Mistakes Made When Sampling For Mold

There are a few different mistakes that you can make when you are looking for mold in your house. While some of us know that you can use a piece of tape to do a “lift” sample, this is not the only way to detect mold in your home.

No matter what you might see on the news, “toxic black mold” is not the only color of mold there is out there that can harm you or your family. Mold exists in most of the colors of the rainbow and are sometimes so lightly colored that you cannot see them unless you know how exactly to look for them.

Lightly colored molds are best looked for with a bright flashlight. These are most often difficult to see on wood paneling or other smooth surfaces and you can detect them not by shining the light directly at the surface, but by standing next to it and shining the light along it instead. This angle of illumination allows you to see the imperfections of the surface you are shining the light on, since shining the light at a 90 degree angle to the surface usually illuminates it so much that you only see the light bounce back.

Choosing a bad surface to test such as concrete when there are other organic surfaces such as wood paneling or drywall are there is another mistake that people make. Mold does not like to grow on concrete in most cases, except at times where there is an excess amount of saw dust or simple dust there for it to feed on. This surface also usually needs to be at least somewhat moist. If at all possible, sample an organic surface when looking for mold.

There are other things that people often mistake for mold that get sampled. Wood sap in the attic can be mistaken for mold and so can foam insulation. Thermal tracking on walls where a heat source has been left too close or in a house where there has been smoke damage is also mistaken for mold sometimes.

You should not inspect only the areas in the house that are the easiest to test. Ignoring crawl spaces, basements, and other hard to reach areas is a mistake when you are looking for mold in your house.

Sampling insulation is also necessary, but tape sampling is not very useful for porous materials like this. A professional should be used to test fiberglass insulation for mold.


Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
New York Sewage Damage Clean-up and other states and cities such as
North Carolina Water and Sewage Extraction companies across the united states.