance guide [https://awakeningspaces.com/awakened-homeowner] CONNECT WITH ASHLEY Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/awakeningspaces/?hl=en] | Tiktok [https://www.tiktok.com/@awakeningspaces?lang=en] | Youtube [https://www.youtube.com/@awakeningspaces] | Website [https://awakeningspaces.com/] Ashley helps you renovate and build healthier homes to prevent future health issues from arising from your environment. Whether you’re searching for a new home, assessing concerns with your current one, or embarking on a renovation or new build, Awakening Spaces can guide you every step of the way. Ashley brings her background in Building Biology and Building Science and years of hands-on experience helping families build and renovate homes to prevent mold, chemical exposure, and EMFs in their living spaces. If you’re looking to build or renovate a new home, Ashley has courses to empower and one on one offerings to guide you through the whole process so you can avoid costly mistakes and enjoy the process again! Curious about how we can help with your project? Explore our offerings here. [https://awakeningspaces.com/offerings] CONNECT WITH GUEST Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/composerappliance/] | Website [https://www.composer.me/] Tim builds and launches hardware products at the intersection of electronics and user experience. He led new product development at Thomas Electronics, bringing advanced technology products from concept to launch. Tim also brings deep experience in IP management and venture investing. He holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management and a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Cornell University. SHOW YOUR SUPPORT If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend and leave us a rating/review! Thank you for listening ✨ SHOW YOUR SUPPORT If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend and leave us a rating/review! Thank you for listening ✨