I had a situation in the past month that really shows the need for any kind of testing when it comes to mold and possible mold contaminated environments. Especially in commercial spaces. There is too much liability to not know what you are dealing with regarding Indoor Air Quality issues. This situation also shows the resistance I receive from people that have been in this industry for years when mold wasn't an issue and from people that are just not educated on this topic.
Like I have said before, I have been doing this for 15 years. That does not mean I know everything. By far, but I have seen my fair share. When I first started out as a helper on the trucks, they sent me into a job once in an apartment complex. The apartment had been underneath a unit that had caught on fire and was saturated from the fireman's water hoses. It was right at the beginning of the summer/end of spring when the fire occurred. By the time we were allowed to gain access to the units it was end of July. B y then, you couldn't even see the paint on the walls or ceiling due to the mold growth.
The place was gross.
My tools: dust mask, hand tools, and garbage bags.
There was no containment, HEPA filtered negative air machines or HEPA vacuums, respirators, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), decontamination chambers, nothing like that. But times have changed. Its the natural progression of things. Just because back then we didn't know what we know now about mold in indoor environments, doesn't mean we can continue the practices that were used in the past. Doesn't work like that. The media and lawyers don't work like that. Why should I? But again, there is such resistance and minimization when it comes to mold remediation. Ive had people basically tell me to my face my company is all smoke and mirrors. I have been called an over-zealous kid. And that was just recently. I'm 33 years old. These people said the same thing about lead and asbestos when it was first realized that stuff wasn't good for you. My technicians health as well as the occupants in and around the space we are working is very important to me and it is something I have to be very cognisant of. I do not even let my guys go near any fiberglass insulation or dusty environments without the proper PPE.
Europe is very progressive. They were performing lead and asbestos abatement and mold remediation well before the United States. And they have started to do fiberglass remediation on the other side of the pond. California is a very progressive state, they are starting to require post-clearance samples on Black Water sewage contamination. With science where it is today, why not be sure instead of guessing that is abated, remediated or decontaminated. Because most of the insurance companies are not on-board with these testing procedures, sad to say it is not happening in most cases. Nobody wants to pay for it to be done. And really, it is you (the insureds) that are getting the short end of the stick. And only for the fact that they told tell you this stuff when you buy your home or insurance policies. Thats why companies like mine exist. To assist our clients in their time of need.
Now I know and understand that mold is EVERYWHERE. There is no such thing as a mold free environment, unless it is a "Clean Room" or operating room. But those areas are setup to control the environment and particulates in the air using air handlers and temperature control equipment. I can remediate an area, have it tested by an industrial hygienist, and receive the clearance from him that we have remediated the area, and as soon as I breakdown my containment and remove all my equipment we have introduced mold into the area from the surrounding ambient air. Those mold test kits they sell in Home Depot are ALWAYS going to find mold. You leave the little petri dish in the area you think there is mold. those tiny mold spores that are everywhere are going to get caught in culture. It will show you that you have mold, just will not show you the type and quantity which are the important factors.
Industrial Hygiene
Industrial hygiene is the science and art devoted to the anticipation, recognition, evaluation, prevention, and control of those environmental factors or stresses in or from the home/workplace which cause sickness, impaired health, and well being, or significant discomfort among occupants.
What Is An Industrial Hygienist?
Industrial hygienists are scientists and engineers committed to protecting the health and safety of people in a workplace or community.
A professional industrial hygienist is a person possessing either a bachelor's degree in engineering, chemistry, or physics or a bachelor's degree in a closely related biological or physical science from an accredited college or university, who also has a minimum of three years of industrial hygiene experience. A complete doctoral in a related physical, biological, or medical science or in a related engineering can be substituted for two of the three year requirement. A completed master's degree in a related physical or biological science or in a related engineering can be substituted for one year of the three year requirement. Under no circumstances can more than two years of graduate training be applied toward the three year period.
While this definition does not include certification, the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) recognizes the need for such certification by every professional industrial hygienist as an appropriate hallmark by one's peers and strongly urges all eligible members to obrain American Board of Industrial Hygiene (ABIH) certification.
The ABIH has established that successful candidates for certificates shall attain the status of Diplomate of the American Academy of Industrial Hygiene subject to compilance with requirements established by the American Board of Industrial Hygiene.
The active ABIH certification requires that one person be admitted to examination based upon academic training and 4 years experience for the Certified Industrial Hygienist (CIH), successfully pass a one day examination, and maintain active proffessional involvement by re-certification on a 5-year cycle following first exam.
Protecting People
The goal of the industrial hygienist is to keep workers, their families, and the community healthy and safe. They play a vital part in ensuring that federal, state, and local laws and regulations are followed in the work environment.
Typical roles of the industrial hygienist include:
-Investigating and examining the workplace for hazards and potential dangers
-Making recommendations on improving the safety of workers and the surrounding community
-Conducting scientific research to provide data on possible harmful conditions in the workplace
-Developing techniques to anticipate and control potentially dangerous situations in the
workplace and the community
-Training and educating the community about job-related risks
-Advising government officials and participating in the development of regulations to ensure the
health and safety of workers and their families
-Ensuring that workers are properly following health and safety procedures
Industrial Hygienists Work With the Issues That Concern Us All
Industrial hygienists deal with the health and safety challenges facing people everywhere including:
-Indoor air quality (sick building syndrome, second-hand tobacco smoke)
-Evaluating and controlling environmental lead exposure
-Emergency response planning and community right-to-know
-Occupational disease (AIDS in the workplace, tuberculosis, silicosis)
-Potentially hazardous agents such as asbestos, pesticides, and radon gas
-Cumulative Trauma Disorders (repetitive stress injuries, carpal tunnel syndrome)
-Radiation (electromagnetic fields, microwaves)
-Reproductive health hazards in the workplace
-Setting limits on exposure to chemical and physical agents
-Detection and control of potential occupational hazards such as noise, radiation, and illumination -Hazardous waste management
In general, when it comes to any kind of air sampling for mold there area few things the IH has to take into consideration. First of which, mold is everywhere, like I have stated earlier. So let's say Mrs. Smith calls an IH into her home because she thinks she has a mold issue. The IH will perform a visual inspection. He/She will also use his/her meters to find out if there is any wet building materials because that is the main ingredient for mold growth. The IH will then take air samples in the area in question. The number of air samples taken in a given area varies depending on size, occupants, and conditions. The IH will then take an air sample from the outside environment. Again number of samples may vary depending upon size of building, occupants, and conditions to name a few. They take a sample from the outside air and use those levels as a base line to compare it against the levels found in the indoor environment. In a perfect world, the interior sample levels should be at or below the exterior samples. So lets say for example the total outside spore counts are 500. The levels inside should be about the same. There are some situations where the total spore count of the exterior baseline sample is higher than the total spore count of the interior samples but there is a species of mold that is higher in concentration inside than outside. That shows that there might be an issue that needs to be addressed and further inspection would be necessary if source is not found. The IH also does not want to find a species of mold in the indoor environment that is not found in the exterior base line sample(s). That is usually indicative of an issue as well.
The IH will then take all this information that he has gathered through his inspection, sampling, and interviews of occupants and write a mold remediation protocol for his client. The protocol contains in writing the environmental controls and recommended scope of work necessary to bring the interior air quality to acceptable levels. The client then gives that written protocol to prospective remediation companies like myself so they can provide estimates for the work that needs to be done. A professional remediation company HAS to abide by the written protocol. If during the course of the project, the contractor uncovers something that was not in the protocol, work should stop until verbal confirmation is obtained by the IH and all interested parties are notified and everyone is satisfied about plan of action.
I cant stress enough the need for an independent industrial hygienists. Keyword is independent. They do not care if there is mold or if there is not mold. They have no interest in the property at all. The are there to check air quality and environmental conditions. Now there are companies out there that do both the testing and the actual mold remediation work. I feel that it is a total conflict of interest. Don't you think that the testing company that does the work is always going to find mold? Because they want the work. And I think that companies like mine and some my other competitors get a bad rap because of companies like that. When it comes to my type of work, I want to do as little as I have to do to get the properties I work on back to their pre-loss condition. I want to get in, take care of issue and service my clients with as little disturbance to their everyday life as possible and move on to the next job. That is a perfect job for me. It doesn't always happen. A lot of the time I inherit a pre-existing condition totally unrelated to the issue I was called for but now needs to be addressed due to the new problem. Those are always fun.
The reason for this whole post is because I was recently called out by one of the insurance carriers we deal with to look at what I was told was a water loss, which is a sudden intrusion of water into a structure. It was a commercial client of the carrier who I have never dealt with before. Their commercial client was not the building owner but a tenant in the building. They had a pipe break on the floor above them that came through the ceiling and saturated the tenant's whole space. The tenant had someone in on Saturday morning and everything was fine. The employee left about 1pm. When they came into work on Monday morning they found the water was still running from the pipe break and the space was saturated. When I got to the site, I found out it wasn't a new water loss but it had happened 12 days prior to my arrival. The place smelled really bad. Very heavy mildew odor. The day the pipe broke and it flooded, the commercial space's maintenance guys came in mopped up the water, removed all the wet area rugs and brought them outside to dry. They installed this Home Depot Special dehumidifier that wouldn't be enough for a studio apartment let alone the cubic footage of the affected space. And they thought it was cleaned up and they had done their job. I'm sure the smell became intolerable. I don't know why there was such a gap in time from when the loss occured until they called someone for help.
So I showed up at the site and did my inspection. I found that the double layer sheetrock ceiling was still saturated, the wood floor was still probing wet using my moisture meters, as was the lower walls behind the trim line on some of the lower walls. The wood floor that was probing wet and showing signs of buckling posed another problem. It was built over a foot high dirt floor crawlspace. The store still needed to be dried to prevent further mold growth but I could not in all good consciousness install typical drying equipment because of the mold contamination. I did not want to start blowing around the air and kicking up contaminates that were not yet airborne. Another factor we had to consider was the tenant was very adamant about his store being closed. He did not want to have any business interruption. All work had to be done between 1pm on Saturdays and when business opened at 9am on Monday morning.
I gave him my best professional opinion. I met the insurance adjuster, building owner, and tenant at the site the next day to show them everything I found because nobody was on site during my initial inspection. My thoughts were to get an IH to come in and perform their inspection and sampling and to write a protocol for work needed. Nobody wanted to pay the IH bill and it is this insurance companies' policy to not have pre-sampling done. They will only pay an IH bill if it is for clearance of a remediation project. They will learn when the 1st lawsuit hits them. Until then, policy won't change which I think is absolutely ridiculous. The tenant and building owner did not want to pay for testing either. They both felt it was unnecessary and waste of money.
I recommended we contain the front area of the space from the back, remove the entire ceiling where its wet and "chase" any kind of contamination we find. Also we should detach the 8" wood trim around the perimeter of the area we were going to be working in. Once trim was detached, we would be able to better inspect the walls and remove any areas that were either wet or showed signs of mold growth. And the wood floor that was on a raised floor over the crawlspace should be removed where it is wet and damaged to see what might be going on underneath. Also wood floors are usually installed with some kind of paper underneath for a vapor barrier. If you do not dry wood floors in the proper amount of time, they have to be removed. I cannot clean under the wood itself with out the planks being removed. I have the equipment and the knowledge to save wood flooring, even after it shows signs of cupping or crowning. When you reduce the moisture content in the wood to an acceptable level, the cupping or crowning goes down.
All the decision makers of this space really didn't think the floor was the issue, the water came from above so naturally they thought the problem was in the ceiling. The water was running for at least 24-36 hours. Where did all that water accumulate? They didn't want me to touch the walls, really minimized everything I had to say. They kept throwing their age and all their experience at me. Real fun to be in a room like that let me tell you. And having to keep your cool, not really stand up for yourself. They only wanted me to address the ceiling and the ceiling only.
I could not not do that. By only removing part of the ceiling and not addressing what was underneath would go against everything I believe in. Then from a liability standpoint I did not want to expose myself to that. I did not want to assume any responsibilty for that space. I simply requested that they find another contractor. They asked if I could recommend anyone and I declined. Couldn't knowingly send one of my competitors that i am friendly with into that situation. It would have been a nightmare. For anyone.
I did hear through the grapevine though that they did find someone to do what they asked. He remediated the space by removing only the part of the ceiling and cleaning. They hired an IH to perform the post sampling. They failed the air quality test and upon further inspection, the IH recommended removal of the remaining ceiling, removing some of the lower walls and remove the floor to clean crawlspace.
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