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How often do I hear ......"You have the black mold"!

Mold is a four-letter word you don't want to utter or hear.   Mold is alleged to be the cause of so many health issues and typically by people self-diagnosing themselves.

If there was black mold, you would also hear about brown, grey and white mold.  Black mold was invented by the media and is only the color of a mold, just like brown and grey, and white colored mold. 

Most all molds have names that are very difficult to pronounce and many types of mold are black in color when you see a black-colored mold you could be seeing over a hundred possible types of mold. 

The list below is a snip of a fungal library, you can see molds under A, B, F S, what you can't see under the B list is a Black Mold or any molds in the list that are named for a color. Naming a mold for color is not performed.

Pro Tip

If you have mold you have a water problem which caused the mold.  Bottom line you don't have mold unless you have excess water. If someone says you have black mold, you are being scammed.

True Story

A guy built his own house, that had a crawlspace.  He installed vents in the crawlspace, as was required by code.  He also opened the vents in warm weather and closed them in the cold weather, as he was told to do.  Fast forward 10 years, he is selling the home, and the buyer's inspection process finds mold in the Black MOLD crawlspace.     He became our client and we had to explain to all parties that black mold doesn't exist and that there was indeed mold in the crawlspace, from moisture in the air caused by the opening and closing of the vents.  Had he sealed the vents and operated a dehumidifier in the space, he would have removed moisture because moisture is the fuel that drives mold growth, but that is not what the construction codes say.

You see at Curren Environmental, we are environmental professionals, we provide advice regarding a variety of Environmental topics, mold being just one of them.  No hype, no trying to scare you, science-based assessments of problems and their associated solution.

Want Expert Mold Advice?

888-301-1050

If we didn’t have mold, the leaves, mulch and grass clipping would never decompose, so mold is an essential part of our ecosystem.   Since minuet concentrations of mold spores can be expected to be found almost everywhere, indoors and outdoors, removing all mold from a home or business is just not impossible.  Since mold is only regulated in 11 states, you will see many businesses advertise “mold removal” and may even guarantee to remove all mold, which is really just not possible.

Visible mold is a sure sign that there is a mold problem. When we say mold is everywhere, it’s not visible to the naked eye. Your ultimate objective of addressing mold is fixing the source that fueled the mold growth and  then removing (remediating) the mold. In truth, you are going to aim to getting mold levels back to normal, natural levels (background, nothing visible, no odors).

Ever buy anything from Amazon?   Probably, they grew from an online book seller in the 1990's to a superstore, movie studio and video channel to name a few things.   An underlining mantra at Amazon is when a problem is found, they will "walk backwards" to find the cause so it can be fixed and the problem will not reoccur.   Mold remediation requires you to "walk backwards as well to diagnosis the cause and prevent it from reoccurring.

Clearly you want to remediate the mold in the photos, but you also want to fix the cause.

Understanding what caused the mold is the key to the remediation of mold. Case in point, the photo below is an excellent example of selective mold growth.  Look at the ceiling, some beams have a light brown wood color (no mold growth) and some are a greyish color (mold growth).  Mold Remediation is needed for sure but you have to also fix the cause.  I am not going to explain the cause, but we see it a lot, it always gets addressed during remediation.

New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware do not regulate mold businesses, so hiring a competent ethical company that understands the science behind mold and mold growth is harder than it should be.  Curren Environmental is a full service environmental company and has been for over 20 years experience with mold.  Let’s explain what you can expect to address your mold problem either in your home or business. Even though every project has some unique attributes there is a foundation that you follow to successfully address the mold.

• Step 1: Mold inspection with emphasis on the cause of mold. You have to find the cause so it can be fixed and the mold will not return.
• Step 2: Develop remedial plan and make repairs to cause of mold. You need a plan to ensure you address the mold issue thoroughly. Most likely the person inspecting the mold will not be remediating so you need a clear set of steps (instructions) for the mold remediation crew.
• Step 3: Mold Containment of work area from non work area. As bad as any area with mold is, mold spores will get airborne when demolition or movement of mold impacted items from the space. You need to be able to maintain clean areas outside the mold work area.
• Step 4: Air Filtration of area to contain spores. We use industrial grade air filtration to clean the air during remediation to prevent cross contamination.
• Step 5: Clean and save items as possible, wrap fixtures in space if present.  Trust us the mold on the treadmill in your basement can be cleaned and saved.  That box of old magazines, probable not. 
• Step 6: Physical remediation, hep vacuum to clean mold growth, fungicide application and apply fungistatic coating of remaining porous surfaces this prevents future growth and comes with a 10 year warranty. This is the meat and potatoes of the project.
• Step 7: Final walk through, what should you expect? You should expect any space that had mold remediation to be cleaner than before remediation.  Expect that organic wood surfaces are now treated with a fungistatic coating. You may have also found other sources/drivers of the mold during the remediation and this would need to be expressed to the client. (Finding hidden water leaks or termite damage is not out of the ordinary.)

You have mold because you have moisture and possible from more than one source. We have completed thousands of mold inspections and mold remediation.  Our crew is trained to find problems and provide solutions.

Signs of Mold? Call Today 888-301-1050