If you like wasting money on things that aren’t accurate, then home mold test kits are for you. You can find them at all the major home improvement stores. But if you prefer to spend your money wisely and get actual value from the dollars that you spend, then please don’t buy these kits.
Most people think we’re biased when we give this advice, because the Do It Yourself kits takes money out of our pockets. Nothing could be further from the truth. You are only wasting your money with the home mold testing kits.
For starters, there is mold everywhere. Mold is natural in our environment, so most likely if you buy a do it yourself home mold test kit, with a petri dish or some other media, it will come back with mold and/or mold growth. Even though this might not make sense initially, having small amounts of mold in your home, office or duct work is not always a problem.
Every home in America will have mold counts of some kind. Every time you open a window or a door, or you or your pet walks in from outside, you will have brought mold spores into your home. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve caused a problem, because it’s natural. So, when these home mold test kits show that you have mold, your natural inclination is to panic. But we all have some amounts of mold in our homes.
Just because your do it yourself mold test kit says you have mold, doesn’t necessarily mean you have a problem. So you’ll still need to call a mold inspection expert to test your home and take samples that are actually helpful. Spending money on a home mold test kit to tell you that you have mold is a waste of money, because everyone has mold. You need to know if your mold count is elevated from the outside, to know if you have an actual problem inside your home that needs attention. There’s no way to know that without a control sample being taken outside.
Without a proper pump being used to measure the mold spore count and air flow in cubic units, you won’t know if you have elevated counts, which is how you are going to be able to tell if you have a mold problem that needs remediation.
You really have to be careful to catch lab inaccuracies and avoid personal mishandling of the samples. If you send off a do it yourself mold test kit, you have to make sure everything has been done correctly for accurate results. That means you need to know if the mold test kit you bought is expired or not, which is difficult because a lot of these kits don’t have expiration dates on them.
It also means that you need to be properly trained to handle these sensitive materials properly and ship them properly. You also need to make sure you choose a good, accredited lab so you get accurate information. We’ve seen many times where someone asks us to analyze their lab results, because they don’t know how to. Or, they’ve been told the counts are high, when they actually aren’t, or they’ve been told they are low, when they are actually high. There are too many variables affecting proper, accurate results to expect a homeowner to get accurate results with a home mold test kit.
Not only are these home mold kits not accurate, but you’ll end up spending more money than you expected. While the kits themselves may only be $10, you still have to mail those samples off to a credible third party lab to analyze for you.
Most of the time, the lab testing will cost you an additional $40-$50 per sample. By the time you are done, you could have paid a professional to take the samples for you and received accurate results. When you have Dog Gone Mold handle your mold testing in Springfield Missouri, you get a plan of action if remediation is going to be necessary, and/or steps to fix your problem. We will also analyze the lab results for you, so you don’t feel like you are reading a bunch of jargon that you don’t understand.
Don’t waste your hard earned money and time on kits that aren’t going to give you the information you need to make a proper decision on mold remediation. Call Dog Gone Mold and save the hassle.