Mold Remediation Done Right with The IEP Group — What to Know Before You Start

Think you might have mold in your home? You’re not alone — but where you start makes all the difference. In this episode of Hey, You’re Gonna Be OK, Elizabeth sits down with a trusted indoor air professional from The IEP Group to unpack what really goes into a quality mold inspection and why it’s the foundation for successful remediation.

We cover:
✅ Why “drive-by” inspections fail families and waste money
✅ The exact tools and steps a great inspector should use
✅ How to spot red flags in remediation advice (like bleach, ozone, or quick cover-ups)
✅ Why insurance doesn’t always cover mold — and what homeowners need to know
✅ The prevention habits every family can use to keep mold from coming back

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed at the thought of remediation — or wondered whether DIY fixes are safe — this episode will give you clarity and confidence. Because your home can become a safe place to heal.

✨ Don’t miss the free resource that goes with this episode

Please note that transcripts may contain minor errors or inaccuracies. We hope you enjoy reading them and find them helpful.

Hey, you're going to be okay. I'm Elizabeth Mae, and my functional health practice helps people heal when they've exhausted traditional options. When no one else can figure health challenges out. My team helps you resolve symptoms and restores your health. You're listening to my podcast where we'll hear stories of healing chronic illness from a root cause approach.

I get it, but here's the truth cutting corners here often means wasted money and ongoing illness and not really resolving the mold issue. So today I'm joined by Benjamin Wood, an indoor air professional with IAP Group whose inspection reports we absolutely love. They're really clear. They're really actionable and thorough. And what we see is probably some of the best, that our clients get done.

So we're going to walk through what makes a great inspection today, what red flags you want to look for when it comes to inspection. Am I doing this the right way? Especially the remediation portion is an investment in your home and also your health. So let's get started. Benjamin. Right where most of our clients start, they've got a Ami or an image test.

Usually that tells them they have mold, or they absolutely know that there's been a water damage event and they can see it and they're totally paralyzed. They're overwhelmed. A lot of times they don't really want to take any action, but they know they're sick. What would you say to that person? Well, thanks first for having me. Appreciate it.

And you may call me Ben and be great. Okay. And, the, the thing I would probably, you know, talk to people about to begin with is just, you know, I would I would give them, you know, my years in the industry, ten years remediation contractor, in this industry or related industry since 2007. And, you know, you can make it through this, where if there's a way to make it through this, having us as professionals to guide you through that, is the best way, because, as you said, there are many pitfalls that you can get into.

If you go about this the wrong way. That can not only, waste money, it can actually cost you more money, to clean up the problems that actually are secondary to doing it the wrong way. And so we we are here to assist people to make sure that they understand, you know, what steps need to be taken, and, and, and to give them the, the professional knowledge and expertise, to be able to move forward and with us working directly for them and, interested in selling them any other service other than just being there as a consultant.

We are there as their advocate in this process, to help them through. Yeah. So I think you're coming at this from a really unique position because in the past you've done remediations for a client, and now you're in this inspection position where the sole product is to help someone guide through finding where the mold is, and then giving them basically a plan if we cut it all the way down to the most simple thing and you're not in remediation space anymore.

But you were previously, right. If there are multiple problem areas in a home, where do you and how do you help homeowners know where to start or what to do in the beginning? Like where where would somebody be directed, I guess, to begin, if they're like, I know I've had a basement flood, we've had water intrusion at the roof.

That kind of a thing. Right? So I would prioritize which of these problems are the most likely to adversely affect the indoor environment. So, for example, if you have a problem with water damage, vanity in your bathroom, there's just full mold. And that's obviously much more likely to affect the indoor environment than mold it in the crawlspace, which will also possibly affect the indoor environment.

And very, very many times can but even like, a less likely will be, you know, oh, I got a vanity has got mold in, I've got a crawlspace in mold it and my attic as well too. Well, the attic is going to come last because of the stack effect. Normal is going to carry those mold spores away from the living environment.

More so then they want to affect the living environment. So that would be you know, the way I would prioritize it is what is the most likely, issue that based on building conditions and based on just regular building construction and how build it's function and how airflow goes through buildings, how mold to travel, you know, which of these is most likely to reach the occupant and affect them adversely.

Yeah, I think learning about the way air moves their home was really interesting for our team to kind of like help prioritize like, which, you know, sometimes they know there's been water intrusion in this specific area and other times there's so much and there's a lot going on or there's a big mystery like, we know it's there, but we can't find it.

And pushing them towards getting inspection really takes so much of the guesswork out of it, because you all come in and handle that whole part, the brains, the understanding of it like, and giving them direction in what to do. So I kind of want to go through what is a great inspection actually look like because we've definitely seen not great ones.

And also like when you're hiring somebody for this, so many people say they're in the mold space and can and they may be adjacent to other industries like Hvac professionals or air duct cleaners, like they have different specialties will step in and say, oh, we do mold inspection and remediation or experiences in indoor air professionals, a completely different ballgame than someone like that.

So I kind of want to walk through just like, what is it? Good inspection look like? What am I looking for when I hire somebody? One of the things that always gets me is like, how how long does a good inspection take for, like a three bed, two bath home? Like, what are you doing when you're there?

How long are you there? Sure. Well, I guess it depends on if, you're in luck, because I looked at a three bedroom, two bath home yesterday. But it depends on if there is there. Is there an accessible attic? Is there a crawlspace? Is it a little slab? Is there a basement level? But, you know, the house I was at yesterday, was quite involved.

There were there was water damage in multiple locations in the attic, as well as problems in the crawlspace. And I ended up being there for six hours. So, I mean, I would say generally a 3 to 5 hour time window on a, a three bedroom, two bath house is probably, about where we would fall into line with, but it all depends on what we find while we're there.

Because if you find a problem, then you've got to delve into that work to track it down. What's going on? You can't just find the problem again. There's problem here. The reason I'm there is to not only, you know, assess. Yes, there's a problem, but where is this coming from? You know what's causing it, things like that. And so, and I've got to be able to give people a, a plan of action, you know, I mean, as part of our service, you know, or in every report, we have a recommendation section, which is a remediation protocol for radiation radiation's warranted.

And so that that really, you know, I've got to draw up a plan of action for how are we going to address those things? I'll take some time. You mentioned crawl spaces and attics. What what areas and what appliances or, you know, things in the home. Should people be looking for their inspector to be diving into? Sure.

So, I mean, the, the crawl space. Definitely. You know, I mean, some some unfortunately, sometimes when we're done inspections, we're limited to what we're looking at by the client themselves. But if a client wants me a allows me to look at their entire home, then we're going to definitely look at the crown, spend some employee looking at the attic.

The attic, you know, is is pretty simple. Most of the time there's problems in the attics. It's a ventilation problem, condensation problem, or groups leak or a leak around the plumbing fixture or 1080 or something along those lines. The crawl space is is much more complex because you not only have all your plumbing, components in there, but you've also got, you know, is is the ground still, you know, is there, is there a vapor barrier down?

Are there condensation issues? Is there enough ventilation, the amount of ventilation needed for a crawl space that you should never, really never have crawl space without a vapor barrier. But if you do that, and yes, a building code says you need, I think, ten times as much ventilation as you do versus not having a vapor barrier. And so, you know, we're looking at all these different things and what the results are of all these different things.

And of course the additions that you got, possibly plumbing leaks, things like that. Hvac, systems usually run through crawl spaces as far as the ductwork, you also. Yeah, condensation issues from from those being there, are there air leakages? All kinds of things that can play into that. What's going on? The crawl space. The crawl space, probably one of the most complex areas we look at as far as what if there is a problem?

What's causing it? Because it can be so many different things hearing about crawl spaces, this making me really happy that I work on this side of the mold equation. Because getting in the crawl space and being down there for a while, my idea of fun at all, when you guys are there, like, what tools? What kind of things do you like make use of?

Are you cutting things out ever? You said obviously it depends on what the client is letting you see, do, etc.. Are you testing moisture? Like, what do you guys use tool wise and what? Oh, yeah. So, I mean, we, I mean, the most important, tool that I have of all things is a flashlight. So, you know, it sounds crazy.

You know, it's simple, but, you know, the visual inspection is the most important part of any mold. Sussman. You know, there's too many people out here that, I, you know, I have people call me all the time, and they don't mean anything by it, but the company that needs mold testing. Well, no, you need a mold investigation.

You know, we don't we don't the the American Industrial Hygiene Association and many others that are experts and published material in the field recommend against using testing data alone to make assessments. So, you know, you never want to call somebody to do an assessment, and they just kind of come out, you know, and collect an air sample, or they just kind of come out and collect swab samples or whatever the case may be.

That's just a portion of the data that you need, to make a determination on what's going on. So the visual inspection, a good flashlight is one of the most important tools. But in addition, especially tools, I think you're asking, you know, use thermal imaging cameras, that, well, you know, it detects differences in heat, in, in a material and how that helps us tell where there's moisture and is by, the evaporation process carries heat energy away from materials.

And so it those materials will usually show up cooler. Now we also use moisture meters. So if I have an area that looks like it's warm or cool in an area, I'll check with the moisture meter to to see if it actually is a problem, because it could be that the walls is not insulated well in that area.

It could also be that, you know, the weather has been wet for a long time, and, the moisture, you know it. Like I say, if it's from rain, moisture center in the wall for 3 or 4 days, it's acclimated to the same temperatures all throughout the materials volume. Shot on a thermal imaging camera. And so an additional use that a thermal imaging camera is a general practice will also check underneath of every window in the house, if not all windows in the house with a moisture meter, regardless of thermal imaging.

Camera says, the same thing around plumbing, checking around, you know, the plumbing under the kitchen sink, bathrooms, sinks, the showers, all that stuff. And so those are the two most important tools I would say we use would be the thermal imaging camera. But more so as a moisture meter. Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, I hope our listeners, especially with this, the picture that, like the thoroughness, cannot be understated, like looking at all those things from different angles, not just a visual inspection, but looking for, you know, humidity and heat and little indicators of things like that, I think is a big difference.

Sometimes it's a flag for us. When the client says, the inspector came and they looked around and then the same thing that was then. I'm always like, we need a new inspector is what we need here. When it comes to Tulsa, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but we also use thermal hydrometer, you know, to check the humidity throughout the house.

And so these are really useful, especially if you, you know, if you're finding there's high humidity in many areas of the house, they will start, you know, put it in a closet or under vanities trying to track down, you know, where does this issue come from? One time to see a heating and cooling system. This is, you know, not needing to find the air properly.

But occasionally it can be, you know, there's a leak under a sink, that isn't visible from just looking at the, the, the cabinet, it's behind the wall or whatever. And. Yeah, that thermal diagram showing, you know, inside of that sink cabinet and may be 70% humidity, whereas it's like, you know, 60% in the bathroom outside of it.

So. That's interesting. We talked to it. You talked about testing and dust testing and just like swab testing, what is the testing component of this look like? And you guys just looking for mold. You look for other things. Is there value in looking for more than just mold when you've got water damage going on? It depends on the client.

So, you know, if you're dealing with somebody with mold sensitivities, volatile organic compounds, sensitivities, things like that, you, you can end up with, you know, need to test for VOCs. We can do real time testing for VOCs. We can do sort of a two testing for VOCs. We can also do just testing for mycotoxins.

You know, there's there's a lot of different things that can be tested for. And it really is dependent upon each situation. What you know, what the clients reporting, having issues with what they're you know, what information they're interested to find out. But when it comes to sampling, the most important thing about sampling is, as I mentioned earlier, sampling is only a tool.

If you're a box, you know, just like you would take your car to a mechanic that only had a wrench and nothing else, a toolbox. You know, you don't want a professional to inspect your house that isn't going to do anything. So testing, the testing is designed, to answer questions that are brought up during the inspection.

And so most of the time when we're doing air testing or we're not doing air testing, and sure enough, there's mold there. I've seen plenty of instances where air tests have come back balanced when there was physical mold growing in the room. And so that, that that's not a good way to determine if there's mold in a, in a building or what it is a good way to determine is, okay, we know there's mold growing in the dining room is the adjacent living room also affected by several spores coming from the dining room.

And so you can do take place on surfaces to determine that and see if there's, you know, mold settled on the surfaces in the, in the dust. Or you can do air samples to see if there's, you know, elevated levels of airborne contaminant that would settle out of the air and onto the surfaces in those areas. I think that's so important.

And something we talk about a lot, because when we bring up the idea that someone is sick from mold, sometimes we're getting to do mycotoxins testing. So I can say to them, hey, it looks like you have sticky blotches in your home because an in product of that sticky is in your body. And then we also will direct them to doing an MRI or an army.

And sometimes people feel like, okay, now we know there's stuff there or now we know there's not. But that is never the end of the road. And for us, it just helps us to see like, okay, it's kind of used really as a confirmation tool before I say like, hey, go and use an inspector and dig into this deep problem.

Mold testing. Thus testing can just help us see, like sometimes do I have kids that are exposed at school? So the home will test clear and everything's fine at home. I don't want to send them for a full inspection, but I know a little Johnny is very mode sick. His mycotoxins tests are coming back very clearly and then we can move to test at school.

And sometimes that can help us, like discern, but it's like it's just such a small piece of the puzzle. And I think too often in our field, we health professionals, you know, we know they'll do heavy on it. The inspection part is important. Figuring out where it is and the remediation plan are really, really the big the must have, I guess.

So when you guys go through all these findings using inspection, what do you deliver to families? So they're not getting lost in the details and they've got a plan. And like what's the end product here from an inspection. Yeah. So as consultants our end product is our report. And so the the you know here again you're not hiring a consultant to, you know, just give you an estimate and then helps in doing work later.

Our, our consulting, our advice to the customers, our time. And the report that we're providing is our, is our product. And so, we think it's very important that it be detailed and that it be easy to understand it in layman's terms. You know, it doesn't do anybody good to get a report. It's written in scientific jargon that, you know, they're going to, you know, can't, can understand.

And so, you know, the our reports basically have three main sections. It has observation section that lists, you know, here's what we found and where it was. It has a conclusion section of here's what those things that we found mean based on our years of professional expertise, based on industry guidelines. What is all this information? We found me that's in the conclusion section.

And then finally, the most important part is the recommendation section. You know, now you know what you've got and you know what it means. What do you do it. And so then we would list, you know, you know, build contain, you know, build containment on this doorway or at this wall, take out this wall, take out these baseboards, you know, those things like that.

The practical nuts and bolts of what? What you need to know to get the problem, fix, you know, and then once the clean up done in our recommendation section also has a moisture recommendation. So what's causing this problem? How do you fix that? You know what? What do we recommend? You know, the way I go by crawlspace is, you know, do you need your crawlspace encapsulated condition or you know what what exactly needs to happen there in your crawlspace?

So, you know, and so those those things are kind of how we help people navigate through this difficult situation. Yeah. And from my side, a lot of times I get to see these reports when clients get them back, the upload them in our portal. And I'm looking at one now. And we do love IEP group reports because they're very clear.

They're super actionable, they're prioritized and they're really easy for people to follow. And you've got I mean this one's 41 pages. It's a three bedroom two bath house. I would say not a lot of it's pictures. So you might hear like, well, I'm not going to read 41 pages. But you know, like all of those recommendations are mapped out by parts of the House it covers, like what kind of PPE and processes need to be done.

How do they keep ongoing contamination from spreading? And it's just it's so organized, like it really is. I always say it's like the home report card inspection that we actually need when we buy a house, because it it goes over things that are issues, but also things that could become an issue in the future, like grading issues, stuff like that.

So I just think they're so valuable, whether you have raging mold, or I don't know, I know they're not going to become the house inspection when you go to buy something, but gosh darn, it might be so helpful if they did, because they really help you understand and get to know your house and, and how to care for it and how to prevent things too, not just how to remediate or deal with what you have going on.

So people get their reports back. We all know the cost of remediation can be so high because you're starting to you really can be hitting a lot of systems. Your Hvac can be involved, you can be ripping out walls. There can be a lot. But I kind of want to talk about the consequence is really overwhelming. And a lot of questions we get in that kind of panic, overwhelm.

These are like the legality and insurance. And I know you're not an attorney and we're not going to hold you to that. But I am curious because you've seen a lot, you know, how do laws impact things? How does insurance impact things? Is there do you often see that there's not a lot of insurance help or what does that kind of look like as far as maybe insurance being helpful in a mold or water damage situation?

Sure. So let's talk about the insurance thing first. So it's the easiest one to discuss. So that's, you know, that is it is kind of is, is that every situation is different. It depends on what the person's policy says and, and what their source of loss is. And so there's no real way to say, mold is covered by insurance or.

No, it's not. I have seen quite a few instances where it has been. I've seen much more instances. Where has it, you know, it's it's, and then a lot of times when it is covered, it has a, you know, a certain cap on it, you know, they'll have a rider where it's, you know, a 5 or $10,000 cap.

So, hopefully that answers that question for you. As far as how laws impact, the mobile radiation process, the state of Kentucky is one of the few states that actually have, laws on the books, regarding mold and remediation. And, you know, those those should, affect the remediation process. I won't say that.

They always do. Because we still see a lot of instances where those laws aren't being followed, unfortunately. But the the laws are on the books, for mobile radiation, Kentucky, that basically say that the five general principles from the ICRC or the Institute for inspection, lead Restoration certification should be followed during the radiation process. And those are protect the health of the occupants and the workers or perform the remediation, with a proper assessment protocol control, put control and containment in place.

Can you know, contain the mold as close to the source as possible? Physically remove the mold. That's the big thing. That's the one we see more often than anything else that isn't followed on, quote unquote mold remediation. You know, we still see people, unfortunately, going in and doing things like ozone shock treatments, and other things that don't physically remove the mold.

It is law in the state of Kentucky that the mold must be physically removed by a company doing mold remediation for hire. The last thing is correct, the, the causative moisture sources, you know, if you're getting a mold remediation done, it doesn't matter if it's, you know, for homeowners going to stay in their house for 20 years or if it's, you know, as part of a real estate transaction, the correction of the moisture sources should be part of that process.

That is modeling radiation. It's not a the other thing outside of what remediation is part of doing, all the radiation is fixing the moisture sources so those things affect you know, how mold remediation should be performed in the state of Kentucky, for sure. You know, the other thing that it really affects from, from a law standpoint is when you're done with remediation, there's two different things that should take place.

You should have a post remediation evaluation and a post remediation verification. The evaluation is just a physical inspection by the contractor that did the work, that just looks at it, and they make sure that they did everything right. The verification includes a thorough visual assessment, moisture testing and sampling. And really, the state of Kentucky has a law in place that basically says that that post remediation verification is not to be done by by the remediation contractor.

It must be performed by independent and or by a professional that is paid directly by and reports directly to the customer. And so that's, you know, that, that that again, protects the consumer by, you know, because I mean, obviously, if I did the work, I'm, you know, I'm, I hopefully am going to report that it looks good.

It looks good to me. Right. But, you know, you want to make sure that you're getting an independent opinion on that quick break. If you've been curious about homeopathy, this is your sign to try it at. Hey hey, homeopathic. We've created liquid remedies for everything from sleep and skin to digestion and beyond. Safe, gentle and designed for real life.

And if you're a practitioner, our Preferred Professionals line opens the door to powerful tools like so. It's my essence detox there's and more. Anyone can shop, but professionals can apply. For exclusive access, visit Hey Hey homeopathic X.com and start your path to natural healing today. That's really interesting. I didn't know that there is regulation around cutting it out, because that's probably the thing that we see the most or hear the most when clients are like, they're going to cover it or we're going to do those and we're going to get to that in a minute.

But that makes me feel good. Not that necessarily laws are always followed or recognized, but the cutting it out piece is so important. And yeah, and it doesn't you know, it depends on what material you're dealing with. I mean, you know, so, you know, obviously if you're dealing with drywall is going to be cut out, if you're dealing with concrete, you know, then but physically removing means that I took steps to clean it from the surface and then the mold is not there anymore.

So if I went and took a surface sample, it's negative, right? It's not showing up with elevated levels. And so it depends on what material you're dealing with as far as whether you're cutting things out. But the majority of the time you're right. I mean, you, you know, a lot of materials should be cut out that aren't for sure.

That's interesting too that that it does specify legally like the after testing because that's a place where we see maybe clients drop off like we push push push like you got to do testing afterwards. You spent all this money I know you spend all this money and it's going to be a little bit more money. But goodness gracious people, that is where I think in health space remediation gets a bad rap because a lot of times maybe there a mediator did miss things.

I think that that probably is the natural, normal human thing. Things can be missed. But if we're not doing that verification step afterwards, how are we going catch it? How would we see that? And a lot of times I feel like, someone who's dealing with mold doesn't want to spend more. You're like, it's done, but going all the way to the end of the done, I think is, is when you get to have a successful remediation, at least from what we've seen with clients.

So what about rental? Just to me, just to be clear, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, but just to be clear, the, the verification is not mandated in the law, but the evaluation is the contractor is supposed to perform an evaluation at the end. If you do choose to have a verification, it must be performed by an independent and or environmental professionals paid for and reports directly to the customer.

You don't have to have it done as part of the remediation process, but if you choose to do so, then it can't be the contractor doing those things. Yeah, yeah, the separation of all parties, I think, in this is really important and something that like seems logical, but when you're in it and you're stressed, like knowing that your inspector needs to be different than you're a mediator needs to be different than the person who verifies and does, like in testing is so important.

And we've seen that not happen where their mediator does the testing and is like it looks great. And I'm like, of course they're going to say it looks great. It's an easy and easy thing to forget. I guess. There are also five criteria that are listed in the Kentucky laws for kosher mediation verification. And so this is where it gets really interesting because people either don't realize it or I'll just say that maybe they don't realize it.

So look at that. But, you know, there's not supposed to be any visible dust, or debris and, and within reason, in the work area, there's no, of course, invisible mold supposed to be all gone. The materials are all supposed to be dried below 16% moisture content. There shouldn't be any mold associated odors present. And then last thing, the air sampling should be balanced and compared with the more sample.

And so, you know, where I see the the fall down on this more than anything is the absence of visible dust and debris in the work area. You know, when I go back to look at a project after remediation, you know, you look behind the framing between the basement wall and, and the frame wall, the concrete, and there's little pieces of drywall and stuff still there, you know.

Well, that's indication that that material wasn't vacuumed up by a Hepa back in. What was it clean that surfaces weren't clean and therefore the mold spores settle in dust are still there, regardless of what the air samples say. So when I walk into a poster meetings verification, if there's visible dust and debris, I don't even test.

So just like now, this fails, you know, you go back and finish cleaning. Because there's no reason to at that point, even if the test came back. Okay, as far as the air, it wouldn't pass. It has to be, you know, pre free of dust and debris within the work area. That's interesting. You mentioned like these are Kentucky's laws and not like and we have some and that's not maybe common do do the majority of states have mold laws.

Is it common or not. So much. Okay. Not so much. I think, I honestly don't know for certain how many states have had laws on the books right now. I know that Kentucky, New York and Texas do, I think California may have some walls. And I don't recall the other states, but they're, you know, most.

But the vast majority states have no regulation regarding mold remediation. Like, where I am, where I live in Indiana, there are basically no laws concerning mold remediation at all. Other than if you're doing it in a school, so. Oh, okay. And I think, what about rentals? A lot of times we'll have people who are renting and they're like, there's, I know there's mold here or there's water damage, I can see it, etc..

A lot of clients who've been ill, like in between building a house or, you know, is there anything that renters should know or that they can do, or are there legalities around that? This may be a giant question also. So maybe drop me with. Yeah, so well, I think that, you know, they think the Kentucky Department of Environmental Energy, I believe this is on their website.

They list, you know, but tenants can do if they're find a mold problem in their house or landowner or anything about it. And first thing, I think that let's just contact your local health department. So it becomes a tricky situation because as an inspector, I'm not going to go into somebody's property if they're not allowing me.

And and the fact is, is that the landlord is the owner of the property, not the tenant. And so from a liability standpoint, I have to respect the landlord, the homeowner, the owner of the property rights who have on their property, who not to. So if if they give me the permission to come there and do an inspection, we're happy to do it, but it becomes, sometimes a they a upset or we can't get past that.

Yeah. It's good to know, I guess, that you can at least move towards the health department. And I don't know if that pans out for people, but there is some sort of action path or direction to go if, you feel like there's an older that's an issue in a rental space. So let's get into my favorite hot topic of DIY remediation versus a professional remediation.

I think this is the biggest one, and probably the thing we have to redirect clients around, because number one, we are not our mediators. We are not mold inspectors. We can find mold in your body, support the body clearing that. But the remediation part is not our wheelhouse. And people always do ask, can I just do it myself?

So what are the risks of some DIY remediation? For the homeowner, kind of hopping in there and handling it themselves? Well, I mean, the biggest risk, and, you know, and I'm not trying to be fear mongering or anything like that, but the biggest risk I saw this happened was the other day, is that you can contaminate your entire house.

You could have a small problem, try to take care of yourself, not contain it properly. Now, get me wrong. I have seen people actually do DIY remediation and actually be successful at it. But you've got to you've got to build proper containment, and you've got to use the proper cleaning methods. And so, yeah, the real risk is that, you know, you had a problem that was maybe going to cost you a couple thousand dollars to fix, and now you've got a problem that's going to cost you over $10,000 next year, you know, just so to speak, because, you know, if you you spread mold spores throughout the house and all your contents

are affected, everything in the home is affected and needs to be cleaned. Whereas it may have been a localized problem to begin with, it could have been addressed, you know, by simply building a proper containment chamber and removing the right stuff, cleaning the right stuff. Thank you to taking care of that way so that that would be the, you know, the the biggest risk that I see and have seen over the years is improper containment during the remediation or improper cleaning methods.

So people think they got it clean because they don't see the mold anymore. Well, the models all still there, you know, especially if you're using something like a sodium hypochlorite or bleaching agent. That makes the mold basically invisible. It doesn't remove it. It doesn't take it away. You just can't see it anymore. That makes it even harder to clean up later because you know, you know where it is.

So yeah. Can you echo that for me? Because bleach is my favorite topic to have discussions about is bleach. A helpful tool to use when dealing with mold. Why? Why not?

It is not a helpful tool in remediating the mold, so it's not a helpful tool in removing the mold. It's not a helpful tool doing anything to do with with the health aspect or the cleaning aspect of the mold or radiation. The only value bleach has is that it is statically makes it appear that the staining is gone, so it makes it more pleasing to the client, but they can't see the nasty brown stain or black stain that was there anymore.

But it does not, you know, mold. It is not. By and large, the root system of the mold is not killed by bleach. It will often kill the topical, growth on the surface. And, then the water in the bleach will actually supply, a really great resource for the mold to grow back worse than it was before.

Can you tell me a little more about. Definitely the roots of Mold piece like that. You have the visual on the surface, and then there's more to mold than just what you're seeing. Tell me more about that. Right. Well, I mean, especially in materials like drywall. So if you, if you got mold on drywall, unless it's just really topical, you know, surface growth from high humidity sometimes can be cleaned off the surface, but normally you're going to at least peel the the paper off the outside of the drywall.

In general, it's much better idea just to cut the drywall out and supposedly fact because the root system will extend down into, the substrate in the paper and possibly, you know, the gypsum, right, is having nutritional, value for the, the mold anyways. But, you know, if you got it on, on lumber, hydrogen peroxide is, based solutions are a great resource to, pull that root system out of the pores of the wood.

You know, I don't know if you've ever seen. But when you spray a hydrogen peroxide solution on moldy wood or bubble tears, it reacts with, with the, the mold. And so that is basically working to pull that up out of the, the pores of the wood, in order to be able to more effectively clean it.

Okay. Yeah. The bleach question, man, it does make it look better and it does make it seem like it's gone away, but it definitely has not. And I think that's one of the most like shocking things. People are like, what? What what like it didn't just kill it. Well, it takes away the smell to Romania. Yeah, yeah, it takes it takes away the smell.

It takes away the visual. Everything looks fine. You know, I can remember one instance where I had a client when I was a mediation contractor. Their handyman police served tired crawlspace, and it it basically everything I checked and tested was was positive for mold growth, even though you couldn't see it anymore. And the and the house was cross contaminated.

Unfortunately, inside the house. So, you know, it turned into a quite expensive proposition for them to clean up after that. Can you talk a little bit about the DIY portion, like when someone does that, the danger maybe to an untrained person around caring for their body and like, what dangers exist, what when people do properly remediate or how are they?

Or should they be caring for their physical body as they're doing that work? Yeah. So I mean, you, you know, you should wear proper respiratory equipment, proper eye protection, proper, you know, skin protection. So gloves, Tyvek suits, things like that. You know, you can you can get, you know, it's not terribly common, but, you know, there are instances, documented instances of people that, you know, I've been remediating mold from, for example, a crawlspace and, you know, a speck of something falls in their eye and they got a fungal infection.

Sometimes they can't be cured, you know? And so you, you know, you want to make sure that you're close and, you know, like, earplugs are not a bad idea. Honestly, the Timex people have to come over and cover your ears. But, you know, if you don't have that, you definitely won't keep stuff from getting in your ears because, I think one of the most common things that mediators probably deal with is they get fungal palates in your sinuses, from, you know, not wearing proper respiratory equipment while they're doing this type of work.

And so it's very important, that you wear, at least a P100, filtered, respirator with, VOC protection, and that you, wear proper skin protection covering, you know, you're rubbing your hands, covering your body with a Tyvek suit, and that you wear proper, eye protection, which normally I remediated. Most of the time, I'm going to wear a full face respirator.

That's kind of a face shield involved as well. Okay, I'm sure it looks quite dramatic, but I will say, like that part. When people have remediated themselves, it's usually the husband that will do the work, and the wife or the children are sick. Then comes the husband who's now sick after not doing that portion of caring for himself, doing the remediation.

So definitely those pieces, I think are really important. And why would you say, if you just had to kind of like summing up, why is professional remediation worth it in the long run over the DIY approach? The majority of the time it's worth it because of the consumers, by and large, don't have unless they go and purchase a lot of equipment, they don't have access to the equipment needed to do professional remediation.

So, you know, you need a hypo quit vac and not a shop vac with a Hepa filter on it for, you know, the of. But the actual Hepa quit backing. Has the Hepa system built into the vacuum itself as part of the design and those are those are rather expensive. You know, you also need Hepa air filtration.

And normally, you know, when I'm drawn up, remediation protocol. Well, at least at the very minimum, you're going to have a Hepa air filtration device inside the work area and another one outside the work area. The one outside the work area is going to just clean the air during the, during the, the, remediation. So the spores happen to get out of the containment.

They're not going anywhere. They're just going into the air filtration device. The one inside is going to create some negative atmospheric pressure in that work area. The majority of the time, there are some instances, rare instances where you don't want to do that. But most of the time you're going to use negative pressure to keep, the airflow coming from other parts of the house towards that work environment.

And so, you know, even with that, you know, those are things that a lot of homeowners don't think about, that, you know, you need to have negative atmospheric pressure, your work environment. You need to draw air away from other parts of the house into, into the work environment. But not only that, where does that make, parents coming into your work area?

Where's it coming from? Well, you got to be careful, because you don't want to draw dirty air out in the crawlspace or an attic or down a plumbing chase or somewhere else, you know? So you got to judiciously design that containment to draw air for where you want it to come from. And so those those are things that a professional will do that may not occur to a homeowner.

Not to say that a homeowner can't do it. It's just that, you know, people that do this all the time, this is just this is what they do. This is this is, you know, what they should be conscientious of on every remediation process. And so, so it, you know, the real value is that you have much less risk of cross contamination in other areas of your home.

Having a professional do that because of their, their industry knowledge and the the equipment they possess to do the work. Yeah, I know, even on this side, reading through the detail of the report, saying like this is what should happen. There's so many things, even I've read them for several years now, and some will be like, oh, I never have thought of that.

Like, because it is. It's a very detailed, thorough thing. And I would think if you're not a professional, that's stressful. And if you're already living in mold and dealing with cleaning things and all of that, like, absolutely, there's just so much value, I think, in hiring a professional or mediator, because you've got a lot to deal with yourself as a homeowner with stuff and your bodies and, you know, they're other things to manage.

So turning that over to professionals, in our opinion, well worth the investment. So I do want to kind of talk about some common like problematic fixes, if you will, or things companies we've seen, have sold families like this is going to solve it or even things you can read about online because there's plenty of chatter in the mold space online.

So I kind of want to go through a couple of these, just one by one and get your thoughts on, encapsulation. That's probably a big one here in Kentucky. You hear a lot about because we've got cave systems. There's a lot of crawlspace that maybe has moisture stuff. When is encapsulation if ever, held for night? What's your thoughts?

So you're speaking a few different things are called encapsulation. Probably. So you're talking about encapsulating mold on surfaces. Is that what you're talking about? Yeah. But do you want to teach us about both? Because I'm sure we'd love to learn. Well, lot of the air conditioning and conditioning of the crawlspace when they install the vapor barrier glued to the walls and everything, and put insulation on permanent walls that often that's also called encapsulation.

But it's encapsulation in the crawlspace. As far as a it's basically containing it off from the foil underneath and making it part of the living environment of the house. So that yeah, that would be proper, obviously. But whether you're speaking, I believe is encapsulation of the, the, the mold surface or not, not removing the mold, the simply spraying something on it, some type of fungicides here, type of, paint coating.

It's got fungicides in it, something like that. And this is, I mean it. Well, it's illegal in Kentucky. And other areas. It's not. But there's always bad idea. So, the, the fact is, is that it, it will leave the mold in place underneath the encapsulate and, if that would work or get wet or the drywall or to get wet or whatever it is gets wet.

Again, this wall is going to continue to grow underneath that encapsulation. And so it's not, not never it's never a good idea to leave mold replace. It needs to be removed physically. Whether that means cleaning it off the surfaces, sanding it or the surfaces, or cutting the materials out, the removal is the absolutely paramount key. The physical removal is the the objective of any proper remediation plan.

Yeah, yeah. What about painting killing people all the time. Like we they put kills on it, then they paint. It's good. We just like pulled the cork out and just cocked again. It's good. What about that. Yeah I mean yeah. Yeah. Same kind of same thing I mean it it shouldn't, you know if there's mold there you need to clean.

If you pull the cork out, there's mold on the surface. Take a toothbrush, take some hydrogen peroxide, clean clean surfaces out if it's, you know, mold on actual, you know, backer board or something like that. You may have to demo the shower, you know, but, a lot of times when you're getting caught, that may not be the case.

It may just be hard surfaces, you know, at the edge of the the tile in the end where the tile tell me together. And those can be clean. But, certainly that, you know, you just want to make sure that you're not leaving the mold in place. Is this the main thing? I mean, you don't want to just pull the cork out, but you can't.

Damn. I mean, it's just an idea. Yeah. What about more like, larger scale things like ozone bombing the house or ozone units? Like, is that something that can solve a mold situation long term? No. Ozone, is, you know, ozone and hydroxyl machines are basically they're not mold remediation tools. They are odor mitigation tools. You know, zone and hydroxyl both do a great job.

Deodorizing areas. Ozone is probably more problematic than hydroxyl. Or hydroxyl actually does pretty easy job of of, deodorizing spaces without many side effects. Ozone can actually react with other materials unintentionally and and and ionize, you know, things like old vinyl flooring and things like that that may come in contact with. And then you've got some weird smells that won't go away in the house and things.

And so, but the fact is, is that neither of the, now, neither of those are, solutions for mold, ozone, you know, it's not going to it. It, even if it could kill 100% the mold, which it will, but if it if it could, it doesn't matter. The mold still in place. Dead mold.

According to the ICRC and the American Industrial Hygiene Association, dead mold was just as problematic for an allergenic standpoint as live mold. I always tell people this is more in your wheelhouse, but you know the problem? When a person has an allergic reaction to mold, they're not allergic to one of the most alive or dead. They're allergic to chemicals that the mold has in it.

And if that mold is dead, it still has chemicals in it which they can be allergic to, have, have reactions to, and can set off all kinds of cascading effects in their body. And so we we never want to approach mold from a standpoint of, you know, will this kill the mold? It really doesn't matter whether something would kill the mold.

The point is to remove the mold. My last I would say common thing that we see is in the quest to figure out where is the mold to improve indoor air, a lot of times families will get the air ducts clean before they maybe even discover the molds there. And the duct cleaning company will say we're going to shoot this fungicide, etc. through your ducts and vents and that'll clean everything out and that'll be great.

Thoughts on that?

Well, if they're going to do that, I would say, they you need to make sure that whatever they're using is EPA approved for that purpose. Because there are very few products that are. There are a few, but they're very few. You definitely don't want somebody using something off label, but it's not through your docs.

Your family's going to be breathing in all the time. That's not even supposed to be used for that purpose. The, the fact is, is that, you know, the air duct system and the Hvac system are an important part of a mold inspection. And so we, you know, when I do a mold inspection, I'm looking at, you know, if I can get this all, like, get to these components, I'll look at the coils, I'll look at the drip pan in the Hvac system.

I'll look at the blower motor. I'm going to take some pictures inside of some docks and things like that. And, and the real problem is, is that, you know, if you don't know, you have mold, probably do it. I guess it's kind of. Yeah, I know you could help me, but if you know, you got a mold problem that I would say your air duct clean should be part of the mold or radiation process.

It shouldn't be done. I see a lot of people trying to do this, like, after, like, a while. Once I get the mold remediation done, then I'll get the air to explain. That's not the proper way to go about this. Then the air duct should be cleaned during the mold remediation. And and you need to have all the engineering controls in place that are listed in and a protocol, to, to minimize the, the, the likelihood of contaminating an area.

I mean, you know, also, you know, need to know do you have, you know, there's times you if you've got physical mold growing like a flex duct, you got to replace the flex duct. You can't be clean. If you've got, mold growing inside of ducts or even mold contamination side ducts or insulated inside, or you have the old fiberglass, things like that.

You know, those are things you need to know because you don't want to spend tens of thousands of dollars remaining in your house, and then you've got, ductwork, insulation that runs all throughout the house is full mold that you haven't even addressed yet, because how on earth are you going to take care of that without causing cross-contamination to other areas, unless you do it during the mobile radiation process?

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It it's I feel like it's probably it'd be impossible for me to be like, I'm going to make sure we remediate this one room and don't affect because your Hvac does run through your home like that. Part of the thing sometimes it's like a logical piece we don't think about, like there's crossover between rooms that air moves through a home in a particular way.

And that really matters so much more than, I don't know, before I got into this work that I would have thought. So you keep talking about cutting things out and how mold has to be removed. It can't just hang out and stay. And I think this is a common question. We get like, what is the diameter of removal?

Is there a diameter you just cut out? What do you see. Like what. And I know it. I'm sure it's different on different materials. But if you were to give us kind of like a general gist so we know that something's being done right, what would you say. Sure. So in general, you should cut out the affected area and then a two foot buffer zone past where the affected area is also, you know, that'll be listed in and most if not every one of our reports, in the recommendation section, to, to to check to see, you know, when you stop to mold, remove two feet past, two feet past.

I think that is a little sad, but also really important because when that doesn't happen, those are the families we usually say they're still dealing with issues after remediation. What about Santa Claus? That's the other question like, oh, we're going to rip up this carpet. We know the carpets. Yeah, it's had water damage, but then we're gonna have to do the subfloor.

And we just don't want to say, I'm thinking the subfloor. It depends on what it is. With this plywood, it generally can be, you know, possibly sanded things like that. Abrasive blasting, things like a it's strand board. In reality, it probably should be replaced most of the time. So, it can be attempted to be sanded, abrasive, blasted.

That's would be the two ways I would recommend that you try to remove ultramarine strand board. But a lot of times what happens is, is that the look, if you're going to do that, you need to do surface sampling. You know, tape lifts afterwards to show, yeah there's not you've got it all. It's not here anymore. Because again that mold can put down roots into the surfaces.

And Orien strand board is just really for a really simplified explanation. It's glued wood chips. Right. So, it, it is a solid piece of wood, so it doesn't act the same way as say for example, plywood, you know, the mold can again, more easily grow down into the material. Okay. Okay. So we've talked about not good remediation.

We talked about DIY. I just kind of want to paint like a general picture of like what should be happening. What are we looking for? First biggest question we get is should families, people stay in their home during remediation or should they leave? If somebody is mold sensitive or has a mold related illness, I always recommend that they they gave during the remediation.

The restroom is too great. Their tolerance is too low until they stay in the home, during remediation. You know, in general, the general population, I mean, if you're performing a small radiation to your limited area of the home, ensure that the remediation company may be able to contain that area of the home.

And, and you live in the other part of the house called the remediation taking place. Main thing is, is, you know, it needs to be well understood by all parties involved that, you know, the homeowner doesn't need to be going in to the remediation zone. You know, at night when the remediation company is not there or whatever.

Because we see that quite a bit, you know, where, the remediation company got you know, air filtration devices, negative pressure, everything. And somebody went to turn it off because it's too noisy. They couldn't sleep. I mean, if that's going to be the case, you need to get out of the house. Yeah. And go somewhere else during the remediation.

Well, I wouldn't have thought of that, but I could see it happening for sure. So. Yeah, that's a good point. Make sense? What about the inspection? We kind of touched on this. Just why should inspection be separate from remediation? Why should those be sue separate entities or companies. Sure. So and and if you have a company doing both it creates a conflict of interest.

You know, if you've, if you have someone and, not this is not saying people are dishonest. It's just a fact that if you've got somebody that is, they're, looking for a mold problem, but is also interested in giving you a bid to fix that problem. You know, there is an A and an incentive for them to find more and recommend more, versus, you know, and, and, and for obviously that is, you know, why you know, it, you know, what we do is not a free mobile spec, right?

Because this is all we do. This is our we're consultants, we do mobile inspections. And that's you're paying for our time and expertise because we don't have that payday coming in the future that you're gonna hire us to do something else, right? We're we're just doing this for you. This is what we do. And so I guess.

Yeah, I think that could make sense to everybody. You know, it's it's it's just a void, that conflict of interest that's inherent to the inspection process and then making recommendations and then also vetting the work you're recommending. It would really be like having a home inspector bidding that work for the for the stuff they find during a home inspection.

Yeah, that's a really good comparison. Remediations. How long should a remediation being, like, be taking place over? Like, I know it's different because all the houses are different size, but just like a general like, should it be something that can be done in an afternoon? What's what's the gist of how long we're going to generally know, you know, a very few remediation.

You're going to take one. One afternoon. I mean, there are certain instances, like you said, everything's different. You know, if you, you know, a vanity with some water damage in it. And the only thing it's involved is that bathroom. And it's a small bathroom. Maybe. But in general, you know, this is most of the time going to be a multi-day process, and sometimes multi-week, you know, occasionally multi-month.

So, yeah, I mean, it's important, it really stinks. And I think it's good to set that expectation that it can be days, weeks, months, depending on what's going on. We've definitely seen, we've had clients who've had to move out for all different durations of time, but it's worth it. And it's important for that to happen, happen the right way.

We talked about personnel I think I think two, you got to you got to take into consideration, you know, we're kind of talking about what do you look for when looking for remediation? You got to take into consideration this is an expertise line of work. You know, the people that do this, they're not people. You go out here and hire off the street, you know, for $8 an hour or whatever, and at that, that have no expertise at all, to do proper or mediation requires a lot of knowledge.

It requires a lot of critical thinking ability. And so one thing I see people make a mistake on, when considering remediation coming, they base their decision on who has enough people to make sure they can get this done as quick as possible. You know, and that's not the best criteria, to take into, into consideration.

You more want to lean towards. Okay. Let's check with other consumers that have hired this company. What has been their experience? You know, what experience do they have in doing this type of work? And things like that, because you you definitely don't want inexperienced people, dealing with this type of work because then you go back to having the same pitfalls as the DIY, right?

I mean, if you got somebody that doesn't understand how air flows through a building and how they're setting up containment, what the engineering controls are and how they need to design this, they don't understand any of that. Then you can you can run into some real pitfalls as far as the remediation company actually making mistakes.

Oh really good points are really good points. And it it is really like an overwhelming process. And I would think even just being your mediator like having to stick with it. And I'm sure they're disheartening times where you thought you got it all. And then there's more. And like that kind of a thing I think too, we tell clients that sometimes if you're working with someone on your health, we do get the advantage of seeing someone before remediation, after remediation, and sometimes, like when we have clients who are like, we had a great experience.

I'm watching them be healthy, remain healthy after and they were sick before. Sometimes that can be helpful to you mentioned reaching out to people who have used the companies before. I've never had to remediate, but we definitely get to see the flip side of that and have been able to point people towards, you know, here's a client who had a good experience.

Why don't you guys get in touch with each other? And that can be a good way to figure it out. So I want to be mindful time real quick and just kind of go through the concept of like an ounce of prevention is worth a pound to cure. Like what are things that people can do? Kind of like hot tips.

Maybe we'll go through just room by room and say, like, these are things that we can think about when it comes to prevention and how to take care of a house so that mold isn't an issue for you. Does that sound like good? Sure. We knock these out, so let's cover bathrooms because that's a lot of water. Yeah, yeah.

So bathrooms I would say, you know, first and foremost is, the shower, making sure that the grout is, you know, if you have a town grout shower, the grout is sealed. A lot of times where we're seeing problems is people have, like, those pebble grout floors that have a lot of grout and, like, little rocks.

I don't know how many of those I've seen get mold underneath of them. So, you know, those may not be the best option. Yeah. As long as they're, if they are, you need to make sure you find a way that, to get that grout sealed where you're not going to get water penetration through it, the floor.

Also, pay attention to the grout along the thresholds and, you know, if you have shower benches, things like that. A lot of times people kind of miss that, like seal the floor up, but maybe don't seal those things up. Those, you know, all need to be sealed against water penetration. When, when, you know, make sure.

And I know it's awful to say it, but even when you have professionals do work in your house, sometimes you got to go back and check and make sure things are right. You know, if you have shower doors installed and things like that, make sure the caulking put around the screws, you know, things like that. But, you know, wax rings on toilets.

I think the recommendation is that those be replaced every ten years. Nobody does that. But, you know, if they start leaking, you don't know it, and, they will leak for a long time especially, you know, I see it all the time, the crawl space where you got a mobile subfloor that's rotten under a toilet because of wax rings was leaking for, you know, six months a year.

Nobody knew it. So those those things are important. Just, you know, every once in a while, check your check under your vanity, you know, make sure you don't have a drip, you know, unfortunately, those things happen, and they're they're out of sight. Out of mind. But, you know, they can cost really big issues if we don't catch them in a timely manner.

Bathroom vent fans, you know, make sure your bathroom vent fan is functioning properly. So invest it. Take a tissue paper, and turn the fan on and stick it on there. If it sucks up, too, it stays on it. Your bathroom is probably okay. You know, that's just a general test. But it's actually sucking, you know, it's sucking enough air to actually pull air out of the place.

But if it does it, then, you know, get somebody to look at it, possibly replace it, make sure your bathroom vent fans are actually vented outside. Yeah, not in the attic. You see that a lot of times. So yeah. What about kitchen spaces? So kitchen spaces. Make sure you got good caulking along your backsplash. Because, you know, a lot of times you get water in behind that backsplash, and it gets down in between the backsplash of the cabinets, and then you end up with a mess.

And then, you know, just keep an eye on your plumbing underneath of your kitchen sink. Same thing as a bath. Or just check it out periodically, especially if got a garbage disposal, you know? Yeah. At least once a month. You know, if you got a bunch of stuff under there, that's a real problem. You know, I stores a bunch of stuff under their cabinets, and so you don't realize it's leaking because it's all hidden by old stuff.

So, you know, just check it periodically so you can tell. Okay. Basement crawl spaces. So basements, you know, basements or, and crawl spaces are more often than not, adversely affected by exterior, problems. So make sure your gutters, downspouts are extended away from the house to areas that are conducive to drainage away from the house.

If you got a crawl space, make sure that your vent events go into your crawl space. If it's a crawl space, make sure those are above grade. If they're not installed, vent well around them and caulk that vent well to the foundation. So that you're not getting, you know, snow and stuff getting into the into the foundation during, snow melt or heavy rains caused, water to get in there and create a moisture issue.

Other thing with basements is, a lot of times, just because of where we live, the Ohio Valley is just humid. You may need a dehumidifier in your basement, regardless of whether you really have anything really abnormal going on or not. Just because of that, it's it's a given area. And a lot of times the Hvac is designed to really, dehumidifier in the basement so much.

There's a I don't know all the reasons behind it. But a lot of times you won't find a return in a basement. I suspect is probably has to do with, with concerns about radar and things like that. But I would say for sure. But, you know, you need to you need to either have, you know, checked, have a little hydrometer in your basement.

If it's if it's, you know, you buy a cheap hydrometer don't have be real accurate about cheap one a Walmart for seven bucks. And, make sure your humidity staying below 60% if it's not, and then install a dehumidifier, in the crawl space, look for your, you know, make sure you're not having sweating condensation from your beer grates, back vents, things like that.

If you're talking in a snack professional about, you know, what I need to do to correct this issue? Because that will create some really long term damage and mold growth over time. Anything else on the Hvac just in general caring for that or preventing their, get maintenance on your Hvac and it just get it cleaned, periodically, you know, follow, you know, manufacturer's recommendations on it, but at a minimum, once a year, you know, get that, get the coils clean, inside the pads, get the pan, the drip pan inside of it clean.

Even I would recommend going to get the blower motor cleaned out, the dust clean off of it, things like that. Just because those those dusty components, they will. The dust you're in Texas is inherently a place where water is made on purpose. Right? So you got you got condensation taking place on those coils, because that's how it cools your house.

And so you purposefully have a wet environment, and with that humidity that actually can exist inside that H-back cabinet. If you don't take care of the, the soil load, you've already got the moisture, the mold that is inherently in our environment all the time, will undoubtedly start to colonize. What about attic spaces?

What can we do there to prevent mold issues? Attic space. Most important thing is proper ventilation. Just making sure that you've got the right amount of ventilation, to keep condensation from forming on the underside of the attic sheeting. And, really, just, I mean, nobody is going to climb their attic periodically, really enjoying things now for the most part.

But, you know, probably most often what I see as far as attic leaks is like flashing around chimneys and plumbing boots around the plumbing vent pipes. And so, you know, if you happen, the person to check those things. And I would get it in there, you know, every year at least, and check and make sure you're not having some types of leaks of air because those things can go undetected.

Because you can have water trail down that pipe and not ever hit a piece of drywall that you actually see inside the house. And it can affect, you know, things inside of walls, and things like that that you don't know about until, you know, perhaps you they're talking to somebody like you. And I have some bones, and we can't figure out what's going on.

Yeah, we've seen chimneys and, like, flashing around chimneys. Be kind of like a sneaky place because you don't like who goes onto their second floor. Looks out there like it's just not there. But water intrusion. There has been like a surprise component for several clients I can think of. So definitely important. Windows and doors. Anything we need to think about with windows and doors?

Just make sure your flashing is proper. I mean, when they're installed on the new house, make sure you got, you know, proper flashing when you got, you know, as far as the you're talking things around the windows and doors, you're going to have to have that redone periodically. So just make sure that that stays in good condition.

If you see the caulking start, break down, get get somebody a professional help to fix it. What about condensation or what on windows. Right. Because that's what I was just going to say. I said, look for condensation on the especially between the panes of windows. Like you can get a broken seal and a double pane window, and you get condensation inside of the inside of the window, condensation occurring on the inside of windows is, is either a, indication that you got windows, that or maybe old single pane windows that just allow the heat, and the cold to conduct through the back glass.

Or if you got double pane windows, like newer windows, then the ceiling may be broken. And it's allowing, you know, the low heat gas that was in the middle is gone. So now you've got heat transfer from the inside outside. And that can create, you know, more, run down the inside of the windows and then get in the adjacent, window sills where framing in that can cause some more damage as well.

I feel like window condensation is something I get asked about all the time. Like if it's on the inside, the outside, the between, if it's running. I'm like, I could use some more guidance there. So that's really helpful. What about home exterior stuff? Things that we can do to keep water from intruding, just kind of general. You mentioned the gutters in downtown.

Yeah. So look for things like, you know, look for things like the gray to the hat around the house, you know, should look away from the house. If you if you sloping towards the house or you've got low areas or water accumulates along the foundation, that can always be a problem, because going to allow water to penetrate as it sits there over time, look for, you know, if you have a brick exterior, look for, you know, damage mortar, things like that, that can allow for water again.

And if you got siding, go on. So look for damaged siding. A lot of things I see on older homes, especially as you got portions or components or sometimes the entire house is painted. Right. So you got maybe wood siding on a house, maybe not. Maybe some other time saying. But you got the eaves. Are in the soffits are wood.

And, the windowsills on the on the outside in the roofs surround it's wood. And those things, over time, the paint breaks down. If you don't take care of it, maintain that paint and, water intrusion into the underlying, material. Of course, that's going to produce some old growth and things like that. So that that would be the most important thing.

Obviously, maintaining your roof, is, is, is kind of a no brainer. But, yeah, I think it covers most of the stuff. One little thing that we do talk a lot about, either when considering like remodels or looking at homes for my home materials. Do you have any opinions on hard flooring versus carpet?

Yeah. So, we always recommend especially people that are mold sensitive to have hard floor, not carpet, carpet. And in a house where you have carpet, carpets, large filter in the house, and it will capture more soil than anything else in the entire house. And it's never really possible to 100% get the carpet clean. Especially for folks that are most sensitive, you know, having the carpets clean presents a, particular concern because the best method of carpet cleaning occur, the carpet care industry is hot water extraction.

And of course, you're, you know, introducing heat and water. And there's already soil. And then hopefully you're extracting most of that soil, but there is already some soil. So, you know, they, you know, we we just, we think that hard surfaces are better just because of that. They're more clean. As far as keeping the stuff, you know, the soils off of the surfaces, not to say the carpets can't be properly clean.

They can. It's just they they have the risk involved when you do cleaning. That's interesting. And again, just like another area where like I'm no carpet cleaning professional, but logically that makes sense and is something that I wouldn't really have thought about. Just even the heat and water part to to carpet cleaning. But this has been really, really helpful, and I really hope that people take away that the professional portion and the right professionals guiding the process makes mold remediation a lot less stressful and terrifying and honestly costly.

In the end, when clients have not used great professionals, that's when the cost really stacks up more, and impacts them. So van, can you share with me where listeners can find you and your colleagues if they're looking for inspection and kind of areas that you guys serve? Sure. So we, we, you can find us online at the IEP group.com tag IEP.

Grow up. Com and it's got a link on other contact information on there. We serve quite a larger we can we cover all of Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and portions of West Virginia. On, you know, larger projects, we will travel nationwide. So, you know, we do a lot of things besides, mold inspections as well.

And some stuff is ancillary to the mold inspection. You know, if you have an overhaul, we may recommend asbestos testing. If you're going to have to have walls cut out and things like that. So, lead based paint testing things, things that are ancillary to make sure your family is kept safe during their radiation process.

So, Yeah. Well, thank you, Ben, for sharing your expertise with us. This has been really helpful. And I hope it's just, like, very practically effective for a lot of our families because remediation and inspection of mold just feels really super overwhelming. So I appreciate your time. Thank you for having me today, I appreciate it. Thanks for listening.

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