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Mold Inspector
recommends that homeowners, tenants, and employees do all-around home and
workplace mold inspection and testing to learn if they are living or working
in toxic mold.
Comprehensive
mold inspection and
mold testing are recommended if a resident or worker is
experiencing possible
mold health symptoms, or he can see or smell mold growth anywhere
indoors, or if there have been water problems. One low cost way to collect
your own mold samples is to use the Scotch tape-based,
lift tape sampling
technique.
The most common mold-causing water problems are
roof leaks, siding leaks, plumbing line leaks, sewer line breaks, a wet
crawl space or basement, flooding, high humidity, and/or water damage.
“Just doing one or too few mold samplings may
miss the true extent of mold contamination,” cautions Phillip Fry,
Certified
Mold Inspector, and author of the ebook
Do-It-Best-Yourself Mold Prevention, Inspection, Testing, and Remediation.
Whether a concerned property owner, tenant, or
employee hires a
Certified Mold Inspector [USA only], or uses do-it-yourself mold test
kits available from a large hardware, home improvement, or safety store, here are the best spots to test for mold
problems—
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Visible
Mold Growth: Use the clear Scotch
tape
lift sampling technique to collect at least one mold sample from each
separate indoor mold growth area.
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Air mold testing:
Use Petri-dish, do-it-yourself mold test kits available from a large
hardware, home improvement, or safety store to test the air of each room, attic, basement, crawl
space, garage, and the outward air flow from each heating/cooling
register.
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Outdoor
control test: Use a mold test kit
to take a control test located outdoors 5 feet beyond the roof rain drip
edge.
Whether the tester self-interprets the visible
mold growth results after 7 days, or hires mold lab analysis and mold
species identification, he compares the types of molds [and mold
colony count per type] with the outdoor mold control test.
If one mold type has more colonies growing in an
indoor mold sample than the outdoor mold control, there is a presumption of
an indoor mold contamination source causing the greater mold colony count
indoors.
Similarly, if one mold type is growing in an
indoor mold sample, but none of that type is in the outdoor mold control,
there is a presumption of an indoor mold contamination source causing the
indoor presence of that mold type.
For more information go to:
Mold Inspector
Mold
http://www.epa.gov
http://www.osha.gov
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