Why Add Mold Screening to Your Home Inspection?
Including a mold screening with your standard home inspection provides critical information about the property. Here is why you should schedule one:
Identify Health Risks: Mold triggers allergies, respiratory issues, and headaches. Screening detects elevated spore counts and identifies specific mold types that threaten your health.
Uncover Hidden Growth: Mold often thrives in invisible areas, such as behind drywalls or in attics. Screening detects these hidden colonies so you can address them immediately.
Gain Peace of Mind: Confirming the presence (or absence) of mold allows you to make informed decisions and take immediate action to reduce exposure.
Protect Your Investment: A screening ensures you are buying a safe, healthy home, preventing costly surprises down the road.
Maximize Home Value: Identifying and removing mold protects the structural integrity of the property and maintains its market value.
Hopefully, this is the only moldy thing in the house
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Non-Viable Mold Testing (Air Sampling)
Non-viable testing is the most practical method for identifying mold issues. Technicians use slit impaction samplers (such as Zefon Air-O-Cell or Allergenco-D cassettes) to draw air through a narrow opening, trapping mold spores on a sticky surface.
A laboratory then analyzes the slide under a microscope. This process calculates the overall concentration of spores in the air and identifies the mold genus (broad category), though not the specific species.
Viable (Cultured) Testing
Viable sampling determines if mold is actively growing and provides a specific species-level analysis. You should reserve this method for specific situations:
When you must link visible surface mold to elevated airborne spores.
When testing environments for severely immunocompromised patients.
The Drawbacks: Viable sampling captures a limited range of spores, costs significantly more, and requires a longer processing time at the lab. For most residential and commercial needs, non-viable sampling remains the superior, cost-effective choice.
Pricing and Consumer Warning
Most companies charge a base inspection fee of $175–$350, plus a fee of $95–$145 per sample.
Watch out for over-sampling. The main variable in pricing is the number of samples collected. Unethical companies inflate costs by recommending excessive sampling—you do not need a dozen samples for an 800-square-foot apartment.
Standard Rates: The prices above apply to standard non-viable air samples.
Specialty Rates: Cultured (viable) samples cost significantly more.
Note: Mold sampling is an indicator, not an exact science. Results highlight potential issues that require further investigation by a qualified professional.