An inspector walks the property, looks at every place water can reach, measures moisture in the materials instead of guessing at them, finds the source of the water, and writes down what was found, where it was found and how big it is. Air or surface sampling is added only when there is a reason for it. The result is a written finding you can act on, and it should be legible to somebody who was not there.
That is the whole job in one paragraph. What follows is what each part should look like in a house here, and what to do if it does not.
The visual survey
The visual part is a route around the building that follows water: the basement and any finished space in it, the underside of kitchen and bathroom fittings, around windows, the base of exterior walls, the attic and the roof line, the laundry, and any place a previous leak has left a mark.
Growth is usually found at the edge of a wet area rather than in the middle of a room. Behind a vanity, at the bottom of a stud bay, on the paper face of drywall behind a stored box, under a rug that has been on a cool slab all summer. An inspector who never bends down or moves anything has done half a survey.
The moisture survey, which is the part that finds the cause
Mold can grow on virtually any organic material as long as moisture and oxygen are present, so an inspection that establishes only that mold is present has answered the less useful question. The useful question is where the water is coming from.
- Moisture meters read the material rather than the air, and they read behind a surface without opening it.
- A hygrometer reads the room. The EPA advises keeping indoor humidity below 60 percent relative humidity, ideally between 30 and 50 percent, so a reading above that line is a finding in its own right.
- A thermal camera does not see mold. It sees temperature difference, which often marks a wet or a cold area to meter.
- The exterior matters. Grading, gutters, downspouts and the flashing where a chimney or a vent passes through the roof are common causes of an interior finding.
The EPA states the consequence of skipping this step: cleaning up the mold while leaving the water problem in place means the mold will most likely come back. An inspection that names no water source has not finished.
When sampling helps and when it does not
Sampling is a tool for specific questions, and it is oversold in this market. Air sampling can be useful where growth is suspected inside a cavity and cannot be reached, where a comparison against outdoor air is needed, or where a written result is required after remediation. It is far less useful as a first move in a house where growth is visible on a wall, because the wall has already answered the question.
Ask what question a proposed sample will answer, and what will change depending on the result. Where nothing changes either way, the sample tells you nothing you can act on.
What the written finding should contain
- The rooms and assemblies inspected, and any area that could not be accessed, named and not left out.
- Where growth was found and the approximate area of each location.
- The moisture readings, with the points they were taken at, and the room humidity.
- The water source, or the candidates for it if more than one is possible.
- Photographs that show the finding and, where relevant, the meter reading against the material it came from.
- What is recommended, in scope terms, so a second contractor could quote the same work from the same document.
The last item is the test, and it is the one that most often fails: a finding another contractor cannot quote from is a finding you cannot use.
Two New Jersey facts that change how you read a quote
New Jersey has no state mold remediation license. The Department of Health publishes guidance and does not license remediators, so no company in this state can be state licensed for mold, and any page that says so is describing something that does not exist. What a company can hold is certification through the IICRC, whose technician certifications include Water Damage Restoration Technician, Applied Structural Drying and Applied Microbial Remediation Technician, and whose Certified Firm designation can be checked in a public directory.
Separately, home improvement work in New Jersey requires registration with the Division of Consumer Affairs, and the 13 digit number issued, beginning 13VH, must appear in advertising, contracts, estimates and proposals. Asking for it is reasonable and it takes a second.
DHL is IICRC certified, licensed and insured.
The conflict of interest question
The company that inspects and the company that remediates are often the same company, and that arrangement is normal in this trade. It is also the reason the written finding matters more than the conversation. A scope written in materials and areas, tied to moisture readings and photographs, can be checked by anyone. A verbal recommendation to gut a basement cannot.
If a finding surprises you, ask for the readings and the photographs and get a second quote from the document. A competent inspection survives that.
What happens next
If remediation follows, it is done to ANSI/IICRC S520, the mold remediation standard, which describes three conditions: condition 1 is a normal fungal ecology, condition 2 is settled spores and fragments, and condition 3 is actual growth. The object of the work is to return the area to condition 1, and post remediation verification is the written check that it got there. That sequence is walked through in Mold removal in New Jersey, the process step by step.
If water damage caused it, the two jobs run together. Drying is measured, and the method is on Water Damage Restoration. The remediation method is on Mold Remediation, and the same team covers Passaic County and the five other counties, with a free written estimate before any work begins.
This article is about Mold Inspection.