By Indoor Air Quality Solutions | July 19, 2016 at 02:23 PM EDT | No Comments
Air Sampling for Mold Spores is NOT a Mold Inspection and NOT an Air Quality Sample
Mold has become an issue for homeowners and home buyers across the country. Mold inspections have become a part of most real estate transactions. However, here in Florida, a mold inspection has become a bit cliché even passé. Today it’s all about Air Quality. Why call it a mold sample if you can charge more and call it an Air Quality Sample? I’ve given my 2 cents about the value of mold sampling and the total lack of value in simply sampling for mold and calling it a mold inspection so I won’t beat a dead horse, well not much.
If anyone is purchasing a home and they want to know if there is a mold issue they will typically ask their home inspector to collect a few air samples for airborne mold spores. This is the add-on feature that benefits the home inspector and adds no valuable information to the home buyer. But hey, the home buyer doesn’t know that, right? Worse yet, the home inspector doesn’t even know that. The home inspector isn’t aware of the standard of practice for mold inspection, the ASTM D-7338. The home inspector simply excludes as much liability as possible in his or her inspection disclaimer and collects a few air samples for airborne mold spores and calls them air quality samples, C'est La Vie, That’s life, thanks for the extra cash and on to the next job.
The home buyer who then becomes the homeowner may soon realize that there’s an issue with water intrusion that the home inspector missed and the mold samples for airborne mold spores didn’t discover. How could that be? The home inspector inspected for mold, right? The home was sampled for mold, right? There were air quality samples collected that said there was no problem, Right?
No, not true. The home was never inspected for mold, and actually only a very, very, small amount of the air was sampled for mold. The actual air quality was never established, and if the one component that was sampled (mold) is undisturbed, the mold won’t be in the air. The air sampling for mold spores is extremely unreliable and will not provide any valuable information. (pardon my beating the dead horse a bit).
The home inspector or mold inspector that collected the samples for airborne mold spores provided the homeowner with no valuable information about the home they just purchased. So now that the new homeowner has discovered a water or mold problem they have to hire a new mold assessor to take a second look at the home. If we are contacted, we always take the opportunity to ask the new homeowners to provide us with their mold inspection report to review.
We have a great collection of mold inspection reports from home and mold inspectors all across the state. Insurance companies and homeowners have been asking us for a second opinion for years and our collection of worthless reports is substantial and growing each week. How our industry came to this is amazing? Let’s just say it’s capitalism at the expense of personal ethics. If all you care about is making a buck and you could care less about the value of what you’re providing your client, go ahead and collect a few more air samples for mold spores and call them “Air Quality Samples”. That’s capitalism without ethics.
So exactly what happens when we get to the home and actually take a look. A disclaimer free look. A true mold inspection in accordance with the ASTM D-7338. Let’s face it, if we’re there, then there’s a problem. If there wasn’t, the homeowner wouldn’t have called us, right? So now we have a homeowner that should have had the opportunity to identify a problem with the home they wanted to purchase prior to that purchase. Critical, right? That’s what they hired the first mold inspector for. To identify any issues with the home that can support mold growth. Prior to the purchase is the time to identify any mold related issues. That’s when the issues can be used during the decision making phase of the purchase.
Regardless of the issue, everything can be negotiated if the issues are identified during the buying phase of the transaction. What the home buyer wants is information about the home. Valuable information about the home not useless airborne mold spore count information. Valuable information like, “The home you are wanting to purchase has areas of building envelope failure that are allowing water intrusion that could support mold growth in the following areas.” Then list the areas of failure. The list should be specific and define the extent of the water and mold damage, describe the failure, and don’t be concerned with the genus of mold because it doesn’t matter. What matters to the home buyer is the knowledge any issues before they make the purchase, not after.
The collection of air samples is a feel good placebo that may help facilitate a sale but is not a mold inspection. If you’re selling a mold inspection, then provide a mold inspection. The only thing worse than collecting air samples for mold spores and calling it a mold inspection is selling that simple collection of airborne mold spores as an air quality sample. With all that can be in the air, mold is but one small piece of the air quality puzzle. I can assure you that sampling the air for mold spores is not and never will be an air quality sample any more than it’s a mold inspection. This is the art of over selling and under delivering.
This brief article should be informative. It should raise questions, but it shouldn’t offend. If it does offend you then you’re probably the guy collecting the air samples for mold spores and either calling it a mold inspection or air quality sampling. If that’s the case, no apologies necessary on my end. My advice, stop it. Stop over selling and under delivering just to make a few extra bucks.
I gotta go for now, I have a dead horse to go kick in another forum…….
EPISODE473 - FLASHBACK Claude Blackburn -Founder Dri-Eaz Products Today on IAQ Radio we bring out of the archival vault the Z-mans favorite episode from 8-13-2010, Episode 177 with Claude Blackburn. We are calling this one "From humble beginning to raging success, a candid conversation with the Dri-Eaz Products Founder". Radio Joe and the Z-man will be back live next week but do not miss this classic. Claude Blackburn became involved in the cleaning and restoration industry in 1972. Through a combination of courage, determination, hard work and creativity he founded and built Dri-Eaz Products (based in Burlington, Washington) into a business and brand recognized globally as a leader in structural drying. When Claude sold Dri-Eaz in 2006 it had almost 200 employees, 150 distributors and sales of 50 million. LEARN MORE about this remarkable man and how he built his company this week on IAQ Radio!
Fri, 18 Aug 2017 12:00:16 -0400 EPISODE472 - FLASHBACK FRIDAY - Jeffrey Siegel Ph.D. Dr. Jeff Siegel is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering and the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at The University of Toronto. Prior to accepting his current position he was an Associate Professor at the University of Texas, Austin. His interests and research have focused on healthy and sustainable buildings, ventilation and indoor air quality in residential and commercial buildings, control of indoor particulate matter, secondary impacts of control technologies and strategies, aerosol dynamics in indoor environments and HVAC systems. He is also keenly interested in ensuring that good research works its way into practice and this week we want to focus on that theme. Dr. Siegel's Ph.D. is in Mechanical Engineering (2002) from the University of California, Berkeley, he also has an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering (1999) from the same institution and a B.S. in Engineering (1995) from Swarthmore College. He is a prolific researcher and speaker and a very active member of professionals societies and associations including ISIAQ and ASHRAE.
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Larry Robertson, the Indoor Air Quality Association's 1st President and founding Board Member. Mr. Robertson was a leader in IAQ research and services for over 3 decades. He is known for establishing Mycotech Biological, Inc. (MBI), one of the first environmental laboratories that specialized in the identification of fungi associated with HVAC systems. He also contributed in the initial development of the CIE and CMR certification programs and served on the Texas Mold Task Force relative to the development of mold regulations in the State of Texas. Larry published many papers in peer reviewed journals along with a mountain of other papers, articles and presentations. He was a prolific volunteer to industry associations and received numerous special recognition's and awards.
Fri, 04 Aug 2017 12:00:41 -0400 EPISODE470 - Andrew Streifel -Environmental Infection Control This week on IAQ Radio we welcome Andrew Streifel. Andrew J. Streifel is a Hospital Environment Specialist with the Department of Environmental Health & Safety at the University of Minnesota. Whenever there is a high profile hospital acquired infection one of the first names that comes to mind is Andy Streifel. Mr. Streifel has been involved in the investigation of over 80 clusters of infection related to hospital air quality. He has served as a consultant in over 400 hospitals worldwide on a variety of indoor air quality issues, water microbial contamination and has investigated clusters of bacterial infections due to unsanitary clinical practice. His current research interests involve energy management impact on infection prevention and validation of the air and water safety in healthcare facilities.
Andy is a registered Environmental Health Specialist in Minnesota. He currently serves as an invited nonvoting member on the Maintenance Committee for the SSPC 170: ASHRAE Standard for Ventilation of Health Care Facilities 2008 - present. Mr. Streifel is also serving on the revision committee for the 2014 edition of the FGI Guidelines for Design and Construction of Health Care Facilities. He has served on this committee since 1994 and has participated in the development of the 1996, 2001, and 2006, 2010, 2014 & 2018 editions. In addition Mr. Streifel has served on the Special Project committee that authored the HVAC Design Manual for Hospitals and Clinics. He was an author on ASHRAE published articles on Ventilation for the Protection of Immune Compromised Patients-1988, Construction Impact on Indoor Air Quality-1995 and Air Leakage Analysis of Special Ventilation Hospital Rooms-2008. Mr. Streifel has assisted University of Minnesota Institute of Technology & School of Public Health as technical advisor on filtration, patient room airflow studies and particle management projects. He also serves on the National Air Duct Cleaners Association Standards Committee. In addition, he is an author in over 50 articles, published in the academic and professional journals, related to ventilation and water quality in health care.
Fri, 28 Jul 2017 12:00:46 -0400 EPISODE469 -Kristy & Justin Sifford -Listen Better, Plan Better, Hire Bett This week on IAQ Radio we welcome two people with a rare combination of credentials in the industry. Kristy and Justin Sifford both have extensive experience in the construction and flooring industry and are also experienced professionals on hiring, promoting and retaining employees along with other business operations issues. Just about every business has to wrestle with employment issues and very few business owners are also experts in hiring and recruitment of employees. Some will hire a company like Wylander and others will learn as much about the process as possible and do it themselves. Whatever your style you will learn more during this show.
Kristy Sifford founded the company after years of flooring industry experience that included an excellent track record of finding and placing top talent in both flooring and restoration positions. She is a highly successful matchmaker in this business. Kristy started working in her family owned flooring store in college, and grew to develop a flooring company, which was part of a large Disaster Restoration and Carpet Cleaning Company in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. In addition to recruiting, she has worked with many clients in the flooring industry on process improvement and handling remote accounting for flooring companies.
Justin Sifford worked in the flooring industry for over 20 years and the restoration industry for over a decade. Having owned flooring companies in the past he has a unique perspective that allows him to appreciate the struggles his clients have owning a business and employing and keeping top talent. He previously worked as the Vice President of Operations for a company that offered consulting and recruiting services to the flooring and restoration industries. He worked with a wide range of companies, from companies as small as $500,000 up to $20 million. He was able to successfully streamline processes for other companies, identify KPI's, and was the chief architect in the growth of our own company
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Fri, 23 Jun 2017 12:00:06 -0400 EPISODE464 - Live from the Violand Executive Summit! We are back at the annual Violand Executive Summit and have lined up a great cast of restoration veterans and up and comers to discuss the topic "Restoration a Changing Industry". 2017 marks the 30th anniversary for Violand Management Associates, who during that time, has grown to become a leading Advisory Services firm in the restoration and cleaning industries. In the spirit of watching a company like Violand Management grow and develop over three decades, we thought it would be fun to explore how the restoration industry itself has changed during that time, sometimes for the good and sometimes for the not so good. We also plan to explore what this group feels are the potential future opportunities and where the industry is going. To help us do that, we have asked a group of Violand Executive Summit participants to help us out and have assembled a talented group of industry veterans and savvy rising stars in restoration. It's great to be back at the Violand Executive Summit!
The Veterans
Lee King -President After Disaster and current RIA Board of Directors member
Wes Williams - Founder and President CJB in the Vancouver BC
Scott Stamper - CEO Regency DKI and past RIA president
Tom Laska - President ICC Restoration Minneapolis, MN
The Next Generation of Leaders
Chris Yanker - Production Manager Buffalo Restoration in Bozeman, MT
Jacelyn Carpenter - CEO Ideal Restoration, San Francisco, CA and RIA board member
Grant Nitzche - President SERVPRO of Wheaton, IL
Tom McMahon - Senior Project Manager McMahon Restoration Chicago, IL
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Martin King, ASA, CR was the Restoration Industries Association Technical Adviser for 30 years, where he developed a broad range of restoration procedures and published over 300 articles in trade journals. As the CEO of Martin Churchill Associates, Inc. Damage Investigators and Appraisers Mr. King also investigated and prepared formal reports on over 2000 property damage cases. Marty also taught at the University of Maryland in the Fire Sciences group. Mr. King was the man disaster restoration people went to when nobody else could answer their questions. Donâ??t miss this rare opportunity to hear the â??Dean of Disaster Restorationâ??. Also joining us on this show was The â??Restoration Industries Global Watchdogâ?? Pete Consigli and our Technical Director, Dr. Dietrich Weyel.
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Larry Zarker is the CEO of the Building Performance Institute, the professional standards setting and credentialing organization for both the weatherization and home performance contracting industries. He oversees BPI's national network of over 12,000 certified professionals and BPI GoldStar contracting companies. He helped found and served on the Board of Directors of Efficiency First, the trade association for America's home performance workforce. Prior to BPI, he worked for nearly twenty years with the NAHB Research Center and was the Vice President of Marketing for over a decade, serving both the new home and remodeling sectors with innovative product development and research.
Joe Medosch - Owner of Energy & Environmental Consulting, LLC and Executive Director of Healthy Home Environment Association. He participated in the development of the BPI HHE credential and is a Healthy Homes Master Trainer. His certifications include: BPI Proctor - Building Analyst & Envelope Professional, Healthy Home Evaluator, Infiltration & Duct Leakage, ICC- Commercial & Residential Energy Inspector / Plans Examiner and Residential Building Inspector.
Fri, 02 Jun 2017 11:59:43 -0400
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