Healthy Homes Awareness Month: ‘Project of the Week’

Posted by Andre & Erika Lacroix on

Healthy Homes Awareness Month: ‘Project of the Week’

When you think of your health, your home is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. However, where you live is an essential part of your health. In fact, this is so true that 5 years ago, the Governor of Ohio declared April “Healthy Homes Awareness Month.” A healthy home is designed, built, and maintained to support health while preventing disease and injury. There are many aspects of a home that make it healthy. To assess your home for potential health risks or safety hazards, conduct a Healthy Homes Environmental Visual Assessment of your home.

Recently, Erika Lacroix was on the ‘Project of the Week’ segment on the Gary Sullivan show. Listen to the entire segment below:

Written by Andre & Erika Lacroix

We are a 2nd generation family owned and operated business that has been working in homes with basements and crawl spaces for over 40 years.  We have been waterproofing and sealing about 500 foundations a month during that time as the largest Waterproofing contractor in the Midwest with 15 locations servicing 8 states.

20 years ago we would seal a foundation and recommend a standard dehumidifier to address the additional water vapor (humidity in the air) inherently found in below grade environments, such as basements and crawlspaces.  Back then, dehumidifiers were the industry standard to help with this problem. However, many of our customers were looking to us as the “foundation expert”, asking…

“What else do you have? I really am not getting results with this messy, expensive dehumidifier. My foundation is dry, walls are dry, floor is dry, so why does it still smell and feel like a basement?” 

We needed to find something better. Our company’s core values include offering world class customer service to every customer, every time.   So, we challenged our Research and Development department to find a real solution for our customers to combat not only the moisture, but also the odors, pollutants and unhealthy environment our customers were concerned about. We found, tested and installed a ventilation product for a period of three years. We private labeled that product as the EZ Breathe Ventilation System. The feedback in those first three years from our customers, as well as our installation crews, did not live up to the standard of quality to be included in our waterproofing process that offered a life time warranty. Once again, we needed something better.

We valued not only the results, but what we were learning from our customers. So, we went back to the drawing board, took matters into our own hands and made quality improvements to that first generation ventilation unit.

Our own EZ Breathe Ventilation System was born…reengineered, redesigned and much improved! We quickly learned that our crews were thrilled with the quality improvements, ease of operation and installation, but more importantly, our waterproofing customers loved the new, improved EZ Breathe unit as well.

Their feedback told us the air in their basements and crawlspaces felt better, but their entire home was benefiting from their EZ Breathe as well. We received countless letters thanking us because their whole house felt different, less odors, fresher air upstairs too, family members were feeling better, needing less allergy medicine, husbands were no longer snoring, children were no longer coughing as much, the home and it’s family were living healthier lives!

It was time for us to move beyond simply offering this innovative technology to just our waterproofing customers. Our passion and commitment to helping people improve their indoor air environments is what drove us to incorporate EZ Breathe Ventilation Systems as an independent company in 2003. We strongly believe that homeowners everywhere deserve a healthy indoor air quality.

We have spent the last 20 years dedicated to learning about the relationship between our home and our health; indoor air quality, the home as a system, building science and how it relates to indoor air quality as well as the challenges our modern day practices pose to the quality of air we breathe in our homes.