Remediations
Mold – Bacteria – Asbestos – Lead – Radon
- Consultant vs. Doing it Yourself:
- MOLD
- RADON
- LEAD
- ASBESTOS
Our company consists of Registered Architects, Certified Indoor Air Quality Professionals, Contractors, and Certified Mold Remediation Supervisors. Our personnel have years of experience understanding the construction of buildings and how mold problems occur. We have done 1000’s of Remediations and have education and experience to create a cost effective solution to your problems that won’t contaminate you or your building.
We recommend an initial and final sample because you cannot always see mold. You may see mold growing in one place, but unless an air sampling is done of the building there is no way of knowing the extent of the mold infestation. We always take an outdoor sample as a baseline sample. Since mold is naturally occurring the only way to know what is going on inside is to compare it to what is going on outside. When you find much higher spore counts inside than outside or find species inside that are not outside then there potentially is a problem. We take a final sample after the remediation, to show the effectiveness of cleaning.
We use an independent Laboratory in Kansas City, that is certified by the American Industrial Hygiene Association and headed by a Doctor of Mycology, who is recognized as a leader in his field.
We have been doing mold inspections for over 20 years. Our team of Mold Specialists are certified in all areas of testing and remediation.
Our testing method is done by air sampling. The reason we choose to do air sampling over other types of mold sampling is multifold.
1). Air samples tell you what is in the air you’re actually breathing. Often you can’t see mold, but you can smell it or are just feeling sick. Air samples are an effective tool for analyzing the quality of your indoor air. Even if you see mold in one area of your house, by having the air sampled in different room, you can determine if there is mold growing in places not seen.
2). We do not recommend culture or swab samples because this requires knowledge of what molds are already there to know which media to use to grow the samples on. Fungus (mold) is very specific as to what it will grow on. Not all molds grow on any one type of media, so if you try to culture a mold and it is on a media it doesn’t like it won’t grow. It doesn’t mean it’s not in the building it just means it won’t grow on that particular media. The other problem with culture samples, when not used correctly, is that you are only sampling that which happens to fall on the Petri dish, or in the case of a swab that which happens to be on the few inches of surface on which the swab was run. Air samples actually take in 15 liters of air per minute so you are obtaining a more accurate ideal of what is actually in the air.
The key to air samples is to take an outside (baseline) sample in addition to the air samples taken in the building. The reason for doing this is because mold is naturally occurring, what you expect to see in the inside sample is the same spore count or lower than the outside sample. If the inside spore count is significantly elevated that indicates the possibility of mold growth inside.
3). Air samples are useable in legal cases.
We use the state of the art femto-tech continuous radon monitor. This monitor can test the air in your home or building for at least 24 hrs. (per EPA protocol). It gives an instant average reading, as well as a reading every hour.
Radon is an odorless gas that is produced from the breakdown of Uranium in the earth. It gets in to buildings via breaks in the concrete, and crawl spaces. Radon is a known human lung carcinogen. Prolonged exposure to high levels of radon can cause lung cancer. There are no immediate symptoms of radon exposure and smokers have a higher risk of developing lung cancer. The EPA recommends installing radon mitigation systems in homes with high levels of Radon (levels above 4 picocuries per liter (pCi/L).
For more information go to EPA’s site on Radon
To test if there is already a contamination of Lead in your building, lead dust wipes are used. We also use the NITON XRF to test for lead. The NITON can penetrate under layers of paint to see if Lead paint exists. This is useful if your are planning to do any remodeling, and want to make sure you do not contaminate your building and its occupants. Old lead based paint is the most common of lead exposure in the United States today. When lead-based paint is removed by methods such as scraping or sanding there is the potential to contaminate the buildings’ occupants, even if the paint is outside. This is due to the fact that you can bring the lead particles in on your shoes and clothes.
Lead can effect your entire body. Even low levels of lead can harm you. The EPA is a great resource on information about Lead and what you should do to keep from harming yourself or your family.
Click here to go to EPA’s website on Lead
Asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral. It is composed of long, thin fibers which are mined. Asbestos is divided into two groups- serpentine and amphibole. The difference between the two is their crystalline structure. Chrysotile accounts for 95% of the asbestos used, and is the only type in the serpentine group. It is commonly known as “white asbestos�? which is its natural color.
There are five types of asbestos found in the amphibole group. Amosite is the most commonly used of this type in building materials. In its natural state it is brown in color, and is most commonly used as pipe insulation wrapping for old boiler pipes.
Asbestos has been commonly used, before its health effects were known, due to its availability, low cost, strength, and naturally fireproofing abilities. It was most commonly found in attic insulation, wall board, roofing materials and as a sprayed on material such as popcorn style ceiling texture.
Asbestos is still in use today. Though it was banned, the banned was overturned for items for which a reasonable replacement could not be found. Asbestos is still found in
Roofing tar and some glues.
Though a certified Asbestos Inspector can tell you what materials are suspect for asbestos, there is no way to know for certain if something has asbestos without testing the material. This is a fairly low cost procedure.
All of our asbestos inspectors are AHERA certified and combined have over 50 years of experience doing asbestos inspections and designing asbestos abatement projects.
© 2008 Architectural & Environmental Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.