EZ Breathe Featured on Extreme Home Makeover!

Posted by Andre & Erika Lacroix on

Give Back To The Community As Part of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

Think about the things you see every day. Really think about them. Can you imagine waking up and going through your everyday routine without the gift of your eyesight? What about not being able to hear the sounds of life going on around you? These are the challenges that the Anderson family of Maple Heights, Ohio, lives with: Both parents are legally blind and one of their two children is hearing impaired. As part of the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition experience, EZ Breathe Ventilation worked to help to make life a little easier for the Anderson family.

Find out why installing the EZ Breathe System is beneficial for your home.

the gangLead project contractor Marous Brothers Construction of Willoughby, Ohio, contacted EZ Breathe as they were assembling the team of contractors and businesses to work on the high-profile charitable project. “Because we are recognized as the industry leader, they turned to us first,” said Erika DiCello Lacroix, President of, EZ Breathe. “We were so pleased to be able to contribute and be a part of the team to help this family,” she said.

Building A Dream Come True

The process began with representatives from EZ Breathe Ventilation meeting with the lead project manager from Extreme Makeover: Home Edition to assess needed products and services. For this particular project, the project team decided to level the existing structure and build an entirely new home from the foundation up. “This project was about improving the overall quality of life for the Andersons, so it was fitting that the team selected the EZ Breathe Ventilation System as part of the new home construction,” said Lacroix. “EZ Breathe creates an all-around healthier living environment in the home—a benefit that goes hand-in-hand with the mission of Extreme Home Makeover.”erika.bus

Construction on the project started on September 30, 2010, and took less than seven days to complete. “It was an amazing experience to be on that jobsite,” said Lacroix. “Usually on a construction job, there are strictly defined roles…one contactor manages HVAC, another installs the plumbing, etc. But here, the compartmental lines totally blurred and everyone pitched in and helped each other,” she said. “It was like a buzzing bee hive and incredibly organized.”

The Extreme Home Makeover team is a well-oiled machine: These experienced project managers are skilled at pulling off the “impossible” in cities all across the United States. To meet the tight deadlines, many of the sections of the home are assembled offsite and then brought in and set into place, such as the floor, walls and roof. “When we arrived on the job at 10 a.m. there was just a foundation,” said Lacroix. “By four o’clock the walls were up and they were lifting the roof trusses into place.”

DSC03174drillA project of this magnitude doesn’t happen without tremendous support. More than a thousand volunteers from the Greater Cleveland area helped with the building project. “It was really rewarding to be onsite and to see all of the community members who were giving of their time to help out this family,” Lacroix said. “In our job, we do feel good about the products and services that we offer to our customers to improve the living conditions in their homes,” he said. “But donating the EZ Breathe system and being a part of this process reinforced that all of us at EZ Breathe and our extended family of EZ Breathe Distributors had a hand in making a difference for the Andersons.”

The new home features advanced technology designed to make everyday living a little easier, safer and healthier for the family. The exterior doors of the home are equipped with scanners that use thumbprints to activate locks, instead of keys. In the kitchen, the family can wave a hand in front of a cabinet door and the computerized pad will use audio technology to dictate the contents of the cabinet.

erika.tyThe Anderson family moved into their beautiful new home in September and The program aired on December 5, 2010. Past episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition can be viewed at www.abc.com

 

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.