Maintenance Matters: Protecting Your Home's Mechanical Systems

Neglect is the silent killer of home mechanical systems. Michael Church and Stephen Malpass dive deep into a shocking discovery at a beach house where a never-maintained dehumidifier had developed what professionals call "zooglea" - a foul-smelling bacterial growth that resembles "the jelly from a Costco chicken bag, but four times nastier."

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Crawl Space Ninja of Wilmington, NC

Video mentioned - https://youtu.be/MOpv3NKwFW0

This conversation reveals the critical distinction many homeowners miss: the difference between warranty coverage and maintenance requirements. As Stephen explains, "They get the warranty and the maintenance programs kind of mixed up. They kind of just think because there's a warranty I'm supposed to come out and constantly do this for them." This misunderstanding leads to premature equipment failure that warranty won't cover - just as car manufacturers won't replace an engine that never received oil changes.

What makes this particularly dangerous is how these systems often fail. When condensate pumps clog or stop working, dehumidifiers continue running while water overflows, potentially causing significant damage. In crawl spaces where homeowners rarely venture, these problems can persist undetected for months. The experts recommend twice-yearly professional maintenance not just to service equipment but to comprehensively inspect the entire crawl space environment for developing issues.

The most compelling reason to maintain these systems? Longevity and reliability. Well-maintained equipment can last twice as long as neglected systems - potentially extending from 5 years to 10+ years. Many companies, including Crawl Space Ninja, offer maintenance programs that include extended warranty coverage beyond the manufacturer's warranty, providing both professional care and financial protection.

Don't fall into the "set it and forget it" trap. Whether you're comfortable doing maintenance yourself or prefer professional service, regular attention to your home's mechanical systems is an investment that pays dividends through extended equipment life and prevention of costly water damage. Reach out to learn more about protecting your home's foundation and mechanical systems.

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Episode Transcript

Michael Church (00:00):
I did a video a long time ago where we found
something similar and I actuallytook the condensate pump and
walked around the office and letthe women smell it in the
office and was getting theirreaction, and it not only looks
gross but it stinks too.
I mean, it's pretty nasty stuff.

Steven Malpass (00:16):
Yeah, the fellow that I guess is doing the
property management.
When I opened it up, his facewas right there and he went ooh,
he goes.
Is that why it's not working?
Exactly my no.
I said no maintenance.
Wow.

Michael Church (00:30):
I said warranties are great, but if you
don't do maintenance, they voidyour warranties so today I have
steven malpest with me fromwilmington, north carolina, and
he's with crawl space.
Ninja, wilmington and steven,you and I are going to go over
the importance of maintenancingthe equipment.
All right.
So whether you do basementwaterproofing, crawl space

(00:50):
encapsulation, you typicallyhave mechanical devices such as
sump pumps and dehumidifiers,and Stephen has a story to tell
us about one of thenon-maintenanced dehus that he
came across.
So share that with us today,steve.

Steven Malpass (01:03):
Yes, sir, I was called out and they had a
problem with their condensatepump dripping.
And, believe it or not, thiswas in a garage at the beach.
No one had ever touched it andit had some of the worst zooglia
and smell that I've ever seenon a condensate pump and I would

(01:24):
say it was probably three yearsold.
It had never been touched.
I think I've sent you a pictureof it.
I hope you can use this in thevideo.
If you don't do maintenances onthem, they're going to fail.
And when they fail because ofno maintenances, you know
warranty is going to be voided.
It's basically kind of samething with your car.
You get a brand new car, youdrive it off the lot and you

(01:46):
drive it for 50,000 miles andyou don't change the oil and you
expect the dealership to giveyou a new one.
Well, no, they're going toavoid it and you're going to
have to.
You know, kind of like that.
I guess you could say but yeah,it was an extraordinary find
and the customer was in shock.
That stuff like that happenswhen you don't do maintenances.
So we fixed him up and got hima new one on and everything's

(02:10):
good to go now and he is part ofthe maintenance agreements now.

Michael Church (02:15):
So let's talk about that just for a second,
because you mentioned this is ina beach house, in a garage on a
beach house.
I assume that.
I assume the beach houses inthat area are built up on a
stilt right Due to the shore andeverything.
Obviously the homeowner goesdown in that garage.
Maintenance is important, nomatter where the dehumidifier is
located, but for all the crawlspaces that you guys do there,

(02:38):
most homeowners don't go inthose crawl spaces, so you just
can't assume you're going tocatch a problem.
When it happened, tell us whattriggered him to call you, or
the homeowner to call you.
That got, this was a leak.
What exactly caused them tocall you?

Steven Malpass (02:52):
Well, basically the condensate pump wore out and
the dehu was running.
So the dehu is still pumpingwater into the pump and it's
just pouring out, so they have abig wet spot up under on in
their garage.
When they called, theyunplugged it and I went out like
a day, two days later and wechanged it out.
We got it running again and hesaw the importance of what his

(03:13):
filter looked like.
Actually, they've got two ofthem, one in each garage.
They decided to get everythingmaintenanced and they got on our
plan.
A lot of people don't have timeto pay attention to those things
.
Believe it or not, that's agarage.
You can stand right there anddo it yourself.
Of course, you know 99% of ourstuff is under crawl spaces.
Here in Wilmington A lot ofpeople can't physically get

(03:33):
under crawl spaces, but I justfound it that how you could just
let something like that happenand not assume that it was just
going to fix itself.
I think you had a video onetime where you said consumers
have the mentality of set it andleave it.
A couple years ago I think youhad it.
That's always stuck with me andthey do.

(03:55):
They forget about it and thefew that call us and stay on our
maintenance programs.
Everything is running fine withthem.
I had a lady up in New Bern.
I've been with us for aboutthree years.
She had an HVAC company gounder to do some HVAC work for
her and said her DEHE wasn'tworking, couldn't tell you how
long it wasn't working.

(04:15):
She hadn't been on amaintenance program in two years
and she had the F4 on her E70,which I call the circle of death
.
Got that fixed for her.
But because she let themaintenance elapse and she
wasn't a person that would gounder their crawl space, she had
no idea.
I've discovered over the lastcouple months a lot of people

(04:36):
here in the area and I'm notsure it's all over.
They get the warranty and themaintenance programs kind of
mixed up.
They kind of just think becausethere's a warranty I'm supposed
to come out and constantly dothis for them and I'm having to
educate previous customers andthe new existing customers the
effect of not doing maintenanceon their mechanical devices.

(04:58):
What can happen.
That's a difference ofpreserving the life of a dehu, a
condensate pump, or not.
If you don't take care of itit's not going to last the five
years.
If you maintain it could last,you know, six, seven, eight,
nine years down the way.
It just depends on the personthemselves how they value the
investment they did under thecrawl space and trying to get

(05:20):
people to understand.
It's part of your home.
It's the foundation of yourhome.
You've invested money into it.
Let's keep it running, you know.
Just keep that house healthy.

Michael Church (05:29):
Well, I want to talk about something you
mentioned.
You know people hear about adehumidifier having a warranty,
right?
I like to compare thedehumidifier a lot to the HVAC
system.
Most people are familiar withthe central heating and air
system.
So the HVAC system, whether itcomes from train or whoever you
buy it from, it also has awarranty.

(05:49):
All right, that doesn't meanmaintenance is included.
Okay, it's up to the individualor the company that installed
it to do the maintenance.
And that's similar to adehumidifier.
Just because it has a warrantydoesn't mean maintenance is
included.
Just like with your vehicle,just like you said, you can have
a three-year bumper-to-bumperwarranty and some dealerships

(06:12):
will include the warranty whenyou buy the vehicle.
But I guarantee you they'recharging you for that
maintenance.
It's just built into the price,right?
What we have to realize asconsumers, and I'm just as
guilty as letting time go by andforget as anybody else.
So I go ahead and sign up forHVAC maintenance.

(06:33):
I do it twice a year to makesure that the condensate pump,
because the morons thatinstalled my HVAC system put it
in my attic.
If, for some reason, my HVACsystem leaks, I got a big
problem that I got to deal with.
I got drywall to replace,insulation to replace and all
that.
So for me it's even more top ofmind.

(06:53):
But even my dehumidifier in mygarage I have Crawl Space Ninja,
believe it or not, come out andmaintenance my dehumidifier
twice a year.
You just bring up a good point.
It's not a set it and forget itkind of program and the
maintenance is not included.
But talk about the maintenancefor just a second.
Whenever someone buys thatproduct from you and has it

(07:16):
installed and they sign up onyour maintenance program,
they're getting more than justthe maintenance.
Can you talk about the warrantythat's included with that
maintenance as well?

Steven Malpass (07:23):
Right.
Well, like I said, all themechanical devices we get have
five years.
When they stay with ourmaintenance agreement and
they're with us over the 10years, I mean the five years
they can still.
If something happens to thatdehu, we can replace it.
Like a lot of times, like Isaid, people think I don't want
to have to go out to acustomer's house and go hey, you

(07:44):
know, it's five years.
One day your dehu's dead, wegot to sell you a new one.
What I'm trying to work with ispreserving the life expectancy
of these mechanical devices.
If I can come out twice a year,you know, maybe we can get the
longevity to 10 years on thesethings.

Michael Church (08:00):
So you all include warranty in addition to
the manufacturer's warranty withpeople on your maintenance
program.
We here in Knoxville call it alifetime warranty when you're on
our maintenance program.
Is that similar to what you?

Steven Malpass (08:10):
all offer?
Yes, exactly, if you stay on it, if you, you know, if you stay
on it, each year renew, and,like I said, it could be 10
years well, the manufacturerwarranty is gone.
But if that dehu decides justto stop, you know, in year nine
and you're on the maintenanceprogram, well, guess what?
We come in and put a new one inthere for you.
There you go and you get a newfive-year warranty on your new d

(08:32):
and it just the process keepsgoing over and over.
There's a lot of other thingsthat go on in the crawl space
other than just yourdehumidifier, your condensate
pump, your sump pump or your fan.
I mean, that gives me access tocheck your moisture readings,
make sure that our product isdoing what it's supposed to do
Well and you bring up a goodpoint about a water management
system.

Michael Church (08:51):
It's not just the dehumidifier that requires
maintenance.
A sump pump also requiresmaintenance.
It builds up bacteria, which isZugli.
That's what Zugli is.
I know Steven keeps mentioningZugli.
It's a type of bacteria thatbuilds up in water and for some
reason we find it a lot in ourindustry and in the HVAC
industry as well.
It's usually what clogs up thecondensate lines and it almost

(09:14):
looks like snot and I don't know.
I think it smells worse thansnot.

Steven Malpass (09:22):
I've had people ask me what is it, and I try to
give them a good example.
If I don't have my phone on me,I always use the go to Costco
food line.
Get a roast chicken and youknow the juice in the bag.

Michael Church (09:40):
And then when you set it in the refrigerator,
refrigerator you bring it backand it's that jelly I said just
imagine that four times nastier.

Steven Malpass (09:44):
Oh, that's a great analogy.

Michael Church (09:45):
Yeah, it's that same, the best way I can do it
with them until I actually getone.

Steven Malpass (09:46):
So now I got a really good picture to give
people now yeah, that's whatzuglia.
What can zuglia do to yourmechanical devices?
It can absolutely kill them,cause a lot of massive problems.
So because if one device stopsworking and one's still working
well, next thing you know you'vegot this small patch of water
that keeps growing and, yeah,you don't go in your crawl space

(10:08):
, you don't have crawl spaceninja coming out.
You just hope that one day thatyou have someone else going to
your crawl space and catches it.
But it could be a week, a month, you know a year.
But then someone catches it andyou know the damage has grown.

Michael Church (10:24):
That's right.
It's not just you're going inthere to maintenance the product
.
You guys and us were doing acorner to corner inspection of
the crawl space.
Now this homeowner, like yousaid, it was in a garage so they
were probably getting in theirvehicle every day.
The dehu was there every day sothey saw, I would think, when
it started leaking immediately.
Right, but those of us withcrawl spaces, we don't have that

(10:45):
option.
We don't go down there everyday.
So, speaking of that, how oftendo you recommend?
You know people do themaintenance.
Let's say somebody wants to doit themselves, right, they have
crawl space engine install it.
How often would a maintenanceprogram be on a dehumidifier?

Steven Malpass (11:00):
Twice a year.
Yeah, it's every six months.
I've got a few customers thatdo it and they're like, yeah, I
can do that.
It's like they didn'tunderstand when they checked
their own sump pump I was likeyou bring your garden hose in
here and they were like what?
I was like I just put my handin there and lift it up and I go
well, you need to actually letthe water push your float up and
then you know if it's working.
I mean anyone can pull a floatup and it'll work.

(11:21):
I've had to educate a fewpeople on that.
When I do my condensate pump,you know I got a little water, a
little Cl, clorox.
I kind of mix it in and letthat pump run the first time and
then I pull it apart and thentake it out and clean it.
Sometimes I have to actuallychange the drain lines.
They've, over time they've justgotten stuff inside of them and
the Clorox don't help me get itout and I was like you know

(11:42):
what I got extra?
I just replace a line.
But I kind of I get a little, Iget really involved when I do
these maintenances.
I mean I treat it like the wayI treat my home.
I'm under crawl space quite abit, at least 45 minutes before
I crawl back out after amaintenance call.

Michael Church (11:58):
That's a good point about the sump pump,
because you want to put thatsump pump under real-world
conditions and you going in andgrabbing that float, you know,
even if it's a little stuck,you're going to be like, all
right, I'll just get it unstuck,it's just naturally what you're
going to want to do, but it'snice to have that water activate
that pump because that way youknow that it's actually working
properly.

Steven Malpass (12:21):
In my house.
I have a lot of water issues inmy yard.
So even after a good three,four hour rain I'll notice my
sump pump, you know, mydischarge off in the distance
popping up.
So I still go in and check andlook at it, because when it
doesn't get used for a while italso gets almost a zoogly.
Look to it and you want toclean that.
Throw a little Clorox in there,fill it up with water, you know
, let it run its system.

Michael Church (12:41):
There's another cool product out there that
works really well if you don'twant to use Clorox.
It's called Bacazap and forthose of you watching this video
I'll put a link to that downbelow.
But it's more like anenzyme-based product that kind
of eats away at that zooglia.
And then also you can use thosehand treat pads.
You know that the HVAC folksuse.

(13:03):
The only problem with those isthey only last about a month or
two.
So you know it does prolong thezooglia but you still want to
maintenance it every six monthsbecause it just helps you as a
maintenance technician.
You probably see cleanercondensate pumps when you use
the pantry tabs or somethingsimilar, because it does kind of

(13:23):
hold off the zuglia a littlelonger.
But it's still not areplacement for no maintenance.
Right, you still got to getdown to maintenance for no
maintenance right.

Steven Malpass (13:31):
You still got to get down to maintenance Right
and you just can't plop it inthere and go.
I did my job Because, like yousaid, it's only going to last
for a month and a half, twomonths maybe.
But if you do that and youdon't pull it apart and wipe it
out and everything and you justkeep throwing pan tablets but
eventually Zulia is going tooverride the system and it's
going to burn up your condensatepump.
That's right, or better yetjust not working.

(13:52):
Your DEHU, like the customerout in the garage, started
pouring out because the DEHU wasdoing its job.
I don't have a problem goingout to anybody's house and even
if you didn't get your Aprilairefrom us, I could sure come out.
I can do your maintenance onthem.

Michael Church (14:06):
That's a good point too, that we're not just
looking to do the maintenancefor our own customers.
If you happen to, even if youinstalled the Aprilaire yourself
, you could still have us do themaintenance, or if you had a
competitor install it, so that'sa great point.
Yeah well, stephen, Iappreciate you getting on this
call with me today and listen,I'm going to have you back and
we'll do a maintenance video andwe'll do a walkthrough on that

(14:28):
too.
Okay, so I'm Michael Churchwith Crawl Space Ninja here,
with Stephen Malpass of CrawlSpace Ninja of Wilmington, and
we hope you guys make it a happyand blessed day and we'll see
you later.