Is Mold, Really a horrible four letter word?
With over 300,000 species of mold, mold testing should be one of your top priorities when buying a new home. Finding mold in your attic, or in your basement isn’t that hard to do. Moisture builds up in both of those spaces all the time. Especially if you live in warm climates, or in areas where it rains often. Many times, people don’t realize that they have mold growing in the attic. This is because most people just use attic space for storage. Mold can very easily destroy the structure of your home without you even knowing that it’s there. Mold. What a horrible four letter word it is!
Do you know what you are breathing in your home?
Stachybotrys Chartarum, better known as black mold, hits the headlines more than any other type of mold. Black mold releases spores into the air. When inhaled for a long duration of time, this can lead to respiratory issues. Prolonged inhalation of those spores, could even cause nose bleeds, and internal bleeding of the lungs if left untreated. Many people have allergies to mold. And, that could result in itchy, watery eyes, sore throat, chronic fatigue, and headaches. It could even cause prolonged irritation of the nose and throat. If you are finding yourself sick often, with those symptoms… you may have mold in your home that you were unaware of. Be sure to consult your Health care physician, if you are experiencing any of those symptoms above for an extended period of time.
Mold, and the structure of your house.
Mold feeds on many different types of materials in your home. It eats away at those materials, and causes them to rot. If left untreated they will literally fall apart. Drywall, carpet, ceilings, floorboards etc. All are types of materials that mold eats away at and causes it to fall apart. Obviously as soon as mold starts growing on the surfaces, it’s not going to immediately fall apart… This takes time. But if left untreated, the mold will because these surfaces and structures reach the point of being beyond repair, or cost hundreds or thousands of dollars to repair. Mold can also appear in your HVAC system and that can be very damaging to your home. As mold inside the ducts are very hard to get rid of, and that mold very easily can and will spread to other areas in your home.
We help give you peace of mind, before you sign the dotted line.
Mold testing before you buy a new home could save you thousands of dollars in mold mitigation, and multiple health issues. We offer mold air testing, and mold tape samples which can be taken at the same time as your pre-purchase home inspections. To give you peace of mind before signing the dotted line. If you are worried about mold in the home that you own as well, we also help with that. We offer full mold inspection packages if you are having any symptoms of mold, or if you notice any growth in your home. After your mold inspection with us, we also offer mold clearance packages to come in and re-inspect your home to make sure that the remediation worked.
Let’s hear from an expert.
We interviewed Chris Kushmaul from Restoration 1 of Western Wayne County on this subject. Chris is our go-to company for mold remediation services for our clients. Here is what he had to say:
“A mold inspection can make all the difference in the world when it comes to scope and risk. As a mitigation company we want to ensure we provide a service that goes far enough to remove mold spores and active mold growth. But no further than necessary. A mold test helps determine just how far mold spores have traveled. And more importantly what type of mold we are dealing with in your home or business. While there might be active mold growth in the basement, you need an air quality test to determine if mold spores have made it to the 1st floor and potentially the 2nd floor. Believe me… it is possible!
Mold needs an environment that is dark, damp, and humid. Mold needs moisture and a food source to grow and spread. We most often see mold in drywall, wooden beams, and flooring. As mold eats its way through those materials it continues to produce and spread spores. Those spores travel and become settled spores looking for the same environment of dark, damp, and humid. We’ve seen flooring weakened by mold to where you can put your foot through it. We’ve seen drywall covered in mold and in various colors of a rainbow. An environment like this is a huge risk for people to expose their bodies… their lungs to harmful mold spores.
Mold mitigation costs vary with the extent of the damage the mold has caused. When caught early mold can be removed from many different types of material. Though removal of affected materials is part of our standard of care. There can be significant costs associated with mitigation to remove active mold growth and clean/disinfect all surfaces in an affected area. Labor, materials, and specialty equipment all add up quickly. But, are needed to get an environment back to normal. A final “clearance test” is performed and data is collected to confirm the results of the work. Mold testing plays a required role in this type of work. We take the risks associated with mold very seriously and couldn’t do the work without testing before and after.”
Make sure you use a reputable company for mold Mitigation.
Depending on the amount of damage that the mold growth has caused, repairing this damage could be a very big job. Many types of materials require a specialist or a mitigation company to fix the damage that the mold has done. When mold has destroyed the floorboards or the drywall of your home, it is very important to use a reputable mitigation company. So, when they are cutting out the destroyed pieces of your home, the spores do not make their way into new surfaces of your home. This could result in new mold growth, and further mitigation needing to be done in the future… And of course costing you more money.
Make sure you do your research when hiring a company to come out and repair any damage mold has done in your home. Restoration 1 of Western Wayne County, is a name that you can trust.
In conclusion:
Mold is extremely hazardous to your health, and can ruin the structure of your home if left untreated. It is extremely important that you get a mold test done in your home to see if the spores have released into the air, and you’re breathing those in. The mold inspection that we do for you, will help you detect if there is any mold in your home via air testing, or tape samples. Our warranty that we offer through RWS will help give you better peace of mind for after the inspection is over as well. If there is mold detected in your home, we highly suggest getting mold mitigation from Restoration 1 of Western Wayne County.
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