Top 3 Most Effective Black Mold Testing Methods
Black mold can affect several places in a house, such as roof, tiles walls, and carpeting. If these places are often wet, then this fungal infection will find a good environment to live and reproduce. If you treat the affected areas, then you can avoid the mold from spreading.
But what if the infection is already there? If you do not make an accurate diagnosis of the situation, then you may be jeopardizing your family health. Typically you can do a visual inspection and check the most suspect areas – places subject to leakage, plus water and flood damages. You can find several black mold testing kits in the market to help you with that. Each of them works in a different way.
The first way is to swab suspect substances, and then swabbing the kit. After that, you will send this test to the laboratory you bought the kit from, and they will conduct further analysis. If there is mold in the kit during the next 3 to 7 days, then you will need to treat that area.
Another way to test for black mold is a special adhesive tape that captures the mold. This special tape is also sent back to the laboratory for proper testing. These test kits are provided free of charge by some companies, however you may need to pay shipping and handling costs.
The third method is through air testing. It will determine the infestation, as well as how to remove and treat your home. Here you will place sample kits outside your home, and one kit in each room you want to check, open the lids on the kits and wait one hour. After that, you close the lids and send the test to the laboratory. The laboratory will compare the results of the outdoor and the indoor kits. If the indoor kits return with more mold than the outdoor ones, then you have an infestation.
After conducting these tests, the most important thing is to take action and treat your home. If you fail to do that, then it is just a waste of time, energy and efforts. It will also be harder to remove the black mold later on, since it will continue to breed.