February 25th, 2012 11:02 AM by Dan Howard
Remediation should be conducted with concern for health conditions of occupants.
The process of killing mold is only a portion of professional "remediation" job. . The other concern that needs addressed and corrected is the cause or "source" of the mold. This is called "sourcing." If the environment that allowed the mold growth to occur in the first place is not corrected, it, or another mold will recur. That is why we suggest correcting the ventilation issues that caused the contamination.
Picture of you have a garden with weeds. If there is soil and wet conditions, even when you pull all of the weeds that are there today, new ones will grow if you do not do something to stop that from happening. Some people put plastic or a poison on the area to stop weeds, but we all know that if the conditions do not change, the weeds will be back We need to change the conditions in the property. As a guideline, we want indoor air humidity to be less than 40% to 50%, and all cavities and surfaces free of wetness.
There is a reason to hire a professional, qualified and properly equipped professional remediator
Remediation needs to be done with levels of protection.
Contaminated materials need to be wrapped and carried out of the building while enclosed so as not to allow contaminated materials to harm others.
People can be made very ill, or even "very dead" by personal mold contamination. Workers need protected with masks, gloves and suits. The area of work needs protected with an airlock, usually simple, overlapping plastic doors that appear like the scene you may remember from the movie "ET the Extraterrestrial".
There is equipment that scrubs (removes) the disturbed mold spores from the air. As the mold occurs with high moisture, there is usually dehumidification machines used in the remediation process.
At the end of the work, you should have proof that the work was effective in removing the mold. This is done by conducting a "clearance test" also known as a PRV, short for "post-remediation-verification"
Accepted procedure is that clearance testing should not be conducted by the remediator.
Some remediation firms offer a severe discount, often less in cost than the lab fees, in the testing in order to avoid being told the job needs redone. I have found that even the very best firms fail the clearance simply because we can’t see mold spores, and they can hide in areas we can’t see.
If the firm doing the remediation does the clearance, it is very similar to having the fox in the hen house count the hens left in the hen house at the end of the day.
Should you not want to have this tester perform the clearance test, still have the clearance tests done by a tester that is independent and qualified.