Free-Reprint Article Written by: Daryl Watters See Terms of Reprint Below.
***************************************************************** * * This email is being delivered directly to members of the group: * * [email protected] * ***************************************************************** We have moved our TERMS OF REPRINT to the end of the article. Be certain to read our TERMS OF REPRINT and honor our TERMS OF REPRINT when you use this article. Thank you. This article has been distributed by: http://Article-Distribution.com Helpful Link: The Digital Millennium Copyright Act - Overview http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/iclp/dmca1.htm --------------------------------------------------------------------- Article Title: ============== Mold Inspection Tips For Homeowners Article Description: ==================== A few basic tips on how to look for mold and moisture problems around the house. Additional Article Information: =============================== 1539 Words; formatted to 65 Characters per Line Distribution Date and Time: 2007-05-17 11:12:00 Written By: Daryl Watters Copyright: 2007 Contact Email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For more free-reprint articles by Daryl Watters, please visit: http://www.thePhantomWriters.com/recent/author/daryl-watters.html ============================================= Special Notice For Publishers and Webmasters: ============================================= If you use this article on your website or in your ezine, We Want To Know About It. Use the following URL to let us know where you have used this article, and we will include a link to your website on thePhantomWriters.com: http://thephantomwriters.com/notify.php?id=4845&p=load HTML Copy-and-Paste and TEXT Copy-and-Paste Versions Of Article Are Available at: http://thePhantomWriters.com/free_content/db/w/mold-inspection-tips-homeowners.shtml#get_code --------------------------------------------------------------------- Mold Inspection Tips For Homeowners Copyright (c) 2007 Daryl Watters A Accredited Mold Inspection Service, Inc. http://www.floridamoldinspectors.us I once received a call from a potential mold inspection client who feared that she may have hidden mold in her walls. She was concerned about possible hidden mold because a mold inspector told her that the ants observed in her property were a very likely sign of hidden "house mold" because ants eat mold. Forget about house ants Before we discuss a few basic tips on how to look for mold and moisture problems around the house lets talk about how not to find mold. Do not depend on ants to let you know if you have mold. In my home state of Florida as well as in the rest of North America ants are not a sign of mold infestation in your house. They are a sign that you have scraps of food or droplets of water in the house that the ants have discovered. What about leaf cutter ants Some ants eat mold, but these ants are not found in our homes. They do not even live in the United States. These specialized ants (called leaf cutter ants) live in large, underground colonies in the jungles of Central and South America. Furthermore, these ants do not enter people's houses looking for mold not even in the jungles of Central or South America. They tend to their own private gardens of cut-up leaves covered in fluffy, white mold in underground mold farms. They only consume the mold that they raised in underground mold farms they build, and they only grow and eat a very few specific species of mold. If there are any ants in Florida that eat house mold, I have never seen one - despite having done home inspections since 1993 and mold inspections since 2003. I have seen lots of homes, lots of mold, lots of ants and never once have seen ants in the vicinity of the mold. Most ants probably don't like house mold anymore than humans do because of the natural mycotoxins, beta glucans, allergens, and volatile organic compounds mold produces. In fact, it is predators (such as ants, other insects, and microbes) that prompt molds to produce many of the noxious chemicals most house molds produce. Check for odors So what are some signs of mold? if you have had a leak then the first sign of mold will either be musty/moldy odors in the vicinity of the leak. Of course you do not want to be looking for or sniffing for mold, or touching mold if their is even a slight chance that you may have a compromised immune system, allergy, asthma, or any other conditions that would put you at risk of a negative reaction resulting from any form of mold exposure. In addition this article in no way will equip you to conduct your own mold inspection, it is just intended to give you a few simple tips. If you suspect a mold problem contact a certified mold inspector. Check for odors near your AC ducts Another trick to check for mold in your house is to turn your AC off for a while, the longer the better but just several minutes will due if you have a serious problem. Next turn your AC back on and immediately stand directly under the path of air flowing from a duct. If your AC unit or your homes ductwork is contaminated with mold you will smell the musty mold odors blowing in your face. Remember do not do this if you are asthmatic, allergic to mold, or have a compromised immune system, do not do this if their exist any chance that you may have any of the above mentioned conditions or any health conditions that could become a problem as the result of exposure to mold. In ducts the odors build up when the AC is off and may dissipate after the AC has been on for a while. Please note minor moldy odors and minor mold contamination are not unusual in AC units and may not cause a problem for most people. Having a mold inspector sample the air from your ducts may not do you much good because mold in AC units is often vegetative, in other words in may be growing without producing many spores. Further investigation by having an experienced certified mold inspector inspect inside your AC may be of more benefit. Look for mold on AC registers and coils Metal AC register grills become cold as air exiting your duct passes through them. If you have high humidity condensation may form on these registers. AC coils are designed to form condensation when you simply use your AC unit in the cooling mode, this feature helps the system to remove humidity from your air. AC registers in humid buildings and coils in any building have a good chance of forming a mold problem. The bottom sides of AC coils sometimes grow large amounts of velvety Grey cladosporium mold or clear jelly like bacteria masses, and AC register form black cladosporium mold. So check your AC registers & coils for mold. Look for spots in basements and closets Sometimes mold does not start as the result of a leak in your home but may occur as the result of humidity problems, in such cases the mold typically starts in areas with poor circulation such as in basements, closets, and bathrooms and may spread if your homes humidity is above 60%RH to 65%RH. Mold growing on drywall in bathrooms is typically black cladosporium or it may be pen asp. In closets powdery mildew like white or even powdery light green spots of mold are common. To find these molds look for light spots on black clothes, luggage, and shoes, it does not show well on light colored clothes. Look for spots on water damaged building materials Small spots, smug marks, or a powdery residue in the area that became wet is good indication of mold. Most mold spots are black, brown, green, or white. These initial growths of mold are typically very small at just a few millimeters across in the start. One way to tell a smudge mark, a bad paint job, or other marks and stains from mold is to rub it with a dry cloth. Most mold will at least partially rub off or smear and leave a streak mark on the surface. This is because mold is intentionally designed to be friable (easily broken) in addition mold spores are intentionally designed to detach easily for dispersal. Discoloration from scuff marks and paint etc will often not smear easily. Of course this method does not work all the time and is not full proof, but some times it is helpful to a degree in providing some preliminary info on what you may be dealing with. Check window caulking, Hidden mold inside walls is common and one of the primary reasons for hidden mold inside walls is window leaks. If you have even minor hairline defects in your window caulking it may let small amounts of rain water or sprinkler system water into your walls. Moderately or Seriously defective caulking causes many mold problems in this mold inspectors experience. Inspect baseboards When water enters walls if flows down and soaks into your baseboards and causes them to swell, when they dry they shrink. Swelling and drinking causes baseboards to separate from the wall slightly, you will see a small crack between the top of the baseboard and the wall. Water in your walls that causes baseboards to separate from your walls means water and water in your walls that may have caused mold. Check tack strips, Tack strips under your carpet will become stained and rapidly rot if you have water entering your walls. Water in your walls means possible mold in your walls. Peeling your carpet back to see the tack strip located under the perimeters of your carpets may loosen or even damage your carpet, so if your carpet is important to you don't pull it up to check your tack strips. Don't forget your wallpaper If heavy wall paper is installed any moisture that enters these walls will become trapped behind the wall paper, moisture trapped behind wall paper mixed with wall paper glue is a perfect recipe for a serious mold problem. During mold inspections wall paper is not typically peeled thus hidden mold may not always be discovered but it is common to find mold hidden behind wall paper. The vast majority of moldy wall paper is on perimeter walls, as apposed to on interior partition walls. Perimeter walls are the walls of a building that abut the exterior of a building, these walls receive moisture from cracks and defective caulking on the exterior side of the walls. Inspecting behind sections of wall paper may reveal large amounts of hidden mold. If you think you have a house mold problem and are concerned about possible resulting health problems, do not rely on the tips from this article, do not rely on hungry ants, humidity-seeking silverfish bugs, cheap mold inspectors, petri dishes, or divining rods. Hire a professional mold inspector who utilizes moisture meters, humidity meters, borescopes, and air samples to detect mold problems and who provides professional remediation recommendations. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Daryl Watters is president of A Accredited Mold Inspection Service, Inc. He provides home, mold, and indoor air quality investigations in South Florida. He is also the creator of MIR forms designed to aid inspectors in the production of computer generated indoor air quality and mold inspection reports. For more inspection information visit http://www.floridamoldinspectors.us http://www.florida-mold-inspection.com --- END ARTICLE --- Get HTML or TEXT Copy-and-Paste Versions Of This Article at: http://thePhantomWriters.com/free_content/db/w/mold-inspection-tips-homeowners.shtml#get_code ..................................... TERMS OF REPRINT - Publication Rules (Last Updated: May 11, 2006) Our TERMS OF REPRINT are fully enforcable under the terms of: The Digital Millennium Copyright Act http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c105:H.R.2281.ENR: ..................................... *** Digital Reprint Rights *** * If you publish this article in a website/forum/blog, You Must Set All URL's or Mailto Addresses in the body of the article AND in the Author's Resource Box as Hyperlinks (clickable links). * Links must remain in the form that we published them. Clean links should point to the Author's links without redirects having been inserted into the copy. * You are not allowed to Change or Delete any Words or Links in the Article or Resource Box. Paragraph breaks must be retained with articles. You can change where the paragraph breaks fall, but you cannot eliminate all paragraph breaks as some have chosen to do. * Email Distribution of this article Must be done through Opt-in Email Only. No Unsolicited Commercial Email. * You Are Allowed to format the layout of the article for proper display of the article in your website or in your ezine, so long as you can maintain the author's interests within the article. * You may not use sentences from this article as an input for any software that steals sentences from others in order to build an article with software. The copyright on this article applies to the "WHOLE" article. *** Author Notification *** We ask that you notify the author of publication of his or her work. Daryl Watters can be reached at: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** Print Publication Reprint Rights *** If you desire to publish this article in a PRINT publication, you must contact the author directly for Print Permission at: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ..................................... If you need help converting this text article for proper hyperlinked placement in your webpage, please use this free tool: http://thephantomwriters.com/link-builder.pl ===================================================================== ABOUT THIS ARTICLE SUBMISSION http://thePhantomWriters.com is a paid article distribution service. thePhantomWriters.com and Article-Distribution.com are owned and operated by Bill Platt of Stillwater, Oklahoma USA. The content of this article is solely the property and opinion of its author, Daryl Watters http://www.floridamoldinspectors.us --------------------------------------------------------------------- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX ---------------------------------------------------------------------
