Got Mold?

2/20/2019 (Permalink)

Mold Damage in a Residential Home.

SERVPRO of Hyde Park/Central Austin has been completing mold remediation projects for over 15 years.  We hold a state certified Mold Remediation Company licensed under our business entity Twenty Four Seven Resources LLC, Lic # RCO1114.  Two of the four owners here are state licensed Mold Remediation Contractors.

We also require all of our water technicians to be a state registered Mold Remediation Worker.  We feel the more training our staff has the better we are prepared to service our customers when they run into unforeseen or hidden mold on a job where no mold was expected to be found.

We get a lot of the same questions and statements we about mold when speaking with customers.  

Here are a few things to be aware of if you think you might have mold or if you do in fact have a mold remediation project.

1. Is this the bad black mold?  OR What type of mold is it?  We don’t know and the only way to know is by testing.  Reality is for remediation purposes it really doesn’t matter much. All the mold and affected materials need to be removed for us to pass the air quality testing, using the same methods / processes regardless of the species of mold.  Once we have clearance you will receive your Certificate of Mold Damage Remediation
2. I sprayed it with “xyz” so it’s all dead now can’t we just paint over it?   Mold remediation is a process of removing all the mold-affected materials, plus 2 foot beyond. Encapsulation is the terminology used when we talk about covering mold that is not removed. We typically only encapsulate when the moldy materials are structural and not practical to remove. We then use product specifically made for encapsulation and not just paint.
3. Can you just spray something and kill it? Dead mold will usually have the same affect on you as living mold.  It’s the Micotoxins that you are affecting you. We could spend an hour talking about Micotoxins.  Bottom line, it is best to remove the mold.  

Although mold has been a hot topic among homeowners and water losses for the last 15 years, there still seems to be a lot of mystery and misconceptions.   This often leads to some companies using scare tactics to sell jobs or increase the size of the job. Challenge is most home owners are not educated with the state regulations and procedure for mold remediation and they take the advice from these unethical remediation companies.   We have seen $2,000 mold jobs turned into $20,000 mold job because of this.

It is our recommendation to follow the Texas Mold Assessment and Remediation Rules (TMARR).  Per TMARR any job with over 25 sf of mold you need to have a Mold Assessment Consultant (MAC) come in to evaluate.  It is the MAC’s job to write the protocol. A remediation contractor is not allowed to put the scope or work together when over 25sf of mold is present and can be fined by the state for doing so.

Our suggestion is to do one of the following:  Call us out and we will help guide you through the process with the understanding we may not be able to do anything until a MAC has been on site.

To see some of our job before and after photos Click Here