Green Builder Media CEO Sara Gutterman speaks with building science expert Sam Rashkin and Panasonic's Ken Nelson about the three pillars of a healthy home: source control, dilution, and filtration. They discuss how builders earn buyer trust through certification and why consumers are willing to pay for healthier indoor air.
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Sara Gutterman: So what is a healthy home and how does healthy home and indoor air quality enhance the homeowner user experience?
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Sam Rashkin: A healthy home really has three key components. It has source control where we keep contaminants out to the extent possible. Then it has dilution. So we're any residual contaminants do get inside the home. We dilute them down so they have less impact. And the final component is filtration. So that the air going through the heating cooling duct system is taking out particulates that really affect respiratory factors in our health.
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Sam Rashkin: So those are the three key components. And every one of them is an essential part of delivering a complete fresh air or healthy home package. Now in terms of how they enhance the user experience, every day you feel better, you breathe better. You may not be conscious of the difference, but usually most people are. They notice things like they're throwing away inhalers or the allergies are going away, or just every day.
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Sam Rashkin: It just is a again, a different fresh experience in the home. So it's it's it's simple and it's an amazing benefit for the buyer.
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Sara Gutterman: Ken, tell us about Panasonic's Healthy Home Solution.
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Ken Nelson: Kind of centers around the three points that Sam just made. Of course, as a manufacturer, I can't do much with the source strategy of sourcing or being rid of problematic items within the house, but the dilution infiltration is critical, you know, with balanced or supply or exhaust ventilation strategies, any ventilation strategies, the objective is to dilute whatever does get created within the house.
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Ken Nelson: Filtration is about managing that outdoor air that's coming in to replace the indoor air. So one of the reasons that we're really starting to focus on balanced strategies is that I can I can go out and create supply air, or certainly mitigate the supply air challenges that are coming into the house, whether that's through wildfire, pollen, VOCs, PM 2.5 particulates.
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Ken Nelson: So filtration is key. And I can do all that with a balanced strategy.
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Sara Gutterman: Sam health and wellness are very personal. How can builders garner the trust of home buyers?
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Sam Rashkin: Trust is so important for home builders. You have to know you can look at all the research, but let me just summarize it. Home buyers are really scared when they buy homes. They only do it three times in a lifetime. It's an overwhelming transaction. All the experiences are so challenging. They know what they don't know, which is so much about all the technical and performance aspects of the home.
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Sam Rashkin: So earning trust is so important. And when it comes to health, even more so because health is invisible. So let's just be real clear. There are simple ways that builders can really earn tremendous trust that they're delivering a healthy home experience. The first begins with certification. National certification to the EPA Indoor Air Plus program is a great way to enhance trust, because it's an independent verification that your home has 100% of the recommendations of leading experts and everything that should be included in the home to provide maximum health protection.
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Sam Rashkin: What an advantage that is. The other thing I'd recommend is to also use some of the resources provided by the programs, like Indoor Air Plus and Zero Energy Home, where you have comparison comparison bars showing how much protection health protection you provide compared to the competition, like Energy Star homes and existing homes. And you see you have like twice the protection.
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Sam Rashkin: And again, we can really start tapping into things like loss aversion and other things that really grab consumer interests. You don't lose that protection when you choose a healthy home. So comparison and certifications, all these things are great. Ways are in trust. You have such a complete package when you do these programs. And again it starts with using great products and great systems again, like what can we'll talk about with Panasonic homes?
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Sara Gutterman: Sam really hit the nail on the head. Trust is so important for home builders. But that's also that also holds true for manufacturers. So tell us why consumers should trust Panasonic to help make their homes healthier.
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Ken Nelson: As a manufacturer? Our objective with trust is is considerably more than in addition to the consumer. I have a builder and also an industry, right. So as an industry, our building industry has to be trusted by the general population. And that's and that's important. You know, I always kind of struggle when I see a builder who builds just to the Barely Code legal house, you know, as Panasonic, we're trying to help the builder build a better product, help the industry provide a better product, and then help the homeowner live a better life.
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Ken Nelson: So the trust comes through all three levels. As a manufacturer, our products are I don't want to say they're bulletproof, but they're engineered to build trust, to be able to work in environments that are not necessarily conducive to exhaust fans or exhaust ventilation, or any kind of ventilation. Our goal is, again, to to strengthen our whole industry, right.
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Ken Nelson: And I talk about this from a being from the northwest. We talk about a rising tide lifts all ships. If I can help all three of those chair legs, we'll all be more successful and will all be healthier.
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Sara Gutterman: Sam, do you have any other tips for builders?
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Sam Rashkin: It'd be to recognize right now that we're health interest was surging. Now it's become a new imperative. It's a must have. You have to know that any element you build moving forward have to embrace this new demand by consumers. And so that is the first key thing. And the second thing to know is, is to keep it simple, to know that there are a lot of great, simple choices that can get you to achieve healthy homes.
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Sam Rashkin: It don't make it to complicated. And the essential thing is to recognize that that all these pieces actually work, that it's proven research, and there's all sorts of testing and measurements that are showing these systems are great for your buyers. And the last thing I'll mention is your buyers are going to know a lot more because there's so many innovations coming out in monitoring the air around us, in our homes, be in our phone apps will be individual monitors we get for health.
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Sam Rashkin: So, you know, you have to get there. You know, you have to deliver this experience. So embrace it and you'll also feel great providing a better home for your buyers.
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Sara Gutterman: Simplicity is so important. Ken, how about you? Any other last tips or anything else you want to cover?
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Ken Nelson: Simplicity is is critical and in an IQ or into our quality component. You know we want to bring fresh air in take exhaust era. And that's really the two components of an indoor air strategy. Now I want to make sure the air that comes in is tempered. I want to make sure it's filtered. I want to make sure the moisture loads are correct.
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Ken Nelson: And then I want to make sure that I get the bad air out. So we have this dilution and dispersion concept that allows again a very simple process error in air out. So don't don't neglect as a builder, if you want to differentiate yourself from the builders down the road or the builders of five years past or whatever.
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Ken Nelson: Talk about the things that are going to make your homeowner more successful and have the better life. And I think that you'll find that you can get some incredible value from just having a short conversation about indoor air quality and what it does for the buyer.
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Sam Rashkin: And if I could just insert one more comment for builders, Sarah, it's really important to understand the consumer willingness to pay for health, right? We're paying 23X more for a food than non-organic food, for paying 8 to 10 times more for bottled water and the water from the tap when you add up all the costs associated. If you provide a healthy solution, you have to know people will pay for it.
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Sam Rashkin: So what a great investment. I'll just leave with that.