Your home is a haven for you and your family that can fall susceptible to many different types of pollutants. With the use of our professional South Florida testing services you can rest easy and confident that your home will be protected from the many pollutants that can pose health dangers. Miami Mold Specialist offers background expertise which includes indoor environmental consulting in various commercial settings to benefit the homeowner and businessperson, screening for conditions and constituents that may be impacting the indoor environment. The indoor environment includes a number of complex factors working together to make a space livable or to work in. These include air quality, thermal comfort, lighting, sound, and odors.

Sources of Indoor Air Pollutants

1. Mold & Bacteria
2. VOC’s Released From Furnishing & Building Materials
3. Chemical Fumes From Paints & Solvents
4. Chemicals From Cleaning Products
5. Outdoor Air Pollutants
6. Cigarette & Tobacco Smoke
7. Animal Hair & Dander
8. Dust Mites
9. Combustion Gases
10. Carbon Monoxide
11. Gases, Including Radon, Seeping In From Foundations

Miami Mold Specialist is capable of addressing all of these factors on an as needed basis or as per your request. For complaints of an indoor air quality concern, or in preventing an air quality situation from developing, governmental guidelines and standards are followed. The most useful resource for the homeowner or small business enterprise in existing situations is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) who has identified the most common sources of indoor air pollution in a home as:

• Radon
• Environmental Tobacco Smoke
• Biologicals (mold & bacteria)
• Formaldehyde
• Pesticides
• Asbestos
• Lead

Additionally, moisture can be a major contributor affecting indoor health. Either in unregulated humidity levels or uncontrolled or unidentified leaks, moisture can lead to fungal spores or mold that can be very unhealthy to occupants; and can cause extensive structural damage.

1. The US EPA has reported that home air can have 100 times more chemicals inside than outside.
2. The US EPA has also reported that adults and kids now spend most of their time indoors (90%).
3. The CDC has reported that 20+ million adults have asthma, and the National Asthma Survey has reported that asthma is the most prevalent chronic disease among children. These numbers continue to increase annually, suggesting that the indoor environment plays a contributing role in this trend.
4. Mold growth can be present within the home and be hidden behind walls or underneath carpeting or flooring.
5. The use of Formaldehyde is prevalent in certain building materials and the concentration of this known cancer-causing agent can be many times the safe level.

Read about our Indoor Air Quality testing services, and find out how we can help you.

Indoor air is a “chemical soup” made up of a variety of chemicals from building materials, cleaning products, pesticides, personal care and consumer products, emissions from building equipment and activities, etc. There can be serious risks to the additive and cumulative effects of these chemicals.

Persistent discomfort due to indoor air pollutants often are the direct result of the materials used in “fitting out” for livability. Many porous materials and furnishings such as carpeting, couches, drapes, and wallboard absorb cleaning chemicals, fragrances, pesticides, and other air pollutants. Chemicals adsorb to virtually all indoor surfaces, but more strongly to rough rather than smooth surfaces. These chemicals are released again into the air for long periods of time, leading to prolonged indoor air pollution. Ever notice how a former smoking space still has the odor lingering long after smoking has ended…days, weeks, months?

Clean indoor air can be as easy as opening a window or changing filters more frequently. However; with building envelopes becoming tighter for increased energy efficiency, the management of indoor air quality can become very complicated, especially in existing buildings.

Correcting problems with indoor air quality in existing buildings, and occasionally in new structures as well, may require a multi-step approach.

Interview – In all cases, a detailed interview with the occupant(s), or person making the complaint, is a necessary first step.

Visual Inspection – The second step is a visual inspection of the area where the source of the complaint may be focused.

Baseline Screening – In this three-step approach, Common Sense Inspections use a strategy which begins with advanced sensor technology to screen for conditions that could be the cause for poor indoor air quality such as those listed by the EPA. Graphic analysis makes understanding the cause less of a guess or a maybe and helps identify the source together with the aid of additional strategies depending on the severity.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): “In most cases, if visible mold growth is present, sampling is unnecessary. Since no EPA or other federal limits have been set for mold or mold spores, sampling cannot be used to check a building’s compliance with federal mold standards. Surface sampling may be useful to determine if an area has been adequately cleaned or remediated. Sampling for mold should be conducted by professionals who have specific experience in designing mold sampling protocols, sampling methods and interpreting results. Sample analysis should follow analytical methods recommended by the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA), the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH), or other professional organizations.”

When evidence of visual mold growth is not found while utilizing our state-of-the-art inspection devices, we use our sampling methods to see if mold is present in the air or from a specific surface area with “suspect” mold growth. Air sampling is taken from open areas where there’s high probability of contamination due to elevated moisture and humidity levels and the presence of condensation. Air samples are then sent to a third-party laboratory that examines them and finds out the type(s) of mold found in the area where sample was taken from as well as the mold spore count in that area. On the other hand, swab samples are sent to a third-party laboratory that will confirm the presence of mold in the surface area where it was taken from as well as the mycelial estimate (whether the mold is actively growing or not). Laboratory results typically take within 1-2 business days to be received and will also include common health symptoms related to the type(s) of mold found.