Episode Details

What happens when a commercial construction veteran with a five-hundred-million-dollar mixed-use project on his resume gets taken down by mold? In this episode, Ashley sits down with Dylan Hutcheson, healthy home builder and founder of Holistically Built in Atlanta, Georgia, whose path from high-rise construction management to residential healthy home construction runs straight through two years of mystery illness, medical leave, a disability insurance lawsuit, and a slow, humbling rebuild of his health and his career. Dylan brings something rare to the healthy home conversation: deep mechanical systems knowledge earned not just from building but from years of tearing sick buildings apart and figuring out why they failed.

Together Ashley and Dylan walk through the mechanical systems conversation this space has been waiting for, from why oversizing an HVAC unit is one of the most common and expensive mistakes in hot humid climates, to what ductboard actually is and why one of Atlanta's top ENT doctors will not see patients who still have it in their homes. They dig into manual J, S, D, and T calculations, why a dehumidifier is sometimes a necessary evil and sometimes misunderstood, how ERVs interact with the rest of your system, and why the IQ Air Perfect 16 filter may be one of the most underrated upgrades available for an existing home. They also talk about planning ahead, collision plans for mechanical and structural coordination, roof geometry, window placement, and all the decisions that cost you almost nothing to think about in design and a fortune to fix in the field.

This is a part one, and they are already planning part two around what it actually looks like to build Dylan's own home from scratch. If you are building new, renovating, or just trying to understand why your HVAC system is not doing what you think it is, start here.

THINGS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• IQ Air Perfect 16 central HVAC filter: iqair.com
• IQ Air standalone air purifiers (note: measure for magnetic fields and keep away from sleeping areas)
• EC3 products by Micro Balance Health Products, Dr. Donald Dennis, Atlanta ENT
• Shielded Healing whole home EMF assessment: https://shieldedhealing.com/page
• Bioflex Laser Clinic, Toronto (photobiomodulation therapy)
• Therasage infrared sauna
• Santa Fe and AprilAire dehumidifiers
• Nikki Krueger episode of The Awakening Spaces Podcast
• Alex Kessler, Healthy Home Guide YouTube channel (air purifier testing episode)

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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 gu