There are more hazards lurking in your home and around your property than you probably realize. That’s true no matter how old your home is, though if you live in an older house, it’s almost certainly more true.
That’s because, in the case of new construction, you don’t have to worry that the builder outfitted your house with asbestos insulation or siding, or that the interior is painted with lead-based paint. Those are genuine concerns where older homes are concerned, and unfortunately, old houses almost always have spotty histories. At best, you get a few tiny snapshots of the home you’re currently living in, but the vast majority of its history is, and probably always will be a mystery.
The best way, then, to find out if you have asbestos or lead paint in your home is to test for those things, and if you find them, have them removed. If present, there will only be a finite quantity of those materials, and once removed, it will be gone forever.
The same cannot be said for mold, though, which is why mold remediation in Virginia Beach, VA is such tricky business.
Then there’s the matter that mold often gets started in areas of your home you seldom if ever visit, so by the time you do start seeing readily apparent signs that there’s a problem, it’s a good bet that it’s already quite entrenched.
Unlike lead paint and asbestos, mold can keep coming back. In fact, mold is hardy stuff and notoriously difficult to kill, so if you’ve had mold problems in the past and you pursued a DIY solution, the odds are excellent that you will see it again.
There are a couple of difficulties here. First and foremost is the fact that it doesn’t take much to set ideal conditions for mold growth in the first place. Mold needs two things to take hold: Dampness and darkness. As you might suspect, there are lots of places in and around your home where those conditions are true, including:
With the exception of your bathroom, these places all have one very big thing in common. You don’t venture into them very often, and you seldom have a clear view of what’s going on in those areas. You can’t see behind walls, after all, so how do you know if there’s a slow leak until you start seeing tangible signs?
Unfortunately, because mold colonies tend to establish themselves in hidden nooks and crannies in your home, by the time you start seeing tangible evidence of the colony’s existence, it’s a sure sign that it’s already well-entrenched.
At the root then, our mold remediation service in Virginia Beach, VA is about three things: Identification, finding the root cause, and eradication. All three are critically important, and all three begin the same way: With testing.
There are a staggering number of mold species in existence. Most of them aren’t especially harmful, but some are. Of the harmful ones, Black Mold is the worst of the lot. Even short term exposure can make you sick. If you get lucky and it doesn’t make you physically ill, you’ll still suffer from a runny nose, watering eyes, a sore throat, and the like.
If you or a member of your family have COPD, asthma, or some other upper respiratory condition, the presence of any species of mold will make those conditions worse, and black mold can easily put someone with asthma or COPD in the hospital. That’s another reason our mold remediation service in Virginia Beach, VA is so important. Your family’s health is nothing to take chances with!
In any case, it’s incredibly important to understand what mold species we’re dealing with so we know how to proceed when we begin the remediation process. Know thine enemy, as the saying goes. It applies to tackling mold as well!
Second, if you have mold in your home, there’s a reason. Something has gone wrong. Water is leaking or dripping in from somewhere, and it’s creating conditions favorable to the mold. We can eradicate the existing colony, sure, but unless we find the root cause, it’s going to come back almost as soon as we leave. You don’t want that, and we don’t want that, so finding the root cause is an incredibly important part of the process.
To that end, we’ve stayed on the cutting edge where technology is concerned, and part of our detection process involves thermal imaging that enables us to peer behind your walls without having to cut into the drywall. That means that we can scan more of your house more quickly. If there’s a leak behind one of your walls, we’ll find it. If there’s a leak in your attic, we’ll find it. If you have water seeping into your basement, we’ll find the source.
Once we know what’s causing the issue, we can map out a corrective strategy to be deployed once the colony has been eliminated.
Now let’s talk about actually getting rid of the mold, which is obviously the part of our mold remediation process in Virginia Beach, VA that most people think about. There are several steps in this process, and we’ll outline it in broad terms, just below:
This is our first step because we want to be very careful not to spread the mold around as we proceed with our remediation effort. We want to make sure it stays gone, and that means isolating the colony so the mold spores don’t stray into some other part of your home where they’ll take root after we’ve gone. To that end, we’ll employ a number of different methods to cordon the area off, including, but not limited to:
Proper containment is critical to successful remediation.
This is really where the rubber hits the road, as this is where we actually kill the colony off. We have a number of tools at our disposal here, and how we proceed is highly dependent on exactly where the mold colony is located inside your home and how far it has spread. Commonly, we’ll use chemical agents designed to kill mold spores and HEPA air filters to capture any airborne spores that try to escape as we’re doing our work.
Mold is especially fond of cloth, paper, and drywall, so we’ll gather all materials that have been contaminated and prepare them for proper disposal. Be aware that the contaminated materials may include paper files you’ve been keeping in cardboard boxes, so you may lose some of those items. Also, be aware that if you’ve stored clothing or other memorabilia in the contaminated area, your clothing and other items may also be contaminated and lost to the cleanup effort.
Once we’ve dealt with the mold colony itself, the next part of the process involves disposing of any contaminated materials. Anything we leave behind opens the door to allowing the colony to re-establish itself in short order, so this process must be thorough. We’ll gather the materials and dispose of them in a facility that’s properly licensed to handle it.
Next, we’ll be in a position to start in on the final cleanup. There’s a lot to be done here, including wiping down all surface areas with cloths, mopping the area using a special detergent designed to kill any remaining mold spores, and vacuuming the area thoroughly using HEPA vacuums. After all that’s done, we’ll bring in fans and dehumidifiers to help speed the process of thoroughly drying the impacted area.
The last step in our remediation process is to address the root cause that led to the mold infestation in the first place to be sure that it won’t return after our work has been completed, allowing you to get on with your life.
In some cases, that will mean fixing a leaking pipe that caused the problem to begin with, patching a leak in your roof, fixing a leak in your basement, and the like. Whatever the root cause is, we deal with that, restoring your home to a condition better than it was when we first got involved.
As you can see, our mold remediation process in Virginia Beach, VA is thorough and comprehensive. We believe in leaving no stone unturned. Your family’s health and safety are just too important. If you even suspect you have a mold problem, call us right away. You’ll be very glad you did.
About Envriotex Environmental Services
Established in Northern Virginia in 2000, Envirotex Environmental Services was founded on military service. While serving his country, the company's owner Mr. Freeman gained vast knowledge and experience in the environmental services field. His expertise in air monitoring and hazardous materials testing prepared him for his post-military career.
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