Do You Actually Need a Mold Contractor?

Often you do not, and we would rather tell you that than sell you something. The EPA states that if the moldy area is less than about 10 square feet, roughly a three foot by three foot patch, in most cases a homeowner can handle the job themselves, and Louisiana exempts a residential property owner doing mold work on their own property from licensure altogether. What decides it is not the size of the patch on its own, it is whether you know where the water is arriving from.

Already know you need someone out? Call (315) 640-3590.

The 10 square foot line, and the state exemption behind it

The EPA advises that if the moldy area is less than about 10 square feet, less than roughly a three foot by three foot patch, in most cases a homeowner can handle the job themselves. That is a federal size below which you are not expected to hire anybody, and it is worth knowing because it stops a small patch being sold to you as a project. Louisiana agrees from the other direction: R.S. 37:2157(A)(17) exempts a residential property owner who performs mold remediation on his own property from licensure entirely, and extends the same exemption to a tenant, or a managing agent or employee of either, working on property they own or lease. Nothing in state law stands between you and a bucket. Above roughly 10 square feet the federal guidance stops backing a do-it-yourself job, which is the point to take seriously rather than the point at which to panic.

Two federal agencies say you probably do not need testing

This is where most of the money wasted on mold in this market goes. Where growth is visible, EPA guidance says that in most cases a sample adds nothing. It also states that since no EPA or other federal limits have been set for mold or mold spores, sampling cannot be used to check a building's compliance with federal standards, which means a spore count has no published pass mark to be measured against. The CDC's position is shorter: it does not recommend mold testing. So if you can see it, you do not need a laboratory to tell you it is there, and a report built mainly on laboratory numbers is presenting a judgment as though it were a standard. The money is better spent tracing where the moisture comes from. If somebody is selling you an assessment, ask what the moisture investigation consists of before you ask what the testing consists of.

A hygrometer settles most arguments in this city

It is the cheapest instrument in this field and it answers the question people spend hundreds of dollars circling. The EPA advises reducing indoor humidity to between 30 and 60 percent, and the CDC advises keeping it as low as you can, no higher than 50 percent, all day long. Put the meter in the room that smells and read it in August rather than January, because the indoor number drifts up any time the air conditioning is off. If the reading sits comfortably under 50 with the system running, the air in that room is not the problem and you should be looking for a leak. If it will not come down below 60 with the system running, you have a mechanical or a ventilation problem and no amount of cleaning a wall will touch it. Either way you have learned something that a photograph of a stain cannot tell you.

Things worth doing yourself that are real repairs here

Some of the most effective work in this climate is unskilled and cheap. The LSU AgCenter's position is that the interior side of a wall should be as permeable as possible, which rules out vinyl wallpaper, oil-based interior paints and an interior vapor barrier on insulation, and it adds the line worth acting on: having no vapor barrier on the interior side matters more than having a retarder on the outside, and none is preferable to one on the wrong side. So stripping vinyl wallcovering off an exterior wall is a genuine repair in New Orleans, not redecorating. Two more from the EPA. Reduce the potential for condensation on cold surfaces such as windows, piping, exterior walls, roofs and floors by adding insulation, which warms the surface when you cannot dry the air. And do not install carpeting where there is a perpetual moisture problem, or on concrete floors subject to leaks or frequent condensation, which names the standard slab floor in half this metro.

What not to buy: spraying is not remediation

The EPA states that the use of a chemical or biocide that kills organisms such as mold, chlorine bleach for example, is not recommended as a routine practice during mold cleanup. It also states that there is no practical way to remove every mold spore from an indoor space, and that the way to control indoor mold growth is to control moisture. Those two sentences rule out a whole category of purchase. Anything sold as treating your air, fogging a room or killing what is there, with no removal of material and no work on the water, is not what the federal guidance describes. If a quote is mostly chemical application, the question to ask is what happens to the wet material and what happens to the source, and if the answer is nothing, the work will need doing again.

When it stops being a job you should do yourself

Four situations, and they are about the water rather than the mold. First, when it has been wet longer than the window: the EPA's line is that material dried within 24 to 48 hours will in most cases not grow mold, and past that it becomes a removal decision, with absorbent or porous materials such as ceiling tiles and carpet often having to be thrown away. Second, when you cannot reach the wet material, which is most of this metro's housing: on a raised pier and beam house the condensation happens under the floor, and on a slab the plumbing is cast into the concrete and the stain shows a foot from the break, so neither can be read from the visible growth. Third, when it keeps coming back, which means the source is still running. Fourth, when it is well over 10 square feet. In those cases the thing to buy is not removal, it is somebody finding the water.

When the smell has been there for months and there is nothing to see

This is the signature case in New Orleans and it is the one most likely to be misdiagnosed as a roof or a pipe. Because the condensation forms on the interior side of a low-permeance layer, the growth sits on the back of the wallpaper, the back of the drywall or the cavity side of the insulation, so a homeowner smells it for months and then one day finds a stain that appears to have no source. The source is the room's own air conditioning. NOAA's normals put the mean dew point at 75.2F in July and 75.1F in August, at or above the temperature a cooled house holds its walls at, and four finishes turn the wall into the place where that water lands. You cannot settle this one yourself with a bucket, and you also should not let anyone settle it by chasing the roof. A small inspection square cut where the moisture readings point will answer it in an afternoon.

One thing not to do, even though everyone recommends it

Do not open the windows to dry a room out in summer. This is the most common piece of advice given here and in this climate it is backwards. The EPA's target is indoor relative humidity below 60 percent. NOAA's normals for this station put mean relative humidity at 76 percent for the year and 88 percent at 6am, with a July mean dew point of 75.2F, and air at a 75.2F dew point is already saturated at 75F. There is no hour of a summer day when outdoor air will bring a room in this city below the EPA number. Airing it out imports water rather than removing it, and it is worst in the morning when the instinct is strongest. Close the house, run the air conditioning, add a dehumidifier, and measure the result rather than guessing at it.

If you do hire someone, the three things to check first

Check the name on the quote against the board's Contractor Search, which is free, takes a contractor name, license number, city, parish or qualifying party, and returns only currently active licenses. Ask who is doing the assessment and who is doing the removal, because R.S. 37:2158(A)(19)(c) makes it a violation for a mold remediation contractor to perform both on the same property, and (d) closes the two-companies-one-owner version, though both duties only attach above seven thousand five hundred dollars in labor and materials. And ask for the written report: above that figure it is a legal duty under (a), and the statute also makes it a violation to render false, deceptive, misleading or unfounded opinions, so an alarming verbal finding with nothing behind it is a named problem in this state rather than merely a sales technique.

What we do, and when it is worth involving us

We arrange the work rather than perform it, and we arrange it in the order the law in this state requires: the assessment with one firm, the removal with another, separately owned, because R.S. 37:2158(A)(19)(c) and (d) bar one entity or one owner from doing both on a property above the threshold. We keep to that below the threshold too, where nothing requires it, because an opinion about how much has to come out should not be written by the people paid to take it out. If you have read this far and concluded the job is yours, good, that is the right outcome and it costs you nothing. If the area is large, if you cannot find the water, if it has come back, or if what you are describing is a smell with no visible source in a cooled house in August, tell us what you are seeing and we will arrange for somebody to find the water and put the findings in writing.