What does it take to remove mold effectively? In this episode, we break down the process of mold remediation step-by-step, from containment and cleanup to ensuring the mold doesn’t return. Learn how to hire the right professionals, what questions to ask, and how to avoid scams or unnecessary expenses.
We address common concerns: you can stay in your home during remediation, what it costs and if you can do it yourself. Whether you're dealing with a small mold problem or a major infestation, this episode is your guide to understanding how to get the job done right and restore a healthy living environment.
TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome back to The Mold Money Podcast.
I'm Daniel Stih, your host.
Today's topic is mold remediation.
First question, how do I get rid of mold?
You have to first fix the source of moisture.
If it's a roofy leak, a bad window, otherwise the mold will grow back.
You can sand all the wood, treat it.
It's going to grow back unless you also dry stuff out.
And then it's remove.
You must remove the mold.
There's a standard for mold remediation, the S520 Professional Standard for Mold Remediation.
It depends on what type of material.
There's three classifications.
It's a hard surface like glass or metal.
You just wipe it off with soap and water.
If this is like mold on your window, the glass, you literally scrub it with soap and water and it's gone.
Gone is the key word, get rid of it.
If it's semi-porous, wood framing is an example.
Wood is a perfect example, semi-porous.
You have to sand or wire brush it off.
And then, of course, porous material would be paper, drywall, which is what your walls are made out of typically in American homes.
That's porous.
It literally has a paper backing.
You must tear it out and throw it away.
There is no other way.
There is nothing else to treat it with, kill it, whatever you read or hear.
This is the standard.
That's how you get rid of it.
And then the mess you just clean up with soap and water, the dust, the whole work area.
Can I clean mold myself or do I need a professional?
If you've been listening to my podcast and you read my book Mold Money, How to Save Thousands of Dollars and Make Sure the Mold is Gone, I wrote that book because I was so frustrated and disbelief at what I would see professionals do who charge tens of thousands or even a hundred thousand dollars.
So, yes, you can clean it yourself.
Do not follow the EPA guidelines in the state of Florida adopted them and some other organizations because they didn't understand what they're based on.
They're originally based on the New York City Department, Health Department's guidelines.
Square footage.
Do not base, can I clean it myself, do I need a professional on square footage?
Why is this?
If you ask anybody who has had mold and you ask them, how many square feet of mold did you have?
Ask, how many square feet did you see before you open the wall?
They're going to tell you ten times more inside the wall once they cut the wall open than what they were looking at.
So how do you know?
So don't follow guidelines on square footage.
Follow them on, do I want to do it myself?
And will a professional do it properly?
No.
Which gets us back to, you kind of have to do it yourself.
Or you don't want to, you're a hard professional, but it has nothing to do on square footage or health and safety.
Even the professionals tell you story after story, they're in my book Mold Money.
You pay, they make mistakes, they're not trained, they have new people, whatever their excuse is, they're just in and out real fast.
Even though they put stickers on the door, they don't want to, and they're hazmat, they're saying it's hazardous.
That's because they don't want you to see what they're doing.
It's smoke and mirrors show, dog and pony show.
Things go wrong.
It's not as safe as they make it seem anyhow.
What does mold remediation involve?
First thing is the word containment, which means when you're removing the mold, cleaning it even with soap and water or scrub, you're cutting it out.
You want all the dust.
Don't think mold, think dust.
You want all the dust to stay in the work area.
What kind of engineering does it take to make that happen?
You'll hear the word air scrubbers or negative air machines.
They're the same thing.
It's a machine that just sucks air and blows it outside, creating a vacuum, a suction, kind of like a big vacuum cleaner.
You put that in the middle of the room that you're taking the mold out of, maybe it's your kitchen, and you hang plastic floor to ceiling over the entry between, say, the kitchen and the hallway to the living room or the dining room.
You're trying to make the containment area, the work area, as small as possible so your suction is good.
That way, when you're tearing out kitchen cabinets, for example, all it does is get sucked into the scrubber, which has a filter to capture it before it blows the clean air into the neighborhood.
And none of it can go down your hallway into your bedrooms.
That's containment.
You could buy your own air scrubber and give it to your contractor and set up the containment.
And then if your contractor doesn't know how to do mold remediation, you just tell them, forget about the word mold.
Just take the cabinets out.
And when you're done, I'm going to come back and tell you what to do next, which is wire brush the framing or tear the framing out too, which is a lot easier for contractors.
And then all that's done is soap and water, clean the work area really good, and you are done.
No treatments.
You don't need to treat it if it's gone.
How much should it cost?
I typed this into AI on the Google.
Cost range from $1,500 to $10,000.
We all know that it's probably $3,000 to $5,000 minimum if you're having anybody competent do it.
You can't really go by that question because you could get scammed for $100,000 and not realize you could have had it done halfway decently for $5,000 or $10,000.
You really need to understand, break it down, the skin, why we're having this conversation.
What really needs to be done?
What do I need to remove?
Do I need to really remove my kitchen cabinets?
Probably if the mold's in the wall behind them.
You kidding yourself?
You think you can get it all clean without taking them out?
That's the factor.
The air scrubber, the containment, the people, that's kind of a fixed cost.
It's really what do I need to tear out?
And how long is that going to take?
And how much work?
Once you get a handle on that, it's pretty consistent.
Next question is, what's the difference between mold removal and mold remediation?
None.
Zero.
You should always remove mold.
The word remediation kind of sounds like we're in court or something.
Mediation.
No.
Mold has to be removed.
Mold growth, by the way.
Some people say, well, isn't there mold everywhere?
The term in the standard is mold growth.
A mold spore?
Yeah, it could be anywhere in the environment.
Mold growing?
No.
Shouldn't be in your house.
Period.
End of story.
How long does it take?
One to five days is a good number.
It really depends on you're going to sign a contract, how soon before they can get over to your house.
Are you going to have testing done?
Because if you have someone come in and do an inspection, and testing afterwards, they're going to have to shut it down till that person comes.
And if they find something, go back, do more work, and so forth.
Honestly, it's probably a day to set up the air scrubber in the containment.
It's a lot of work to really seal off and make sure that nothing's going to escape into the rest of your house.
It's a good half day to full day of work.
And then a good day to really rip everything out.
And then you should really let the dust settle overnight, and go back in the morning with the soap and water in the vacuum, and really, really, really, really clean, wipe down every single wall of soap and water.
So that's three days.
But then you got to rebuild.
Is it safe to stay in the house during mold remediation?
When I put this into the Google and the AI, it says it is safer to leave if the work area involves significant mold or chemicals.
Significant mold shouldn't be a factor.
If you're paying for engineering controls, the HEPA filter and stuff, it doesn't matter how much mold, and you know how much there's going to be.
So that's false.
It doesn't, shouldn't be based on, can I stay in my house?
Depends on how much mold.
No, the factor is those air scrubbers are noisy, and you have people coming and going.
Personally, I'd want to be there so that I can see when they come and go, how often, what they're doing.
It's the only way you make sure they're doing what needs to be done, and they're not charging you for time they weren't there.
Chemicals, there shouldn't be any chemicals.
It should be soap and water.
But that is a big problem, because most of the time, it is the chemicals that are horrible.
And I've had a lot of cases where litigation, I've been an expert witness.
The mold wasn't the problem.
It was the chemicals that the remediator used.
They didn't follow the standard.
The standard says that it's some due diligence and standard of care that the remediator supply the homeowner with the list of everything that's going to be used ahead of time and get written approval.
Never happens.
So then they sprayed some that they weren't supposed to.
And new problem, a smell, which is the worst.
It's harder to get rid of a smell than the mold.
It's ruined a lot of people's lives, the chemicals.
AI and Google's throwing that back at me when I ask them, what do people commonly think?
Is it safe to stay at my home?
And it's saying, it's safer to leave if there's going to be significant molded chemicals.
It's basically telling us there's a problem with this whole industry.
It shouldn't matter how much mold there is, and there shouldn't be any chemicals.
So last question is, how can I be sure the mold is gone?
So this is where post-remediation verification testing, which has turned into a whole dog and pony show.
Number one, there shouldn't be a smell.
That's in the standard.
Some remitteds will argue with me, well, you just have a good nose.
There shouldn't be a smell, which by the way is the reason not to use the chemicals other than soap and water, non-fragrant soap and water, because otherwise you can't see if the smell is actually gone, the mold smell.
Number two is to look.
I bring a microscope with me.
Why?
Saves me time having to send it to a lab and get it back, and mold's microscopic.
You can't see it.
It's microscopic.
So I'll pick places on the wood where they quit, where they stop with cuts on the drywall and see is there any mold there.
And if I do, then we don't do air sampling.
Now, unfortunately, how can I be sure the mold is gone?
You will commonly get the answer.
We're going to have poster remediation verification.
The mold inspector is going to come back, take some air samples.
We don't care about the air, literally.
That's not the criteria.
The question was, how do I know the mold is gone?
I'm not asking you to tell me how the air is.
I'm asking you how to know the mold is gone.
So it's three parts, no odor.
Actually, my grandmother's house comes to mind.
I think it was the very first mold remediation job I ever did.
And before I got into testing full-time, it's a conflict to do both.
She was really sick.
They thought she had Alzheimer's disease, losing her memory.
She asked me to clean her house.
She wasn't as sharp.
I found a little mold behind, in her kitchen, behind the range, pulled it out, saw the mold, cut the wall out, followed it, pulled the refrigerator out, took the kitchen cabinet out.
I'm all done.
And I'm like, why does it still smell?
So I cut a hole in the floor.
The water had all gone in the floor.
It was a manufactured home.
There's a plastic barrier on the bottom, a vapor barrier, held all the water in, all the insulation and all the framing was moldy.
It was a huge, huge, huge mess.
Now, if I had just taken air samples, like most people, would I have discovered that mold?
Huge amount.
When it was all clean, great success story, she literally improved her memory, how she felt.
So, it's a three-part thing, how do I know the mold is gone?
You must have a good inspection, to which I tell my clients, before you call the professional, do it yourself, step in there.
If the remediation company tells you it's unsafe, two things to remember.
There's got to be less mold.
You were living in it before, and they're just making excuses to keep you out.
You should be able to step in.
It should be spotless.
You should be able to eat off the floor.
If there's dust, it's not clean, it fails.
And if they go, well, we're talking about, is the mold gone?
It's got to be clean.
That's part of the protocol.
It's not clean.
It fails.
We get stuck up on this, is there mold?
Is there air samples?
It's common sense.
Is it clean?
Does it smell good?
Then we look for mold.
Then we would do air samples.
And if all that's good, myself I would, but rarely you see anybody else do this, mold inspectors.
Put it on paper.
The mold is gone.
Thanks for listening to the Mold Money Podcast.
Next time, I'm going to talk about how to prevent mold, so you don't have any mold problems in the first place.
If you have questions, go to healthylivingspaces.com.
Ask me a question there or book a consultation.
Certified by ACAC • 20+ Years Experience • Author of Mold Money