 |
 |
| | 1/5/2009 9:55:49 PM |
As mold becomes more prominent, businesses that sell testing and remediation services have flourished. But regulation has remained scarce.
So for now, a couple of adages apply: Buyer beware, and prevention beats treatment.
From public health agencies to people who peddle books or miracle mold-killers, there's no shortage of consultants eager to tell you what to do about a potential mold problem. In the absence of a government program to cull the bad apples, a handful of industry groups have developed their own mold remediation standards and certification programs. They're motivated partly by a desire to help consumers, and partly in the hope of staving off heavy-handed bureaucracy.
"Industry is always better at regulating and monitoring itself," says Jim Holland, who owns the indoor environmental services and training firm Restoration Consultants of Sacramento. "An industry that doesn't self-regulate is going to be regulated by government."
Still, the quality of industry-sponsored training programs can vary widely, warns Sandra McNeel, a research scientist with the state Department of Health Services. And some unscrupulous people working as mold remediators have no training at all.
"It's pretty easy to open up a company and start these kinds of services," McNeel says. "You do have to become kind of an educated consumer. People should at least do enough reading in this area to know that there is no one protocol that is an agreed-upon standard."
Do it/don't do it yourself: Even the experts offer what sounds like conflicting advice.
Consider this statement from a Department of Health Services fact sheet on indoor air quality: "Mold inspection and cleanup is usually considered a housekeeping task that is the responsibility of homeowner or landlord." The sheet continues by offering tips for cleaning small amounts of mold. Wear a respirator, rubber gloves and clothing that can be thrown away. Toss porous materials, like carpeting and wallboard, after sealing them in plastic bags. Wash down hard surfaces, like hardwoods and metal, with a non-ammonia household cleaner. Allow everything to dry for two or three days.
But Texas Tech University mold expert David Straus recommends that homeowners not try to clean up toxic mold themselves.
"Have a professional do it," says Straus, a professor of microbiology and immunology who lost part of his hearing after an exposure to stachybotrys. "The area needs to be contained. ... If you get somebody doing remediation and they don't know mold and haven't done this before, they could spread it throughout the house."
Virtually all mold experts agree on one thing: The first step to controlling a mold infestation is finding and stopping the sources of moisture that allow mold to live and grow.
"Mold only grows in a building because there's water in places where it shouldn't be," Straus says. "The most important thing is to figure out why there's water intrusion, and correct that first."
$50 to $100 per sample: Telltale signs of mold include "discolored patches or cottony or speckled growth on walls or furniture" or an "earthy or musty odor," according to the state Health Services Department.
If that sounds vague, it's because there are so many different kinds of mold. Toxic mold can be difficult to detect even when present in significant quantities.
If you can see a patch of mold the size of a St. Bernard eating its way across your dining room wall, then you know you've got a serious problem. But what if you've only got a little bit of mold? Or what if you can't see it, but you suspect it's there?
"The first thing people should do is not panic," says Straus. There's a dose effect to mold exposure, he explains. A little mildew in your bathroom won't kill you, and people can reduce their risk of health problems from more serious mold infestations by finding the offending fungi early and limiting their exposure to it.
Then Straus offers a less comforting thought. "When you see mold growth," he says, "it's usually the tip of the iceberg."
In other words, if you see a tiny spot of mold in some corner of your house, then you may have a whole bunch more behind the walls, in the attic, in the air conditioning system. ...
The surest way to determine what kinds of mold you've got is to hire an experienced air quality professional to take some samples. Indoor air consultants can test for mold spores in samples of air and settled dust, says Susan Evans, Western regional manager for the indoor air consulting firm Air Quality Sciences Inc., an Atlanta company with an office in Fairfield. Where mold is visible, consultants can collect specimens by cutting out samples of the moldy material or by pressing a piece of shiny cellophane tape into it.
Each type of method costs about $50 to $100 per sample, she says. Multiple samples are necessary.
The state Department of Health Services recommends against hiring contractors to inspect for mold in homes and apartments. Testing the air for mold spores is expensive, often costing several thousand dollars. It's seldom covered by insurance. And then there's the question of what to do with the data the contractor collects, since there are no widely accepted standards for what constitutes a "safe" amount of mold.
Maybe you just get cracking: In cases where visible mold is present in a home, professional sampling may not be the best idea, Evans agrees.
"If mold is visible, then it's apparent it needs to be taken out," Evans says. "You're generally talking several thousand dollars to have a consultant come in and do the testing. If you have visible mold, you're better off spending the money to get it properly remediated."
But there are a couple of situations in which professional testing is warranted, she adds. If mold is suspected but not visible, then it's a good idea to hire a professional to test for the presence of molds rather than rip out walls to see what's there, Evans says. Also, professional sampling is necessary for business owners or others who hire remediation professionals and need a letter of clearance afterward to show that mold is no longer present.
This will become more important if mold disclosure legislation passes, Evans says. Real estate professionals will need to hire professional indoor air consultants to sample properly from the beginning, so they can show that mold is cleaned up.
State Sen. Deborah Ortiz's Senate Bill 1763, which the legislator dropped in late June with plans to reintroduce it next session, would have required insurers and their representatives to immediately disclose to policyholders when they suspect mold is present. The bill also would have required insurance companies to cover mold damage that results from a loss covered by an insurance policy, such as a burst pipe.
Evans recommends against buying mold-testing kits for home use.
"It's very difficult to get a good interpretation of the results from those test kits," she says.
Self-help or snake oil? People who are easily parted from their cash are easy victims for snake-oil salesmen peddling products for detecting and cleaning mold in the home. Many mold remediation experts recommend steering clear of air cleaners, chemicals and other home-use products advertised as mold-killers.
The state Air Resources Board warns that there's little data on the health benefit of air-cleaning devices, and some can even pollute the air more by emitting ozone, a major component of smog.
Ozone reduces your ability to smell, so it may make a room seem cleaner. But it also irritates the eyes, nose and throat, and long-term exposure can cause permanent respiratory damage.
Besides, Evans says, "if people say they have something that will clean mold out of the air, you have not addressed the problem of the source of the mold."
Bleach and other "biocides" do kill mold, but usually only at the surface, leaving a layer of resilient, living mold underneath. Even dead mold can cause allergic reactions, and either way the mold problem will still be there. On top of that, you're probably adding some nasty chemical vapors to the air in your house.
Most mold experts agree that the only effective way to "clean" mold from a building is to physically remove it. If you've got just a couple square inches of mold on a wall, you can probably remove it yourself if you're careful not to spread the mold and to seal the contaminated materials in plastic bags before throwing it away, experts say.
If you've got a pervasive or large-scale mold problem, or if you can't figure out where the water is coming from that's feeding the mold, it's time to bring in the experts.
Some experts just think they are: Finding a mold remediation company isn't difficult. The state Department of Health Services maintains a list of companies that will do such work in California. Professional associations that train remediators keep lists of individuals they've certified. Or you can look in the yellow pages under "Mold Remediation."
More complicated is screening these companies to determine which ones can deliver on their promises.
"There's a saying among certain groups of consultants that `Mold is gold,' " Evans says.
"A whole cottage industry has sprung up here," says David Frenznick, an attorney with Wilke, Fleury, Hoffelt, Gould & Birney who handles mold-related claims. "It seems like everybody's getting into the act. We now have home inspectors who are completely unregulated."
Some consultants think it's a piece of cake to jump into the mold business when they don't have a clue how to effectively sample and remediate mold, experts warn. There are no widely recognized standards for proper sampling and remediation techniques. Professional training varies widely.
"We have people getting into the market saying they're indoor environmental consultants, and they have a day's training," says Holland of Restoration Consultants.
Experts say the key to finding a good remediation specialist is to find someone who has done it before.
"Talk to the consultant and find out the depth of their experience," Evans says.
Industry certification programs offered by nonprofit groups can demonstrate a minimum amount of training. Restoration Consultants offers three- and four-day courses for mold remediators, and has trained more than 10,000 people since 1997. In 2000 his company began working with the Indoor Air Quality Association to train certified mold remediators, and more recently the company started training applied microbial remediation technicians for the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification.
"Any training program should have third-party certification," Holland says. Credentials offered by the certification groups are subject to peer reviews, require minimum levels of experience and education, and often require follow-up training.
New technologies: An upside to the mold problem is the rise in innovative ways of testing and dealing with the nasty stuff.
Steve Furnas saw the demand for mold diagnostics coming about 31/2 years ago. At the time he was working with California Laboratory Services in Rancho Cordova, which performs chemical analyses of water and soil samples. He set out to find an off-the-shelf microscope he could use for mold inspections, but couldn't find anything suitable.
"I wanted a microscope that could actually go out to the field," he says. It had to be light, portable and able to operate off a 12-volt battery. Plus he wanted to be able to use the Internet to send photos of mold samples from the buildings where they were collected to a laboratory where technicians could analyze them.
Today Furnas is president of Digital Diagnostic Systems LLC, which licenses mold analysis systems to real estate brokers, insurance companies, property management firms and construction contractors across the country. The company's clients create slides of mold samples, put them in the microscope, take pictures of the images, and send the images to Digital Diagnostic's Rancho Cordova laboratory for analysis within 24 hours.
Furnas says Digital Diagnostic started licensing the system last year, and now has 24 such licenses.
"Our growth curve," he says, "is straight up."
Heading it off at the Sheetrock: Another local company, Pureair Technologies of Sacramento, has tapped into the mold market by offering an ultraviolet light system that fits into air conditioning units to kill molds and bacteria that may be present inside.
Mionix Corp. of Rocklin believes it may have a promising technology for mold control on the horizon. It sells liquids with some of the properties of acids that are deadly to microorganisms but safe for skin. So far the company has marketed its products only as food preservatives, but it has been exploring the possibilities of incorporating it in cleaning products to kill mildew in the shower, and is even looking at whether it could be used in wallboard to help it resist mold.
The adage about an ounce of prevention may be especially apt for mold. All the publicity about the mold problem is generating interest in mold-resistant building materials.
Straus says his laboratory is developing a liquid that could be added to gypsum wallboard to prevent fungal and bacterial growth. A small venture-capital firm in Austin, Texas, has funded the research, and Straus says the product is "fairly close" to commercialization.
AK Steel of Middletown, Ohio, has introduced a line of steel products coated with paint blended with silver ions, which the company claims suppresses the growth of molds and bacteria. They're pushing the use of their steel for a host of uses, including for wall panels, doors and ventilation ducts.
But ultimately the key for dealing with mold will probably be a change in the way we maintain homes and businesses, Holland says, rather than the advent of new technologies.
"We have the technology right now to build buildings so we don't have any problems," Holland says. "People need to recognize that wet buildings are a problem, and they need to solve that problem in the way they maintain their homes."
© Copyright 2009 The Miller Law Firm. All rights Reserved.
If you experience problems or have questions, contact us at Info@ConstructionDefects.com.
|
|
|