Matt Kelly explains what to do after finding mold in a new home. Plate tests show mold is present, but ERMI testing identifies the species and whether it's toxic. New construction mold usually comes from moldy lumber or water leaks during building, and can be caught with moisture meters and thermal imaging before closing.
All right. Sharon's asking about mold testing in new construction. What to look for if plates show positive results. Well, if you have done petri dishes like plate testing and it's showing a mold problem in a new home, I would be concerned because plate testing doesn't catch as much, obviously, as an ermi. So it sounds like there's a problem already there. So I personally, I would be doing an ERMI to get a better idea what's there and which molds they are. Is it stachy? Is it ketomium? Is it wilemia trichoderma? Is it something we need to be really worried about? Or these more common indoor molds that could have come in during the construction process, like Cladosporium or something that's, you know, hopefully. Hopefully it's something that's not toxigenic. But that's why I do an army to find out which molds they are and their concentrations. And. But the truth is, some new homes do have mold, and it's so frustrating. But it does happen. And this happens for one of two reasons. I should put numbers on it. Some of the reasons are One, builders are using moldy wood. Listen, if anybody's building a new home so that you can control it and make sure you don't have a mold problem and you control everything around this, you need to ask for, ask your lawyer to include a moldy wood clause and talk to the builder and say, hey, I'm mold sensitive. I can't have any moldy lumber used on this build. Can you please make sure nothing with visible mold on it is used and have that written in your contract with the builder and explain it so that he knows. If he understands that, you know, you're sensitive to mold, then he's going to be more prone to let the crew know and they will hopefully not be putting up green and black, two by fours and lumber and trusses. Okay, and we talked about this in another thread here somewhere. But what you can do is then hire a third party inspector to keep an eye on the build as it's being framed. So this is someone that would come in unless they would allow you to check, but this person would come in and check the framing as it's being done. And if they see a problem, they'd notify the crew and that would have to be replaced. And because you don't want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to have mold on the lumber, which they do. What to. Oh, screw drywall to it. You just screwed mold food on top of mold food. On top of growing mold. Mold can then take off. Especially if you live in like Florida or something where you have all this high humidity while it's being built. Then it's closed up, but H Vac isn't installed yet. You don't have dehumidifier going, you don't have air conditioner going. You. It can just get this awful start right off the bat. But then you have the obvious problem of did someone like I've seen this, my brother in law's a plumber and he sent me a picture once where the guy that was doing trimming it out, putting the baseboard down, it had three nails from the baseboard into the blue cold water pex pipe. So the plastic water line had three nails in it. Okay, so right from brand new. So these things happen. You know, you can't see behind the wall when you're trimming out. So it's entire possible that there is a water leak right off the bat. But water leaks sometimes are slow enough that you don't see what you know you're not going to be stain on the, on the ceiling in the basement or something. Right. Or you don't have a basement. So some of these things can fester quite a while before you have any sign that there's a problem. So that's where a moisture meter can be handy to try to locate a problem like that. But yeah, so if there's a mold problem, a new construction, I'd get the ermi, see if it's toxigenic mold, what the concentrations are. If there is a problem, then you have someone in come in with a moisture meter and hopefully it's something that's easily to spot with vat or thermal edging. Thermal imaging as opposed to the structure itself was built with moldy wood. And now how do you find that? Because a moisture meter and thermal imaging isn't going to show mold when there's no water source. They look for water leaks, not mold. So it's a lot easier to find mold when there's water leak as opposed to moldy wood being used. That makes it a lot harder Anyway, hope that helps.
Sharon, 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 healing.
