Matt Kelly explains why ERMI scores can be misleading. The score subtracts common indoor molds from water-damage molds, so a single high-count dangerous mold like keratinomyces at 100 could show an ERMI of zero if common molds are also high. He recommends checking which specific species are present and their health effects instead.
Matt, you say that you don't go by the score on the erme. You look at the molds. But why don't you go by the score? Okay? I get asked that every once in a while, and if the score was accurate, it makes life really easy. Hey, I scored a 10.0. What did you get? I got a 20.0. Oh, bummer. Hey, I got a minus five. Yay. Okay, if the score was accurate, it would make life easier for everyone. But what happens is, basically, the score gets the most skewed by the group two molds. So, you know, you got two. You got two columns. Group one is your water damage molds. Group two is your common indoor molds. And to give you an example, say your group one all looked okay. Okay, you had a ton of NDs not detected. You weren't. You didn't have stachy. You didn't have bulimia. You didn't have Aspergillus varicicolor. You didn't have Aspergillus penicillioides. Hey, maybe your flavis was down. Your penicillium brevicompactum was a zero. Everything looks good, but your ketomium is 100. Okay, so you got one bad mold. Okay, so you got hit for some points on that. Everything else with zeros on your Hertzme 2, and. And then on group 2, you had a ton of indoor molds. You had all kinds of Alternarium and Cladosporium and Epicocum, and you had all these in there had, like, double asterisks, and they're super high. And that Group 2 score. Say your Group 1 score was 10, but your Group 2 score was 10, so you're only penalized for one mold. One bad mold on group one. But then because group two was so bad, that score got high. And how is an ERMI calculated? They take the Group 2 score and subtract it from Group 1. So if Group 1 was a 10 and Group 2 ended up being a 10, your ERMI score is a zero. And everyone applauds because you've got an ERMI at a zero. And people would die for this, because a lot of people are stuck in moldy homes with awful scores, and they would love that. But wait a minute. You have ketomium at 100. That's not okay. That's enough to make you extremely sick, create massive brain and neurological problems. So this is why I say I look at the molds. The molds matter. The score can be artificially high, it can be artificially low. And that's why the molds matter and that's why people get their ermie through pharmacy and me so I can sit and tell them what these molds mean, how they affect the body, what mycotoxins they make and how those can be affecting the body because that's what matters. You know when you have people that are sick and we need to go through those molds and see what could be making them sick and then move them on, what's the next step? Find a good inspection, get a proper remediation. Everything has to be done properly guys. But you can't base your moves your ability to pick a clean place. If you're looking at a place and you get a good score, remember it's about the molds, not the score. That's how bad scores happen. So be careful out there. Hope that helps.
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