Want to test your home for mold? Read this first.
There are A LOT of different products that claim to test your home for mold, all claiming to get you the exact answers you are looking for. Petri dishes, air pumps, swabs, all making big claims about what they will reveal to you about your home. But are these products actually going to get you the answers you need? As a certified mold inspector, I can confidently say: kind of. Keep reading and I'll give you the pros and cons of each option.
DIY Options – Petri Dish Tests, Air Sampling, and Swabs
These are the three most common options you will come across if you try to go the DIY route. Each option can tell you something about the mold content in your home, but each option also comes with it's own set of limitations. They all cost somewhere between $50 and $150 and can vary from brand to brand. I'll describe each one below along with how each of them work:
Petri Dishes – You lay it out in your house and mold spores in the air will settle on the dish and begin to grow. Sounds good right? Well, although it can tell you theres mold in the house it cannot tell you how much, what kind, or if it's any higher or lower than the outdoor levels. Really, all this will do is leave you with more questions. I do not recommend petri dishes, ever.
Swabs – Swabs are a tool that even I use as a professional, but only as one piece of a larger inspection, not as a standalone test. They are really useful when you see visible mold and want to identify it. Typically you can swab the mold and mail the swab to a lab for them to identify the mold species. This is far better than petri dishes, but similarly, it's one-dimensional. Identifying a mold type is good info, but tells you nothing about how much you're breathing or if the mold is releasing spores. Once again, you'll probably have even more questions after getting results back.
Air Sampling – You can think of air samples like "swabbing your air," except you don't need to find any visible mold growth first – you can just set up the machine in your room. Once it collects particles and spores from the air, you'll send it to a lab and wait a couple of weeks to get your results. The results will tell you if there's mold present, but it won't tell you where. And that's the biggest problem, because knowing there's mold but not knowing where it's coming from means you'll be hiring a professional to pinpoint it for you so you don't have to breathe it any longer.
The common problem with all of the options above is that they leave you with more questions than answers. That is not what you should be paying for!
Ok, then how do I test for mold?
Well first off, avoid the DIY kits if you can. If you truly want to get your home tested for mold, hire a professional. By using multiple sampling methods, special tools, and having ton's of experience testing, a professional will answer all your questions the first time around (usually in less than 48 hours). With mold and your health, you want to know that your money was well-spent – which is exactly why professional mold inspectors exist.
I cannot count the number of people who call me after buying a petri dish or swabbing their shower, who are now in panic because it came back positive for mold and they don't know what to do now. If they would've just called me first I could've saved them the $75 they spent on the DIY kit and given them real advice on what to do next.
The biggest misconception
Most people never bother to call mold testing professionals because they expect them to be far more expensive than a DIY option. However, a professional mold inspection isn't always that much more expensive than a DIY option – and it's far more comprehensive too. And as we've seen, most people just end up calling the professional inspector anyways, so may as well save yourself the ~$75.
So, before you pull the trigger on a DIY kit, consider giving us a call and getting a free quote. We'll help you decide the best approach. No strings attached.
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