Test for toxic
black mold
In Your Home, Office, Condo,
Apartment,
Workplace or Real Estate in the USA, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean,
Central America, South America, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Africa, the
Middle East, & Europe
Toxic
Investigation can Toxic mold inspection, mold investigation and
mold testing requires the toxic mold inspector or owner of a
property or property manager to do thorough mold inspection and mold
testing in a home, apartment, condo, office, commercial property, or work
place for the presence of both visible and hidden water problems and mold
problems, higher than normal levels of airborne mold spores, or serious
levels of toxic mold growth, toxic mold infestation, or toxic mold
contamination including black mold, toxic mold, and Stachybotrys black
toxic mold.
First
step:
Hire a qualified, trained, and experienced
Certified Mold Inspector
or a Certified Mold
Investigator to do mold inspection and mold testing. If you want
to test mold problems yourself and be your own mold investigator and
inspector, please visit the following mold advice page: Lift Tape Sampling.
Second step:
Either the Certified Mold Inspector or Certified Toxic Mold
Investigator or owner of a property [such as yourself] or the
property's manager should do thorough physical mold examination of the
home or other real estate building for evidence of possible visible or
hidden water problems or mold infestation. During mold inspection, mold
investigation and testing for mold, the following areas need to be
checked---
1.
Do any of the home residents or building occupants suffer from any of
the
most
frequent general mold health symptoms listed at:
Mold Symptoms?
If so, you need to be very thorough in doing mold inspection and mold
investigation and do mold testing of the home and workplaces of the
residents to find all possible mold causes of any health problem.
2. Shrubs, trees, and other plants growing close
to your home or building. Too many trees too close to the building protect
mold growth from the killing effect of ultraviolet sun light. In addition,
dead leaves and plants provide food to enable mold to grow. Growing mold
creates airborne toxic mold spores to enter the building through open
windows, doors, and the fresh air intake of today's modern hvac system
[heating, ventilating, and air conditioning].
3. Is the land around your building sloping away from
the building [thus carrying rainfall and snow melt away from the
building] or toward the building [thus bringing excess water to the
building and causing possible water intrusion into the building's
foundation, concrete slabs, and basement walls]?
4. Is your roof in good repair [such as good
shingles and no cracks or holes in flashings around plumbing vent pipes,
air conditioning units, chimneys, etc.]?
5. In the attic, are there water stains or mold growth
on the under side of the roof decking, the roof joists, the attic floor,
and on and beneath insulation? Mold cannot eat fiberglass insulation, but
it can eat the paper backing of such insulation, and mold can also eat and
grow on organic dirt deposited onto the fiberglass strands.
6. Are there physical signs or evidence of water
intrusion or mold growth anywhere in water-oriented rooms such as
bathrooms, the kitchen, and the laundry room? Be very thorough in
inspecting and testing for bathroom mold, kitchen mold, utility room mold,
and laundry room mold.
7. Are their water stains, water damage areas, or suspicious
discolorations of any other rooms' ceilings, walls, floors, and furniture
that would indicate the need to investigate and to test for ceiling mold,
wall mold, floor mold, living room mold, closet mold, dining room mold,
bedroom mold, or, in other areas, attic mold, crawl space mold, basement
mold, storage room mold, laundry room mold, utility room mold, or garage
mold?
8.
Is there hidden water moisture inside wall cavities, beneath
floors, above ceilings, or behind ceramic tiles of bathroom walls, tubs
and showers? Your Certified Mold Inspector will use his or her
Hidden Moisture Meter
to test non-invasively [no holes required] such surfaces during mold
inspection and mold investigation.
9. Has the property ever experienced roof leaks, water
leaks, floods, plumbing problems, or other water problems and water
intrusions? If so, pay particular attention to inspecting,
investigating, and mold testing building areas that experienced such past
or present water intrusions. Your Certified Mold Inspector can use
his or her fiber optics mold inspection device to inspect for mold growth
and water problems inside walls, above ceilings, and beneath floors.
10. Is the humidity level of the crawl space, basement,
attic, or any room of the building higher than sixty percent [60%]
humidity? Humidity levels above 60% in any area of the home can
provide sufficient moisture to enable mold to grow!!! The higher the
humidity is above 60%, the greater will be the opportunity for mold
growth. Your Certified Mold Inspector will use a digital hygrometer
to measure humidity in each area of your home or building, including the
attic, basement, crawl space, garage, etc.
11. Are there elevated levels of unhealthy mold spores
in the air of the attic, crawl space, basement, and the various rooms
of the home or other building? Are the levels of mold spores indoors
greater than outside levels, and/or different as to the types of mold
species present? Your Certified Mold Inspector will use use a
variety of mold testing techniques to collect mold air samples both
indoors and outdoors [called outdoor control test]. The various best mold
sampling techniques and technologies are:
(a) mold culture plates upon which airborne mold settles
onto after stirring up the air in the room with a disinfected fan for 15
minutes to 30 minutes;
(b) controlled air testing impactors that use an air
pump to draw in and impact airborne mold spores onto the sticky surface of
a mold culture plate;
(c) direct sampling of visually-noticeable mold growth
through scraping of the suspect mold substance into a mold culture plate,
or Scotch tape lift tape sampling, or actually cutting and saving a piece
of what the suspect mold is growing on or in such as drywall, wood,
carpeting, etc.
12. Is there mold contamination inside the building's
heating, ventilating, and air conditioning system [hvac], and/or hvac
ducts? Your Certified Mold Inspector will tape mold culture
plates [sticky surface facing inward] onto at least one air supply
register grill of each zone of your hvac system, and then run the hvac
system for 15 minutes to impact possible mold infestation spores onto the
sticky surface of the mold culture plates.
13. Have your
collected mold samples, grown for 5 to 7 days, accurately identified as to
mold species and mold colony counts by a well-qualified mold laboratory.
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