A Free-Reprint Article Written by: Daryl Watters Article Title: The Most Popular Mold Testing Methods
See TERMS OF REPRINT to the end of the article. Article Description: Need Florida mold testing information or mold inspector information. Certified Florida based mold assessor and inspection firm serving Broward Dade and Palm Beach County including Miami and Ft Lauderdale. Conduction Florida mold testing IAQ testing for commercial and home house mold and indoor air quality problems. Florida mold inspection. Additional Article Information: =============================== 695 Words; formatted to 65 Characters per Line Distribution Date and Time: 2009-10-13 15:12:00 Written By: Daryl Watters Copyright: 2009 Contact Email: mailto:[email protected] For more free-reprint articles by Daryl Watters, please visit: http://www.thephantomwriters.com/recent/author/daryl-watters.html AND http://www.thePhantomWriters.com/recent/author/daryl-watters.html ============================================= Special Notice For Publishers and Webmasters: ============================================= HTML Copy-and-Paste and TEXT Copy-and-Paste Versions Of Article Are Available at: http://thePhantomWriters.com/free_content/db/w/popular-mold-testing-methods.shtml#get_code --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Most Popular Mold Testing Methods Copyright (c) 2009 Daryl Watters A Accredited Mold Inspection Service, Inc. http://www.floridamoldinspectors.us/ Below are the five most widely used methods of taking mold spore samples from the air during mold inspections. They are used by scientists, industrial hygienists, and mold inspectors. These mold testing methods have been proven over and over by time, legal trial, and third party scientific lab verification for reliability taking into account many complex factors related to aerodynamics and physics. Surface sample methods just do not provide as much quantitative info as the following 5 air sample methods. 1) An Air-O-Cell non viable spore trap with pump calibrated and run at 15 LPM typically run from 1 to 15 min. 2) A Micro5 non viable spore trap with pump calibrated and run at 5 LPM for 1 to 5 min. 3) A CyClex non viable impactor with pump calibrated and run at 20 LPM for 1 to 10 min. 4) A CyClex-d non viable spore trap with pump calibrated and run at 20 LPM for 1 to 10 min. 5) A single stage viable impactor plate, such as an Andersen Impactor or one of it's exact duplicated clones (such as an Aerotech 6, or ems E6 with a pump calibrated and run at 28.3 LPM for 1 to 5 min. The Cyclex from method # 3 above is not used as much as some other methods because it requires a larger up front investment on the part of the mold testing firm. $400.00 one time purchase of a reusable sampler as apposed to the free one time use plastic cassettes provided y labs. In addition to testing 200 liters of air with each sample the CyClex sampler developed by Environmental Monitoring Systems also has a cut off diameter (d50) the size of the smallest spores, this means tiny pen / asp spores just 2 or 3 microns across do not pass through the device and escape unnoticed. Also, the Cyclex typically samples 200 liters or 1/5 of a cubic meter of air, thats a good amount for an air sampler, the more air sampled the more statically reliable the results. The first four methods above are non viable spore traps, this means that live and spores are collected in the sample device to give an idea of the total estimated number of spores per cubic meter of air. This sampling method does not miss spores. This is very important because often spores can be allergenic or potentially toxigenic, regardless of whether they are live. The fifth method above is used for viable air testing. It is not as widely used by mold inspectors because like the CyClex it to has a higher initial investment in equipment around $500.00 for a stainless steel impactor plate with 400 tiny precession drilled holes, as apposed to a simple plastic air testing cassette provided for free by the lab. Also, viable sample results have a longer turn around time 7 to 10 days as apposed to about 3 days for viable methods. Viable sample means that only live mold colonies from live spores or live colony forming units are counted. Though this method does not allow the counting of spores, it is a very important and respected sampling methodology used by professionals for around from the 1950's to the present. It allows for the culture of live mold in the lab. Thus, entire colonies can be examined in the lab for more accurate identification of mold types, sometimes even to the species level. Indoor v.s. Outdoor Mold Spore Levels The most widely accepted guideline across the nation to help determine if indoor mold spore levels are indicative of a possible mold problem is the comparison of indoor and outdoor mold spore levels. Indoor mold spore levels should be similar to or lower than levels found outdoors, and the types of mold spores found in indoor mold test samples should be similar to types found in outdoor test samples. The below listed organizations and governing bodies support the above comparison method and have determined that indoor mold spore levels should be similar in number and type to outdoor mold spore levels and types: NYC DOH, ACGIH 1989, Canada M&H CO. 1991, ACGIH 1993, OSHA 1994, and Brazil 2000. --------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 information visit: http://www.florida-mold-inspection.com/ http://www.floridamoldinspectors.us/Typical-Mold-Testing-procedures.htm http://www.floridamoldinspectors.us/South-Florida-Mold-Testing-Kits.htm --- END ARTICLE --- Get HTML or TEXT Copy-and-Paste Versions Of This Article at: http://thePhantomWriters.com/free_content/db/w/popular-mold-testing-methods.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. 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