1. You see mold growing inside your house or building.

Mold is everywhere in our environment, but it shouldn’t be growing inside our buildings. We can help you find out if what you think is mold really is mold, what type it is, and how to remove it safely. Some types of molds are known to have more of a health concern than others. Our reports can be taken to your health care professional if you have health concerns for the quality of your indoor air. If repairs are indicated our detailed reports include repair recommendations for mold remediation contractors to follow.

2. You are buying or moving into a different house or building.

Buying a property is a huge investment and you don’t want to find out there is a mold and moisture problem after you have signed the escrow papers. If you are moving to a rental property you may have to sign a lease. ET&T can help by conducting a mold and moisture inspection before you commit yourself to the property.

3. You smell a musty or moldy odor that is stronger when the windows and doors have been closed.

Often you can smell the odor from mold before you can see it.  The mold you see with your eye is made up of thousands of mold spores you can’t see without a microscope. Having a mold inspection done when you smell the odor and not waiting until you can see the mold is important. It may help to prevent some damage to your building and save you a lot of repair work.

4. You have had a water leak or the neighboring unit has had a water leak.

Mold needs a source of water or moisture in order to grow. If you have had a water leak for a few days that may be all the time it takes for mold to start growing.  It is extremely important to get the water leak repaired as soon as possible and the building materials dried out rapidly and appropriately. ET&T can help you to assess the extent using moisture mapping to identify the wet areas and prescribe the necessary drying action.  We can also document and verify your drying company has done the job right.

5. Your allergies or asthma are worse when you are inside.

This may be an indication that allergens are present. Mold is a common indoor allergen, You may have mold growing indoors you can’t see or smell. In addition to ruling out mold, we can perform allergen testing for dust mites, cat and dog dander, mouse, rat and cockroach.

6. The building feels damp to you.

We can help you by identifying your moisture problems and recommend strategies to prevent mold growth from occurring.

7. You see condensation on the inside of your windows.

There is more than enough water in condensation to allow mold to grow indoors. Let us find out why you have condensation indoor and advise you in how to reduce the moisture levels inside your property.

8. Your pets have been sick.

Animals can be a good indicator of the indoor air quality for your property. Some animals health can be affected by mold, often sooner and as much or more than people.

9. Water from rain or sprinklers doesn’t drain away and puddles up against your walls.

Even though we think of the outer walls of our buildings as barriers this is not the case. When walls are continually dampened by sprinkler overspray or puddles, water can soak through the outer wall, into the wall cavity and eventually cause damage to the inside walls of a buildings.

10. You see mold growing on your furniture or on items in your closet.

Frequently, we find mold growing on the back of furniture that is pushed up against a wall.  Closets are notorious for having mold problems because they often have a colder temperature and little ventilation. Closets are often against an outside wall, near plumbing or stuffed to the brim with possessions we rarely use or move around during cleaning.

If you are experiencing any of the situations listed above, you may need to have moisture testing a mold inspection or mold testing done. We have helped 100’s of companies and residential home owners, we are happy to discuss your concerns and circumstances to help you decide if you need professional services.  If you do need an inspection, we are able to custom design an inspection plan to meet your specific testing needs. Contact Environmental Testing & Technology, Inc. (ET&T) at 760-424-2259 or send us an email at info@etandt.com for a free phone consultation.

This is where the trouble started.

The homeowner hired the drywaller to remove the mold damaged building materials and thought things were taken care of. The homeowner later became ill and went to the doctor who suggested they have mold testing done at her Carlsbad, CA home. When we were called to do the mold inspection, our consultant found the ceiling void space was still open to the rest of the house and that the drywaller had left some of the removed moldy ceiling drywall inside the ceiling void space.

We also found additional moldy ceiling drywall.  Our mold consultant collected a surface sample from inside the ceiling void space and the sample showed Stachybotrys, Penicillium and Aspergillus mold growing in the ceiling void space. Our inspector also collected spore trap air samples throughout the home and the analysis showed that Stachybotrys and Penicillium/Aspergillus mold spores had been spread from the ceiling void space throughout the rest of the house!

mold growing in ceiling void space

Our recommendations in the written report for the homeowner were to hire a professional mold remediation contractor to contain (isolate) the mold from the rest of the house and to remove the moldy and water damaged building materials.  We also recommended a thorough deep cleaning of the rest of the house and the use of HEPA filtered air scrubbers to capture and lower the levels of Stachybotrys and Penicillium/Aspergillus spores in the air. Thankfully, the homeowner followed our recommendations and hired a professional mold remediation company.

A containment, plastic room with HEPA air filtration equipment, was set up to isolate the moldy ceiling area from the other areas of the house. They removed the moldy and water damaged building materials and air scrubbers were set up throughout the rest of the home to capture and lower the levels of Stachybotrys and Penicillium/Aspergillus spores.

A professional deep cleaning (HEPA vacuuming  and damp wiping) of the rest of the house was done. We returned for a follow up inspection called a post remediation verification or clearance inspection.  Inside the containment, we verified the mold had been removed properly, the work area was clean and dry and the air sample spore levels were acceptable. We also repeated the spore trap air sampling in the rest of the home to verify the deep cleaning had returned the spore levels to be similar to the outside air. Our results showed the mold remediation company had removed the rest of the moldy ceiling materials correctly and had cleaned up the contamination in the rest of house.

If only the roofer had referred the homeowner to a professional mold testing company and mold remediation contractor in San Diego, the job could have been done correctly from the start!  Not only was the health of the homeowner affected, but there was the additional cost for medical care, the additional work done by the mold remediation contractor to clean up the mold contamination to the rest of the home and extra mold testing by our company.

If you find yourself in a similar situation, please consult with mold inspection and mold remediation professionals.  This is definitely a case where using the right professional for the job would have made all the difference!

For a free phone consultation call Environmental Testing & Technology (ET&T) at 760-424-2259 or leave us a message on our Contact Form and one of our mold experts will get back to you shortly.

Thanks for reading! I hope you found this blog post helpful.

Mold and Water Stains on the Ceiling

What in the world would rain gutters have to do with mold inside my home!  Mold needs water to grow. When the rain gutters and downspouts get blocked, the water can’t flow away from the roof line and your building. Water flows along the path of least resistance and you don’t want that path to be under your roofing materials or inside your walls.

Bubbled Paint and Water Stains on Ceiling

If your rain gutters are clogged or draining slowly the water can overflow the gutters leading to water running down the sides of your building. This can lead to puddles forming up against the outside walls of your property.  If the rain gutters are clogged, water can pool up at the roof line. Areas of your roof that are not sealed well enough may allow the water to seep through the roofing material and into your attic and walls. Once the attic and interior walls get wet, the opportunity for mold to grow is present. Even though we think of our walls as being a barrier to the outside environment, water can soak through and get into the wall cavity space and then to the inside of the building. If this is already your situation, we can help!

Maintenance is key in helping to prevent mold growth inside our buildings and homes!

Just a couple of weekends ago, I was doing some yard work and decided I should check out the rain gutters since rain was in the forecast. I live in southern California and we haven’t had much rain so I hadn’t given the rain gutters any thought since last winter. Our neighbors pine tree had been shedding pine needles like crazy and our liquid amber trees leaves were turning the beautiful colors of fall. Well, my rain gutters near the pine tree were so stuffed with pine needles the gutters were over flowing with needles and the downspouts were completely covered up.  If that wasn’t bad enough, when I went to the other side of the house, the downspout had come off of the gutter completely and was just hanging there.  Even though I am on that side of the house frequently, I guess I never looked up!

Once again, I need to follow my own advice. My rain gutters are not very accessible to clean out so I will need to hire someone to take care of that.  It looks like a tree trimming is in order as well, sounds like 2 jobs to be hired out to prevent a mold problem inside.  The cost of this maintenance will be much less than a costly mold remediation project.

For a free phone consultation concerning a mold or water damage issue in your home or commercial building, call Environmental Testing & Technology (ET&T) at 760-424-2259 or email us at info@etandt.com to see if you need a mold inspection.

Today many of us rely on automatic systems to do the watering for us. If we still stood outside and watered with a hose we wouldn’t spray the wall for 5 to 10 minutes at a time in the same place. Why do we let our sprinkler systems do that? I know in my case, and many of my neighbors, the sprinklers run at night and we don’t realize there is a problem until it is too late. Sprinkler systems are a wonderful convenien

ce in our busy lives, but we need to maintain them!

As mold and moisture inspectors, we at Environmental Testing & Technology (ET&T) frequently find sprinklers to be a major cause of mold problems inside buildings.

Here are some sprinkler system problems we at ET&T run into all the time:

• Sprinkler spraying on the walls of the building (sprinkler overspray).
• Plants and grass growing right up against the wall.
• Sprinklers installed too close to the building.
• Broken or leaking sprinkler pipes.

If your sprinklers look like the ones above, you may have a mold problem brewing and you may need a professional mold inspection!

Give Environmental Testing & Technology (ET&T) a call at 760-424-2259 or email us at info@etandt.com for a free phone consultation.

Don’t let this sad mold story happen to you!

Our walls are like a sandwich. There is the outside wall, the insulating space and then the inside wall. The outside wall keeps getting wet from the sprinkler system, then the insulation material gets wet, then the inside wall gets wet.  Before you know it, you have a funny smell, then you have a water stain inside, then you see a small spot on the wall, baseboard, or flooring.  You clean off the spot, but the spot keeps coming back.  That spot is probably mold!

This photo is of an inside wall that had a sprinkler that sprayed the on the outside wall.

A small spot on the wall can mean a big problem inside your property.

If this is already your situation we can help! For a free phone consultation call Environmental Testing & Technology (ET&T) at 760-424-2259 or email us at info@etandt.com to see if you need a mold inspection.

Thanks for reading! I hope you found this helpful.

Be sure to “Like” www.ETandT.com and follow us at your favorite social media site (Facebook & LinkedIn). We frequently post new indoor air quality information which may be of interest to you.

Mold Growing on Walls

An important part of a mold inspection is a visual inspection where the mold inspector is looking for mold growth, water stains, color changes or warping to the walls, ceiling, flooring and baseboards.  They need to look outside too, because sometimes the water problem started outside, not inside.

Moisture Meter

If the inspector finds what might be mold, they will take a surface sample with tape or a swab to have it identified by the lab. The mold inspector will also take moisture measurements to see if there are wet building materials. Mold needs water, moisture or dampness to grow.

The mold inspector may take air samples inside and outside.  To collect the air samples the inspector will use a pump that pulls a specific amount of air into the sampling container.

The sample is then sent to the lab to find out what mold spores are in the air samples. It is important to take several air samples so there is enough scientific information to decide if there is a mold problem or not.

Some mold testing companies take one air sample inside and maybe one outside and based on that little bit of information tell you everything is fine or everything is horrible.

It probably isn’t enough data to make that decision.

You want to have a written report that has all the information from the visual inspection, the laboratory report and an explanation of what it all means and what actions you need to take. Some mold inspection and testing companies in San Diego just give you the laboratory report and don’t help you understand what it means or what to do next.

If the inspector finds a mold problem in your building you may need to have a professional company called a mold remediation company remove the mold safely. You want to make sure the mold is removed correctly so it doesn’t cause problems in other areas of your building.

The mold inspection and testing company can write instructions, called a Scope of Work for the remediation company to follow.  Once the mold remediation company removes the mold, but before they remove their equipment, you should have another mold inspection done in the work area.

This inspection is called a clearance or post remediation verification (PRV) inspection. This inspection makes sure the mold remediation company removed all of the mold and damaged building materials and that the air in the work area is clean enough for the mold remediation company to take out their equipment without causing problems in the rest of the building.

During the clearance inspection the mold inspector should do a visual inspection to insure that all the mold growth was removed, that any water damaged materials have been removed and take moisture measurements to make sure the building materials are dry.

Air Sampling in a Properly Contained Area

Air samples inside the work area and outdoor air samples are collected to verify that the work area has mold spore levels that are acceptable.

Make sure they give you a written report that describes the area that was repaired and says it is dry, the damaged materials have been removed and the mold spore levels are OK. This report is the disclosure paperwork you may need if you sell your property in the future.

Thanks for reading! Let us know if you found this helpful.

ET&T is a certified San Diego mold inspection and testing company who offers mold testing, a customized plan for the appropriate mold removal (Scope of Work) and clearance testing. Call ET&T at 760-424-2259 for a free phone consultation or send us an email at info@etandt.com .

1. How do they do mold testing?  First off, they shouldn’t just do testing, they need to do a thorough visual inspection too! They should look for water damage, do moisture measurements and look for mold growing. Testing alone is just part of the picture to find out if there is a mold problem or not. They should sample mold they see to make sure it really is mold and to find out which type. They may also take air samples to see if the air inside shows mold spores that are different types than outside or higher numbers of spores than outside.
2. Does the inspector have any certifications and do they do any continuing education? California doesn’t have any licenses for mold testing, but there are certifications which require classes and continuing education to keep current. Examples are: Certified Microbial Consultant (CMC) and Certified Microbial Inspector (CMI).
3. How many mold samples will they take?  Some companies take one inside air sample and maybe one outside air sample. Based on just those samples tell you everything is horrible or everything is fine. That may not be enough data to make an accurate decision if there is a mold problem or not! How many samples depends on the size of your property and if you want the whole property tested or if you have certain areas you are concerned about.
4. What are the qualifications of the person analyzing the samples? What quality control program do they participate in? Maybe they don’t do any quality control! An example of a quality control program is EMPAT.
5. What is the turn around time between the inspection and the report?  You want them to have enough time to write you a good report, but not so long that you keep having to delay repairs being made.  The inspector can give you some information during the inspection.  They can also give you updates when they get the laboratory results. Depending on how big your project is, usually a couple of days to a week is a reasonable time to expect the final written report.
6. Who actually writes the inspection report? Some companies don’t have the same person write the report as did the inspection!  How can someone write a detailed report about the inspection if the haven’t seen your property?  Makes me wonder how helpful that report would be!
7. What type of report do they give you?  Some companies just give you the laboratory data and don’t tell you what it means or what to do next?  You need to know if repairs need to be made. You should ask if they write specific repairs for your property or just give you a general template.  Ask if they can send you a sample report or at least explain what you will be getting.
8. Do they do the repairs? Some think it is a conflict of interest to do both the testing and the repairs. If they don’t do the repairs, ask if they can recommend someone to do the repairs?  If they have been doing mold inspections for years, they know who does a good repair job and who doesn’t. Ask for 2 or 3 referrals so you have a choice.
9. How long have they been in business? You want to make sure they have experience and will still be around if you need anything from them later on.
10. Are they a member of the Better Business Bureau, if so what is their rating? You can contact your local Better Business Bureau and find out what the rating is.

The questions I listed above relate to the most frequent problems we have encountered throughout the years.

Environmental Testing and Technology (ET&T) has been doing mold and moisture inspections in the San Diego and Los Angeles areas since 1986.  We often receive calls from unhappy people who have hired a different testing company and ask us what the other company’s report means and do we think they did the job right.

Sometimes we look at the other company’s report and can help them, other times we can’t figure it out either!  Unfortunately, some of these unhappy people end up hiring us to do a good inspection with proper documentation. This costs them more money and time delays which can simply be avoided by hiring a good testing company from the start.

I hope you found these questions helpful & let us know what you thought, we like the feed back!

If you have any questions, please contact us at 760-424-2259 or email us at info@etandt.com.

Thanks for reading!