When performing a mold inspection, our main goal is to find out if your home has a mold problem that needs to be addressed. But just as important as determining whether there’s a mold problem or not during our mold inspection is figuring out why you have mold. What are the potential sources causing mold to grow inside your home?
Once finding mold inside your crawl space, we need to understand why mold is growing in this area. During our mold inspection, our certified mold inspectors use a variety of mold sampling tools to help track down the source, not just the problem. It doesn’t do you any good if we can tell you that you have a mold problem, but can’t tell you how stop the problem from happening again.
Some of the most common sources of mold growth are water leaks and high humidity. Sometimes tracking down these problems are easy, but many times they are not. It’s not always as obvious as pointing out a dishwasher or hot water leak that’s left standing water or stains. Many times, it’s the hidden moisture sources that are causing a problem, such as a leaky pipe behind a wall, or high humidity inside a closet that can lead to crawl space mold issues.
With the use of a moisture meter, we can test sheetrock, paneling, wood, and other materials to determine if there has been a hidden leak that has caused these items to be wet. This can provide the environment for mold growth. We also use hygrometers to read humidity levels. Sometimes a leak is not present, no water intrusion of any kind is found, but the humidity levels are high. High humidity inside the home is enough to cause mold growth on clothes, carpet, cabinets, walls or just about anywhere.
By using the proper tools during our mold inspections and doing the proper investigating, you can rest assured that when we are done, you’ll have the answers you need to fix your problem. With a detailed, step by step report of the treatment process needed and the necessary steps to stop the moisture source, we will have you breathing healthy, clean air again in no time.