Water Damage call---major mold present

[WISE]

Looked at a water damage this morning. Condo's. Unit to left about 200sf of flooring wet. Unit to right...source. Get in there, (this one is a rental, unit 1 owner occupied) carpet wet throughout entire unit. Look in AC closet....entire closet filled with mold. Door to closet is like wet cardboard. Call the owner tell him what I see.

He says how much. I say, I don't know just yet...a full scope needs to be done--but several thousand $'s just on what I see. He says..."It's not toxic mold, it's just regular household mold, it shouldn't be much." I say, how do you know it is not toxic? He says, " I have been doing this a long time son, toxic mold is extremely rare."

So I ask him what class he took to determine the toxicity of mold without testing or seeing it for that matter.

He said that he didn't need to take any classes to know how to deal with mold.

I said oh, ok. He said, so are you going to give me a number or what. I said sure, somewhere between $5 and $30,000. He did not find the humor in that.

So I just said, look we are going to do it by the book, if that is what you want I will get some numbers together once protocol has been set...and the last IH I worked with charged $1700 for testing and protocol and post remediation verification.

I am expecting my phone to ring any minute now! LOL

WISE

 

[Craig Lindquist]

I love people like that...

NOT!

 

[Desk Jockey]

We had a good size water loss at a commercial medical facility when we met the office manger, she had a property manager with her.
As we explained what need to happen, the property manager just berated us, questioning why did she call us. Saying we just charge too much and there billing are outrageous and they could call 5-different people to do the same for half the cost.

Despite the beat down from the property manager, the had us do the extraction and drying, but choose not to dry any walls or ceilings, per the property managers direction.

2-weeks later the office manager called and apologized, they have a mold problem and she admitted she listened to the wrong person.

What would have been a $3-5,000.00 structural drying is now going to be a $30-50,000.00 mold loss (not for us, too many parties involved for comfort).

Too many "know it all's" that really know very little! 8)

 

[Mike Hogan]

Remember,YOU are the expert,not the homeowner looking to scrimp on cost.
You write the protocol based on IICRCS500........don't deviate 1 bit,and get a fair
price. Lets get paid as experts in the field,not janitors.

I belong to 4 different IAQ associations,have over 150 hours in training,and
am a Certified Mold Inspector and Remediator. Between the danger of the work
and the liability,you can't sell yourself short. Also explain you need to test to find
a baseline for clearance testing as well as a viable sampling to determine genera
and species,so you can compare apples to apples.

I have found that with more education,sticking ti my protocols and pricing myself
as the expert,I have gotten better and bigger jobs,being referred out by some heavy hitters
like environmental attorneys,pulmonolgists as well as the local health dept.

We have over 200k in mold work from now until september.

 

[Craig Lindquist]

It can't be said any better then Mike just said.

 

[WISE]

S 520 for this one.

Mike--Do you guys do post remediation/clearance testing on your own mold jobs?
If so, do you feel that leaves any liability open or could be extrapolated as a conflict of interest?

I prefer a plain ole water loss anyday. Even if this one had no mold issues, I would have walked as I don't need it bad enough to deal with the likes of this guy.

Thanks

WISE

 

[Desk Jockey]

I hate mold work.

We went form doing over a million dollars a year back when there was coverage to $50,000 last year.

This year we have our 1st one beginning Monday for $10,000.

Too much liability, too much hassle, I'm with Wise I'd rather do WDR.

We have a CIE, AMRT, CMR on staff and talk people daily that have mold issues. They just rarely turn into work, most re modelers will do mold work for a third of the cost we would and use a tyvek and dust mask.

 

[Mike Hogan]

Wise.....in our contract,we INSIST on third party verification on our work.
Visual as well as viable sampling.

I never did the testing before,as I felt the hint of conflict of interest would always be
around......however,I changed my mind after seeing so many poor testing protocols,
as well as poorly written remediation protocols,as well as lab results that are skewed
because the lab is not experienced in mold............by demanding 3rd.party testing
by an experienced inspector,we negate the conflict of interest issue.

We follow our own protocol on every job......containment,negative air, HEPA vac
after every procedure,limiting dust during demo ( adhesive plastic on all walls prior
to demo) we shoot borate foam into and into all structure once completed with
hand washing of detergent/disinfectent........borate drys and continues working
as it is a mineral salt that mold hates. On some jobs we may need to soda blast.
Some jobs may need a sealer like Foster's 40-20..........we haven't failed final clearance
yet. As I said,some of the protocols we have seen look like they were put together
by someone who had never remediated mold.....some mention nothing about HVAC
systems,some say no need to demo,just wash with detergent( forgetting about
the root(mycelia) which is there,as well as the growing going on inside wall cavities,
wooden frame,base plate,etc.

We aren't cheap,but we do get paid as experts should.

 

[WISE]

Gotcha. That makes more sense.

Has anyone tried the Serum System? Looks like it could save a TON of labor. Especially in a crawlspace application.

WISE

 

[Scott]

Gotcha. That makes more sense.

Has anyone tried the Serum System? Looks like it could save a TON of labor. Especially in a crawlspace application.

WISE

Maybe we can get Ivan to chime in. He used it on the house he's flipping.

Scott

 

[Ivan Turner]

This is Ivan chiming in on the subject of Serum for mold, lol.

Mike, Scott is correct in that I used Serum on my Columbia house, which has a significant amount mold in a couple of areas.

Here is my opinion after having used the product: Labor wise, it doesn't compare to conventional methods of removal such as blasting, sanding, and scraping. The product was very simple to use. Simply apply it with a sprayer, allow it to "boil" the mold, then let dry. After drying a hepa vacuuming is required.

The training and or certification as the Serum folks call it, consist of a short ten minute demonstration where they instruct your employees on product application and safety concerns such as wearing tyvek, gloves and full face respirators.

The product is a hydrogen peroxide based product so it does have a bit of an obnoxious odor. The odor disipates immediately after it has dried.

I will say that I was impressed with the way the product worked in my particular usage. However, with my property I did not elect to have post remediation testing done. To my knowledge the folks at Serum have participated in many very large remediation projects where the resluts were tested with flying colors.

Ivan

p.s. Mike it was nice speaking with you on friday. I'm thrilled that your business is doing so awesome!

 

[Craig Lindquist]

We are doing a large mold job right now. The customer had 20K in coverage and the job is slightly in excess. We recommended third party testing and protocol establishment prior to remediation, however the customer (in an effort to save money) decided to forgo pre-testing.

We documented that and put into our contract that we require post-testing by an independent CIH within 3 days after remediaton is complete. Furthermore, since pre-testing was not done, if clearance is not granted any further remediation needed will be at the customer's expense.

If clearance testing is not done within 3 days after remediation is complete we are to be held harmless for any subsequent microbial growth.