EP #13: Got Mold?
Episode #13: Got Mold? Welcome to Florida Mold Assessment
Charlie
Welcome to the Trade Secrets Inspections podcast because you need to know, here’s your host, Rick Kooyman.
Hey, Charlie McDermitt here back in the studio with Rick Kooyman. And Rick, how you doing today?
Rick
I’m doing excellent and great to be here again, Charlie.
Charlie
Yeah, you kind of tease me on a bit here. And I can never get enough of this topic more. So from a knowledge standpoint, not necessarily do the you want this four letter word. So let’s get into it. Right what do you have in store?
Rick
Yeah, we’re gonna revisit mold and living with the fungus in Florida, you know, we’ve got all this hot, humid, and all this plant life around us. So it’s something that we got to live with and know about. It’s all it’s among us, whether we like it or not, as a business, we’ve expanded a little bit and are starting to specialize in in the field of mold and bring a little bit of information to the public here. Let everyone know what’s going on and what they can do, what’s available for them and what to look out for.
Charlie
It’s awesome. And congratulations. I know, just as our listeners know, from your previous episodes, you you don’t stop. I mean, you’re always learning and growing and finding the best way to help your clients. So well. Yeah. Congratulations. So fill us in. Let’s talk about mold.
Rick
Yeah, that’s okay. So in the state of Florida, as we all know, here, mold is definitely an issue for us. As far as the state goes and dealing with it. They’re very specific on who and what and when can deal with it. Specifically, like you said, the four letter word are as a home inspector, I’m literally not allowed to use the word mold unless it comes from a laboratory test result. So really, yeah, it’s that litigious have a topic of that. If I say the word mold, I need hard evidence that that’s actually a mold, right?
Charlie
I had no .. I just assumed that was part of the process. Wow.
Rick
Yeah, really, it’s really that touchy. So we wanted to get into that a little bit more as a business. And we went ahead and got what is called the Florida State Licensed Mold Assessor, so that we can actually use that four letter word now. So when I see that stuff, I can say, hey, you’ve got a mold problem, let’s talk about it. And let’s talk about why it’s here and what we need to do about it in that world. There’s all these terms, then. And then now we have all these different companies that get involved, and they’re going to come to the confusion right away. So right from the beginning, everybody asks, as a home inspector, don’t you look for mold? Or don’t you test for mold? Or isn’t that involved are included in the general home inspection? And as a general answer Yeah, absolutely, we do always include whatever we visually can identify, in all inspection reports, that inspection is a more generalized inspection that covers a vast number of areas and topics and, you know, systems. So it’s not very specific on any one thing, but it’s a broad overlook of the whole entire structure. If we find a moisture problem, that’s our typical big clue there, in the world of mold, what we are actually looking for is water, if you can generally get an idea of where water might be in Florida, you might understand why there’s so much mold, all this is around us, it’s everywhere, it’s you know, it’s friends with the forest, you know, trees, mold go together. There’s symbiotic nature they live together. It’s just part of the world. And it’s all the way it’s always around us.
What’s the difference here is when we start to have an issue in the house, and, and then we want to deal with that. So when we notice we have a moisture problem, or we notice we have a dark staining or you know, some kind of evidence of something out of the norm growing on, on really anything, mold will grow on basically any surface, it can find a food. So if there’s dust on inorganic metal, it’ll have mold on you know, the mold is going to find its way the, mold and the food are generally always ready and there, it’s always just waiting for the right moisture, and then it’s going to grow.
So again, we go back to the hunt for water in our environment in that which we live in to try to find where these moles might be. And that’s where the assessor comes in. So as an assessor, what we’re going to do is come in and we’re going to specifically look for any kind of temperature variations, condensation points, saturation levels of materials, we’re going to specifically focus on studying what is the moisture level of the different areas of the home and let that lead us to where there may or may not be a problem. air sample testing is great and identify stuff that’s growing and in off gassing and admitting spores. But that doesn’t identify everything that could be. It’s very common that you’ll have mold growing on a surface, and you won’t have spores in the air until you disturbed the mold growing surface, right. So there, there’s this is where we get into trouble in our homes, is it seems like oh, well, there’s mold on that wall, we’ll just go over there and tear that drywall down and throw it in the trash and get rid of it. The moment you start moving, whatever that is, that has the mold on it. It’s like baby powder, think of it, you know, like squeezing a bottle of baby powder that you can’t see. But those spores are just poof into the air. And now that’s going to travel all around, and it’s going to land basically everything like dust, right. So now, personal possessions, the interior of the other rooms of the house, the AC system, all these things can get inoculated with the spores now.
And then if you have a, if you have some kind of a leakage, say you have a plumbing problem, or a roof leak, you have basically 48 hours to get that water cleaned up, before the molds will come in and take over. I’d seen homes basically go into what we call bloom, which is where there’s a fuzz across every surface as you walk in on everything. Because there was a spore release, and there was high enough humidity in the home, that everywhere it landed, it grew.
So you literally have mold on 100% of surfaces, it gets out of hand really fast. So when that happens, that’s where we have these difference of professions and separation of licensing. The re-mediators, obviously are the people that come in are going to do the isolation methods, and remove the contaminated materials without exposing the other parts of the environment to that contamination factor. So it’s a bunch of different specialty fans and pressure isolations and isolation methods. And it’s a very specified method of removing things. And then cleaning up what was after the contaminated materials get removed. And people love bleach, right, they just put bleach on the mold. This is always a point of confusion for everyone. Bleach will kill mold.
Let’s let’s start there. But that doesn’t remove the mold. Dead mold is still an allergenic, it will still have the same effects on you biologically as the living mold. It’s just at the moment not reproducing and growing in size. But it’s still present and you actually haven’t killed the spores. So when you walk away, and if that moisture level is still present, or it comes back, that mold will come back. You’ve done it temporary visual improvement, let’s call it when bleach on it, the remediation process, we tend to try not to use a lot of chemicals. Our basic best friend for cleaning mold is the soap the sufectant, a good a good detergent, and a HEPA vacuum. What does it mean, it means you’ve got to remove the mold, it’s the only way to get rid of it. And you got to do it in a way that doesn’t allow it to spread as you’re doing it. So it’s a it’s a scrubbing and vacuuming of all the surfaces and high speed dry out. And then we let them sit and then we come back in after we think it’s all cleaned out. And we need to retest it and make sure that that area is done clean and sanitized prior to opening it back up to the rest of the environment. You know, obviously we’re trying to keep a small problem from becoming a big problem. But it might have already become a big problem. And and really it’s about coming up with what we call the protocols for how to deal with the situation.
So that involves two things. One, what is the problem? What is the extent of that problem? And more importantly, number two, what is the rejuvenating factor for it? You know, how do we prevent it from reoccurring? Which again comes back to where does the water come from? It becomes a basic forensic investigation and trying to figure out what’s going on with the structure and how it needs to be fixed. So that’s where the assessments come in, we come in, and we specialize in finding, identifying and coming up with the methods for the re-mediators, to use to resolve the problem. And then when they’re done, we come back and clarify, or verify that the project is clean and ready to be reopened, so that you don’t just go around in this constant circle, thinking you’re clean, re exposing, and it grows back and you just end up in a cycle of, you know, the dirty shower. Yeah, yeah.
Charlie
Wow. Wow, that really explains a lot. .
Rick
Okay, so, in not so many words, let’s just say, if you have a mold problem in your home, if it’s less than what we say is nine square feet, you know, three foot by three foot, and that’s a total area. So if it’s behind the baseboard, let’s say that that amounts to 27 feet of baseboard. So on long living room wall, you pull off a baseboard, and you find that it’s black behind that baseboard, is a very typical thing in Florida. That is putting you at the line of where you need to get involved with the professionals, okay, it’s very easy with that amount or more, to really cause yourself a great deal of trouble. That’s where you want to reach out, find yourself a competent, licensed assessor, that you know, is associated with a good remediation cleanup company, or vice versa, we work hand in hand together. So oftentimes people will call the you know, the biggest deal is one, get the water cleaned up right away. First move you got to make is to the dry out company, get the water cleaned up, get it out of there. And then we got to figure out, did the mold become a problem and start the assessment process?
Charlie
Good stuff good stuff. Now, I if you know, because obviously you work a lot with with new homeowners and you know, you do the inspection. I remember back in Pennsylvania where you had basements and you would go into a home or basement and just smelled moldy. You know? Is that a sign down here? Like if you walk into?
Rick
Yeah, and yeah, those are what’s called volatile organic compounds, or VOCs. That’s literally the the off gassing of the, of the growth of the plant, you know. So yeah, that musty odor, that is the smell of mold, it for sure is telling you. So there’s so many different kinds of molds out there that you can, you can’t say what it is until you really send it off. And then even when you send it to the lab, it’s a matter of how much information do you need to know, you know, as per how much money you’re going to spend on testing at the lab, you only need to know enough to get rid of it properly. If you really want to specifically get into exactly what it is they’re gonna have to put it in a petri dish and grow it. It gets pretty expensive at that point, but it’s not necessary. But you know, what’s, what is necessary is getting in front of it, and not letting it get out of hand. And if you do and you live in it, you’re going to notice health effects. That’s the biggest thing we’re always not aware of is it does definitely affect your health, everything from your respiratory system to your emotional state. And the Depression is an is an associated effect with living in a moldy environment, you know, as much as lung irritation and sinus infections. And, you know, these we always tell people, when we get their lab reports back from the lab reports that we do for mold to take up reports directly to their family physician and go this is what toxins are living on our environment, and how could that relate to what health conditions we have? It really changes the way you know, people are being treated because that I’m seeing unknown complication in our lives.
Charlie
Wow. Wow, man, I’m so glad you covered this certainly an important topic and, you know, again, opened my eyes to certain situations I’ve seen or heard of and taking some of the mystery out of mold, because I know that’s a scary kind of touchy subject for a lot of people and to know that. Yeah, there’s an answer. But the biggest answer is you want to do it right. Or you don’t want to make a small issue into a major issue. So
Rick
exactly, you know, My biggest advice to people is just don’t ignore a problem. The best thing to do is reach out and ask questions, make a call, give us a call. We answer questions all day long. We’re here to help.
Charlie
Awesome. Well on that note, I will look forward to your help and expertise in the next episode and then in the meantime and keep keep us homeowners and business owners. mold free out there,
Rick
we will do our best.
Charlie
Thanks for listening to the Trade Secrets Inspections podcast to learn more about Trade Secrets Inspections, go to www.TradeSecretsInspections.com or call 239-537-1186