Do You Need Mold Testing? Before and After Remediation?

before we get into the two sicarios we will first establish that we at AMP work very closely with professional environmental companies. We believe testing for mold is essential for providing the highest quality mold removal services. This is an example of our commitment to excellence is service. However, there are a lot of variables that go into this.

Pre Remediation Testing:

Lets discuss a real world example that comes up frequently. Lets say there are significant VISIBLE signs of mold growth in the basement of your home but not the main level or second floor of the home. Testing the basement to determine is the visible fungal activity is toxic could be unnecessary and perhaps a greedy attempt to convince the consumer to pay for another services that wont help achieve the ultimate goal. It is irrelevant to test the type of mold growing or the spore count when the obviouse decision to perform remediation has already occurred. But, testing the air quality in the basement can help determine how aggressive the protocol and/or remediation plan should be. For example, does all the basement contents need to be discarded or can some of it be salvaged. This decision may be obvious in (bad) really contaminated situations where the amount of contamination and toxicity is obvious. This is the "It all must go situation." However, in less severe cases some of the contents may be salvable and could save the property owners thousands of dollars in replacement costs. So, testing the air would be logical and useful in determining this.

Another reason pre testing makes sense is to determine cross contamination in areas that don't have visible mold. pre remediation testing can help determine the air quality in other (main floor for example) areas of the property to ensure that the obviously contaminated areas have not effected the air quality in the unaffected areas. This is ever more important in situations where the occupants have compromised immune systems and or mold sensitivities.

Post Remediation Testing:

We advise post remediation verification -testing after a remediation project has been completed. This ensures that all toxic mold spores have been properly removed and that normal spores have been brought down into normal ranges. In other words to verifying that mold counts are within a range we call "normal fungal ecology" range after remediation is our highest priority and it also confirms the quality of our work. For us, we want to know that mold counts are normal and within a safe range before we leave your property.