A Guide to Mold Testing

Mold is a very common problem in homes these days, and although most types of mold are harmless, there are a few types which can be incredibly detrimental to your health.

If you are worried that there may be mold in your home, then you should know that there are a few certain mold testing techniques that you can use in order to see whether or not you are right. There are many different mold testing methods that can be used to detect molds, and they can be used to detect mold particles that are suspended in air, settled in dust, or growing on the surfaces of building materials and furnishings.

More About Mold Testing Methods

There are some methods of mold testing that can identify a portion of the types of live molds in a sampled environment, and but also tend to miss or undercount those which are not live. There are other methods which do not have this problem however, and these are able to better characterize the total amounts of mold in a sample, and yet they are not very good at identifying the actual specific types of mold that are present.

It is important to realize that there are certain limitations to mold testing, and that caution must be used in interpreting surface testing results, since mold growth or deposition may actually not be uniform over an area and thus may either increase or decrease as time passes.

Therefore often times when you test for mold you will only really be given a sort of guideline or outline to follow, and you will have to do much more serious testing in order to get more details.

However even despite these limitations you are able to get positive results. There are situations where testing for mold can be incredibly valuable, and in some cases, tests can also provide clues for you in terms of finding hidden mold, and experienced investigators should evaluate whether testing is warranted and if they are ethical then what should happen is that they should advise against testing if the problem can be corrected without it.

Every homeowner should be on the lookout for mold problems in their home, however you should especially be if your home has serious moisture or humidity issues or if you have had leaking or flooding, for instance. This is because in these sorts of cases your home is much more liable to mold growth and development and so you are going to have to be more on top of the situation in these cases.