Is mold testing important and worth paying for?

 

Test your house for mold, identify mold issues and avoid serious health problems. The presence of mold in your home can impact your investment considerably. Even more importantly, unabated mold exposure over extended periods of time may result in serious adverse health effects. Partnering with a Professional Mold Testing specialist to test for mold can help identify a mold issue before it gets out of hand, ultimately equipping you with the information you need to make informed investments and responsible residential decisions. Mold might sound a little scary. And that fear comes with good reason. Exposure to indoor mold can, in fact, be quite harmful. The best way to arrive at a conclusive mold assessment and create a treatment plan, if necessary, is to start with a mold test from a local Professional Mold Test. 

What about testing for mold when you can’t see it? It might seem like testing for mold when none is visible is a good policy. Tiny quantities of mold in your home could still be causing damage to your health, right?  If mold is not visible to the naked eye, then it’s unlikely to be pumping out sufficient numbers of spores to damage either your health or your home. However, if you or are experiencing health-related issues, have ruled out other causes for the symptoms you are experiencing, and it was advised by a medical professional to be a cause of your symptoms, then we would strongly suggest making the investment of testing your home. 

Why Only Visible Mold Is A Problem: You might think that it’s worth finding out what kind of mold is in their environment to determine whether it’s toxic or not. Concerned homeowners call out mold testing professionals to identify the precise species of mold in their homes. The firm then cross-checks the results with its database of mold species and provides a report on the dangers it poses. Granted, not all molds are dangerous to everyone’s health. The health-related risks of mold can be subjective to an individual's personal allergy symptoms and other health issues. There are more than 100,000 species so far identified by modern science. Only a subset of them has been proven that create chemicals that can be harmful to individuals that otherwise don’t have hypersensitivities. But this fact is beside the point and underscores why testing for mold is a waste of time and money. If you have visible mold in your home, your priority should be to remove it, because it’s likely to be detrimental to your health and the overall value and pleasantness of your home.

When You Can Smell Mold But Can’t See It: You might not be able to see mold, but if you can smell it, then that would suggest that it’s present in your home in sufficiently high quantities for concern. Mold, for instance, can buildup in the interior of drywall, because damp drywall offers both moisture and a source of food from the organic paper backing. Mold assessments help to identify whether there is, in fact, mold in your environment, and help you detect areas closest to the source.

Professional Mold Testing:  It’s important to hire a professional environmental testing company that only conducts testing, not mold remediation or mold removal, so you are assured of an accurate and unbiased assessment. Discover where and why excess moisture is entering your property. Conduct air monitoring, air sampling, and bulk sampling to compare the results with normal background mold levels. Send all samples to independent laboratories accredited by the American Industrial Hygiene Association. Identify the affected areas and measure the amount and types of mold present. Determine if the health of your family is at risk and if professional mold remediation is necessary. If mold removal or mold remediation is required, once it is completed, the CMI will return to your home to conduct a final mold testing. This is the only way to make certain all your mold is gone.

Why You Shouldn’t Buy An Over-The-Counter Mold Test Kit: With the growing perception of problems associated with mold, more and more people are looking into how to test for mold at home. Over-the-counter mold test kits are becoming increasingly popular, thanks to their convenience and apparent value for money. Unfortunately, many of these products are, for want of a better word, a rip-off. Problems with interpreting results. Interpreting the results of mold test kits isn’t as simple as you might think. Over-the-counter product manufacturers want you to believe that anybody can understand what their tests say, but it’s often not as simple as that. Ideally, you want a professional to interpret the results for you.

Healthy Home Environmental Services LLC

14432 Conifer Dr.

Orlando, FL 32832

inspections@1healthyhome.org