Mold Inspections NJ
What Are Mold Inspections in New Jersey? Complete Guide & Overview
This guide will cover everything you need to know about mold inspections in NJ.
A mold inspection is a process of information gathering that’s performed by a certified mold inspector.
The inspection will allow the inspector to develop an explanation for why mold is growing in your home. The mold inspector will form a theory for what the problem is. They will provide recommendations to correct it & use sampling to prove the theory. This is a basic explanation of how mold inspections work in New Jersey.
What Tools Are Used During A Mold Inspection in NJ?
A good mold inspector will show up with certain tools or equipment. This is a bit dense, but definitely explains everything you need to know about mold inspections in New Jersey.
The tools needed to conduct mold inspections:
- Flashlight or flashlight/black light – helps identify mold in poor lighting
- Tape ruler – to inspect or assess how many square feet of mold is growing
- Thermometer – helps pinpoint ventilation problems
- Relative humidity indicator – mold inspector will record humidity levels
- Moisture meter – mold inspector can assess where water leaks are
- Borescope – allows the mold inspector to peek into wall cavities
- Drywall spackle – to cover up holes made for the borescope
- Metal ductwork tape – if mold inspector checks your ducts, they need to be resealed
- Foldout ladder – for getting into high places
- PPE – mold inspector should wear PPE at all times at your NJ residence
- Inspection forms – to document everything during the initial mold inspection
- Multi-purpose camera – for taking photos during the inspection
- Screwdriver – common tool for any mold inspection
Items such as a flashlight, camera, ladders, inspection forms & screw drivers are all common tools used in a mold inspection.
The specialty equipment used for a mold inspection are the moisture meter, RH indicator, blacklight & borescope.
Any experienced mold inspection company in NJ will have these tools.
Make sure the mold inspector doesn’t go around drilling holes without your permission. They must obtain express written permission. If a borescope is used to peek behind walls, any holes must be sealed with spackle. Do not settle for a mold inspection company who doesn’t know what they’re doing. They can leave your home looking like swiss cheese!
Why Is Thermal Imaging Sometimes Used In NJ Mold Inspections?
A mold inspector may come out to your home with a thermal imaging gun. These are very useful for identifying hot spots for mold. The use of thermography is used in the military & security services. But they can also be used for mold inspections.
These tools will display differences of temperature, using a color grid. Warm air air will appear in shades of white, yellow, orange or red. Cooler air will display in colors of blue, green or purple.
The mold inspector can easily tell if you have holes in your home that are leaking in cold, outside air.
By seeing clearly where air is coming in, you also know where water is getting in.
Identifying water leaks is important during your mold inspection! These thermal guns work great. They can pick up things you never knew existed. And can prevent problems down the road. By sealing off holes before they get bigger. This will stop water. And it will stop mold. This is the primary reason thermal guns are used for mold inspections.
A Mold Inspector May Talk About The “Micron Size” Of Your Mold – Why This Is Important?
Particle counters are another useful tool for mold inspections in New Jersey. They can detect & count particles that are present in ambient, indoor air. This includes particles of mold.
Why does the micron size of mold matter during a mold inspection?
The answer is simple! And important to discuss during your mold inspection. Mold spores that have a range of .3 to .9 microns pose the greatest risk to your health. This is because they can pass through tiny hairs (cilia) in our throats & lungs. They’re too large to be exhaled. These mold particulates can become lodged in your lungs. The mold inspector should determine the micron size of mold spores in your air.
This is a very useful piece of information to have! And will be assessed during the course of your mold inspection.
What Is A Limited Mold Inspection In New Jersey?
The purpose of a limited mold inspection is to find mold contamination within specified areas of a home.
If you call up mold companies looking for an inspection you’ll usually encounter 2 different types of businesses.
Businesses that charge for mold inspections and businesses that don’t.
Maybe you spoke to a company prior to coming to this page? Have you spoken to another mold company yet?
You may have heard various claims such as:
- Free inspections are used merely as a technique to get inside a home.
- Once inside a home the company will try to upsell you services you don’t need.
- The inspections are usually poor quality.
- The inspections really aren’t “free” because they add the price to the total cost of the service.
There are certain companies who will espouse these type of statements. And you need to be extremely careful about what you choose to believe. As much as we know about our competitors, we’d hate to place them all in the same boat. That wouldn’t be fair.
But we do know for a fact that there’s 1 company specifically who ranks fairly well on Google. And they will feed you a line of statements exactly like listed above. They will use high pressure sales techniques on you. You also need to keep in mind that there are millions of scammers, liars and unethical businesses who rank well all over Google. But how a website ranks on Google has absolutely nothing to do with their reputation.
Is there anything wrong with companies that offer free inspections?
Generally speaking, no. But it’s still relative to the company.
From what we’ve personally experienced, companies who offer free inspections tend to be the “good guys”. And we’re not just saying this because we offer them. Companies who charge for inspections usually do this to “qualify” a potential customer. They are much more aggressive and much less favorable ways. They’re not looking for homes that have mold as much as they’re looking for people who have money (never forget we told you this).
As far as our own business, we will tell you straight out:
- Yes, we use free inspections to get inside peoples homes. That’s our job. To find moldy homes.
- No, we don’t try to upsell you anything you don’t need. More often than not we have to talk customers out of things they’ve been tricked into believing.
- The quality of our inspections are impeccable. You can find companies that do more thorough inspections but we’ll talk about this more in a bit.
- No, we don’t add the cost to our contracts. We consider free inspections a “loss leader” as a way of gaining exposure.
It allows us to inspect more homes in general. Which is more work. But it’s even more work trying to convince people who don’t have a mold problem that they do have a mold problem and should pay for a service they don’t need.
What about companies that charge for inspections?
There are good mold companies that conduct paid, large scope mold inspections. More thorough than we do. You will pay thousands, they will carefully comb through and inspect every square inch of your property. Then they will generate you a 140 page report that a NASA engineer couldn’t understand.
The real reason we don’t like these types of inspections is they are simply overkill 95% of the time.
Most of the time all you need is a well trained, well experienced and ethical mold inspector who knows what he’s doing. Because you can have all the tools in the world but if you don’t know what to do with them you’re just wasting peoples time and money.
How are mold inspections generally done?
The goal is the isolate all “red flags” that are considered favorable for the growth of mold. Our inspectors will use a wide variety of tools, techniques and strategies to do this. The goal is not just to find mold. It’s to find out why mold is growing in your home in the first place. Along with sorting out what can be done to stop it (permanently).
General sources for mold include moisture problems, degraded organic material, damaged infrastructure, leaky pipes or plumbing, basements that flood, cracked roofs, faulty gutters, bad ventilation, bad insulation, bad grading of the land surrounding your home, along with dozens of other potential problems. We could write a book about this, but many already have. And it’s much easier to answer questions over the phone. So please don’t hesitate to give us a ring if you need any guidance.
MMRG Mold Remediation & Basement Waterproofing
For help or to schedule a free inspection, you can call Randy at: 908-601-1307.
If you would like to check out our online reviews, then visit – MMRG, Mold Removal, Mold Inspection, Mold Testing in New Jersey.
Warmest regards,
-The MMRG Team
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