Matt Kelly ("the mold man") answers a viewer question about finding hidden mold when environmental tests show high mold but the source isn't obvious. He explains that mold can be hard to locate because it doesn't always require an active leak, inspection quality varies widely (from minimal $350 checks to exhaustive $7–9k investigations), and common tools (moisture meters, thermal cameras) can miss non-wet or cavity-bound growth. He recommends experienced inspectors who collect a full water-history, perform cavity testing (drilling small holes to insert an air-sampling wand), attic/crawlspace checks, and extensive targeted air testing when no obvious source guides the search.
Chapters
All right, Jennifer here is pointing out one of the biggest problems with mold in the home, and that is finding it. And her question is, how can you find additional areas of mold when the testing is still high, but you have no idea where the additional mold is without tearing apart the entire house? And that is absolutely the biggest problem with mold. With our body, we can do the urine mycotoxins lab, we can do a serum mycotoxins antibody test, we can do the organic acid test. We can get a good idea, we get a good handle on what's going on in our body. And same with the protocol, we can start going down that path of fixing the body. But you have to live somewhere while you're doing this. You have to live somewhere clean. You can't have that constant attack, that constant stress on the body from a moldy house. So when you have mold in your house and you can't find it, that's a real bad spot. You're really between a rock and a hard place. And when you call inspectors, and I've said this before, the mold inspection world and remediation is like the wild, wild west. Like, anything goes right now. Excuse me, on the one end, you've got a mold inspector. You call and spend $350, and they come, do an air sample outside your front door. They do an air sample in the middle of your living room, and two weeks later, you get a report saying everything's well within range and you have no problems, which is not true at all, which is why we do the ermi. Well, it could be true, but it's probably not if you're sick and wondering if mold's an issue. But then on the far other end of the spectrum, you have mold inspectors that can be certified and experienced, and a team of two guys will come, and it might cost you seven, eight, $9,000, and they'll spend the whole day at your house looking everywhere and examining everywhere, and tape testing and swab testing and air sampling and ERMI and everything, trying to find this. So we have this giant spectrum of mold inspectors, and it depends where your mold inspector was on this spectrum in his likelihood to find issues. So when inspectors come, they should collect a full history. Right? They want to know, did your dishwasher ever leak? Did you have a shower or tub overflow? Did you have a roof leak? Did your basement ever flood? Not that you're doing their work for them, but that lets them be a little more sensitive or careful, or they can look harder in those areas trying to see if there's still an existing problem left over from that. But when there isn't any guidance like that, it's really hard to find hidden mold because not all mold needs water. If it did, you could use a moisture meter, you could use thermal imaging. There's a lot of great tools, but nothing is 100%. I could have mold in this wall here if it had a water source or just high humidity even and the mold started growing, but now it's just feeding off the humidity in the air. You know, maybe I'm not keeping my humidity under 50%, which doesn't stop mold, it just slows it. Right. Don't think that it stops it. And then when someone uses a thermal imaging camera or a moisture meter, it's not going to pick it up as a problem. They could be a half inch. That's the thickness of drywall. They could be a half inch away from a giant mold colony and not even know it because it doesn't have an active water leak. So this is why finding mold is so hard. This is why you want the guys on the far on expensive end of the spectrum that will ask these questions, that will do cavity testing that will be up in your attic looking for problems that will be in your crawl space because it's hard. There's no simple answer that I have for you, Jennifer, other than finding experienced people that are willing to keep searching. And obviously most molds around water sources, right? So where you have water lines, where you have bathrooms, you can just having them do a lot of cavity testing. That's where they drill a quarter inch hole in your drywall. Put the wand in, do an air test there. That's where air testing comes in. That's where it should be. That's where it's useful, that's where it's accurate. And worst case scenario, you punch a lot of quarter inch holes and test a lot of areas. If you don't have anything specific to guide you. I know it's awful, but I hope some of these tips help a little bit.
Do you have questions about mold in your home or body? Book a consultation with Matt, AKA the mold man to guide your home and body to the next level of heal.
