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Mold Testing? Do I Need to Test My Home For Toxic Mold If I Suspect There is a Problem?
Fri 24 Oct 2008 - 07:45
Mold Testing? Do I Need to Test My Home For Toxic Mold If I Suspect There is a Problem?
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Charles_Boday]Charles Boday
Often I am asked the question by home and building owners about the need for mold testing, when mold is either seen or suspected. This particular subject has evoked a lot of controversy in all throughout the country. Opinions on the matter can be widely varied from the perspective of regular homeowners whose health has been compromised to insurance providers who would like the world to believe that mold is harmless. Whether or not to test can be a touchy subject and the reason is simple there are costs involved.
When I am called to visit and inspect a mold property my primary function is to be a detective. The principle thing I am looking for is water. Usually a great deal of information can garnered by interviewing the homeowners, but by far my best tool for this difficult job is my eye and a powerful light. Mold can be challenging to discover because the main body of the mold plant grows beneath the surface of what it is feeding on. The fuzzy colorful growth were are familiar with our association of mold is actually the fruit-body or the seeds of the mold. When mold is flowering in one square inch there can be upwards of 5 million spores! When these are conglomerated they become visible to the naked eye. Amazingly over 10,000 spores can fit on the head of a pin!
This can make spotting the mold colonies early in the growth phases difficult. You see mold is called a colony because it starts out a single spore and then begins to multiply from around the individual spore. When the colony has less than 10,000 spores its invisible! What's worse when mold is disturbed it goes airborne sending clouds of mold aloft right into the air you breathe! Once airborne they can stay aloft on a single current of air for up to three days . This can create real problems with people who have asthma, and allergies.
When there has been a significant water event in a home or a building, I would like to believe that I am usually capable of discovering the majority of the mold problem and designing a mold removal protocol; which can be followed by a competent mold remediation contractor without taking a test. It is often possible to assume based on square footages of contamination. I have overseen thousands of projects and have a vast reservoir of experience to draw from.But like a good Doctor or a good detective the more information that is available to me, with which I may form an opinion the better informed and more reliable is the remedy I prescribe. The simple fact is that mold can be completely invisible.
Mold can even be growing.... Right behind your bedroom walls or in some other unseen hidden area! What's worse, with mold it can make you sick if its growing inside your home! Testing can help to create a picture of the hidden mold in a home. Air samples can be collected from both the ambient air and the inside of suspected wall cavities. In fact, some of my most challenging mold problems may not have been discovered at all, without the assistance of solid laboratory evidence.
This happened to one of my customers, Mr. Snyder, who started having upper respiratory issues. He worked at home from his large home office located in his den. On certain days when working in his den he would smell a funny odor. He began to investigate, but was never able to locate anything, and there were no leaks in his home. After living with this problem for some time, he began to develop health problems. His Doctor recommended that he have an Environmental Expert out to check his home and he called me. I began by performing a complete home inspection, and we went over his home from top to bottom. I found everything thing to be in great shape. Great roof tight windows and doors dry foundation good gutters, no plumbing leaks everything was fabulous. Not one colony of mold was found, in fact if I had judged by my eyeballs, I would say his home was completely mold free.
But because Mr. Snyder was sick, we decided to perform a standard IESO protocol mold testing strategy. We took one sample of air per level of his home and a wall cavity sample in his den near the source of the on-again-off-again odor. The air tests revealed a completely different story than the visual inspection did. This is due to the fact that an air sample is a snapshot in time. In the ambient air on the first floor of the home there were indeed elevated mold levels, but in the wall cavity they were off the charts! This allowed me to design a proper protocol and for the molds' eradication. Upon opening the wall cavity we discovered that the homeowner had a thriving chipmunk family that were using the insides of his homes walls as a nut storage/ garbage dump/ Latrine facility. To top it off, the water source of the mold that I discovered, was chipmunk urine! Yuck! Never the less True! Chipmunk urine actually caused a significant mold issue that was serious enough to cause the occupant to develop health issues. With out the testing, we might never have solved his health problems!
A highly trained inspector is more often than not capable of the discovery of a mold infestation when it is visible . But when it is airborne or hiding in a wall cavity it can elude even the best Environmental Professional. There is just no substitute for raw lab data. Just as a Doctor can make a better decision with more quality information, so can a mold professional. This is, in fact, the reason both collect samples to be analyzed. The better the information the better and more thorough the evaluation, and recommendations for the cure. I have personally witnessed the effects of mold that was hidden and affected the health of the homeowner severely. Some of the worst and most debilitating health issues I have ever known, were caused by mold growth that was not readily apparent to the occupant. Acute extrinsic onset asthma is common as well. I even knew one woman who developed cancer which was determined to be a direct result of myco-toxicosis, aka mold poisoning.
Finally, mold sampling can provide a baseline which allows for the evaluation of the efficacy of the mold clean-up efforts performed by the contractor. Mold testing after a project has been finished is great way to receive piece of mind so that it is known that the mold is completely eliminated. Lastly, even if you opt out of testing prior to commencing a mold clean up project, it is a good idea to take at least one surface sample of any mold that was observed. This will allow the lab to especiate the mold and to figure out what kind it is based on its unique spore print. The reason for this measure is that many molds are what are known as opportunistic pathogens, which do not always act to affect your health immediately; but which can lie dormant in your bod,y until your immune system is fighting off some other pathogen, when they will strike. It's a good idea to have the lab data to give to your physician in case someone gets sick; cause once the mold is cleaned up there will no longer be any evidence.
Remember if you have, or suspect you have a mold problem there is no substitute for the services of a Certified Environmental or Mold Professional . Please feel free to call with any questions.
Charles Boday CMI, CMRC, CMLCC http://www.safemoldsolutions.com http://www.superdrybasement.com
Call Direct 1-800-948-4947
Charles Boday is a Certified Mold Inspector and a Certified Mold Contractor, and he is a graduate of the Certified Mold Inspector & Contractors Institute. He is also a member of the National Association of Mold Professionals He is also a certified Environmental Inspector. He is also a Certified Crystal Meth Lab Clean Up Contractor. He has extensive experience reviewing and investigating toxic type cases for law offices prior to the attorneys taking on cases for litigation. He has worked with some of the countries top scientists seeking alternative poison-free mold remediation techniques. He is state certified to teach the realtors' continuing education course" Toxic Mold! What every realtor should know!" and is the author of the same. He is also a Certified Crystal Meth Lab Clean up contractor. He routinely works for Fanny Mae as well as many other top lenders like HSBC Household First Merit etc. repairing extreme mold damaged foreclosed properties.
He is also an experienced foundation waterproofer and structural repair analyst. He has developed multiple proprietary waterproofing techniques for both interior as well as exterior foundation systems. He has testified as an expert foundation witness and is the Author of the books: The Ultra Dry Basement: understanding and correcting foundation water problems and Ultra Bond Construction Techniques.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Charles_Boday http://EzineArticles.com/?Mold-Testing?-Do-I-Need-to-Test-My-Home-For-Toxic-Mold-If--I-Suspect-There-is-a-Problem?&id=1590873
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