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…….
EPISODE496 - Nate Adams The Evolving World of Home Performance The Home Com Today on IAQ Radio we welcome Nate Adams the founder of Energy Smart Home Performance outside Cleveland Ohio. This week we will talk about â??The Evolving World of Home Performanceâ??. What was once called an energy audit is now evolving into something different. The energy programs are changing and the people that perform/ed energy audits are changing how they market their services and what they provide.
Some have gone into healthy housing others are pitching home performance and much more comprehensive and costly changes to existing homes. Nate has a unique perspective on the topic and has released the first edition of his book on the topic. We will explore the topic in detail today on an IAQ Radio+ episode.
Nateâ??s company Energy Smart started out as an insulation contractor for existing homes, but has evolved into doing Comprehensive Home Performance retrofits. Their projects are somewhere between a simple attic insulation job and a deep energy retrofit. These projects are sweeping in scope with thorough planning process and careful attention paid to what problems the client wants to solve, what the house needs, and what fits within the homeowner budget. No two projects are alike. Through substantial air tightness and insulation upgrades, and sometimes HVAC replacement, homes are made far more comfortable.
Fri, 09 Mar 2018 14:33:00 -0500 EPISODE495 - Sal La Duca - Environmental Assay, Inc. This week we are bringing back Sal La Duca for part 2 of our discussion on electricity, EMF's & IEQ. Electricity and electric fields are all around us we keep adding them yet we do not know much about how they affect the health of occupants or if they affect health. Is it possible that they have affects we don't understand? We do know that when installed improperly electric systems can cause a variety of issues. We also know how to find improper installations and to how to reduce the potential for exposure. In Part 1 Mr. La Duca walked us through the basics from the generating facility to the wiring in our home. Part 2 will focus on how to evaluate the issues and what equipment is used to help determine if we have issues.
Fri, 23 Feb 2018 15:00:00 -0500 EPISODE494 - Ralph Moon, PhD Michael Bowdoin, Esq This week we will be finishing up our hurricane coverage series with two gentlemen that are known for seeing the big picture. Dr. Ralph Moon is based in the Tampa, FL region and Attorney Michael Bowdoinâ??s practice is in the Houston, TX area. Both have extensive personal and professional experience dealing with the aftermath of the hurricanes that hit in 2017. Both also work closely with contractors, consultants, building owners, insurance adjusters and others that have been trying to bring things back to normal. We plan a wide ranging discussion of what happened, how the response was handled and how these events will affect our future dealing with large natural disasters.
Fri, 02 Feb 2018 15:11:00 -0500 EPISODE492 - Radio Joe Reports - Sloan Research to Practice Kickoff & IAQA Radio Joe is on the road at the IAQA Annual Meeting and last week attended a Sloan Workshop: Roadmap Research to Practice. Radio Joe will be reporting on both events this week and we will debut our new format for the show.
The Sloan workshop was put together by Richard Shaughnessy, PhD and Jordan Peccia, PhD. It was a fascinating meeting of about 15 practitioners, 15 researchers and a handful of government representatives from agencies such as EPA, HUD and CDC. It was designed to allow practitioners to let researchers know what we need from research to do a better job helping people live in better indoor environments. This workshop focused on the Microbiome of the Built Environment and included a lot of discussion on mold and water damage topics. Radio Joe will review the presentations by both researchers and practitioners to bring listeners up to speed on what was discussed.
The IAQA Annual Meeting is always a highlight of the conference season. This year it was in Chicago and was in conjunction with the ASHRAE AHR Expo. As always there was a huge expo hall with thousands of exhibitors and some excellent presentations at the Hilton Chicago.
Fri, 26 Jan 2018 12:08:49 -0500 EPISODE491 - FLASHBACK FRIDAY - Tiina Reponen, PhD Radio Joe is on the road at a Sloan "Research to Practice" Conference and will be back live next Friday to report on the event and the IAQA Conference. This week we are playing back a great show with a guest we tried to get for a long time. Tiina Reponen, PhD is a Professor in the Department of Environmental Health, College of Medicine at the University of Cincinnati. As an expert in indoor allergens and mold, she served as the principal investigator in several major laboratory and field experiments on airborne allergens, bacteria and fungi and has directed exposure assessment teams in population-based studies. Dr. Reponen is the Director of the NIOSH-funded University of Cincinnati Education and Research Center (ERC), which includes graduate programs related to occupational health from three colleges: Medicine, Nursing and Applied Science and Engineering. She is currently directing two cohort studies. One is focused on the association between indoor bioaerosol exposures and the development of children's allergy and asthma and the other is focused on the effects of green renovation on indoor air quality and occupants' health.
Fri, 19 Jan 2018 12:00:03 -0500 EPISODE490 - Tony Havics, PE, CIH - Occupational Exposure Limits and Their This week on IAQ Radio we welcome Anthony "Tony" Havics to talk about how occupational exposure limits are related to limits for the general public. This is a topic that causes a lot of confusion and at times misinformation. Can we use OEL's or should we avoid them altogether? Join us and LEARN MORE on IAQ Radio!
Mr. Havics is an Honors graduate from Georgia Institute of Technology with a Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering and is a registered Professional Environmental Engineer (PE) with over 25 years of experience. He has provided front end investigation, development of plans & specifications, development of work plans, cost estimation, and oversight of numerous facilities for remediation, refurbishing, or decommissioning including a launch pad, dam gates, a baseball stadium, a tire factory with 59 buildings, a biologically contaminated L1011, a hospital, JP-6 fuel tanks, former mental institute, former military buildings, etc. In the field of microscopy, he has performed analysis for asbestos, contaminants in products, other minerals, fibers, fungi, engineering properties, and has testified in federal court as an expert microscopist. Andrew has also performed failure analysis and forensic testing on numerous building products such as roofs, windows, flooring, drywall, piping, etc.
Fri, 12 Jan 2018 12:00:09 -0500 EPISODE489 - Bruce White IAQA First VP Wildfires and IAQ! This week on IAQ Radio we welcome Mr. Bruce White, Vice President at American Environmental Specialists & IAQA First Vice President. Mr. White's and his company provide IAQ and environmental consulting on a wide range of issues from their Southern California office. We will discuss wildfires and IAQ, Hospital Construction Monitoring, The new OSHA Silica Rule and Mechanical Systems and IAQ. Bruce brings a unique perspective to his consulting, he has been in the environmental business for over 30 years with a wide range of experience in the real world. He started out in the restoration industry and was also part of the early days of asbestos abatement and other types of environmental contracting. From there he has spent almost 20 years as an environmental consultant with a stint working for a large distributor of environmental safety supplies and equipment. He also has a long history of volunteering for industry related associations and is currently the First Vice President of the Indoor Air Quality Association (IAQA). Bruce has numerous tips and techniques to share with listeners and will also share his insights on the future of our industry. LEARN MORE this week on IAQ Radio!
Fri, 05 Jan 2018 12:00:12 -0500 EPISODE488 - Ken Larsen & Mickey Lee - Water Damage Scope of Work.. This week on IAQ Radio we welcome Ken Larsen and Mickey Lee back to the show to continue our hurricane coverage and to discuss tips for how to develop proper scopes of work on water damage restoration projects. Both pros are working in the areas damaged by Hurricane Irma and both are long time water damage restoration pros, contributors to industry standards and instructors.
Ken Larsen, CR, WLS, CSDS has been in the restoration industry since 1978. He holds RIA, ACAC and IICRC advanced designations. His career includes 18 years as an independent property restoration contractor, consultant to restorative drying during catastrophes and large loss drying coordination, expert witness, Director of Education for North America's largest disaster restoration contracting organization, and now the author of one of the industry's leading technical resource books on the subject of structural restorative drying - Leadership in Restorative Drying.
He is currently an IICRC Approved instructor of WRT, ASD and CDS certificate courses. He is also an RIA instructor of the restoration industry's advanced certification credentials: Water Loss Specialist (WLS) and Certified Restorer (CR). He serves as Chairman for RIA approved Instructors, Trainers and Subject Matter Experts, a sub-committee of RIA's Education Committee. Larsen presently serves as Senior Technical Director for the International Dry Standard Organization (IDSO) and Director of Education for the Restoration Leadership Institute (RLI) and lead consultant for the Restoration Expert Panel (REP). Ken lives with his wife Barbie (yes - really!) in Santa Rosa Beach in Northwest Florida. He can be contacted at ken at drystandard dot org.
Mickey Lee is currently a private consultant providing consulting, training, research and writing services in the fields of property damage restoration, psychrometrics, drying science, mold remediation and structural drying after water intrusions. Mr. Lee retired from the Munters Corp (US) in 2011 after serving in various roles for over 20 years. At various points Mr. Lee was Vice-President - Global Technology & Sustainability for Munters AB - MCS and Global and National Technical & Training Manager for Munters Corp (US). He was responsible for training program development, curriculum writing and course facilitation in addition to managing projects for structural drying and restoration of commercial buildings of every type. He also has extensive experience in application of air treatment technology in restorative drying projects, corrosion-control methods, mold mitigation and humidity control in commercial and industrial facilities while working with Munters Corporation - Moisture Control Services Division.
Recognizing his vast experience in water damage restoration the IICRC asked him to lead the development of their Commercial Drying Specialist certification. This program completed its' full roll-out in 2009 and continues to be a popular offering. Mr. Lee continues to serve as committee chair for the Commercial Drying Specialist Certification program and also serves on the IICRC S500 Standard and Reference Guide for Professional Water Damage Restoration revision committee.
Fri, 15 Dec 2017 12:00:11 -0500 EPIS. 487 -Mark Springer, Phil Rosebrook, Jr., Pete Consigli -RIA TPA Conf. This week on IAQ Radio we discuss a topic that gets blood pressure up among some in the restoration world. Third Party Administrators TPAs are a fact of life today in many industries and RIA has been helping their members make the adjustments necessary. This week we welcome two widely respected restoration professionals to IAQ Radio. Mark Springer and Phill Rosebrook are both RIA members and were speakers at the recent RIA Strictly TPAs Fall Conference. We look forward to having them join us along with frequent contributor Pete Consigl.
Mark Springer
If you know Mark Springer, you probably know when the platitude, How are you doing? comes up in conversation, his likely answer is, Living the dream! Thats because its true. Mark has been married to his high school sweetheart, Angie for 20 years and they have been blessed with five beautiful daughters who, fortunately for Mark, take after their mother. Living in Montana accentuates the dream as he is able to pursue doing things he loves like downhill skiing, bow hunting, competitive shooting, and the mountains in general. Its not all hobbies though, Mark also gets to work all over the great state of Montana helping people who have experienced disasters, primarily from fires and floods. He is the President of Dayspring
Restoration, a company that specializes in disaster restoration. Dayspring has 6 locations and about 100 team members. Mark has become a mini, (emphasis on �¢??mini�¢??) celebrity in Montana due to several television advertising campaigns where he flooded and burned his house and then demonstrated to the community the restoration process, (these videos can be viewed at www.calldayspring.com). Giving back to his community and his industry has always been a priority for Mark as he serves on numerous non-profit and trade association committees and boards
Phillip Rosebrook Jr., Cr.
Phillip is a graduate of the University of Oregons Lundquist School of Business. He worked his way through college in the family restoration business. He filled most all roles in the company including working on the cleaning crew, carpet cleaning, water damage emergency services, and other various restoration and construction related services. He ran the retail and wholesale carpet cleaning division managing several employees and coordinating the installation crews.
After college Phillip managed the water damage division and scheduled all company production crews. He managed the branch office in Coos Bay, Oregon and served the Southern Oregon Coast region. The office was in a very rural area of the state with a small population yet the office grew from $300,000 in annual sales to over $1,000,000 under his management. In managing this office he filled every role from Estimator to Marketing Manager. After training the new Manager Phillip returned to the main office with oversight of all branch offices. He served as the Education Committee representative for the Western Chapter of Disaster Kleenup International.
In 1997 when the company sold, Phillip moved to Fort Collins, Colorado to assist in opening a new office for Rocky Mountain Catastrophe. He was in charge of training the new manager, developing the marketing campaign, implementing systems and procedures and training the water damage and cleaning staff. The office quickly grew to over $300,000 in monthly sales.
Phillip joined his father as a Partner in Business Mentors in March of 1998. He specializes in implementing change in restoration companies. He works with the individual managers, key employees and sometimes even the field staff to implement new systems and procedures. He developed the Operations Manual and Personnel Manual that is utilized in all of Business Mentors consulting. He is a frequent presenter at industry conferences, contributing author to the WLI course book and has authored many articles in Cleaning and Restoration magazine. Phillip is the founding partner of ELC Training a training resource for restoration companies. He is also a faculty member of the Restoration Leadership Institute.
Phillip is the father of four children and has been married to Deanna since 2000. He enjoys gardening, hiking, and cycling. Phil lives in Portland, Oregon.
Fri, 08 Dec 2017 12:00:02 -0500 EPISODE486 - Sal La Duca - Principle Environmental Assay, Inc. This week on IAQ Radio we are going to talk about an IEQ issue we do not hear a lot about, electricity and electromagnetic frequencies (EMF's). EMF's and other issues related to electrical currents are increasingly part of our indoor environment, we keep adding them yet we do not know much about how they affect the health of occupants or if they affect health. Is it possible that they have affects we don't understand? We do know that when installed improperly electric systems can cause a variety of issues. We also know how to find improper installations and to how to reduce the potential for exposure. Sal will walk us through the issue in layman's terms and give us ideas on how to find and fix issues. LEARN MORE this week on IAQ Radio!
Sal La Duca is an Environmental Consultant specializing in the built environment, with over 40 years' experience in instrumentation and controls. Mr. La Duca started out as a Nuclear Reactor Operator / Reactor Technician (Instrumentation and Control Technician - Nuclear) on the USS Mississippi . After discharge, he was offered employment by Jersey Central Power and Light to help built a Radiological Survey instrument repair facility at their Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Plant in Forked River, NJ. From there he migrated to the Communications department, where he performed installation, calibration, and repairs of various generations of remote-control supervisory equipment for power system control. In 1994 he incorporated and began offering Electromagnetic Field services to clients. In 1999 he sought and acquired additional training with the Institute of Building Biology and Ecology, and expanded service offerings to include Indoor Air Quality. Since then he has added IAQ certifications through IAQA and ACAC. Most importantly he has real world experience on residential, commercial and industrial projects and takes a practical approach to the topic. LEARN MORE this week on IAQ Radio!
Fri, 01 Dec 2017 12:00:22 -0500 EPISODE485- Nate Adams, Carl Grimes & Eric Shapiro This week on IAQ Radio we are going to discuss what we learned at the Healthy Buildings Summit 2017 at Seven Springs Resort with three industry pros that were in attendance. For those that could not attend we will go over some of the key presentations from the event and discuss how it affects IAQ, disaster restoration, home performance and other industry professionals.
Nate Adams is the founder of Energy Smart Home Performance outside Cleveland Ohio. Energy Smart started out as an insulation contractor for existing homes, but has evolved into doing Comprehensive Home Performance retrofits.
Carl Grimes, HHS CIEC, has consulted with people who have questions or issues with the indoor environment since 1987 as President of Healthy Habitats LLC in Denver, CO. Carl is a frequent presenter nationally and internationally, past President of IAQA, and past Vice President of Practice of ISIAQ. He is the current Managing Director of the Hayward Healthy Home Institute in Carmel, CA, and the Hayward Score Director of Healthy Homes.
Eric Shapiro has extensive experience in Building Maintenance and Environmental Remediation. He also has a Master Degree in Forensic Psychology from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. Mr. Shapiro has extensive training and education in IAQ Investigations, Remediation, Diagnostics, Building Science and Moisture Control. He is also an instructor for an IAQA approved training provider and has helped hundreds of people prepare for various American Council for Accredited Certification ACAC certifications. He is a nationally recognized lecturer and trainer in Microbial Remediation, Inspections, Diagnostics, and Air Duct Cleaning. He is also experienced in training IAQA approved Indoor Environmentalist training programs and the National Center for Helthy Housing Home Health Specialist training.
Fri, 17 Nov 2017 12:00:13 -0500
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