How to Inspect for Mold

Before you combat mold, you have to find it.  Half the battle of dealing with mold contamination is finding out what type of mold is causing the infestation, and where it is growing in your home.  Mold remediation experts use all kinds of fancy equipment to conduct their mold assessments, using air sampling pumps, thermal imaging cameras, moisture meters and other devices to form a clear picture of the contamination in the area.  Certainly, their methods will prove very accurate in determining the problem, but such an assessment can also be very expensive.  Fortunately, there are also a number of cheap but effective ways to detect and test for mold using easily obtainable objects.

Clear adhesive tape, used in many a detective thriller to lift prints from a murder weapon or victim’s possession, may likewise be used to collect mold samples from suspected or visibly moldy areas.  Though it may seem unsophisticated, obtaining mold with tape can actually be a more reliable detection method than spot checks of air samples, which are inherently unstable, or culture samples.  Also, if the mold growth is at an early stage, it may not yet be releasing mold particles into the atmosphere, making a surface test the only way to acquire information.  However, the accuracy of this test is highly dependent on where you stick the tape.  Simply lifting random samples from arbitrary surfaces increases the possibility that one will miss out on a serious infestation sign, or a species of mold that is inherently more harmful than conventional house mold.  Also, though surface tests will readily obtain data about mold that is fairly visible, the infestation may actually be present in concealed locations, which would be difficult to reach with the tape. 

Conversely, the virtue of an air sample is that hidden mold typically releases significant quantities of particles into the air, allowing an air capture to detect its nearby presence.  Air samples may be obtained through devices called particulate sampling cassettes, which are designed to quickly collect a wide variety of airborne elements.  It is recommended, then, that in every area of potential contamination, both a surface sample and an air sample be taken for a more accurate mold inspection.

Samples can also be taken from building surfaces by swabbing the area, using a cotton “Q-tip” that has been dampened with a sterile solution.  Wall checks should be made in narrow crevices and locations that show signs of water damage, and testing in general should be conducted wherever moisture is likely to collect.  All samples taken can be sent to a laboratory for reliable testing and identification, to help identify the species of mold that is infesting the area, as well as the level of contamination that you may be facing.

Of course, these mold testing methods are not without their drawbacks.  The accuracy of the sampling being dependent on what surface you are testing at any given time, there is always the chance that you will identify a benign species of mold instead of the real threat, or raise red flags for a heavy contamination when the situation is much less dire.  However, as an initiatory step towards resolving your mold problem, detection is usually a good start.

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